Showing posts with label global warming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label global warming. Show all posts
2/12/2010
12/27/2009
12/20/2009
Death for Millions of Africans
Chief G-77 Negotiator Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping
US-Backed Proposals Mean Death for Millions of Africans * With the talks entering the final twenty-four hours, a leaked UN document—exposed yesterday on Democracy Now! with French news website Mediapart—has created a firestorm of controversy here at the summit. The UN memo determines that global temperatures would rise by an alarming three degrees Celsius, or 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit, under the current emissions targets being discussed. We speak to Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the chief negotiator for the G-77, the largest developing country bloc represented at the COP15.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/18/chief_g77_negotiator_lumumba_stanislaus_di
US-Backed Proposals Mean Death for Millions of Africans * With the talks entering the final twenty-four hours, a leaked UN document—exposed yesterday on Democracy Now! with French news website Mediapart—has created a firestorm of controversy here at the summit. The UN memo determines that global temperatures would rise by an alarming three degrees Celsius, or 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit, under the current emissions targets being discussed. We speak to Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the chief negotiator for the G-77, the largest developing country bloc represented at the COP15.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/18/chief_g77_negotiator_lumumba_stanislaus_di
12/18/2009
12/16/2009
Copenhagen Via Democracynow
Indigenous Peoples of Canada March on Canadian Embassy in Copenhagen to Protest Tar Sands
Canada is the largest supplier of oil to the United States, and most of it comes from the Alberta tar sands. Described as the world's biggest single industrial source of carbon emissions, the tar sands have drawn widespread protest and civil disobedience from environmentalists. On Tuesday, as climate delegates met across town at the Bella Center, a protest led by indigenous peoples of Canada was held outside the Canadian embassy. Democracy Now!'s John Hamilton files a report.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/15/indigenous_peoples_of_canada_march_on
Cap & Trade: A Critical Look at Carbon Trading
Will the expansion of carbon emissions trading help stop global warming or just create a new market for Wall Street to make billions? We air excerpts of Annie Leonard's The Story of Cap and Trade and speak with Larry Lohmann and Frank Ackerman.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/15/cap_trade_a_critical_look_at
Canada is the largest supplier of oil to the United States, and most of it comes from the Alberta tar sands. Described as the world's biggest single industrial source of carbon emissions, the tar sands have drawn widespread protest and civil disobedience from environmentalists. On Tuesday, as climate delegates met across town at the Bella Center, a protest led by indigenous peoples of Canada was held outside the Canadian embassy. Democracy Now!'s John Hamilton files a report.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/15/indigenous_peoples_of_canada_march_on
Cap & Trade: A Critical Look at Carbon Trading
Will the expansion of carbon emissions trading help stop global warming or just create a new market for Wall Street to make billions? We air excerpts of Annie Leonard's The Story of Cap and Trade and speak with Larry Lohmann and Frank Ackerman.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/15/cap_trade_a_critical_look_at
12/13/2009
12/10/2009
12/09/2009
UN Summit, Rich vs. Poor
Draft text divides climate summit
Documents leaked at the UN climate summit reveal divisions between rich and developing nations over the shape of a possible new deal.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/2/hi/science/nature/8402502.stm
Documents leaked at the UN climate summit reveal divisions between rich and developing nations over the shape of a possible new deal.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/2/hi/science/nature/8402502.stm
12/04/2009
Ode Online Edition on Climate Change
http://www.solutionsweneednow.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/TheSolutionsWeNeedNow-Edit-Lineup.pdf
12/01/2009
More on Climate Change, BBC
New head for Australia opposition
Australia's opposition elects climate change sceptic Tony Abbott as new leader, dealing a blow to PM Kevin Rudd's carbon trading plans.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/8387653.stm
Antarctic to feed major sea rise
Melting Antarctic ice is likely to contribute to a sea level rise of about 1.4m by 2100, says a major review of climate change on the continent.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/2/hi/science/nature/8387137.stm
Australia's opposition elects climate change sceptic Tony Abbott as new leader, dealing a blow to PM Kevin Rudd's carbon trading plans.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/8387653.stm
Antarctic to feed major sea rise
Melting Antarctic ice is likely to contribute to a sea level rise of about 1.4m by 2100, says a major review of climate change on the continent.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/2/hi/science/nature/8387137.stm
10/09/2009
Raven's Wing Movie Tonight Is. . .
Award-winning film Kilowatt Ours: A Plan to Re-Energize America is a timely, solutions-oriented look at one of America’s most pressing environmental challenges: energy.
Filmmaker Jeff Barrie offers hope as he turns the camera on himself and asks, “How can I make a difference?” In his journey Barrie explores the source of our electricity and the problems caused by energy production including mountain top removal, childhood asthma and global warming. Along the way he encounters individuals, businesses, organizations, and communities who are leading the way, using energy conservation, efficiency and renewable, green power all while saving money and the environment.
This often amusing and always inspiring story shows, “You can easily make a difference and here’s how!”
Filmmaker Jeff Barrie offers hope as he turns the camera on himself and asks, “How can I make a difference?” In his journey Barrie explores the source of our electricity and the problems caused by energy production including mountain top removal, childhood asthma and global warming. Along the way he encounters individuals, businesses, organizations, and communities who are leading the way, using energy conservation, efficiency and renewable, green power all while saving money and the environment.
This often amusing and always inspiring story shows, “You can easily make a difference and here’s how!”
10/08/2009
Many Believe It Already Has
Warning over global oil 'decline'
There is a "significant risk" that global production of conventional oil could "peak" and decline by 2020, a report suggests.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/2/hi/uk_news/8296096.stm
There is a "significant risk" that global production of conventional oil could "peak" and decline by 2020, a report suggests.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/2/hi/uk_news/8296096.stm
10/02/2009
9/24/2009
In-depth Article on Peak Oil
http://www.truthout.org/092209W?n describes current energy sources and their continuing scarcity; meanwhile, alternative energies lag far behind. A recipe for more environmental degradation and global energy wars. Please insist that our local governments are discussing these issues and developing some sensible plans to get us thru the next very difficult decades.
9/23/2009
Progress on Global Warming
UN chief praises climate summit
UN chief Ban Ki-moon says a one-day summit in New York has given fresh impetus to efforts to tackle global warming.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon says a one-day summit in New York has given fresh impetus to efforts to tackle global warming.
9/16/2009
World Health Catastrophe
Doctors warn on climate failure
Failure to agree a new UN climate deal in December will usher in a "global health catastrophe", according to medical leaders.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/2/hi/science/nature/8257766.stm
Failure to agree a new UN climate deal in December will usher in a "global health catastrophe", according to medical leaders.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/2/hi/science/nature/8257766.stm
9/03/2009
Duke Energy Leaving the Dark Side
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-02-duke-energy-quits-scandal-ridden-american-coalition-for-clean-co/
8/19/2009
Methane Escaping Sea Bed
Methane seeps from Arctic sea bed
Scientists say they have evidence that the powerful greenhouse gas methane is escaping from the sea bed off Norway as the ice it is trapped in melts.
Scientists say they have evidence that the powerful greenhouse gas methane is escaping from the sea bed off Norway as the ice it is trapped in melts.
7/18/2009
Got Water?
Turkmenistan to create desert sea
Turkmenistan starts work on the latest phase of its massive project to create a vast artificial sea in the desert.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/8154467.stm
Turkmenistan starts work on the latest phase of its massive project to create a vast artificial sea in the desert.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/8154467.stm
7/13/2009
Boiling Frogs
New York Times July 13, 2009
Boiling the Frog By PAUL KRUGMAN
Is America on its way to becoming a boiled frog?
I’m referring, of course, to the proverbial frog that, placed in a pot of cold water that is gradually heated, never realizes the danger it’s in and is boiled alive. Real frogs will, in fact, jump out of the pot — but never mind. The hypothetical boiled frog is a useful metaphor for a very real problem: the difficulty of responding to disasters that creep up on you a bit at a time.
And creeping disasters are what we mostly face these days.
I started thinking about boiled frogs recently as I watched the depressing state of debate over both economic and environmental policy. These are both areas in which there is a substantial lag before policy actions have their full effect — a year or more in the case of the economy, decades in the case of the planet — yet in which it’s very hard to get people to do what it takes to head off a catastrophe foretold.
And right now, both the economic and the environmental frogs are sitting still while the water gets hotter.
Start with economics: last winter the economy was in acute crisis, with a replay of the Great Depression seeming all too possible. And there was a fairly strong policy response in the form of the Obama stimulus plan, even if that plan wasn’t as strong as some of us thought it should have been.
At this point, however, the acute crisis has given way to a much more insidious threat. Most economic forecasters now expect gross domestic product to start growing soon, if it hasn’t already. But all the signs point to a “jobless recovery”: on average, forecasters surveyed by The Wall Street Journal believe that the unemployment rate will keep rising into next year, and that it will be as high at the end of 2010 as it is now.
Now, it’s bad enough to be jobless for a few weeks; it’s much worse being unemployed for months or years. Yet that’s exactly what will happen to millions of Americans if the average forecast is right — which means that many of the unemployed will lose their savings, their homes and more.
To head off this outcome — and remember, this isn’t what economic Cassandras are saying; it’s the forecasting consensus — we’d need to get another round of fiscal stimulus under way very soon. But neither Congress nor, alas, the Obama administration is showing any inclination to act. Now that the free fall is over, all sense of urgency seems to have vanished.
This will probably change once the reality of the jobless recovery becomes all too apparent. But by then it will be too late to avoid a slow-motion human and social disaster.
Still, the boiled-frog problem on the economy is nothing compared with the problem of getting action on climate change.
Put it this way: if the consensus of the economic experts is grim, the consensus of the climate experts is utterly terrifying. At this point, the central forecast of leading climate models — not the worst-case scenario but the most likely outcome — is utter catastrophe, a rise in temperatures that will totally disrupt life as we know it, if we continue along our present path. How to head off that catastrophe should be the dominant policy issue of our time.
But it isn’t, because climate change is a creeping threat rather than an attention-grabbing crisis. The full dimensions of the catastrophe won’t be apparent for decades, perhaps generations. In fact, it will probably be many years before the upward trend in temperatures is so obvious to casual observers that it silences the skeptics. Unfortunately, if we wait to act until the climate crisis is that obvious, catastrophe will already have become inevitable.
And while a major environmental bill has passed the House, which was an amazing and inspiring political achievement, the bill fell well short of what the planet really needs — and despite this faces steep odds in the Senate.
What makes the apparent paralysis of policy especially alarming is that so little is happening when the political situation seems, on the surface, to be so favorable to action.
After all, supply-siders and climate-change-deniers no longer control the White House and key Congressional committees. Democrats have a popular president to lead them, a large majority in the House of Representatives and 60 votes in the Senate. And this isn’t the old Democratic majority, which was an awkward coalition between Northern liberals and Southern conservatives; this is, by historical standards, a relatively solid progressive bloc.
And let’s be clear: both the President and the party’s Congressional leadership understand the economic and environmental issues perfectly well. So if we can’t get action to head off disaster now, what would it take?
I don’t know the answer. And that’s why I keep thinking about boiling frogs.
Boiling the Frog By PAUL KRUGMAN
Is America on its way to becoming a boiled frog?
I’m referring, of course, to the proverbial frog that, placed in a pot of cold water that is gradually heated, never realizes the danger it’s in and is boiled alive. Real frogs will, in fact, jump out of the pot — but never mind. The hypothetical boiled frog is a useful metaphor for a very real problem: the difficulty of responding to disasters that creep up on you a bit at a time.
And creeping disasters are what we mostly face these days.
I started thinking about boiled frogs recently as I watched the depressing state of debate over both economic and environmental policy. These are both areas in which there is a substantial lag before policy actions have their full effect — a year or more in the case of the economy, decades in the case of the planet — yet in which it’s very hard to get people to do what it takes to head off a catastrophe foretold.
And right now, both the economic and the environmental frogs are sitting still while the water gets hotter.
Start with economics: last winter the economy was in acute crisis, with a replay of the Great Depression seeming all too possible. And there was a fairly strong policy response in the form of the Obama stimulus plan, even if that plan wasn’t as strong as some of us thought it should have been.
At this point, however, the acute crisis has given way to a much more insidious threat. Most economic forecasters now expect gross domestic product to start growing soon, if it hasn’t already. But all the signs point to a “jobless recovery”: on average, forecasters surveyed by The Wall Street Journal believe that the unemployment rate will keep rising into next year, and that it will be as high at the end of 2010 as it is now.
Now, it’s bad enough to be jobless for a few weeks; it’s much worse being unemployed for months or years. Yet that’s exactly what will happen to millions of Americans if the average forecast is right — which means that many of the unemployed will lose their savings, their homes and more.
To head off this outcome — and remember, this isn’t what economic Cassandras are saying; it’s the forecasting consensus — we’d need to get another round of fiscal stimulus under way very soon. But neither Congress nor, alas, the Obama administration is showing any inclination to act. Now that the free fall is over, all sense of urgency seems to have vanished.
This will probably change once the reality of the jobless recovery becomes all too apparent. But by then it will be too late to avoid a slow-motion human and social disaster.
Still, the boiled-frog problem on the economy is nothing compared with the problem of getting action on climate change.
Put it this way: if the consensus of the economic experts is grim, the consensus of the climate experts is utterly terrifying. At this point, the central forecast of leading climate models — not the worst-case scenario but the most likely outcome — is utter catastrophe, a rise in temperatures that will totally disrupt life as we know it, if we continue along our present path. How to head off that catastrophe should be the dominant policy issue of our time.
But it isn’t, because climate change is a creeping threat rather than an attention-grabbing crisis. The full dimensions of the catastrophe won’t be apparent for decades, perhaps generations. In fact, it will probably be many years before the upward trend in temperatures is so obvious to casual observers that it silences the skeptics. Unfortunately, if we wait to act until the climate crisis is that obvious, catastrophe will already have become inevitable.
And while a major environmental bill has passed the House, which was an amazing and inspiring political achievement, the bill fell well short of what the planet really needs — and despite this faces steep odds in the Senate.
What makes the apparent paralysis of policy especially alarming is that so little is happening when the political situation seems, on the surface, to be so favorable to action.
After all, supply-siders and climate-change-deniers no longer control the White House and key Congressional committees. Democrats have a popular president to lead them, a large majority in the House of Representatives and 60 votes in the Senate. And this isn’t the old Democratic majority, which was an awkward coalition between Northern liberals and Southern conservatives; this is, by historical standards, a relatively solid progressive bloc.
And let’s be clear: both the President and the party’s Congressional leadership understand the economic and environmental issues perfectly well. So if we can’t get action to head off disaster now, what would it take?
I don’t know the answer. And that’s why I keep thinking about boiling frogs.
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