April was the hottest on record, ever.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37197396/ns/us_news-environment/

WASHINGTON - The planet's average land and sea temperature for April was 58.1 degrees Fahrenheit (14.5 Celsius), the hottest for any April since recordkeeping began in 1880, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday.

That was 1.37 degrees F (0.76 C) above the 20th Century average of 56.7 degrees F (13.7 C).

Indeed, the world's average temperature was the highest on record for the January-April period, according to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center.

Earth May Have Reached Its Tipping Point :(

Earth May Have Reached It's Tipping Point.

Article
link >

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100510/ts_afp/unenvironmentbiodiversityeconomy

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Japan's Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada

Japan's Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada
Edited transcript of an interview on Thursday between Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and The Australian and ABC.
The Australian
December 11, 2009 LINK TO FULL ARTICLE BELOW


Australia is one of the world's largest producers of mineral and energy commodities, and Japan is one of the world's largest industrial manufacturers. What moral obligations do our countries have in terms of climate change and ensuring the success of the Copenhagen summit?

I think that all countries around the world hold a moral responsibility in regard to this issue, in other words responsibility towards the future generations. By 2050 we want to limit the rise in temperature to 2 degrees C meaning there will have to be a halving of emissions. In the industrialised areas this will mean 80 per cent reduction.

To read the full article: http://www.theaustralian.com..au/news/world/japans-foreign-minister-katsuya-okada/story-e6frg6so-1225809200162

National Hotdog Day celebrates global warming, animal cruelty and chronic disease

National Hotdog Day celebrates global warming, animal cruelty and chronic disease
by Virginia Messina, MPH, RD
July 22, 2009 Link to full article below

There is some confusion about the exact date of National Hotdog Day. Some say July 19, others celebrate on July 21, 22, or 23. But no matter; there is never a good day to eat hotdogs. Here are three reasons why hotdogs should be off the menu today and every day.

Hotdogs promote cancer. When a food is linked to cancer risk, it’s usually high intakes that are dangerous. But the American Institute for Cancer Research—a nonprofit group that closely evaluates links between diet and cancer—found no safe level for consumption of processed meats like hotdogs. That means that any intake may increase risk for cancer.

Hotdogs equal animal cruelty.

To read the full article: http://www.examiner.com/x-5670-Seattle-Vegan-Examiner~y2009m7d22-National-Hotdog-Day-celebrates-global-warming-animal-cruelty-and-chronic-disease?cid=exrss-Seattle-Vegan-Examiner

FL Keys ill-prepared for rising sea

Keys ill-prepared for rising sea
BY CAMMY CLARK cclark@MiamiHerald.com
Sun, Jun. 28, 2009 Link to full article below

Treasure salvors searching for an 18th-century wreck in the Florida Straits a few years ago made a fascinating but little noticed discovery.

Not buried treasure. Buried land.

Some 35 miles west of Key West, in 45 feet of water under a five-foot layer of dense mud lay an 8,500-year-old shoreline not unlike today's coast of the Florida Keys. There were well-preserved mangroves, pine cones and pine tree pieces, some amazingly still fragrant when brought to the surface.

'Looking at it, I was thinking: `Wow, this could be the shoreline of Big Pine Key,' '' said Corey Malcom, director of archaeology for the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society.

The prehistoric past paints a sobering picture of what many experts see as an all-too-near future for the string of low-lying islands that make up the Florida Keys.

''South Florida is on the front line against sea-level rise in the United States, and the Florida Keys are ground zero,'' said Evan Flugman, who co-authored a Florida International University report on the importance of Monroe County tackling the issue now.

By 2100, under the best-case predictions of a seven-inch sea-level rise by an international climate panel, the Keys would lose about 59,000 acres of real estate worth $11 billion, according to the nonprofit Nature Conservancy.

Under the panel's worst-case projection of ocean waters rising 23.2 inches, about 75 percent of the Keys 154,000 acres and nearly 50 percent of its $43 billion property value could become submerged. Consequences also include the loss of habitat for many endangered plants and species, including Key deer.

And the panel's predictions are conservative in comparison to some scientists' calculations.

To read the full article: http://www.miamiherald.com/505/story/1118712.html

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10 Endangered Vacations

10 Endangered Vacations
Plan these trips now ... while you still can. (from dailygreen.com, link below)

Endangered Destinations Dot the Map

You've heard of the Life List -- the vacation spots you want to see before you die. This is a little different. These are top U.S. destinations you might want to see before they die. "They" being the destinations themselves. Each of these vacation ideas is located in a landscape that is threatened in some way -- whether by global warming, mining, extreme weather or by another environmental hazard.

While inclusion on this list isn't an indication that these sites are in imminent danger of disappearing, the fact that this list seems plausible is a distinctly 21st Century phenomenon. After all, destinations are supposed to be permanent, even though our lives are not -- that's what makes the Wonders of the World so mysterious and attractive. It's not just their beauty and scale, but their endurance.

In an era when our expanding population, and our expanding pollution keep expanding the human influence on the Earth, not all destinations are so permanent as they once seemed. (Even the Sphinx is crumbling, thanks in part to acid rain.) So in this year when gas prices are rising (again), jobs are scarce and budgets are tight, it may yet still be the time to take to the road and see one of these endangered U.S. destinations. You may have another chance, but your kids or their kids may not. (Better pack a camera.)

Photographing Glaciers in Glacier National Park
What would the Grand Canyon be without a canyon? Something like Glacier National Park would be without its glaciers. But by 2030, that's exactly the landscape that might greet visitors, as the climate warms.

Already, some of the most famous glaciers in the Montana park have shrunk by more than half, and only 17% of the glaciers found there in 1850 remain today (26 of 150). While the valleys below have warmed about 2 degrees in the last century, the peaks of Glacier National Park have warmed about 2 degrees every year for 15 years.

Glaciers are things of beauty and awe: the imprint of time and the Earth's physical processes represented in massive hulk of ice on the landscape. The loss of glaciers -- not just in U.S. national parks, but worldwide is one of the most visual signs of global warming. Sure, the melting of a glacier is still slow in human years, but the change in Glacier National Park is real and any child born today should see the park before he or she hits 20 -- because the glaciers might well be gone by then.

Viewing Austin's Congress Avenue Bridge Bat Colony
One of the most unlikely tourist destinations in the country, Austin's Congress Avenue Bridge bats nevertheless draw as many as 100,000 tourists every year. The bats themselves don't seem particularly vulnerable: Every evening through the summer, as many as 1.5 million Mexican free-tail bats emerge from their colony under the bridge and start eating moths and other insects. It's the largest urban bat colony in the world.

And, indeed, there aren't any well-publicized threats to this colony of bats. What there is, is a mysterious disease that has begun creeping across the U.S. and which has the potential to decimate bat populations across the continent. Identified first in New York caves in February 2007, the malady is known as white nose syndrome because its most recognizable symptom is a ring of white fungus on the noses of the bats found dead by the hundreds in caves where they hibernate through the winter. Scientists have since watched the disease infect caves throughout the Northeast and spread to at least nine states.

Bats are scary, gargoyle-like creatures, sure. But they eat bugs that we don't like, and -- just ask the tourism bureau in Austin, or farmers who rely on their natural pest-control abilities, or those who find strange beauty in their faces, wings and habits -- bats are worth keeping around. They remind us that losing any one piece of an ecosystem can lead to a cascade of unintended, and unwelcome changes.

At this point, scientists haven't been able to define the disease fully, identify its origins or devise any remedies. Will it reach the caves of the Southwestern U.S., Mexico and South America, where Mexican free-tail bats spend the winter? Who knows -- but you might want to see that awe-inspiring wildlife display in Austin now, just to make sure.

Whatever It Is That Happens in Vegas
What could possibly happen to Vegas (that hasn't already happened in Vegas)? This one might be a little overly apocalyptic for some, but step back for a minute and you'll remember that Las Vegas is built smack in the middle of the desert. It exists, not only to gleefully champion sin, but also because the Colorado River has been dammed, diverted and directed to flow into Lake Mead and other reservoirs, so that the dry Southwest can bloom beyond its natural limits.

But for how long? The flow of the Colorado River, one of the continent's mightiest, is already strained, the remnants of its abundant water flow disputed across the western U.S. Add a sprawling population, demanding drinking water and green lawns and farm-fresh produce, and the dwindling snowpack that feeds the river -- thanks to global warming -- and Las Vegas could face serious strains soon. By 2021, according to one study of Lake Mead, which supplies 90% of the city's drinking water.

The larger issue is how a growing population faces the limits of its environment. In the Southwest, engineering has been the solution -- dams, irrigation ditches and casinos being the most obvious examples of our dominance over an inhospitable landscape. Into the future, as global warming stresses our already thinly stretched resources, will it make sense to grow lush green lawns in the middle of the desert?

Vegas being what it is, the loss of water might not be a death knell. There is, after all, alcohol. Might be better to plan your visit before 2021 all the same.

Paddling the Florida Everglades
verglades National Park is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States — a vast and slow-moving river channeled through tufts of dry land. It's teeming with wildlife, from the abundant and ferocious (alligators and crocodiles) to the scarce and ferocious (the panther) and every creature on down the food chain. Paddling a canoe through the Everglades is a rare experience.

Rare indeed. The Everglades face a Goldilocks-type question: Will there be too little water, too much ... or just the right amount? Too little and the Everglades dry up. Too much and it gets swallowed by the sea. Either way, it won’t offer the same wilderness canoe experience it does today.

For more than a century, too little water has been the problem, as agriculture and suburban sprawl have eaten into the swamp, draining and diverting the natural water flow. With the water has gone 90% of some populations of wading birds.

Water levels are rising, thanks to a 35-year preservation plan and billions of dollars in planned spending. But global warming could cause sea-level rise to swamp the swamp; the highest point in Everglades National Park is just eight feet above sea level, and the latest projections suggest there will be more than enough new sea water to cover that land in the next 100 years or so. The Everglades could be swallowed by the sea.

Bottom line: Better not put off that once-in-a-lifetime trip to this one-of-a-kind destination.

Wine Tasting in Napa Valley

To read the full article: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/endangered-vacations-47060902?src=nl&mag=tdg&list=dgr&kw=ist

Have it your way: Burger King franchise cites cockroaches and Oz in defence of 'global warming is baloney' signs

Have it your way: Burger King franchise cites cockroaches and Oz in defence of 'global warming is baloney' signs


Earlier this week we were, ahem, relishing the story about how some Burger King restaurants in Tennessee had been displaying signs saying "global warming is baloney".

A journalist working for the Memphis Flyer, a local news weekly, had photographed some of the signs and then approached Burger King's press office for an explanation. It responded by saying the sign's message didn't match the corporation's views on global warming and it said it had asked the franchise owner to take the signs down. End of story.

You would think so, but the story went viral and was quickly picked up across the globe. The story, with a little nudge from the Guardian's environment blog, had been supersized.

Within a day it had even featured on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann (preceded, without a hint of irony it seems, by an advert for Applebee's burgers) with the host listing the franchise owner, a Memphis-based company called Mirabile Investment Corporation (MIC), in his "world's worst" slot.

Please read the full article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/jun/05/burger-king-climate-change-baloney

Losing Rivers

Losing Rivers
by Roddy Scheer
April 27, 2009

http://www.emagazine.com/view/?4647
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?4647&printview&imagesoff

A study released last week by researchers from the Colorado-based National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) found that rivers in some of the world’s most populous regions are losing water quickly as a result of climate change. Large affected rivers include China’s Yellow River, the Ganges in India, West Africa’s Niger and the Colorado in the southwestern U.S.

The researchers, whose study came out last week in the American Meteorological Society’s peer-reviewed Journal of Climate, reported that water loss as a result of global warming combined with the negative effects of damming, irrigation and other profligate water use could mean a threat to future supplies of food and water. They looked at records of river flow in 925 big rivers around the world from 1948 to 2004, finding “significant changes” in about a third of the world’s largest rivers.

To read the full article:
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?4647

Imagine a World Without Seafood for Supper -- It's Nearer Than You Think

Imagine a World Without Seafood for Supper -- It's Nearer Than You Think
By Andrew Purvis, The Observer UK
April 29, 2009

http://www.alternet.org/environment/138874/imagine_a_world_without_seafood_for_supper_--_it%27s_nearer_than_you_think/
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/138874
http://www.alternet.org/story/138874/

As I step off the train at Heysel, the vast art deco structure of the Palais du Centenaire rises like a cathedral. With its four soaring buttresses topped by statues, the Palais forms the centrepiece of the Parc des Expositions in Brussels, Belgium - a trade-fair complex built in the 1930s to commemorate a century of independence from the Netherlands. This is the temporary home of thousands of fish products from around the world as 23,000 delegates descend from 80 countries for the annual European Seafood Exposition - the world's largest seafood trade show and a grim reminder of man's dominion over the oceans.

"If I wanted people to understand the global fishing crisis, I would bring them here," says Sally Bailey, a marine program officer with the World Wide Fund for Nature, one of the more moderate NGOs combating the exploitation of the seas. Last year, one of the more militant groups - Greenpeace - managed to "close down" five exhibitors trading in critically endangered bluefin tuna, by deploying 80 activists to drape their stands in fishing nets, chain themselves to fixtures and put up banners that read: "Time and tuna are running out".

To read the full article: http://www.alternet.org/story/138874/

Mother Nature Doesn't Do Bailouts

Mother Nature Doesn't Do Bailouts
March 17, 2009

http://www.seventhgeneration.com/learn/inspiredprotagonist/mother-nature-doesnt-do-bailouts?source=email&utm_source=bronto&utm_medium=email&utm_term=READ+MORE+&utm_content=fidyl%40yahoo.com&utm_campaign=7Gen+-+March+25%2C+2009+-+Non-Nation-

Thomas Friedman began a recent New York Times column by quoting from a brilliantly insightful, fake 2005 story from the Onion. The article cited an employee of "Fenghua Ningbo Plastic Works Ltd.," expressing his disbelief over the "sheer amount of [garbage] Americans will buy" and the "contemptible" fact that when we no longer want an item we "simply throw it away."

Friedman, in top form, then launches into a description of what's missing from almost every analysis of the current economic meltdown: "What if it's telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall -- when Mother Nature and the market both said: 'No more.'"

To read the full article: http://www.seventhgeneration.com/learn/inspiredprotagonist/mother-nature-doesnt-do-bailouts?source=email&utm_source=bronto&utm_medium=email&utm_term=READ+MORE+&utm_content=fidyl%40yahoo.com&utm_campaign=7Gen+-+March+25%2C+2009+-+Non-Nation-

Here Come the Floods: As Water Levels Rise, Designers Find Sometimes Counterintuitive Solutions

Here Come the Floods
As Water Levels Rise, Designers Find Sometimes Counterintuitive Solutions
By David Zax

http://www.emagazine.com/view/?4568&printview&imagesoff
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?4568

A warmer world means higher seas. Global warming not only accelerates glacial melt, but also causes ocean water to expand in volume. Projections vary widely, but seas will likely rise by at least seven inches by 2100—and possibly by as much as several meters, according to NASA climate scientist James Hansen. It doesn’t take a climatologist to realize one of the immediate, pressing consequences of these figures: flooding. And since many of the world’s largest cities sit on low-lying coasts, these rising oceans could lead to many more Hurricane Katrina-level disasters.

Flooding, of course, has long been a fact of life for many coastal towns, and some old technologies still have merit. Levees, dikes, seawalls, the guiding hand of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and countless regional agencies will continue to offer flood protection. But the coming rise in sea levels also calls for new measures. “The whole water management system of our country needs an overhaul,” says George Sorvalis of the Corps Reform Network—and that includes the development and implementation of new technologies.

One idea is to build broad dikes rather than tall ones. Particularly in an area where massive developments are below sea level, the use of broad dikes—which might overtop, but never breach—could prove essential. Other small modifications could dramatically improve the utility of levees. Some engineers are proposing “smart levees,” equipped with monitoring systems that would help officials better understand how to improve and maintain levees, and when to evacuate areas usually protected by them.

To read the full article: http://www.emagazine.com/view/?4568

Energy Contributing To Massive Bird Decline

Energy contributing to birds' decline
Buzz UpSendSharePrint
By DINA CAPPIELLO
Associated Press Writer

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090320/ap_on_go_ot/energy_birds

WASHINGTON – Energy production of all types — wind, ethanol and mountaintop coal mining — is contributing to steep drops in bird populations, a new government report says.
The first-of-its-kind report chronicles a four-decade decline in many of the country's bird populations and provides many reasons for it, from suburban sprawl to the spread of exotic species to global warming.
It shows that birds in Hawaii are more in danger of becoming extinct than anywhere else in the United States. In the last 40 years, populations of birds living on prairies, deserts and at sea have declined between 30 percent and 40 percent.
But in almost every case, energy production has also played a role.
Environmentalists and scientists say the report should signal the Obama administration to act cautiously as it seeks to expand renewable energy production and the electricity grid on public lands and tries to harness wind energy along the nation's coastlines.
"We need to go into these energies with our environmental eyes open," said John Fitzpatrick, the director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which helped draft the report along with nonprofit advocacy groups. "We need to attend to any form of energy development, not just oil and gas."
Many of the bird groups with the most rapid declines in the last 40 years inhabit areas with the greatest potential for energy development.
Among the energy-bird conflicts cited by the report:
• More than half of the monitored bird species that live on prairies have experienced population losses. These birds, such as the lesser prairie chicken, are threatened by farmers converting grasslands into corn fields to meet demand for biofuels.
• In the Arctic, where two-thirds of all shorebirds are species of concern, melting ice brought about by climate change could open up more areas to oil and gas production. Studies show that trash near drilling rigs attracts gulls that prey on other species.
• Mountaintop coal mining in Appalachia clears patches of forest contributing to the decline of birds like the cerulean warbler that breeds and forests in treetops.
The U.S. State of Birds report, released by the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday, was requested in October 2007 by President George W. Bush.
The report did not indicate whether one form of energy production is more detrimental than the other.

Food & Energy Shortages Will Create the "Perfect Storm" by 2030

[blog note: We ALREADY have millions and millions starving and without water...how can we let it get worse?]

Food and energy shortages will create 'perfect storm', says Prof John Beddington
Growing populations, falling energy sources and food shortages will create the "perfect storm" by 2030, the government's chief scientist Professor John Beddington has said.
By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
19 Mar 2009

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/5015051/Food-and-energy-shortages-will-create-perfect-storm-says-Prof-John-Beddington.html

The demand for resources will create a crisis with dire consequences, Prof Beddington predicts.

Demand for food and energy will jump 50 per cent by 2030 and for fresh water by 30 per cent, as the global population tops 8.3 billion, he is due to tell a conference in London.

Climate change will exacerbate matters in unpredictable ways, he will add.

"It's a perfect storm," Prof Beddington will tell the Sustainable Development UK 09 conference.

"There's not going to be a complete collapse, but things will start getting really worrying if we don't tackle these problems.

"My main concern is what will happen internationally, there will be food and water shortages," he said.

"We're relatively fortunate in the UK. There may not be shortages here, but we can expect prices of food and energy to rise."

He said we need more disease-resistant and pest-resistant plants and better practices, better harvesting procedures.

Prof Beddington said the "storm" would create war, unrest and mass migration.

Growing populations and success in alleviating poverty in the Third World will create huge demand for food and water in the next two decades with climate change depleting resources.

He said food reserves are at a 50-year low but the world requires 50 per cent more energy, food and water by 2030.

Prof Beddington said climate change would mean Northern Europe would become new key centres for food production and other areas would need to use more advanced pesiticides.

The United Nations Environment Programme predicts widespread water shortages across Africa, Europe and Asia by 2025. The amount of fresh water available per head of the population is expected to decline sharply in that time.

Lord Stern on Global Warming - It's WORSE Than I Thought

Lord Stern on global warming: It's even worse than I thought
Author of definitive report on climate change sounds ominous new warning
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
Friday, 13 March 2009

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/lord-stern-on-global-warming-its-even-worse-than-i-thought-1643957.html

Lord Stern, the economist who produced the single most influential political document on climate change,says he underestimated the risks of global warming and the damage that could result from it.

The situation was worse than he had thought when he completed his review two-and-a-half years ago, he told a conference yesterday, but politicians do not yet grasp the scale of the dangers now becoming apparent.

"Do politicians understand just how difficult it could be, just how devastating rises of 4C, 5C or 6C could be? I think, not yet," Lord Stern posed to the meeting of scientists in Copenhagen.
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* Oil-hit Australian beaches declared disaster zones

"A rise of 5C would be a temperature the world has not seen for 30 to 50 million years. We've been around only 100,000 years as human beings. We don't know what that's like.

"We haven't seen 3C for a few million years, and we don't know what that looks like either."

Lord Stern said new research done in the past two or three years had made it clear there were "severe risks" if global temperature rose by the predicted 4C to 7C by 2100. Agriculture would be destroyed and life would be impossible over much of the planet, the former World Bank chief economist said.

Now a professor at the London School of Economics, Lord Stern referred to the higher temperature rises several times at the conference. The scientists are meeting in the Danish capital as a precursor to the major UN meeting in December which aims to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty.

Commissioned by Gordon Brown when Chancellor, and issued in October 2006, the 700-page Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is the single most influential political document on global warming yet published. It has been closely studied by the governments of every major country.

The report said the costs of acting to counter climate change, by stabilising emissions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, might be about 1 per cent of annual global GDP by 2050. But the cost of doing nothing was found to be far greater – risking up to 20 per cent of the world's wealth.

Yesterday, Lord Stern revised this prediction, saying the cost of inaction would be "50 per cent or more higher" than his previous highest estimate – meaning it could cost a third of the world's wealth.

The conference has been hearing detail on research done following the Stern review, including claims sea levels are likely to rise twice as fast as predicted in the last UN climate change report in 2007.

Lord Stern said the world's population needed to be aware of the implications of climate change, with many areas devastated by hurricanes and others drying out.

"Much of southern Europe would look like the Sahara. Many of the major rivers of the world, serving billions of people, would dry up in the dry seasons or re-route."

Billions of people would have to relocate as a result, he said.

"What would be the implication of that? Extended conflict, social disruption, war essentially, over much of the world, for many decades.

"This is the kind of implication that follows from temperature increases of that magnitude. I think it's vital that people understand the magnitude of the risks, but also that they understand that [by cutting emissions] we can reduce the probability of going there very dramatically," Lord Stern said.

Then and now: How Stern's view changed

Temperatures

A central assumption of the 2006 Stern Report was global temperatures would rise by between C and 3C over the current century if nothing was done to counter global warming.

Stern also mentioned the possibility of a 4C rise.

Yesterday, Stern said 4C, 5C, 6C and even 7C degree rises were a real possibility by the end of the 21st century, taking the world into new territory - agriculture would be destroyed and life impossible in many areas.

Costs

Stern created a sliding scale in the 2006 report which measured the costs of doing nothing on climate change. At the upper limit was the chance the damage would amount to 20 per cent of global Gross Domestic Product – a fifth of the world's wealth.

Yesterday, Stern revised his estimate saying the cost would be 50 per cent higher "or more" than the previous highest guess – risking a third of the world's wealth or a 30 per cent plus reduction in consumption per head.

Stern Attacks Politicians Over Climate "Devastation"

Stern attacks politicians over climate 'devastation'
by David Adam in Copenhagen
The Guardian
Friday 13 March 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/13/stern-attacks-politicians-climate-change/print
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/13/stern-attacks-politicians-climate-change

Politicians have failed to take on board the severe consequences of failing to cut world carbon emissions, according to Nicholas Stern, the economist commissioned by Gordon Brown to analyse the impact of climate change.

His stark warning about the potentially "devastating" consequences of global warming came as scientists issued a desperate plea last night for world leaders to curb greenhouse gas emissions or face an ecological and social disaster.

More than 2,500 climate experts from 80 countries at an emergency summit in Copenhagen said there is now "no excuse" for failing to act on global warming. A failure to agree strong carbon reduction targets at political negotiations this year could bring "abrupt or irreversible" shifts in climate that "will be very difficult for contemporary societies to cope with".

In a significant break from the scientific tradition not to comment directly on policy, the experts insisted politicians must stand up to "vested interests that increase emissions" and "build on a growing public desire for governments to act". They called for a "shift from ineffective governance and weak institutions to innovative leadership in government, the private sector and civil society".

Katherine Richardson, a climate scientist at the University of Copenhagen, who organised the three-day summit, said: "We have to act and we have to act now. We need politicians to realise what a risk it is they are taking on behalf of their own constituents, the world's societies and, even more importantly, future generations. All of the signals from the Earth system and the climate system show us we are on a path that will have enormous and unacceptable consequences."

Speaking after giving a keynote speech, Stern said he feared that politicians had not grasped the seriousness of the crisis. "Do the politicians understand just how difficult it could be? Just how devastating four, five, six degrees centigrade would be? I think not yet. Looking back, the Stern review underestimated the risks and underestimated the damage from inaction."

This week's conference was arranged to offer an update on scientific thinking on global warming, and underpin political attempts to agree a new global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto protocol. Campaigners have called for such a deal to be signed at UN talks in December, also in Copenhagen, though officials have warned the discussions could drag on into next year.

Scientists at the Copenhagen meeting will publish its full findings in June, but last night they issued their conclusions as a strongly worded statement"

"The climate system is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived. These parameters include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, ocean and ice sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events. There is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts."

The summary adds: "There is no excuse for inaction. We already have many tools and approaches - economic, technological, behavioural, management - to deal effectively with the climate change challenge. But they must be vigorously and widely implemented."

In the conference centre that will also host the December UN negotiations, experts at this week's meeting presented a string of new studies that suggested global warming could strike harder and sooner than expected.

They said carbon emissions have risen more in recent years than anyone thought possible, and the world's natural carbon stores could be losing the ability to soak up human pollution.

The conference also heard that:

· A 4C rise could turn swaths of southern Europe to desert.

· Sea levels will rise twice as fast as official estimates predict.

· Modest warming could unleash a carbon "time bomb" from Arctic soils.

· A failure to cut emissions could render half of the world uninhabitable.

· Rising temperatures could kill off 85% of the Amazon rainforest.

Several experts at the conference warned that temperatures are likely to soar beyond the 2C target set by European politicians, though they are reluctant to say so publicly. "The 2C target is gone and 3C is difficult. I think we're heading for 4C at least," one said. Oxford University yesterday announced that it would hold a conference in September to discuss the implications of a rise of 4C or more.

Kevin Anderson, research director at the UK Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said: "The scientists have lost patience with our carefully constructed messages being lost in the political noise. And we are now prepared to stand up and say enough is enough."

Peter Cox, a climate expert at Exeter University, said: "People have been saying this individually for a long time. This is just a much louder and concerted shout from our community."

Rob Bailey, senior climate adviser for Oxfam said: "The verdict of the world's top scientists is clear. The big question now is whether the worlds richest countries, who created the climate crisis, will act before it's too late. Our climate is changing fast and if left unchecked its impacts, particularly on the world's poorest people, will be devastating."

Severe Global Warming Will Render HALF of World's Inhabited Areas Unliveable, Experts Warn

Severe global warming will render half of world's inhabited areas unliveable, expert warns
Parts of China, India and the eastern US could all become too warm in summer for people to lose heat by sweating, expert warns
by David Adam in Copenhagen
guardian.co.uk
Thursday 12 March 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/12/global-warming-temp-rise-population/print
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/12/global-warming-temp-rise-population

Severe global warming could make half the world's inhabited areas literally too hot to live in, a US scientist warned today.

Parts of China, India and the eastern US could all become too warm in summer for people to lose heat by sweating - rendering such areas effectively uninhabitable.

Steven Sherwood, a climate expert at Yale University, told a global warming conference in Copenhagen that people will not be able to adapt to a much warmer climate as well as previously thought.

The physiological limits of the human body will begin to render places impossible to support human life if the average global temperature rises by 7C on pre-industrial levels, he said.

"There will be some places on Earth where it would simply be impossible to lose heat," Sherwood said. "This is quite imaginable if we continue burning fossil fuels. I don't see any reason why we wouldn't end up there."

The 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that average temperatures could rise by 6C this century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at current rates. Scientists at the Copenhagen Climate Congress this week said the IPCC may have underestimated the scale of the problem, and that emissions since 2000 have risen much faster than expected.

Sherwood told the conference: "Seven degrees would begin to create zones of uninhabitability due to unsurvivable peak heat stresses and 10C would expand such zones far enough to encompass a majority of today's population."

He said air temperature measurements were a poor guide to the true impact of global warming on people. A better assessment is "wet bulb" temperature, which combines temperature and humidity. "A warming of only a few degrees will cause large parts of the globe to experience peak wetbulb temperatures that never occur today."

Ocean Expected to Rise 5 Feet Along Coastlines

Ocean expected to rise 5 feet along coastlines
by Jane Kay
jkay@sfchronicle.com
Chronicle Environment Writer
Thursday, March 12, 2009

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/12/MNTK16DEBF.DTL&type=printable
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/11/MNTK16DEBF.DTL&type=green&tsp=1

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(03-11) 18:04 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Driven by global warming, the ocean is expected to rise nearly 5 feet along California's coastline by the end of the century, hitting San Francisco Bay the hardest of all, according to a state study released Wednesday.

Nearly half a million people and $100 billion in property, two-thirds of it concentrated around the bay, are at risk of major flooding, researchers found in the most comprehensive study to date of how climate change will alter the state's coastal areas.

Rising seas, storms and extreme high tides are expected to send saltwater into low-lying areas, flooding freeways, the Oakland and San Francisco airports, hospitals, power plants, schools and sewage plants. Thousands of structures at risk are the homes of low- and middle-income people, the study said.

Vast wetlands that nourish fish and birds and act as a buffer against flooding will be inundated and could turn into dead pools. Constructing seawalls and levees, if needed, could cost $14 billion plus an annual maintenance cost of $1.4 billion, the study said.

The study shows a greater sea-level rise for California than previous studies because it takes into account recent changes in glaciers and ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland.
Worldwide forecasts

Scientists worldwide forecast that sea levels will rise for centuries even if greenhouse gas emissions are halted immediately, and California cities and counties must learn to deal with that inevitability just as they plan for earthquakes, the study advises.

Regional planners are recommending that some new construction be halted, other properties protected and still others abandoned.

The study was conducted by the internationally known Pacific Institute, a nonprofit research group in Oakland, and was paid for by the California Energy Commission, Caltrans and the state Ocean Protection Council.

With California leading the nation in regulating greenhouse gas emissions, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2005 ordered state agencies to form a Climate Action Team to research and plan for global warming. Three dozen studies are expected this year, on air quality and health, frequency of wildfires, the use of energy and fresh water supplies.

"No other state has done this kind of assessment of coastal risk," said Peter Gleick, president and founder of the Pacific Institute and a leading water expert. The new assessment, he said, puts the state "far ahead in our ability to both identify possible impacts and implement effective policies to prevent them."

Although large sections of the Pacific Coast are not vulnerable to flooding, sea-level rise is expected to accelerate erosion, resulting in a loss of 41 square miles of the coast and affecting 14,000 people, the study said.
Flooding projections

Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey prepared maps of San Francisco Bay showing projected inundation, though they don't include the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Calculations for inundation don't take into account existing seawalls and levees along the Peninsula and at Oakland International Airport.

Large portions of the Bay Area are at risk because European settlers in the 1800s filled shoreline marshes to build towns and cities.

Will Travis, executive director of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, said the Pacific Institute study struck him because two-thirds of the projected property damage was in low-lying areas around San Francisco Bay. Cities and counties haven't planned for the rise, he said, and his agency is trying to build awareness.

"We as a region have to get out in front of the state and nation in dealing with the problem. The study shows that low- and moderate-income people will be dealing with it. We have the equivalent of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward."

Lessons from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina are not to build below sea level, he said. But parts of northern Silicon Valley - where pumping groundwater in past decades has caused land to subside - are already below sea level, he said, leaving Google, Sun, Intel and other large company complexes vulnerable to inundation.
Earthquake lessons

Just as Californians learned about seismic safety in response to earthquakes, "we have to learn to build in areas that will someday be below sea level," he said. It's particularly difficult, he said, because there is "no certainty which areas would be below sea level." His agency is co-sponsoring an international design competition to come up with designs for sea-level rise.

As the atmosphere and oceans warm, ice sheets and glaciers melt, swelling the volume of oceans. Oceans already have started to rise. Over the past century, San Francisco waterfront tidal gauges show a rise of 8 inches.

The new projection of a 4.6-foot, or 55-inch, rise is higher than the 23-inch estimate of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body that compiles findings of international scientists.

In its last calculations, the panel didn't include melt from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which have accelerated over the past decade. Since then, scientists have begun to forecast higher rises.

For the regional study, Pacific Institute scientists used the 4.6-foot sea-level rise based on forecasts by a Scripps Institution of Oceanography team led by oceanographer Daniel Cayan, which draws on sophisticated models, satellite sensors and a broad range of data.

Concentrations of greenhouse gases have been increasing in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, and the bulk of climate scientists agree that the gases are trapping the sun's radiation emanating from Earth, warming the planet.
Infrastructure in danger along the bay, coast

Some of the infrastructure at risk along the 1,000-mile- long shore of San Francisco Bay and the 1,200-mile-long California coast, according to a new study on the rising sea level:

3,500 miles of roads and highways

330 hazardous waste sites, including several in Alameda, Santa Clara, San Mateo and Los Angeles counties

280 miles of railway

140 schools

34 police and fire stations

30 coastal power plants

29 sewage-treatment plants, including 22 on the bay and seven on the Pacific Coast

2 Bay Area airports:

San Francisco and Oakland international

To learn more: Read the study at links.sfgate.com/ZGJX.

Source: Pacific Institute

Economic Meltdown Reason for a New Victory Garden Movement

Economic Meltdown Reason for a New Victory Garden Movement
By Roger Doiron, AlterNet
March 5, 2009

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/129678/economic_meltdown_reason_for_a_new_victory_garden_movement_/
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/129678
http://www.alternet.org/story/129678/

In Jerzy Kosinski's novel and award-winning screenplay, Being There, the U.S. president turns to a plain-spoken gardener named Chance for wisdom at a time of economic crisis. The insight Chance offers is as simple as it is reassuring: Growth has its seasons and, as long as the roots of growth are not severed, all will be well.

President Barack Obama would be wise to add a gardener or farmer to his team of advisers. I already know what advice I'd offer if called to serve: Launch a new victory garden campaign starting with one on the White House lawn.

To some, this idea might seem too small to have an effect on anything as large as the country's economy, environment or health-care system, but you need to dig into U.S. history a bit to grasp the idea's full potential. The last time a victory garden was planted at the White House was by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1943 when the country was at war and the economy was struggling. Roosevelt's leadership inspired millions of Americans by giving them something tangible and meaningful they could do to make their own lives better and their country stronger.

But the victory garden movement did much more than simply lift America's spirits. It also grew tons of healthy, affordable food (nearly 40 percent of the nation's produce at its peak), encouraged millions of citizens to become more physically active, and helped conserve natural and financial resources at a time of crisis.

That season of crisis has come again, and the idea of relaunching a new homegrown movement is once again winning hearts and minds, not to mention contests. A year ago, well before anyone knew who the next "eater in chief" would be, I entered the proposal to replant a food garden at the White House in the "On Day One" contest, an online project sponsored by the United Nations Foundation to generate policy recommendations for the new administration.

To my own surprise and many others', the proposal won first prize, beating out more than 4,000 other entries including ones by a Nobel Peace laureate and a Spice Girl. Whenever you can finish ahead of a peace star and pop star in a popularity contest, I think you're on to something. What the idea needs now is some star power of its own, and I can't think of anyone better than the Obamas for planting the seeds of the next victory garden movement.

Time will tell whether the First Family decides to plant the first vegetables, but I can already tell you that my first veggies are looking promising. Last fall, I planted a few rows of salad greens in a cold frame that poked their green noses out of the ground an inch or two before the cold, Maine winter sent them into a deep slumber. I recently shoveled out my cold frame and gently pulled back the blanket of mulch I had put over the greens. With the sun now rising higher in the sky and taking daytime temperatures with it, those greens are starting to wake up and begin a new season of growth.

Skeptics may read this and say that that my garden and other new ones won't add up to much, but my findings suggest otherwise. Over the course of the last growing season, my wife and I weighed every item that came out of our garden and calculated that we grew $2,200 worth of organic fruits and vegetables, which we're still happily eating our way through. And that's not counting all the sweet peaches, snappy snap beans and drip-down-your-chin tomatoes that never made it as far as our kitchen scale. If you take into consideration that there are more than 50 million American households with modest yards like mine who could be making healthy, homegrown savings of their own, those are no small potatoes.

It is true that keeping a garden takes time and occasionally requires some hard work, but what worthwhile thing in life doesn't?

Roger Doiron is Founding Director of Kitchen Gardeners International, a nonprofit network of 5200 gardeners from 90 countries and is currently a Food and Society Policy Fellow.

Why Leading Scientists Underestimated How Quickly We're Scorching the Atmosphere

Why Leading Scientists Underestimated How Quickly We're Scorching the Atmosphere
By Elizabeth Grossman, Earth Island Journal
March 9, 2009

http://www.alternet.org/environment/130855/why_leading_scientists_underestimated_how_quickly_we%27re_scorching_the_atmosphere/
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/130855
http://www.alternet.org/story/130855/

In its most recent official report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) significantly underestimated the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that would occur during the last seven years, a miscalculation that has put the planet beyond the "range of possibilities" considered by some of the world's top climatologists. The overly optimistic predictions in the IPCC's Fourth Assessment, released in 2007, appear to have been driven, in part, by the political dynamics involved in the international effort. The underestimation means that government negotiators meeting in Copenhagen later this year to write a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol will have a tougher task than previously imagined.

"We're looking at future climate beyond anything we've considered," Chris Field, director of the global ecology department at the Carnegie Institution for Science, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Chicago last month. "Actual emissions are at or above the total range of possibilities considered in the IPCC's Fourth Assessment."

The underestimation of greenhouse emissions occurred, Field said, because the IPCC failed to include in its scenarios the rapid increase in carbon dioxide from Asia's coal-reliant industrial expansion between 2000 and 2007.

"We were too optimistic," Field said. "There was no decrease in emissions from developed countries and the sharpest increases and overall intensity came from China and India that rely heavily on coal."

"It was assumed that coal would become less important," says Ken Caldeira, also of the Carnegie Institution. What happened, however, is that China and India developed rapidly while rising oil prices pushed wealthy nations to use more coal, which is more CO2 intensive in its emissions. Scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Science Institute concur that the past five years' sharp increase in atmospheric CO2 is attributable to the steep rise in global coal use, pushed upward by accelerated Asian economic and industrial development.

"IPCC scenarios assume an increase in energy efficiency during this period," Caldeira says. But that didn't happen. "Efficiency flattened out," he says.

Scientists involved in the IPCC process say that IPCC reports are designed to capture the long-term rather than short-term trends, and cannot incorporate data after a certain point, so the 2007 report relied on pre-2002 data. Nevertheless, widely available pre-2002 data would have suggested an upward trend in Asian emissions.

According to research by Kelly Sims Gallagher, director of the Energy Technology Innovation Project at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, China has been a net importer of oil since 1993. During the 1990s, writes Gallagher, Chinese car sales grew about 27 percent a year, doubling the number of cars on the road every 2.5 years. The US Energy Information Agency data shows coal consumption by China and India approximately tripling between 1980 and 2005.

Given the fact that the breakneck economic growth in India and China were well known phenomena, how could the Nobel prize-winning IPCC have omitted an increase in Asian carbon emissions from its scenarios? The short answer appears to be politics.

"Social and political dynamics are at work," in producing final IPCC reports, Fields said at the AAAS meeting.

Stanford University biology professor and climate scientist Stephen Schneider agrees. "The lead authors are constrained by government reviewers," Schneider says. "The political process cuts the edges and doesn't do a good job at the tails of the bell curve, which is where we are now.

"These reports are consensus documents and when it comes to politics, the interests of small island nations are different than those of the U.S., China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait."

There is a political and diplomatic incentive to low-ball emissions predictions becaue lower numbers make the task ahead appear less onerous.

"Overtly or covertly, if you have an optimistic baseline of what happens in the absence of policy, it makes what you need to do appear relatively modest," Caldeira says. "People who want to make the problem look more tractable have an incentive to make the baseline ore optimistic. If you have a more depressing picture, it's more difficult to make the transition."

For example, Caldeira says that if we're to stabilize atmospheric carbon at what's now considered tenable levels for the climate -- about 350 parts per million (we're now at about 385 ppm) -- the world's energy systems must be carbon neutral by mid-century. That's a daunting task that many governments appear hesitant to grapple with.

Not only has atmospheric carbon increased beyond the range of possibilities, but so too has effects of that increase on Earth's ecosystems. The retreat of Arctic Sea ice, the collapse of permafrost, ice sheet melt and that melting's contribution to sea level rise are occurring faster and with more intensity than expected. Atmospheric carbon dioxide, Field said, rose 3.5 percent annually between 2000 and 2007, compared with annual increases of 0.9 percent in the 1990s. Between 1993 and 2003, melting ice sheets accounted for 40 percent of sea level rise. That contribution is now estimated at 80 percent.

"The more we learn about the process [of climate change], the more severe the risk becomes," says Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University. Oppenheimer and Schneider are among the co-authors of a paper just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing that the impacts of a 1-2°C rise in global mean temperature are much greater and pose greater environmental risks than previously anticipated.

Whether or not the Asian carbon surge continues, its impacts will be with us for decades -- even centuries -- because of the length of time carbon lingers in the atmosphere. "Nothing we could do now to stabilize carbon could be too fast or fast enough," says Tom Athanasiou, director of the organization Eco-Equity, an Earth Island Insitute-sponsored project. "The storyline was wrong."

The underestimation of recent greenhouse emissions threatens to complicate the work of government officials who will meet in Copenhagen in December to hammer out an international climate agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. With climate change occurring faster than scientists have the ability to predict -- and the impacts greater than anticipated -- an international deadlock is unacceptable, Anthanasiou says.

"Maybe the most important thing is to communicate the severity of the situation in a way that gets through people's defenses," he says.

Elizabeth Grossman, the author of High Tech Trash, is a frequent contributor to Earth Island Journal.

The Challenge Facing the World's Biggest Polluters

The challenge facing the world's biggest polluters
The clock is ticking in the race to agree a new treaty to cut the emissions that cause global warming. Michael McCarthy names and shames the offenders who must mend their ways
Wednesday, 11 March 2009

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/the-challenge-facing-the-worlds-biggest-polluters-1642109.html

Among the developed countries, the member states of the EU (including Britain) are taking the lead, with firm commitments to reduce CO2 in the medium term

In three weeks' time in Bonn, the international community will begin the negotiations leading up to December's United Nations climate change meeting in Copenhagen, which, it is hoped, will produce a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol. If the world is to check the march of global warming before it is too late, it is increasingly clear that this meeting must lead to agreement on worldwide cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal greenhouse gas – emissions of which from industry, transport and deforestation are responsible for causing the atmosphere to overheat.

Here we present a unique table of the world's 20 biggest CO2 emitters, with details of their economies and populations, and more importantly, what steps they each are already taking – if any – to cut back their emissions. Some points stand out. China has now overtaken the United States as the world's biggest polluter; its carbon emissions have more than doubled in a decade, and with its recent growth rate of nearly 10 per cent, could do so again, depending on the length and depth of the world recession.

India, now the fourth biggest polluter, is also rapidly increasing its emissions, and is increasing its population of 1.15 billion people far faster than any other country in the table; soon its human numbers will be on a par with China's and its emissions following suit. But neither country has set an emissions reduction target since, as developing countries, they feel they should be allowed to continue growing to relieve poverty (India is vocal on this point). Also, as the supplementary table makes clear, if their emissions are treated on a per capita basis, India is the lowest emitter by far, and China is fourth from bottom, instead of top.
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* Sea levels rising twice as fast as predicted

However, some developing countries are taking on emissions targets – Mexico and South Africa stand out – while Brazil has set up a programme to save the Amazon.

Among the developed countries, the member states of the European Union (including Britain) are taking the lead, with firm commitments to reduce CO2 in the medium term. Other high-emitting rich nations, such as Japan, Canada and Australia, have given themselves less taxing targets or have not yet set out their plans in detail. After eight years of inaction and obstructionism under President George Bush, the US, now the second biggest polluter, is back among the climate change coalition of the willing, and President Obama has set out the targets he would like to aim at. However, he may be held back in his ambition by Congress.

If we are to name any laggards, we should point to the oil-exporting countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, who are unhappy at the whole idea of cutting carbon and have done very little about it, and also to Russia (the third biggest polluter) and Ukraine, who similarly have shown little appetite for action.

If a workable deal is reached in Copenhagen it will have to involve the developed nations taking on new ambitious targets; but it will also have to mean the developing countries starting to cut back their own CO2, in return for large amounts of developed country aid. In essence, it will be a deal between the US and China, with the rest of the world following. But it is by no means certain that a deal can be put together. Look at our table and you will see just how different are the situations of the different countries in emissions, wealth and population. Bringing them all into a treaty that really means something will be a labour of Hercules – beginning in Bonn, in three weeks' time.