ApocaDocuments (16) for the "Climate Chaos" scenario from this week [see full week] ~ [see full Climate Chaos scenario and stories]
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Sat, Dec 5, 2009 from Mother Jones:
Blowing In The Wind
Cape Wind, the bitterly contested proposed offshore wind farm in Massachusetts' Nantucket Sound, is approaching a critical juncture. After eight years of delays, the project will likely be approved or denied before the end of 2009. If it proceeds, the 24-square-mile, 130-turbine wind farm could generate enough electricity to power 420,000 homes -- and kick-start an offshore wind industry in the United States.
But opposition to the project has been fierce, and Cape Wind needs all the help it can get. So where is the state's senior senator? John Kerry is among Capitol Hill's most ardent advocates of addressing climate change, but he has refused to weigh in on one of the most significant debates over the future of alternative energy -- and one that's occurring in his own backyard. ...
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Our backyard now is ALL of earth.
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Fri, Dec 4, 2009 from Times Online (UK):
Take climate seriously. Make a joke of it
We are expecting a lot from the climate change conference in Copenhagen: emissions targets, a new concord between developed and developing worlds, a plan to save the world. And we can probably expect hot air, diplomatic failures and stirring speeches too. What we don't expect is any gags. Not even a sneaky one about polar bears.
Polar bears are off limits, where paedophiles are not. We are a nation that prides itself on its black humour yet there is a limit, it seems, and it is green. The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere must have leached all the humour from the Earth. If we could take the mickey out of German bombs, surely we can manage melting ice caps?
The climate change movement is so worthy, so unleavened by wit or irreverence that it is disappearing up its own righteousness. And this creates a huge problem.
Climate change is a bit dull. A bit of a turn-off. Important? Yes. The biggest challenge mankind has faced? Possibly. But exciting? Admit it. How many times have your eyes glazed past the latest slice of gloom and doom, in search of something a bit more fruity? Tiger Woods' apparent taste in plastic waitresses with weirdly plump lips; or bankers' bonuses. ...
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HEY! It's no laughing matter!
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Fri, Dec 4, 2009 from Center for Public Integrity:
Canada's About-Face on Climate
...Since [Stephen] Harper became prime minister in 2006, his message has consistently been that action on global warming cannot stand in the way of Canada's economic growth, that the terms of the Kyoto agreement are economically irresponsible, and that Canada could act in concert with the United States. He has maintained that position despite a recent report, sponsored by one of Canada's largest banks, which concluded that meeting Canada's Kyoto commitments would not significantly harm the economy. Shaped by oil-rich Alberta, Harper's position represents a stunning about-face in Canada's policy on climate change. It is a shift environmentalists and other critics attribute to the legions of lobbyists who represent the big industrial greenhouse gas emitters that for years have struggled to weaken Canadian climate change legislation. ...
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O Canada! We stand on guard for thee profit!
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Fri, Dec 4, 2009 from London Times:
Climate change may be real, but it's still not easy being green
...Despite mournful polar bears and charts showing carbon emissions soaring, most people find it hard to believe that global warming will affect them personally. Recent polls by the Pew Research Centre in Washington, DC, found that 75-80 per cent of participants regarded climate change as an important issue. But respondents ranked it last on a list of priorities....Part of the fault lies with our inner caveman. Evolution has programmed humans to pay most attention to issues that will have an immediate impact. Our ancestors fretted about club-swinging neighbours and the predator at the watering hole. Any carbon emissions from the cave didn’t make the grade then and still don’t today....By the time we wake up to the threat posed by climate change, it could well be too late. And if we’re not going to make rational decisions about the future, others may have to help us to do so. ...
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My inner caveman wants to drag people by the hair to MAKE them change. Think that'll work?
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Thu, Dec 3, 2009 from Climate Wire:
Rising Partisanship Sharply Erodes U.S. Public's Belief in Global Warming
On the eve of major international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, belief in global warming in the United States has slipped to the lowest point in 12 years of measuring, according to a poll from New York-based Harris Interactive Inc. As U.S. negotiators fly to the Danish capital to forge a political agreement based on President Obama's proposal to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by about 17 percent, most of the American public doesn't know what the talks are about, according to the Harris survey.
Just 51 percent of adults questioned said they believed carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases would cause the Earth's average temperature to increase. Two years ago, fully 71 percent of respondents linked greenhouse gases directly to global warming. ...
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Imagination has always been an essential aspect of being an American.
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Thu, Dec 3, 2009 from Washington Post:
As emissions increase, carbon 'sinks' get clogged
In the race to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, scientists have been looking to forests and oceans to absorb the pollution people generate. Relying on nature to compensate for human excesses sounds like a win-win situation -- except that these resources are under stress from the very emissions we are asking them to absorb, making them less able partners in the pact...a global society of conservation biologists has launched a lobbying campaign, asking key decision-makers -- from the Danish officials chairing next week's climate talks in Copenhagen to U.S. lawmakers -- to push for steeper emission cuts to ensure that humans do not exhaust forests' capacity to store carbon in the decades to come. ...
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Man up!, natural resources!
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Thu, Dec 3, 2009 from New Scientist:
Antarctica was climate refuge during Permian extinction
The cool climate of Antarctica was a refuge for animals fleeing climate change during the biggest mass extinction in Earth's history, suggests a new fossil study. The discovery may have implications for how modern animals will adapt to global warming.
Around 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period, about 90 per cent of land species were wiped out as global temperatures soared. A cat-sized distant relative of mammals, Kombuisia antarctica, seems to have survived the extinction by fleeing south to Antarctica.... It is still not certain what caused the end-Permian global warming and subsequent mass extinctions, but a leading theory is that massive volcanic eruptions in Siberia poured carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, driving temperatures up dramatically worldwide and forcing many species into extinction. ...
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Antarctica: the last refuge.
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Thu, Dec 3, 2009 from BBC (UK):
Climate e-mail hack 'will impact on Copenhagen summit': Saudis
E-mails hacked from a climate research institute suggest climate change does not have a human cause, according to Saudi Arabia's lead climate negotiator.
Mohammad Al-Sabban told BBC News that the issue will have a "huge impact" on next week's UN climate summit, with countries unwilling to cut emissions.
Other scientists say the e-mails from the University of East Anglia do not alter the picture of man-made warming.... "It appears from the details of the scandal that there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change," he told BBC News.... As the world's leading oil producer, Saudi Arabia has previously fought attempts to agree curbs on emissions, and has also argued that it should receive financial compensation for "lost" revenue, given that constraints on emissions might restrict oil sales. ...
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I'm glad Saudi Arabia is an unbiased and objective voice in this matter.
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Thu, Dec 3, 2009 from FECYT, via EurekAlert:
CO2 levels rising in troposphere over rural areas
Spanish researchers have measured CO2 levels for the past three years in the troposphere (lower atmosphere) over a sparsely inhabited rural area near Valladolid. The results, which are the first of their kind in the Iberian Peninsula, show that the levels rose "significantly" between 2002 and 2005.
Over recent years, physicists and meteorologists have been trying to find out about carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, and how these have evolved in the troposphere over various urban and rural areas around the planet. Now a scientific team from the University of Valladolid (UVA) has published the first -- and to date the only -- measurements for the Iberian Peninsula.... The study... shows that CO2 levels increased by 8 ppm (parts per million) between 2002 and 2005. A broader study has led the researchers to predict "an annual increase of 3 ppm" in the study area. ...
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Rural tropospheres -- they're just a theory, right?
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Wed, Dec 2, 2009 from London Daily Telegraph:
Copenhagen climate summit: 50/50 chance of stopping catastrophe, Lord Stern says
An ambitious deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions needs to be agreed at the Copenhagen climate summit to give a 50/50 chance of keeping temperatures from rising more than 2C, Lord Stern has said. But failure to secure a new agreement could put the world at risk of temperature rises of more than 5C - a change in climate which he said "could only be described as catastrophic." ...
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Why don't we just flip a coin instead?
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Tue, Dec 1, 2009 from USA Today:
Invasive carp threatens Great Lakes
Fish and wildlife officials will poison a 6-mile stretch of water near Chicago on Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to keep one of the most dangerous invasive species of fish, the Asian carp, out of the Great Lakes.
The Asian carp, a voracious eater that has no predators and negligible worth as a commercial or sport fish, now dominates the Mississippi and Illinois rivers and their tributaries.
The fish has entered the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal -- a man-made link between the Mississippi River system and the Great Lakes -- and is knocking on the door of Lake Michigan. Once inside a Great Lake, the carp would have free rein in the world's largest freshwater ecosystem, imperiling the native fish of the lakes and a $7 billion fishing and recreation industry....Asian carp now dominate many parts of major rivers, including the Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, Ohio, Columbia and Platte rivers. A survey in an offshoot of the Mississippi River near St. Louis found 97 percent of the fish were Asian carp. ...
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They sound awesome! I'd pay just to see them!
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Tue, Dec 1, 2009 from Times Online (UK):
Carbon must be sucked from air, says IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri
Drastic cuts in carbon emissions may not be sufficient to avoid the worst ravages of global warming and the world will need to suck carbon from the atmosphere to avert permanent damage to the climate, according to a leading world authority on climate science.
In an interview with The Times, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), proposed that new techniques should be applied to help to mop up atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide that have been pumped into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.
"There are enough technologies in existence to allow for mitigation," he said. "At some point we will have to cross over and start sucking some of those gases out of the atmosphere." ...
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Go in reverse? That sucks indeed.
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Tue, Dec 1, 2009 from Reuters:
World carbon emissions overshoot "budget": PwC
OSLO (Reuters) - The world has emitted extra greenhouse gases this century equivalent to the annual totals of China and the United States above a maximum for avoiding the worst of climate change, a study estimated on Tuesday.
Global accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers said in the report that almost all major nations, including European Union countries that pride themselves on climate policies, were lagging since 2000 in a push for low-carbon growth.... "If you stay on this path the entire carbon budget will be used by about 2034, about 16 years early," John Hawksworth, head of macroeconomics at PwC, told Reuters of the report, based on a new PwC Low Carbon Economy Index. ...
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Accountants: the new warriors in the fight to save the habitat!
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Want more context?
Try reading our book FREE online:
Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies!
More fun than a barrel of jellyfish!
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Tue, Dec 1, 2009 from Terra Daily:
Antarctic melt may push sea levels to 1.4 metres: study
Quickening ice loss in West Antarctica will likely contribute heavily to a projected sea level rise of up to 1.4 metres (4.5 feet) by 2100, according to a major scientific report released Tuesday.
Scientists long held that most of Antarctica's continent-sized ice sheet was highly resistant to global warming, and that the more vulnerable West Antarctic ice block would remain intact for thousands of years to come.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- whose 2007 report is the scientific benchmark for the UN December 7-18 Copenhagen climate summit -- did not even factor melting ice sheets into its forecasts for rising seas.
But studies since then show huge loss of ice mass, mainly as a result of warmer ocean temperatures, according to the review by more than 100 experts on the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research. ...
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Quick! Only really tall people get to breed.
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Mon, Nov 30, 2009 from New York Times:
Intrigue and Plot Twists in Global Climate Talks
In the otherwise ponderous and unhurried context of global climate negotiations, the past two weeks have seen a variety of gripping twists. It started this month in Singapore, where Barack Obama, the U.S. president, and other leaders used the sidelines of an economic forum to deflate expectations for a treaty at the December climate summit meeting in Copenhagen... Those rooting for a climate pact at Copenhagen were left to mull over the meeting's shrinking significance until -- twist! -- computer hackers turned the global climate conversation on its head with a trove of spicy e-mail messages. ...
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With the amount of sex available in Copenhagen, the spiciness has only begun.
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Mon, Nov 30, 2009 from San Diego Union Tribune:
Carbon dioxide not the only climate enemy
By quickly arresting soot, methane, low-level ozone and hydrofluorocarbons, the researchers said the world can delay climate change by roughly 40 years -- enough time to significantly trim emissions of carbon dioxide.
So-called fast-action strategies generally rely on available technologies so that they can be launched in two or three years with relatively little cost, according to advocates for that approach.
They said trimming potent lesser-known pollutants will produce results in a matter of decades while carbon-dioxide remain in the atmosphere for centuries even after emissions stop. Many scientists say it's important to avoid raising the world temperature by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels, a "tipping point" at which they predict major irreversible problems such as disappearing ice sheets.
"As important as the CO2 side is, it's not enough to save us from irreversible and catastrophic changes," said Durwood Zaelke, a sustainable development expert at UC Santa Barbara. "We need these fast-action strategies to put the brakes on." ...
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Don't just arrest them -- throw 'em in jail!
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