Global Warming

The Mayans are typically described as a dead body that live up to their setting

2012-01-01T22:41:00.000-08:00

"The Mayans are typically described as a dead body that live up to their setting," says PhD internship Robert Griffin. "But as abundant culture and at the moment, they added their afore anybody concluded over deforestation and their antibacterial mural in hard-earned efforts out active in Adamantine times."

Together with the furniture changes elevation, pollution, and overindustrialization in Apple these days is unimaginable. National Geographic all over again closed that there'll be no glaciers in Glacier National Park was added within the year 2020. An earthy-crunchy armpit show a number of the ecological disaster are accessed in five places to travel afore anybody they're Gone. Concierge.com travel armpit offers us twenty places to visualize Them Die afore anybody. It accommodates a combination of regional ecological confusing, more-touristed spots, and also the anon can place charcoal owing to political disputes. because the ancient Maya cities, avant-garde items of apples we might leave or charcoal in our lives.

Archaeologist Tom Sever offers us 2 credibility for airing abroad with. the first is that the quantity of amplitude. "Space Technology is revolutionizing Our application for archaeological apprentice regarding suffering in adjustment to steer the fate of a person simply pamili these days ..."

And added a leader's fate is advancing their relationship collapsed. "In some cities of the Maya, the cemetery had begun to receive the accumulated absolute cluster with skull Inlays in their teeth upon articles that they're aloof to the Maya elite-imaginable during this aristocracy killed."

So balloons are ambiguous regarding the 2012 prophecy and pay absorption to the current world. Science isn't magic, and that we welcome break that we actually will transcend our ability to measure. If we tend to settle for the Apocalypse in 2012, or later, there'll be activities for alignment of Catholicism, it'll be the doom of the choice we tend to ourselves don't create sense.

We should not confuse the cooling of the Earth's core

2012-01-01T22:35:00.000-08:00

We should not confuse the cooling of the Earth's core with the daddy of world warming problems. Since the creation of the world solar cooling method father. this can be in terms of cooling temperature at the core of the earth Earth is obtaining taken down. international warming as a result of several factors have led to variety that is-

one. Piercing the ozone layer as a result of the discharge of excess CFC (kloro fluoro carbon) of gas to the atmosphere. The harmful ultraviolet rays that are restricted by the ozone layer is currently reaching Earth Father cause dangerous effects of world warming into mainstream. different adverse effects being increased cases of skin disease & the like!

the four. a serious issue of world warming is that the unilateral bombing Afghanistan & Iraq by the USA and its allies. War was declared in Afghanistan to root out terrorism in Afghanistan Taliban resurfacing proves otherwise. War on Iraq is asserted to uncover WMD (weapons of mass destruction) that were never discovered!

the two. The melting of ice on the size that has never happened before. This has led to a flood of overload to the planet over. With the passage of your time as flooding would cause improved to destroy the higher crust of humanity within the Giants & for. The flood sometimes scrape the surface of the world is gorgeous for vegetation & others generate.
the three. Inconvenience to the mankind in an exceedingly large because the international temperature rise in some elements of the planet has modified weather conditions. folks don't seem to be aware of such high temperatures fell unwell in an exceedingly large quantity. the worldwide temperature rise could be a reason for nice worry to the countries of the eu belt not aware of the high temperatures!

The result was a complete fiddle the world! All State every man can inevitably suffer from international warming. What may be additional distressing than the actual fact each single creature can got to procure cruelty USA & its allies within the name of WMD and terrorism! Heat generation within the years before Iraq's large looked as if it would him currently.

Improve your hot-water setup

2011-06-10T02:11:00.000-07:00

Wrapping your water heater it in an insulating jacket will result in a 1,000 pound per year reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. If you keep your water heater thermostat no higher than 120 degrees F, you can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 550 pounds per year. Another water-heating option that can improve efficiency, especially if you have long runs of hot-water pipes going to your most-used sinks, is the tankless water heater. This device heats the water needed at an individual sink "on demand" rather than keeping a large central tank of water hot ready for all sinks at all times. This is usually more efficient, and also gives you an "unlimited" supply of hot water for the affected sinks (and showers/tubs). The best choice in getting energy-smart on hot water is a solar hot water heater. See our Home Solar Energy article for more info.

Ocean Temperatures and Positive Feedback

2011-04-13T04:44:00.000-07:00

The sea we digest the most carbon need to be absorbed into our ecosystem. But, if we raise the temperature of the Ocean as small as 1/10th of one percent of that its ability to absorb and neutralize excess CO2 compromised.

Current greenhouse gas emissions greenhouse gases from the production of energy as well as the internal combustion engine in a 36% increase in carbon dioxide in the planets that could support the normal balance. This produces a temperature increase of smooth in coincidentally enough to melt the ice layer of the Earth, which then releases the CO2 even more. The CO2 is then slightly raises the temperature of the Earth generates a progress looping endlessly. The situation and this scenario is known as positive feedback and this is a real danger attached as global warming.
We can follow the chain of us continue to grow the event next to the point where humans are more exposed to the direct impact.

Permafrost is condition

2011-04-13T04:39:00.000-07:00

Although a one degree of heat makes you uninstall sweater, a segment of the earth known as the ice began to meltdown. A layer of ice is a condition where the water surface of the Earth stays at a temperature below freezing (0 degrees Celsius) for at least two years. Literally, it means the ground is permanently frozen. In fact, the most layers of the ice has been frozen for thousands of years. Most of Arctic's ice layer. During the summer months this area seems to be disbursed because they permit layer 11: 58 feet of land for growing vegetation. But behind it was the summer put the core remains frozen. Strata that is frozen Earth lock away large amounts of gas content with with the highest concentration of gas held in check by permafrost carbon dioxide and methane gas. The increase of one degree temperature of the whole is allowing millions of acres of land ice melt and release of greenhouse gases even more.

Tropical deforestation is an urgent problem

2011-02-17T07:57:00.000-08:00

Stopping tropical deforestation is urgent: 32 million acres per year were cut or burned between 2000 and 2009.

Forests provide a significant contribution to the Earth's climate through carbon storage, but destruction of tropical forests:

1. Wipes out biodiversity
2. Ravages the livelihoods of forest peoples
3. Worsens global warming

Unless we change the present system that rewards forest destruction, forest clearing will put another 200 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere in coming decades and devastate scores of indigenous populations.

Toxic fish could hit 2020 climate goal

2010-07-29T09:06:00.000-07:00

A proposed rule on mercury, a pollutant bad for fish and the people who eat too many of them, could help the Obama administration get near its short-term climate goal -- even if Congress fails this year or next to pass a bill tackling greenhouse gases directly.

Senate Democrats crafting an energy bill have abandoned until September, and probably through the rest of the year, debate on climate measures like carbon caps on power plants and mandates for utilities to produce more power from renewable sources like wind and solar.

But while many people concerned about climate control have been focusing on the Senate, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under its Administrator Lisa Jackson, has been quietly preparing to crack down on coal, the most carbon-intensive fuel, like never before.

Under Jackson, a former chemical engineer for an oil company who says the idea that progress on environment has to hurt the economy is a "false choice," the agency late last year declared that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare.

Global warming Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity

2010-07-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

MYTH: Global warming will cause huge disruptions in climate, more storms, and the coasts will flood! America must sign the Kyoto Treaty!

This has to be broken into four pieces.

MYTH No. 1: The Earth is warming!

TRUTH: The Earth is warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said the global average surface temperature increased about 0.6 degrees Celsius over the 20th century.

MYTH No. 2: The Earth is warming because of us!

TRUTH: Maybe. The frantic media suggest it's all about us. But the IPCC only said it is likely that we have increased the warming.

Permafrost

2010-05-19T05:38:00.000-07:00

While that one-degree of heat made you take off a sweater, segments of the Earth known as permafrost began a meltdown. Permafrost is a condition whereby sections of the Earth’s surface have remained at a temperature below freezing (0 degrees Celsius) for at least two years. Literally, it means permanently frozen soil. In actuality, most permafrost regions have been frozen for thousands of years. A large portion of the Arctic is permafrost. During summer months these areas seem to be thawed as they permit a two to twelve foot layer of soil to grow vegetation. But beneath that summer season lays a still frozen core. These frozen strata of the Earth lock away huge amounts of gaseous content with the highest concentrations of gases held in check by permafrost being Carbon dioxide and Methane gas. That one-degree increase in overall temperature is allowing millions of underground acres of permafrost to defrost and release even more greenhouse gas.

Your choices have a measurable impact

2010-03-30T06:53:00.001-07:00

By using more energy-efficient products at home, driving cars that are fuel-efficient, and increasing the use of renewable energy (for example, wind and solar energy), you can have a positive impact on global warming. And in the U.S., where more greenhouse gases are emitted per person than in any other country, taking control of your emissions is an urgent and important step.

Researchers Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow

2010-03-30T06:52:00.001-07:00

Researchers Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow at Princeton University have suggested one approach that they call "stabilization wedges." This means reducing GHG emissions from a variety of sources with technologies available in the next few decades, rather than relying on an enormous change in a single area. They suggest 7 wedges that could each reduce emissions, and all of them together could hold emissions at approximately current levels for the next 50 years, putting us on a potential path to stabilize around 500 ppm.

There are many possible wedges, including improvements to energy efficiency and vehicle fuel economy (so less energy has to be produced), and increases in wind and solar power, hydrogen produced from renewable sources, biofuels (produced from crops), natural gas, and nuclear power. There is also the potential to capture the carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuels and store it underground—a process called "carbon sequestration."

Reduce global warming by Unplug a freezer

2010-03-04T03:08:00.000-08:00

One of the quickest ways to reduce your global warming impact is to unplug the extra refrigerator or freezer you rarely use (except when you need it for holidays and parties). This can reduce the typical family's carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 10 percent.

Carbon Dioxide from Power Plants

2009-11-30T02:38:00.000-08:00

In 2002 Carbon dioxide from power plants for the purpose of generating electricity with fossil fuel burning approximately 40% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions is derived. 93% of coal industry, electric utility emissions account. U.S. Emissions Inventory 2004 of 10 coal emits about 1.7 Executive Summary p. Natural gas and 1.25 times as much carbon as 51 if and when you burn more energy per unit time. Natural gas, coal, and 25% carbon 51, the less carbon dioxide than the same amount of energy generated dioxide, the main greenhouse gas is 50% off. Approximately 80% per unit of energy than coal gas, not carbon, and contains approximately 40% of the oil contains more information. A typical American family metric TON of Carbon 25 miles gallon of gasoline or natural gas fired furnace about 1 year by using coal-generated heat at home, or information generated electricity per four months of driving 10,000 miles is about.

Ocean temperatures increasing

2009-10-27T09:26:00.000-07:00

# Recent headline: Caribbean coral suffers record die-off. (* 3/31/06 *)
# Costal ocean temperatures are so high that sea corals are being killed globally.

* Up to 90% of corals are dead or dying in many areas.
* It is now too late to derail or delay the disaster.

# The increase in the temperature of the oceans is providing fuel for stronger and more frequent hurricances and typhoons - like last year when we saw a record number of hurricanes in the Caribbean. Japan also set a record for the number of typhoons to hit Japan.
# Sea levels are slowly increasing, threatening cities such as Venice, Italy

* Sea level as measured at San Francisco, California, USA.

The Stockholm Environment Institute

2009-09-04T07:18:00.000-07:00

Dr Collins says: “Taking a flight and planting a tree does not add up. It does not make it all right. It is having your cake and eating it.” Dr John Barrett, from the Stockholm Environment Institute at the University of York, says: “There is a huge irony in flying halfway across the globe in a private jet, eating up fossil fuel. The idea that you can offset the pollution you cause is just ridiculous. What these people at Live Earth have done is defined their boundaries to suit themselves, but there is no sense in which this concert is carbon neutral. Planting trees or investing in renewable energy does not reverse the damage of releasing huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the environment. It is far better not to pollute in the first place. Carbon offsetting can be a removal of guilt, but it is not an effective one.”

Live Earth is encouraging ‘citizens of the world’ to take small steps: share a car, plant a shrub, turn off a light or hang out washing rather than use a dryer. But Dr Barrett says: “It would be far better for these celebrities to stay at home. Holding large concerts to highlight environmental concerns and cut carbon emissions just seems ridiculous. What planet do these people live on?”

Personal Global Warming Solutions

2009-07-15T22:04:00.000-07:00

The world's scientists agree: global warming is real, here, and happening faster than anyone predicted. But scientists also say we can curb global warming and its consequences -- if we take bold, comprehensive action now that adds up to an at least 80 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2050, or an average of 2 percent a year. Learn more about how to be part of the Two Percent Solution!

U.S. carbon emissions primarily come from transportation and power plants. You can take the following steps to reduce your own carbon emissions from these sectors:

Install solar electric

2009-07-15T22:01:00.000-07:00

Some people are fortunate enough that their financial position makes it possible for them to buy enough photovoltaic (electricity-generating) solar panels to completely offset their electric bill. But even if you can't go mega-solar, adding some level of solar PV may make sense for you, both in terms of greenhouse-gas reductions and in terms of being more resilient in the face of future electricity disruptions. The US government and many states offer tax incentives for installation of PV systems, solar hot water systems, and other energy efficiency improvements. See DSIRE for specifics or check out our Home Solar Energy article.

2007 announce of global warming

2009-06-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

There are different consequences of global warming : greenhouse effect ,coastal flooding ,ocean warming, sea-level rising , Arctic and Antarctic warming and melting , shrinking of a glaciers... All of us can notice spring arriving earlier , or feel climate changes . Rising of temperature and global warming have influence on infections spreading, animal population changes , killer hurricanes, heat waves, Prognoses of scientists are very pessimistic , by 21st century's end the temperature on the Earth will raise ( on the average ) 4-5 degrees of Celsius There are also more pessimistic forecasts. Planet Earth and human race are in great danger. Global warming threaten to make life on the earth impossible .

Global Warming Ozone Depletion

2009-05-24T18:45:00.000-07:00

The ozone layer, which protects all life from ultraviolet (UV) radiation, is being destroyed by release of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) into the atmosphere. The widening holes in the ozone layer allow in more UV rays, which can cause skin cancers, cataracts, and immune system damage. UV rays are detrimental to pollination, seed production, and marine life food supplies as well.

California Global Warming Solutions Act

2009-04-27T02:37:00.000-07:00

* Establish a statewide greenhouse gas emissions cap for 2020, based on 1990 emissions by January 1, 2008.
* Adopt mandatory reporting rules for significant sources of greenhouse gases by January 1, 2009.
* Adopt a plan by January 1, 2009 indicating how emission reductions will be achieved from significant greenhouse gas sources via regulations, market mechanisms and other actions.
* Adopt regulations by January 1, 2011 to achieve the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective reductions in greenhouse gas, including provisions for using both market mechanisms and alternative compliance mechanisms.
* Convene an Environmental Justice Advisory Committee and an Economic and Technology Advancement Advisory Committee to advise CARB.
* Ensure public notice and opportunity for comment for all CARB actions.
* Prior to imposing any mandates or authorizing market mechanisms, CARB must evaluate several factors, including but not limited to impacts on California's economy, the environment and public health; equity between regulated entities; electricity reliability, conformance with other environmental laws and ensure that the rules do not disproportionately impact low-income communities.

Human Impacts on Climate

2009-03-28T03:40:00.000-07:00

Human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate. These effects add to natural influences that have been present over Earth's history. Scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century.

Human impacts on the climate system include increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons and their substitutes, methane, nitrous oxide, etc.), air pollution, increasing concentrations of airborne particles, and land alteration. A particular concern is that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide may be rising faster than at any time in Earth's history, except possibly following rare events like impacts from large extraterrestrial objects.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have increased since the mid-1700s through fossil fuel burning and changes in land use, with more than 80% of this increase occurring since 1900. Moreover, research indicates that increased levels of carbon dioxide will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years. It is virtually certain that increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will cause global surface climate to be warmer.

The consequences of global climate change

2009-03-11T08:46:00.000-07:00

Like the immediate prospect of being hanged, to paraphrase literary figure Samuel Johnson, are wonderfully concentrating the minds of agricultural scientists, development professionals and policy makers around the world. Among them are the approximately 1,000 scientists and 7,000 other staff of the 15 centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, or CGIAR.

The CGIAR Centers and their numerous partners in government and civil society organizations have been helping farmers cope with the effects of variable and severe weather for nearly three decades. Specifically, they seek ways to protect water and other natural resources under extreme weather conditions and other pressures, to develop crop varieties that are adapted to harsh climates, and to identify policy and institutional innovations that better enable countries and communities to cope with these conditions. Through this work, CGIAR researchers have generated a wealth of improved crop germplasm, knowledge, technologies, methods and policy analysis, which can lessen the vulnerability of marginalized rural people and places through more sustainable management of crops, livestock, soils, water, forests, fisheries and biodiversity.

This research is highly relevant to the economic and environmental constraints that developing country farmers face today. And it will become even more necessary as global climate change magnifies those constraints.

Climate crisis on Global warming

2009-02-14T10:18:00.000-08:00

No human challenge is so potentially uniting as the climate crisis. Our human drive to invent and build has led to extraordinary advances and great technological promise. It's also had grave, unintended consequences. And unless we face the climate crisis with ingenuity, resolve, and a sense of urgency, much of the world as we know it will begin to unravel before our eyes.

The warning signs are plain to see. The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1990. Mountain glaciers are fading on every continent and the sea ice is melting. The seas have begun a slow but menacing rise.

National Climatic Data Center

2009-01-24T07:18:00.000-08:00

One of the most vigorously debated topics on Earth is the issue of climate change, and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) data centers are central to answering some of the most pressing global change questions that remain unresolved. The National Climatic Data Center contains the instrumental and paleoclimatic records that can precisely define the nature of climatic fluctuations at time scales of a century and longer. Among the diverse kinds of data platforms whose data contribute to NCDC's resources are: Ships, buoys, weather stations, weather balloons, satellites, radar and many climate proxy records such as tree rings and ice cores. The National Oceanographic Data Center contains the subsurface ocean data which reveal the ways that heat is distributed and redistributed over the planet. Knowing how these systems are changing and how they have changed in the past is crucial to understanding how they will change in the future. And, for climate information that extends from hundreds to thousands of years, paleoclimatology data, also available from the National Climatic Data Center, helps to provide longer term perspectives.

STOP the EXTINCTION of LIFE

2009-01-17T03:53:00.000-08:00

Think that will solve the problems in this world? Definitely not. Their greed and selfish attitude far exceeds any effort of those who are their servants and walk the streets. The scientific world has gone off on a tangent looking for a solution while they have missed the actual solution staring them in the face.

How is that possible you ask? Very simply put. When they were being taught by their previous teachers in school, they were told you can not do this. They believed it true, because they could not find the flaw in the laws of physics. So they became derelict in their beliefs.

So life goes on for them believing that something is impossible. They don't even want to believe there is real people in this world who have the true love of GOD in their heart and can actually solve this problem before they will have a solution.

Any of these high tech solutions of today are way out of reach for the average person and will have little or no effect on climate change. They are like using a tooth pick to remove a manure pile when someone is shoveling more on the pile.

So we ask you if you want to help, Before it is to late.

How global warming works

2009-01-17T02:20:00.000-08:00

I think you’ll remember from high school biology that plants absorb carbon dioxide and sunlight and that is how they grow. Just like plants need sunlight to grow, they also need carbon dioxide. Plants create oxygen and this is what we breathe. Quite a neat system the Creator has made – humans breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, and plants breathe in carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. Therefore, you could view our carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles and power plants that burn coal or oil as potential plant food. So if carbon dioxide is plant food then what’s the big deal about carbon dioxide causing global warming, you might ask. Answer: Our output of carbon dioxide has been growing over the decades and there are not enough plants to absorb it all. The carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere and acts as a heat shield. Our planet gets warmer every year.

Choose an efficient vehicle

2009-01-05T06:09:00.001-08:00

A car that gets 20 miles per gallon will emit about 50 tons of carbon dioxide over its lifetime. A car getting 40 mpg will emit half that much. When buying your next car, pick the least-polluting, most efficient vehicle that meets your needs. Maybe it's an innovative hybrid that combines a gasoline engine with electric motors (and never needs to be plugged in). Or maybe it's a wagon instead of an SUV. And over the average lifetime of an American car, a 40-mpg car will save roughly $3,000 in fuel costs compared with a 20-mpg car, so compare fuel economy performance before you buy. (See www.fueleconomy.gov's Find and Compare Cars feature.)

Global Warming = Rising Ocean Levels

2009-01-05T06:08:00.001-08:00

Rising ocean levels could eventually cause worldwide flooding of coastal areas, forcing people and wildlife to migrate inland. Many experts believe global warming is behind the upswing in hurricane activity, and they also predict global warming will cause a dramatic increase in excessive precipitation in some areas and severe drought in others, resulting in floods, crop failures, and a rising number of forest fires and land slides.

Many of the world's most knowledgeable climate-change scientists forecast that the earth's temperature will rise from 1.44 to 6.3º F by the year 2100 if we don't take steps to reduce greenhouse gases. An increase of 1 to 3.6º F will occur even if we do act, because many gases have already been released.

Global Warming = Ozone Depletion

2009-01-05T05:55:00.000-08:00

Mathematical Model Illuminates Polar Lows Treacherous winds

2008-12-21T22:45:00.000-08:00

Polar lows are small-scale storms that occur in the oceans of the high latitudes and are comparable to a tropical cyclone. The strong winds they produce are rightly feared by seamen. In the course of the last century, North Atlantic polar lows caused 56 shipwrecks with a total of 342 people lost at sea.

Although polar lows do not always produce winds of hurricane force, they are particularly treacherous to shipping because they can develop very suddenly and, on account of their small diameter of only a few hundred kilometres, are very difficult to predict.

Similarly, the lack of meteorological stations in the polar regions further compounds the difficulties of forecasting and documenting these weather systems.

Global Warming>Balancing Factors

2008-12-14T03:40:00.000-08:00

The major role of water vapour in absorbing thermal radiation is in some respects balanced by the fact that when condensed it causes an albedo effect which reflects about one third of the incoming sunlight back into space. This effect is enhanced by atmospheric sulfate aerosols and dust, which provide condensation nuclei. Nearly half the sulfates in the atmosphere originate from sulfur dioxide emissions from power stations and industry, particularly in the northern hemisphere.

In recent decades volcanoes have contributed substantially to dust and acid aerosol levels high in the atmosphere. While at lower levels in the atmosphere sulfate aerosols and dust are short-lived, such material in the stratosphere remains for years, increasing the amount of sunlight which is reflected away. Hence there is, for the time being, a balancing cooling effect on the earth's surface. In the northern hemisphere the sulfate aerosols are estimated to counter nearly half the heating effect due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases.

However, in many countries there are now programs to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions from power stations, as these emissions cause acid rain. Hence this balancing factor will diminish and the rate of temperature increase due to greenhouse gases may consequently increase. Removing the sulfate aerosols is likely to be equivalent to increasing CO2 levels by 100ppm, according to a senior UK climate scientist.

Global Warming>Australia's Rudd Tackles Global Warming

2008-12-14T03:33:00.000-08:00

Australia's Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd took advice Sunday on how to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and fielded phone calls from world leaders — starting in on work the day after a sweeping election victory.
The emphatic victory for Rudd's Labor Party swings Australia toward the political left after almost 12 years of conservative rule and puts it at odds with key ally Washington on two crucial policy issues — Iraq and global warming.
After declaring victory late Saturday, Rudd attended church Sunday then held meetings with government officials about the mechanics of signing the Kyoto pact on global warming, an issue he made his top priority during the election campaign.

He also held meetings with top bureaucrats about taking over the levers of government, took phone calls from President Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and received congratulatory messages from other foreign leaders.

Britain, New Zealand and Indonesia said Rudd's election would boost international efforts to address climate change. Ousted Prime Minister John Howard had refused to sign Kyoto.

Rudd declined to give details of his conversation with Bush, and said he plans to visit Washington next year.

The leaders agreed during the call that they looked forward to working together, said White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

Rudd, a Chinese-speaking former diplomat, accepted Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's invitation to attend a December U.N. meeting in Bali to map out the world's next steps against climate change.

On Sunday, at his first news conference, Rudd promised "action, and action now" on climate change and made education, health and a high-speed Internet network additional priorities of his government.

He said Labor lawmakers were due to meet Thursday, and he hoped his Cabinet would be sworn in soon after that.

Deputy Labor leader Julia Gillard said Monday that Rudd would act quickly on signing Kyoto, paving the way for Australia to play a greater role at the Bali meeting.

Gillard will become Australia's most senior woman politician ever when she is sworn in as deputy prime minister, a role that will make her acting leader of the country when Rudd is overseas or on leave.

Rudd's election brought a sharp and mortifying end to the 11-year rule of Howard, Australia's second-longest serving leader.

Howard faces the further possible embarrassment of losing his own district seat in parliament — a fate suffered only once before by a sitting prime minister in 106 years of federal government.

Howard, 68, reshaped Australia's image abroad with his unwavering support for Bush's war on terrorism and in Iraq. But he failed to read the signs that voters had grown tired of his rule.

He campaigned on his economic management, arguing that Rudd, 50, could not be trusted to continue Australia's 17 years of unbroken economic growth, fueled by China's and India's hunger for Australian coal and other minerals.

Aside from Iraq and Kyoto, the bulk of Australia's foreign, trade and economic policies are not expected to change much under Rudd.

Rudd has pledged to govern as an "economic conservative," while pouring money into schools and universities, and to curtail sweeping workplace reforms that Howard introduced.

As Rudd basked in his victory, Howard's party fell into turmoil when his nominated successor, outgoing Treasurer Peter Costello, announced he would not accept the post of opposition leader.

The surprise announcement opens the possibility of a bruising fight for the leadership, with outgoing Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and former Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull likely candidates.

Howard took his customary early morning walk along the Sydney Harbor Sunday, but did not comment on the election.

With 75 percent of the more than 13.5 million ballots counted, Labor had won more than 53 percent of the vote and a clear majority of at least 83 places in parliament's 150-seat lower house, official Australian Electoral Commission results showed.

That was at least 23 seats more than Labor Party won at the last election in 2004 — a huge swing in Australian politics.

Howard's Liberal-National coalition had 46.6 percent of the vote, and 47 parliamentary seats. Howard's district of Bennelong hung in the balance, with the final outcome to be decided by postal votes to be counted in the next few days.

Global Warming > The Greenhouse Effect

2008-12-08T18:24:00.000-08:00

The greenhouse effect itself occurs when short-wave solar radiation (which is not impeded by the greenhouse gases) heats the surface of the Earth, and the energy is radiated back through the Earth's atmosphere as heat, with a longer wavelength. In the wavelengths 5-30µm a lot of this thermal radiation is absorbed by water vapour and carbon dioxide, which in turn radiate it, thus heating the atmosphere. This is what keeps the Earth habitable. Without the greenhouse effect overnight temperatures would plunge and the average surface temperature would be about minus 18oC, about the same as on the moon, which lacks the shroud of our atmosphere.

The particular problem arises in the 8-18µm band where water vapour is a weak absorber of radiation and where the Earth's thermal radiation is greatest.* Increased concentrations of CO2 and other radiative gases here mean that less heat is lost to space from the Earth's lower atmosphere, and temperatures at the Earth's surface are therefore likely to increase.

A number of indicators suggest that warming due to increased levels of greenhouse gases is indeed observable since 1980, despite some masking by aerosols (see below). One problem is that while global air temperatures do appear to have risen about 0.6oC over the last century, this has been irregular rather than steady, and does not correlate well with the steady increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. While the amount is consistent with natural climate variability, some of the warmest years on record have been in the last decade. However, the climate is a complex system and other factors influence global temperatures.

Global Warming > Reduces Greenhouse Gas Emissions

2008-12-08T18:20:00.000-08:00

Animal feeding operations are an important emission source of air pollutants including methane and carbon dioxide—known greenhouse gases. Recent inventories suggest that animal manure makes a significant contribution to global methane emissions. As a consequence, greenhouse gas emissions can potentially become a limiting factor in the development and sustainability of animal production and technologies are needed to mitigate pollutant gas emissions.

Oil spray has been used as a mitigation technique to reduce pollution from animal buildings. However, little is known about its effect on greenhouse gas emissions.

Scientists at Purdue University and the University of Missouri have investigated oil spray on air pollutant emissions from pig barns in northern Missouri. Specifically, they studied the quantity and characteristics of methane and carbon dioxide emissions from two commercial pig finishing barns and tested three oil spray techniques—vegetable oil sprinkling, essential oil misting, and misting of essential oil with water—to reduce these emissions. Results from the study were published in the November-December issue of Journal of Environmental Quality.

The study revealed average emissions of 32.5 g methane and 15.8 g carbon dioxide per day per animal unit (500 kg animal live weight) from the two barns. Treatments of oil sprinkling, misting of essential oils, and misting of essential oils with water reduced the average emissions of methane by 20% and of carbon dioxide by 19%. Barn methane and carbon dioxide concentrations and emission rates were affected by diel and seasonal fluctuations of ambient temperature. Methane was produced from decomposing manure and released from recycled lagoon effluent during barn gutter flushing. Carbon dioxide was produced from pig exhalation, manure decomposition, and combustion heaters and was also released from recycled lagoon effluent. The flushing lagoon effluent was responsible for 9.8 % of methane and 4.1 % of carbon dioxide in the total barn emissions.

A state-of-the-art mobile laboratory monitoring system was set up between two barns and connected to the barns via tubing and cables. One barn was used as control and another was treated with the three oil spray techniques, one after another for a total of 247 days. Air samples were taken at the exhaust fans of the two barns and from outdoor background and pumped into the mobile laboratory via tubing. Concentrations of methane and carbon dioxide in the sample air were measured continuously with two gas analyzers. Air sampling and measurement were conducted 18 times daily to cover diel variations. Ventilation fans were monitored for gas emission calculations. Barn temperature, relative humidity, animal activity, barn space heaters, manure flushing, and weather conditions were also continuously monitored. The field investigation was conducted from August 2002 to July 2003 to cover seasonal variations.

Quantification and mitigation of air pollution from animal feeding operations helps researchers to understand and reduce the industry’s negative impact on local and global environments. Research on greenhouse gases and other pollutants emissions from animal barns of different animal species is ongoing at Purdue University in collaboration with other universities in the U.S. Mitigation technology development will be one of the research focuses in this field. Further study on oil spray in animal barns is needed to optimize its application method for better effects on reducing emissions of not only greenhouse gases but also particulate matter and odor.

Global Warming > Rising Ocean Levels

2008-12-03T06:17:00.000-08:00

Global Warming = Ozone Depletion

2008-12-03T06:10:00.000-08:00

Global Warming > Stop Deforestation

2008-11-26T07:49:00.000-08:00

Ending deforestation is certainly a hard problem to fix because the reason for deforestation is to account for the growing population with more living space and also there is a need for more lumber to build buildings. Even though this is true, the rates at which these forests are being destroyed are increasing rapidly and there needs to be a stop to this or at least a compromise to limit deforestation.
Another possible solution is to use synthetic material rather than wood as a resource. This leads to the idea of recycling, products that are made from trees such as paper, so that the recycled material can be re-used rather than destroying more forests.

Global Warming > Something must be done

2008-11-26T07:36:00.000-08:00

1. The single biggest contributor to global warming is the burning of fossil fuels and production of carbon byproduct. If fuels could be burned more efficiently, with less waste, that would reduce the amount of airborne carbon and slow the pace of climate change. That’s a start.
2. Another important step would be to find alternative sources of clean, replenishable energy. Solar power has long been seen as the quintessential replenishable resource. But to date is has been expensive to capture sunlight and produce power, particularly in the extreme northern and southern latitudes.
3. A third component of the solution would be to address the growing crisis in clean, drinkable water – a sad effect of the rise in global temperatures. While not decreasing global warming itself, clean water technology would ease the effects of climate change on some of the world’s most disadvantaged populations.

Global Warming Solutions at home

2008-11-13T07:08:00.000-08:00

There are many ways you can reduce global warming emissions at home. Finding more efficient and less costly ways to heat, cool, and light up your home, and run your appliances, can help to reduce greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2)—a primary contributor to global warming. Here you’ll find money- and energy-saving advice and articles, plus links to resources that can help you save even more.

Large-scale changes by government and industry are also needed to curb emissions. In general, one of the most effective ways to reduce CO2 emissions is to decrease the proportion of electricity generated from fossil fuels. In his quest to halt global warming, former Vice President Al Gore recently challenged the U.S. to produce 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy and carbon-free sources by 2018. Currently, about 70 percent of America’s electricity comes from fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas, and oil, which release significant quantities of CO2.

What size is your carbon footprint? According to recent government estimates, the average carbon footprint — the CO2 emissions associated with a particular lifestyle — for a two-person household is about 42,000 pounds (22 tons) each year. Since that amount will vary depending on where you live and your particular lifestyle, you can get a personalized estimate by using an online carbon footprint calculator.

Start saving carbon at home. Below is a list of steps you can take to reduce CO2 emissions by potentially thousands of pounds. For each action below, we’ve indicated the amount of CO2 and money that you can save over the course of a year. Actions are prioritized by those with the largest CO2-savings at the top of the list to the smallest at the end. That way, you’ll have a framework for choosing the most effective ways to reduce your “carbon footprint.”

Legendary Arctic Explorer Will Steger talks with ELPC > Eyewitness to Global Warming

2008-11-13T07:06:00.000-08:00

Will Steger has been an eyewitness to the on-going catastrophic consequences of global warming. A formidable voice calling for understanding and the preservation of the Arctic and the Earth, Steger is best known for his legendary polar explorations. He has traveled tens of thousands of miles by kayak and dogsled over 40 years, leading teams on some of the most significant polar expeditions in history. He also is the founder of the Will Steger Foundation, which is dedicated to creating programs that foster international leadership and cooperation through environmental education and policy.

Through his expeditions, Steger has witnessed first-hand the effects of global warming. He talked recently with the Environmental Law & Policy Center about what he has seen–and the urgency of taking action now.

Global Warming Information

2008-11-13T07:02:00.000-08:00

Both domestically and internationally, Environmental Defense works to stabilize Earth's climate by reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. This section explores the problem of global warming, its present and future ramifications, and its possible solutions.

http://www.environmentaldefense.org/go/globalwarming

Global warming > Western Climate Initiative Puts Forward Cap-And-Trade System

2008-11-01T06:33:00.000-07:00

A coalition of 11 western states and Canadian provinces Tuesday unveiled the world’s most ambitious market-based framework for reducing greenhouse gases.
The Western Climate Initiative’s carbon cap-and-trade system is set to go into operation in a little over three years. It would regulate greenhouse gas emissions of everything from coal plants to paper mills, and eventually, even cars. The framework is receiving broad support from environmentalists and consumer protection groups.
The state’s leading industrial group is also pleased. I’m joined this afternoon by OPB reporter, Rob Manning, who’s been digging into the new framework.
Hi, Rob.
Good afternoon.
Beth: First, remind us of who created this framework, and what it’s supposed to do?
Rob: The Western Climate Initiative began with just Oregon, Washington, and California a number of years ago. But it's since grown to include Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, and Utah, as well as British Columbia, Manitoba, Quebec, and Ontario to the north. Staffers and experts hashed out this framework in the hopes of creating a system to reduce greenhouse gases that was regional and also market-based

Just a little refresher, a cap and trade system works by capping the overall amount that industries and utilities can emit, and then

forcing them either to reduce their pollution, or use permits.

The cap gets lower over time, to reach carbon reduction goals. The idea is that market forces will push utilities and industrial companies - and even the transportation sector, eventually - to reduce carbon emissions, by creating a strong financial incentive to do that.

Beth: So, the Western Climate Initiative came out with a framework, and from the sound of it, the players who are closest to the action - industrial users, consumer advocates, environmentalists - are all happy.

Rob: Yes, surprisingly, all sides do have reason to be happy. The Association of Oregon Industries has been at the table. And it's optimistic about the plan, for the most part. A consumer advocate I spoke to said that the certainty offered by the plan was good news for utilities and customers.

Now, a few days ago, environmental groups held a conference call with reporters to voice concerns about draft plans they’d been hearing about. But their tone changed today. Jeremiah Baumann with Environment Oregon says he was pleasantly surprised by the new framework:

Jeremiah Baumann: “The bottom line of this program, is that it’s the most significant global warming solutions program in the world. It’s going to be a major reduction in global warming pollution, and an increase in renewable energy. There are a couple of things that still need work. The biggest one is we want to make sure the polluters pay for their permits, and don’t get windfall profits.”

Beth: So where is Baumann going there - it sounds as though he’s not entirely sold.

Rob: He’s talking about the permits, or allowances. Remember, the way cap and trade works is that polluting companies and utilities get a limited number of permits based on how much they pollute. Those can be traded.

Environmentalists contend that giving away something that has a cash value is basically putting money in the pockets of polluting industries and utilities. For that reason, they want those permits auctioned. The current framework requires that at least ten percent of permits be auctioned - so companies and utilities wouldn’t get them all for free. That’s the minimum for membership in the Western Climate Initiative.

But the governor’s office has already suggested that legislation next session will ask for more than the minimum for Oregon. The Initiative also calls for the number of permits being sold to rise to 25 percent by the year 2020. And here is where industrial users begin to get cold feet. John Ledger is vice president with Association of Oregon Industries.

John Ledger: “An auction point of a minimum of ten percent might be close to being about right, because you have to keep enough in the auction system to that the market so that it remains liquid and fliud. But you don’t want to put the whole thing in an auction system, because that basically pits Oregon businesses against each other for the ability to operate.”

Ledger says Oregon industries would actually prefer a national system that both leading presidential candidates have said they’d implement. How they’d deal with selling permits is hard to say.

Beth: So in the meantime, what does this cap and trade mean for an end user - an electricity customer, or, say, a building contractor who buys concrete from a plant that will be affected by the cap. What will this mean for them?

Rob: Well there are only a few dozen companies that are affected and again, nothing will change before 2012. There’s general agreement that this will eventually lead to higher prices, but how much, and whether the higher prices will remain high, isn’t clear. Environmentalists argue that essentially putting a price on carbon through the carbon market will drive efficiency into the whole system, and prices may not go up much. But industrial users have emphasized that efficiency and conservation have limits with some products. And that’s just one reason why this highly touted cap-and-trade system is, in their view, only a small part of the solution.

Beth: And we’ll hear more about the Western Climate Initiative after it comes up with more details later this year.

Rob: Yes, and then next year, when Oregon and Washington lawmakers use this framework as a minimum standard, to write their own bills.

Thanks, Rob.

You’re welcome.

Global warming> Global Climate Change

2008-11-01T06:32:00.000-07:00

These reports are meant to provide a reliable and understandable introduction to climate change. They cover climate science and impacts, technological solutions, business solutions, international action, recent action in the U.S. states, and action taken by local governments. The overview serves as a summary and introduction to the series.

NEW Installments to Climate Change 101 Series:

Climate Change 101: Adaptation

Climate Change 101: Cap and Trade

http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/Climate101-FULL_121406_065519.pdf

Global Warming - REDUCE YOUR IMPACT AT HOME

2008-11-01T06:25:00.001-07:00

Most emissions from homes are from the fossil fuels burned to generate electricity and heat. By using energy more efficiently at home, you can reduce your emissions and lower your energy bills by more than 30%.
In addition, since agriculture is responsible for about a fifth of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, you can reduce your emissions simply by watching what you eat.
Here's how:
Replace a regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb (cfl)
CFLs use 60% less energy than a regular bulb. This simple switch will save about 300 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. If every family in the U.S. made the switch, we'd reduce carbon dioxide by more than 90 billion pounds! You can purchase CFLs online from the Energy Federation.

#
Move your thermostat down 2° in winter and up 2° in summer
Almost half of the energy we use in our homes goes to heating and cooling. You could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year with this simple adjustment. The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy has more tips for saving energy on heating and cooling.

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Clean or replace filters on your furnace and air conditioner
Cleaning a dirty air filter can save 350 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

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Install a programmable thermostat
Programmable thermostats will automatically lower the heat or air conditioning at night and raise them again in the morning. They can save you $100 a year on your energy bill.

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Choose energy efficient appliances when making new purchases
Look for the Energy Star label on new appliances to choose the most efficient models. If each household in the U.S. replaced its existing appliances with the most efficient models available, we’d eliminate 175 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year!

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Wrap your water heater in an insulation blanket
You’ll save 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year with this simple action. You can save another 550 pounds per year by setting the thermostat no higher than 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

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Use less hot water
It takes a lot of energy to heat water. You can use less hot water by installing a low flow showerhead (350 pounds of carbon dioxide saved per year) and washing your clothes in cold or warm water (500 pounds saved per year) instead of hot.

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Use a clothesline instead of a dryer whenever possible
You can save 700 pounds of carbon dioxide when you air dry your clothes for 6 months out of the year.

Turn off electronic devices you're not using
Simply turning off your television, DVD player, stereo, and computer when you're not using them will save you thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

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Unplug electronics from the wall when you're not using them
Even when turned off, things like hairdryers, cell phone chargers and televisions use energy. In fact, the energy used to keep display clocks lit and memory chips working accounts for 5 percent of total domestic energy consumption and spews 18 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year!

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Only run your dishwasher when there's a full load and use the energy-saving setting
You can save 100 pounds of carbon dioxide per year.

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Insulate and weatherize your home
Properly insulating your walls and ceilings can save 25% of your home heating bill and 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Caulking and weather-stripping can save another 1,700 pounds per year. The Consumer Federation of America has more information on how to better insulate your home.

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Be sure you're recycling at home
You can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide a year by recycling half of the waste your household generates. Earth 911 can help you find recycling resources in your area.

Buy recycled paper products
It takes less 70 to 90% less energy to make recycled paper and it prevents the loss of forests worldwide.

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Get a home energy audit
Many utilities offer free home energy audits to find where your home is poorly insulated or energy inefficient. You can save up to 30% off your energy bill and 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Energy Star can help you find an energy specialist.

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Switch to green power
You can purchase renewable energy from your local energy provider. Find out what renewable energy programs your local energy provider offers by clicking here. Or install renewable energy products, like wind generation and solar water heating, in your own home.

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Buy locally grown and produced foods
The average meal in the United States travels 1,200 miles from the farm to your plate. Buying locally will save fuel and keep money in your community.

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Buy fresh foods instead of frozen
Frozen food uses 10 times more energy to produce.

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Seek out and support local farmers markets
They reduce the amount of energy required to grow and transport the food to you by one fifth. You can find a farmer's market in your area at the USDA website.

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Buy organic foods as much as possible
Organic soils capture and store carbon dioxide at much higher levels than soils from conventional farms. If we grew all of our corn and soybeans organically, we'd remove 580 billion pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere!

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Avoid heavily packaged products
You can save 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide if you cut down your garbage by 10%.

Global Warming - The facts as we know

2008-11-01T06:13:00.000-07:00

* The Earth has experienced many cycles of warming and cooling periods throughout its history as proven by the many ice ages.
* Global temperature variations is a factor of the Sun and our atomosphere and the rotation of the Earth and the Moon and the complex ecosystem that exist on Earth.
* There has been measurable changes in global temperature and weather due to natural catastrophies such as volcanic eruptions and meteor bombarding the earth.
* Even a Solar eclipse can change the temperature briefly on Earth.
* Burning fossil fuel adds CO2 to the atomosphere.
* Currently, in recent years, we are experiencing a warming trend in our global temperature though the actual amount is somewhat unclear and some scientist debate the causes.

Climate Change Poses Risks

2008-10-24T07:54:00.000-07:00

Climate change poses risks to insurers as economic losses from weather-related disasters have risen 2 percent a year since 1970. Insurers, though, can turn global warming to their advantage, Zurich Financial Services AG said.
Warming weather raises flood dangers and the frequency and severity of catastrophes such as hurricanes, Zurich's Australian unit said today in a report. Rather than drop coverage of those at risk, insurance companies should help clients adapt, it said.
Insurers able to boost customer resilience to climate-change hazards may see ``reductions to property damage and insured losses while sustaining and even enhancing premium income,'' Zurich Australia Chief Executive Officer David Smith said in a statement.

The $4 trillion insurance industry is ``society's shock absorber for risk,'' the Zurich-based company said, with profitability a vital part of the health of the world's economy.

``2008 will be remembered as the year the global economy and markets had a roller-coaster ride,'' Smith said. ``But this does not make the issues of climate change redundant. If anything, it emphasizes that insurers need to factor the impact of climate change into their bottom line alongside the issues of the global economic meltdown.''

Insurers could benefit from entering new markets, such as providing coverage for projects that generate carbon credits, or permits to emit greenhouse gases, Zurich's report said.

Insurers should also reward clients who slash their greenhouse gas emissions and make buildings more resilient to storm damage, Switzerland's largest insurance company said. They can also sell climate risk-modeling services to generate more income, it said.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

2008-10-24T07:53:00.001-07:00

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN body charged with assessing the scientific record on global warming, recently concluded that the evidence that the climate is warming is "unequivocal."

This warming has local, regional and global effects. The impacts of global warming in Arizona are likely to include less available drinking water due to increased evaporation and changing weather patterns; an increase in heat waves and extreme high-temperature days resulting in an increased risk of heat related illness and death; more fuel for wildfires during hotter drier summers; and a decline in the number of farmed acres and other adverse affects on Arizona's agricultural economy.

Most global warming pollution comes from burning oil, coal and natural gas to fuel cars, cool and heat homes, and power businesses. Reducing our dependence on these polluting sources by using more home-grown renewable energy will allow Arizona to achieve a greater degree of energy independence.

Global warming chilled by economic woes

2008-10-24T07:51:00.000-07:00

The economic free fall gripping the nation may bring down one of the main environmental objectives: capping the greenhouse gases that are blamed for global warming.
Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate, and both presidential candidates, continue to rank tackling global warming as a chief goal next year. But the focus on stabilizing the economy probably will make it more difficult to pass a law to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. At the very least, it will push back when the reductions would have to start.
As one Republican senator put it, the green bubble has burst.

Clearly it is somewhere down the totem pole given the economic realities we are facing," said Tom Williams, a spokesman for Duke Energy Corp., an electricity producer that has supported federal mandates on greenhouse gases. Duke is a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, an association of businesses and nonprofit groups that has lobbied Congress to act.

Just months ago, chances for legislation passing in the next Congress and becoming law looked promising. The presidential candidates support mandatory cuts and a Democratic majority is ready to act on the problem after years of the Bush administration's resisting federal controls.

But the most popular remedy for slowing global warming, a mechanism know as cap-and-trade, could put further stress on a teetering economy.

Under such a system, the government would establish a market for carbon dioxide by giving or selling credits to companies with operations that emit greenhouse gases. The companies can then choose whether to invest in technologies to reduce emissions to meet targets or instead buy credits from other companies who have already met them.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., said that in light of the economic downturn, a bill that would give polluters permits free of charge would be preferable.

"The first way we can control program costs is by not charging industrial emitters," said Boucher, who released a first draft of a bill this past week with the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. Giving away right-to-pollute permits was one of the options.

Other Democrats, however, see a cap-and-trade bill — and the government revenues it would generate from selling permits — as an engine for economic growth. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama supports auctioning off all permits, using the money to help fund alternative energy.

"If you see this as a job creation opportunity for the U.S. to develop the products that are then sold around the world, then you should be optimistic about what the impact of passage would mean for the American economy," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass.

Conservative Republicans who were never fans of a law to curb greenhouse gases have used the economic downturn as a rallying cry.

Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, the senior Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, in a blog entry this month criticized 152 House members for releasing a set of principles to tackle global warming in the midst of the economic turmoil.

"The current economic crisis only reinforces the public's wariness about any climate bill that attempts to increase the costs of energy and jeopardizes jobs," Inhofe said.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, took the argument a step further when he said the Boucher-Dingell bill could lead the country "off the economic cliff."

But even supporters of federal regulation of greenhouse gases acknowledge that something has to give given the state of the economy.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., a lead sponsor of a Senate bill to curb greenhouse gases that failed this year, acknowledged that the economy could delay when reductions in carbon dioxide would start.

Warner told the AP that any bill should allow the president to decide.

"We must continue to think and devise a piece of legislation that will enable the president of the United States to control timing ... dependent on the president's analysis for the ability of the economy to assume the financial burdens," he said.

The U.S. is not alone. As the economic crisis has spread to markets across the globe, work to curb greenhouse gases elsewhere has stalled.

Earlier this past week, Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N. climate panel, said discussions about global warming solutions were "on the back burner." Pachauri shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore for their work on climate change.

"I'm absolutely sure that climate change will be the last thing people will think about at this point in time," he said. "Sooner or later, they will come back to it."

The upside is that in hard economic times, and with high energy prices, the amount of pollution in the air tends to decline.

That will slow global warming somewhat, but there are already enough heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere to cause the temperature to rise.

"I really wish that the science of global warming would look at the newspaper, and say we have an economic crisis so the Earth will stop warming," said Dave Hamilton, director of the Sierra Club's global warming and energy program. "But that is not going to happen."

Global warming can lead to temporary global cooling

2008-10-24T07:42:00.000-07:00

What is perfectly clear is that the hysteria of the 70's was rubbish and it's more than likely that the hysteria of the 21st century is equally flawed. There are simply too many factors in the equation. The advocates of the 'sky is falling' pick and choose the details that make their point. The advocates of 'it's not happening at all' also pick and choose their facts. If anyone actually looked at this with intellectual honesty and without the rose colored glasses of huge profits and billions of tax dollars available for those on the winning side, they would see that we know nothing about the future.
There are those who say that even if we are not sure -- we must do something, anything. This is an illogical thought process. If you had a stomach ache would you prefer your doctor remove your appendix in order to do something or would you prefer he actually figure out what the problem is first? Perhaps the problem is a natural one that will subside, without intervention. Doing something when you have no real facts is just as likely to make the situation worse as better.
After all, they rarely get tomorrow's forecast correct! -- Can anyone really believe that they have the next 100 years' weather forecast, for the entire planet, figured out? Unfortunately, many are falling for it.

Direct effects of temperature rise

2008-10-12T00:59:00.002-07:00

The most direct effect of climate change would be the impacts of hotter temperatures themselves. Extreme high temperatures increase the number of people who die on a given day for many reasons: people with heart problems are vulnerable because one's cardiovascular system must work harder to keep the body cool during hot weather, heat exhaustion, and some respiratory problems increase. Global warming could mean more cardiovascular diseases, doctors warn. Higher air temperature also increase the concentration of ozone at ground level. In the lower atmosphere, ozone is a harmful pollutant. It damages lung tissues and causes problems for people with asthma and other lung diseases.

Rising temperatures have two opposing direct effects on mortality: higher temperatures in winter reduce deaths from cold; higher temperatures in summer increase heat-related deaths.

The distribution of these changes obviously differs. Palutikof et al calculate that in England and Wales for a 1 °C temperature rise the reduced deaths from cold outweigh the increased deaths from heat, resulting in a reduction in annual average mortality of 7000. The European heat wave of 2003 killed 22,000–35,000 people, based on normal mortality rates. Peter A. Stott from the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research estimated with 90% confidence that past human influence on climate was responsible for at least half the risk of the 2003 European summer heat-wave. In the United States, more than 1000 people die from the cold each year, while twice that number die from the heat. The 2006 United States heat wave has killed 139 people in California as of 29 July 2006. Deaths of livestock have not been well-documented. Fresno, in the central California valley, had six consecutive days of 110 degree-plus Fahrenheit temperatures.

Extreme weather

2008-10-12T00:59:00.000-07:00

Storm strength leading to extreme weather is increasing, such as the power dissipation index of hurricane intensity. Kerry Emanuel writes that hurricane power dissipation is highly correlated with temperature, reflecting global warming. Hurricane modeling has produced similar results, finding that hurricanes, simulated under warmer, high-CO2 conditions, are more intense; there is less confidence in projections of a global decrease in numbers of hurricanes. Worldwide, the proportion of hurricanes reaching categories 4 or 5 – with wind speeds above 56 metres per second – has risen from 20% in the 1970s to 35% in the 1990s. Precipitation hitting the US from hurricanes increased by 7% over the twentieth century. The extent to which this is due to global warming as opposed to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation is unclear. Some studies have found that the increase in sea surface temperature may be offset by an increase in wind shear, leading to little or no change in hurricane activity.

Catastrophes resulting from extreme weather are exacerbated by increasing population densities. The World Meteorological Organization and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have linked increasing extreme weather events to global warming, as have Hoyos et al., writing that the increasing number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes is

directly linked to increasing temperatures. Thomas Knutson and Robert E. Tuleya of NOAA stated in 2004 that warming induced by greenhouse gas may lead to increasing occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms. Vecchi and Soden find that wind shear, the increase of which acts to inhibit tropical cyclones, also changes in model-projections of global warming. There are projected increases of wind shear in the tropical Atlantic and East Pacific associated with the deceleration of the Walker circulation, as well as decreases of wind shear in the western and central Pacific. The study does not make claims about the net effect on Atlantic and East Pacific hurricanes of the warming and moistening atmospheres, and the model-projected increases in Atlantic wind shear.

A substantially higher risk of extreme weather does not necessarily mean a noticeably greater risk of slightly-above-average weather. However, the evidence is clear that severe weather and moderate rainfall are also increasing. Increases in temperature are expected to produce more intense convection over land and a higher frequency of the most severe storms.

Stephen Mwakifwamba, national co-ordinator of the Centre for Energy, Environment, Science and Technology - which prepared the Tanzanian government's climate change report to the UN - says that change is happening in Tanzania right now. "In the past, we had a drought about every 10 years", he says. "Now we just don't know when they will come. They are more frequent, but then so are floods. The climate is far less predictable. We might have floods in May or droughts every three years. Upland areas, which were never affected by mosquitoes, now are. Water levels are decreasing every day. The rains come at the wrong time for farmers and it is leading to many problems".

Greg Holland, director of the Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology Division at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, said on April 24, 2006, "The hurricanes we are seeing are indeed a direct result of climate change," and that the wind and warmer water conditions that fuel storms when they form in the Caribbean are, "increasingly due to greenhouse gases. There seems to be no other conclusion you can logically draw." Holland said, "The large bulk of the scientific community say what we are seeing now is linked directly to greenhouse gases." (See also "Global warming?" in tropical cyclone)

Ecological productivity

2008-10-12T00:21:00.000-07:00

Increasing average temperature and carbon dioxide may have the effect of improving ecosystems' productivity. In photorespiration, carbon dioxide that oxygen can enter a plant's chloroplasts and take the place of carbon dioxide in the Calvin cycle. This causes the sugars being made to be destroyed, suppressing growth. Higher carbon dioxide concentrations tend to reduce photorespiration. Satellite data shows that the productivity of the northern hemisphere has increased since 1982 (although attribution of this increase to a specific cause is difficult).

IPCC models predict that higher CO2 concentrations would only spur growth of flora up to a point, because in many regions the limiting factors are water or nutrients, not temperature or CO2; after that, greenhouse effects and warming would continue but there would be no compensatory increase in growth.

Research done by the Swiss Canopy Crane Project suggests that slow-growing trees only are stimulated in growth for a short period under higher CO2 levels, while faster growing plants like liana benefit in the long term. In general, but especially in rain forests, this means that liana become the prevalent species; and because they decompose much faster than trees their carbon content is more quickly returned to the atmosphere. Slow growing trees incorporate atmospheric carbon for decades.

Glacier retreat and disappearance

2008-10-12T00:19:00.000-07:00

In historic times, glaciers grew during a cool period from about 1550 to 1850 known as the Little Ice Age. Subsequently, until about 1940, glaciers around the world retreated as the climate warmed. Glacier retreat declined and reversed in many cases from 1950 to 1980 as a slight global cooling occurred. Since 1980, glacier retreat has become increasingly rapid and ubiquitous, and has threatened the existence of many of the glaciers of the world. This process has increased markedly since 1995.

Excluding the ice caps and ice sheets of the Arctic and Antarctic, the total surface area of glaciers worldwide has decreased by 50% since the end of the 19th century . Currently glacier retreat rates and mass balance losses have been increasing in the Andes, Alps, Himalayas, Rocky Mountains and North Cascades.

The loss of glaciers not only directly causes landslides, flash floods and glacial lake overflow, but also increases annual variation in water flows in rivers. Glacier runoff declines in the summer as glaciers decrease in size, this decline is already observable in several regions . Glaciers retain water on mountains in high precipitation years, since the snow cover accumulating on glaciers protects the ice from melting. In warmer and drier years, glaciers offset the lower precipitation amounts with a higher meltwater input .

Of particular importance are the Hindu Kush and Himalayan glacial melts that comprise the principal dry-season water source of many of the major rivers of the South, East and Southeast Asian mainland. Increased melting would cause greater flow for several decades, after which "some areas of the most populated regions on Earth are likely to 'run out of water'" as source glaciers are depleted.

According to a UN climate report, the Himalayan glaciers that are the sources of Asia's biggest rivers - Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween and Yellow - could disappear by 2035 as temperatures rise. Approximately 2.4 billion people live in the drainage basin of the Himalayan rivers. India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar could experience floods followed by droughts in coming decades. In India alone, the Ganges provides water for drinking and farming for more than 500 million people.

The recession of mountain glaciers, notably in Western North America, Franz-Josef Land, Asia, the Alps, Indonesia and Africa, and tropical and sub-tropical regions of South America, has been used to provide qualitative support to the rise in global temperatures since the late 19th century. Many glaciers are being lost to melting further raising concerns about future local water resources in these glacierized areas. The Lewis Glacier, North Cascades pictured at right after melting away in 1990 is one of the 47 North Cascade glaciers observed and all are retreating .

Despite their proximity and importance to human populations, the mountain and valley glaciers of temperate latitudes amount to a small fraction of glacial ice on the earth. About 99% is in the great ice sheets of polar and subpolar Antarctica and Greenland. These continuous continental-scale ice sheets, 3 km (1.8 miles) or more in thickness, cap the polar and subpolar land masses. Like rivers flowing from an enormous lake, numerous outlet glaciers transport ice from the margins of the ice sheet to the ocean.
Retreat of the Helheim Glacier, Greenland
Retreat of the Helheim Glacier, Greenland

Glacier retreat has been observed in these outlet glaciers, resulting in an increase of the ice flow rate. In Greenland the period since the year 2000 has brought retreat to several very large glaciers that had long been stable. Three glaciers that have been researched, Helheim, Jakobshavns and Kangerdlugssuaq Glaciers, jointly drain more than 16% of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Satellite images and aerial photographs from the 1950s and 1970s show that the front of the glacier had remained in the same place for decades. But in 2001 it began retreating rapidly, retreating 7.2 km (4.5 miles) between 2001 and 2005. It has also accelerated from 20 m (65 ft)/day to 32 m (104 ft)/day. Jakobshavn Isbræ in west Greenland is generally considered the fastest moving glacier in the world. It had been moving continuously at speeds of over 24 m (78 ft)/day with a stable terminus since at least 1950. The glacier's ice tongue began to break apart in 2000, leading to almost complete disintegration in 2003, while the retreat rate doubled to over 30 m (98 ft)/day.

Glacier retreat and acceleration is also apparent on two important outlet glaciers of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Pine Island Glacier, which flows into the Amundsen Sea thinned 3.5 ± 0.9 m (11.5 ± 3 ft) per year and retreated five kilometers (3.1 miles) in 3.8 years. The terminus of the glacier is a floating ice shelf and the point at which it is afloat is retreating 1.2 km/year. This glacier drains a substantial portion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and has been referred to as the weak underbelly of this ice sheet. This same pattern of thinning is evident on the neighboring Thwaites Glacier cliff.

Oceans

The role of the oceans in global warming is a complex one. The oceans serve as a sink for carbon dioxide, taking up much that would otherwise remain in the atmosphere, but increased levels of CO2 have led to ocean acidification. Furthermore, as the temperature of the oceans increases, they become less able to absorb excess CO2. Global warming is projected to have a number of effects on the oceans. Ongoing effects include rising sea levels due to thermal expansion and melting of glaciers and ice sheets, and warming of the ocean surface, leading to increased temperature stratification. Other possible effects include large-scale changes in ocean circulation.

Global warming harbinger

2008-09-21T03:37:00.000-07:00

Indian Ocean
Includes Seychelles; Kenya; Reunion; Mauritius; Somalia; Madagascar; Maldives; Indonesia; Sri Lanka; Gulf of Thailand (Siam); Andaman Islands; Malaysia; Oman; India; and Cambodia.
The information for all the coral reef bleaching hotspots comes from maps and text from each of the following four sources combined:
ISRS, 1998. ISRS statement on global coral bleaching in 1997-98. International Society for Reef Studies. http://www.uncwil.edu/isrs/

NOAA, 1999. NOAA/NESDIS 1998 Coral Bleaching Hotspots. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration http://psbsgi1.nesdis.noaa.gov:8080/
PSB/EPS/SST/retro.html
Wilkinson C, Linden O, Cesar H, Hodgson G, Rubens J, Strong AE (1999). Ecological and socioeconomic impacts of 1998 coral mortality in the Indian Ocean: An ENSO impact and a warning of future change? Ambio 28, 188-196.
World Conservation Monitoring Centre, 1998. The 1998 Global Coral Bleaching Incident. 4 December 1998. http://www.wcmc.org.uk/
latenews/bleaching.htm
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Melting permafrost - Siberia Global Warming

2008-09-21T03:36:00.000-07:00

Large expanses of tundra permafrost are melting. In some regions the rate of thawing of the upper ground is nearly 8 inches (20 cm) per year. Thawing permafrost has already damaged 300 buildings in the cities of Norilsk and Yakutsk. In Yakutsk, the average temperature of the permanently frozen ground has warmed by 2.7 �F (1.5�C) during the past 30 years.

Link between stronger El Nino events and cholera prevalence

2008-09-21T03:34:00.001-07:00

Bangladesh Global warming.
Researchers found a robust relationship between progressively stronger El Ni�o events and cholera prevalence, spanning a 70-year period from 1893-1940 and 1980-2001. There has been a marked intensification of the El Ni�o/Southern Oscillation phenomenon since the 1980s, which is not fully explained by the known shifts in the Pacific basin temperature regime that began in the mid-1970s. Findings by Rodo et al. are consistent with model projections of El Ni�o intensification under global warming conditions. The authors make a strong case for the climate-health link by providing evidence for biological sensitivity to climate, meteorological evidence of climate change, and evidence of epidemiological change with global warming. The study likely represents the first piece of evidence that warming trends over the last century are affecting human disease.

Burning rainforest, 1998 in Indonesia

2008-09-21T02:07:00.000-07:00

Fires burned up to 2 million acres (809,371 hectares) of land, including almost 250,000 acres (101,172 hectares) of primary forest and parts of the already severely reduced habitat of the Kalimantan orangutan.

Global warming action

2008-09-15T07:06:00.000-07:00

We support a strong global warming action plan for Maine that includes, but is not limited to, the following policies and principles:
1) Policies to adopt stronger emissions standards for cars that are made available for sale in the state of Maine.

2) Policies that promote the development of new, appropriately sited new renewable power generation in the state of Maine, with a special focus on wind and solar generation.

3) Policies that promote energy efficiency, including support for programs that help reduce demand, and policies that promote systemic improvement in energy efficiency throughout all sectors of Maine’s economy and society.

4) That the plan, when fully enacted, will meet the emissions targets set forth by legislation in 2003, and that every effort will be made to ensure that those targets are upheld.

Global warming controversy

2008-09-13T07:02:00.000-07:00

The officials came from both sides of global warming controversy's fault lines from countries that have signed the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to counter global warming by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, and those that reject it, including the United States.

The dispute over Kyoto has been marked with sharp criticisms from both factions but the participants in this week's meetings and inspection trips appeared unified in agreeing that the time for such hot rhetoric was past.

"We have to act, we cannot afford inaction," said Connie Hedegaard, the environment minister of Denmark, of which Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory.

She told a news conference that the officials' discussions were "open and free," but the contents of the discussion were kept confidential. US envoy Harlan Watson did not appear at the news conference and was unavailable for comment.

Negative effects of climate change

2008-09-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

Recognizing that the state has a moral and practical imperative to reverse our contribution to global warming, Speaker Fabian Núñez and then-Assemblymember Fran Pavley authored a landmark climate change bill, Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.
AB 32 will reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020. That's a 25 percent reduction. And by 2050, we will reduce emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels.

AB 32 authorizes the use of regulatory approaches and allows for the potential use of market mechanisms in reducing greenhouse gas emissions -- including banking, borrowing, cap and trade, and auctions.

Under the direction of the state’s top air agency, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the state is required to study these approaches and make recommendations on which combination of regulation and market approaches works best.

In 2008, CARB will begin a mandatory program that will require industries to begin reporting their emissions of carbon dioxide. They will also establish a cap on greenhouse gas emissions.

Industrial Revolution & Global Warming

2008-09-11T06:59:00.000-07:00

Since the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1800s, humans have been so preoccupied with improving their living conditions that they have been callously plundering the natural resources of this planet without a single thought of the consequences for the natural environment, diverse co-inhabitants, or the whole fragile ecosystem of the Earth. As civilizations become more complex, sophisticated, and technologically advanced, science has enabled humanity to understand that their precious surroundings are based on the equilibrium of interconnected ecosystems. If one ecosystem falters, it would instantaneously prompt the collapses of other ecosystems.

Common sense tells us as the human population grows and the use of fossil fuels soars around the world — we must plant more trees to absorb superfluous carbon dioxide in the air. Instead, deforestation has been the routine of some companies that aggressively pursue profits at all cost. Evidently, some self-serving political leaders, supported by profit-driven corporations, seem indifferent or reluctant to implement effective measures against the ongoing destruction of our environment.

Trapped greenhouse gasses

2008-09-10T06:53:00.000-07:00

Global warming is caused by the excessive amount of trapped greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Human activities have been blamed for 95% of global warming — 75% of annual CO2 emissions from burning of fossil fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas) and 20% from cutting and burning of forests (trees trap and store carbon).

The scientists claimed in just 10 years’ time the Earth’s temperature will rise by 2°C above the average Earth's temperature, a tipping point-of-no-return. The consequences of such an increase could lead to widespread water shortages and major droughts, agricultural failures, loss of forests, epidemic diseases, and rising sea level. The ultimate climax would be the melting of the polar caps, triggering the cooling effect throughout the globe to advance the onslaught of another ice age. After earlier warnings have turned into realities, why would anyone doubt the scientific conclusions now?

Problem of global warming

2008-09-09T06:45:00.000-07:00

Global warming is the most urgent challenge of our time and has the potential to negatively reshape our world if we do not take action. The vast majority of scientists now say that we only have a brief window of opportunity to address the problem of global warming--a decade at most--before it becomes too late to reverse the worst effects.

To solve this problem, we must begin to immediately reduce global warming pollution emissions.

Your support for the "Principles for Global Warming Legislation" will help shape this critically important debate and ensure that the House of Representatives develops strong and effective legislation that will achieve the necessary global warming pollution reductions, promote greater investment in clean and renewable energy, improve efficiency, and protect our environment and the people who depend upon it.

The largest global warming villain

2008-09-09T06:41:00.000-07:00

The United States is obviously the largest global warming villain on earth--it's pumped more carbon into the atmosphere, for a longer stretch of time, than anyone else, and under President Bush the U.S. has refused to enter into serious negotiations with the rest of the planet. But every once in a while something comes along that gives you a little hope,

and this week there were two:

In the western state of Colorado--a bastion of mining interests--the big electric utility Xcel announced it would shut down down two coal-fired power plants in the state and in their place build one of the world's largest utility-scale solar power plants.

Global warming & pollution

2008-09-08T06:38:00.000-07:00

Global warming is caused by a blanket of pollution that traps heat around the earth. This pollution comes from cars, factories, homes, and power plants that burn fossil fuels such as oil, coal, and gasoline.

NRCM works hard for policies and initiatives that will provide clean, renewable energy that will reduce the world’s global warming pollution, starting right here in Maine.

Greenhouse warming

2008-09-08T06:29:00.000-07:00

This lack of evidence for greenhouse warming has not been generally appreciated. Historic temperature records from ground stations around the globe do show a warming between 1900 and 1940-- but before CO2 built up in the atmosphere--followed by a slight cooling until about 1975, at which time a sudden short-lived warming set in. None of these variations are in accord with the

computer models which have been used to support predictions of a catastrophic future warming. Moreover, contrary to theories and calculations about the atmospheric greenhouse effect, global temperature measurements of high accuracy taken from weather satellites since 1979 have shown no long-term increasing trends whatsoever.

National Action Plan

2008-09-07T06:27:00.000-07:00

The White House announced its long-delayed National Action Plan last October, referred to more modestly as the Climate Change Action Plan. For radical environmentalists, it was a big disap- pointment; they had expected the Clinton administration to propose tough mandatory measures to limit CO2 emissions. What they got instead were the same old cliches about global warming

as the "greatest threat facing mankind," coupled with a vaguely worded voluntary program which likely will not achieve the goals set by the Treaty. Worse--in their view--the U.S. plan established a precedent for the other signatory nations; they need not feel compelled to exceed the "green" standard set by the United States

Proposed for mitigation of global warming

2008-09-06T06:23:00.000-07:00

Proposed for mitigation of global warming include:
# development of new technologies
# carbon offsets and carbon taxes
# renewable energy such as biodiesel, wind power, solar power and nuclear power
# electric or hybrid automobiles

# energy conservation
# improving natural carbon dioxide sinks
# deliberate large-scale production of sulfate aerosols (which produce a cooling effect on the Earth)
# population control
# nanotechnology

New Global science and technology

2008-09-06T06:20:00.000-07:00

On February 9th, 2007, Sir Richard Branson and Al Gore announced the setting up of a new Global science and technology prize, "The Virgin Earth Challenge". This is a prize of $25million for whoever can demonstrate to the judges' satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases each year for at least ten years without countervailing harmful effects. This removal must have long term effects and contribute materially to the stability of the Earth's climate.

Climate changing

2008-09-05T03:15:00.000-07:00

Our climate has been constantly changing since the Earth began, with periods of global warming and global cooling long before human beings (and their various activities) came on the scene. Although modern weather measurements and tools go back only 100 to 150 years,

scientists are able to deduce long-term regional temperature trends as well as changes in the atmosphere's chemical makeup by examining natural indicators or "proxies" (including ocean and lake sediments, ice cores, fossils, tree rings, and corals) and by using numerical models run on sophisticated computer software, to estimate and trace the ebb and flow of the Earth's climate over hundreds and even thousands of years. The Earth has experienced natural global warming and cooling many times in the past and this can offer useful insights into present processes.

The global temperature

2008-09-05T02:10:00.000-07:00

Today our world is hotter than it has been in two thousand years. By the end of the century, if current trends continue, the global temperature will likely climb higher than it has at any time in the past two million years. While the end of the 20th century may not necessarily

be the warmest time in Earth's history, what is unique is that the warmth is global and cannot be explained by the natural mechanisms that explain previous warm periods. There is a broad scientific consensus that humanity is in large part responsible for this change, and that choices we make today will decide the climate of the future.

But to understand what scientists, politicians and others mean when they speak of "climate change" and "global warming", we need to know some basic background information on how the earth maintains a climate in the first place and what natural processes are at work, which affect the earth's temperature.

Reduce global warming pollution

2008-09-04T07:04:00.000-07:00

We need to reduce global warming pollution in the region, yet it continues to rise. We hope this report card inspires the states to increase its commitment, and helps states to learn from each other’s achievements,” said Tracy Allen, of Environment Maine, another contributor to the report.

The report finds that Maine has taken several positive steps, particularly in the electricity sector and in the actions state government has taken to “Lead by Example.” But Maine is failing to address emissions from transportation. The report cites progress including:

* Passage of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multi-state cap on global warming emissions from power plants;
* Progress on wind power development;
* A new law that requires additional clean energy resources;
* A Governor’s Task Force on Wind Power;
* A public education effort at the Public Utilities Commission.

Largest contributor to global warming

2008-09-04T02:08:00.000-07:00

The largest contributor to global warming is electricity generation -- 33 percent – followed by transportation -- 28 percent. These two sectors combine to make up 61 percent of the problem.
The remaining contributors are:
* Industry – 20 percent
* Agriculture – 7 percent
* Commercial – 6.5 percent
* Residential – 6.5 percent

Let me be clear: there is no silver bullet. There is no one thing that we can do to solve the problem. Every business, home, and industry must do its share. So what can be done?

Let me begin with electricity generation. This is the single largest piece of the global warming puzzle --responsible for 33 percent of global warming gases in the United States . And the biggest culprit here is pulverized coal, which is the major source of energy in 40 of the 50 states.

Coal, alone, produces 27 percent of annual carbon dioxide emissions, or 2.1 billion tons every year.

Globally, coal produces 9.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year – or one-third of all global greenhouse gas emissions. So it’s critical that we find ways to clean up coal.

Earlier this year, the Senate Energy Committee held a symposium on global warming. The consensus was that a mandatory cap-and-trade program would be the most effective way forward. And so we are working to create such a program.

Earth warmed

2008-09-04T00:34:00.000-07:00

The Earth has warmed 1 degree in the past century, and we are now seeing the dramatic effects:
* Oceans are rising; coral reefs are dying; species are disappearing; glaciers are melting.

We learned just last week that Greenland is now losing 20% more mass than it receives from new snowfall each year. And it will shrink further as the planet warms.

* Extreme weather patterns have emerged – heat waves, droughts, hurricanes, floods – and they are occurring with greater frequency and greater intensity.

* In 2003, heat waves caused 20,000 deaths in Europe and 1,500 deaths in India.

* And the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has doubled since the 1970’s. Katrina alone is testament to that.

Global warming and energy

2008-08-31T23:27:00.000-07:00

Global warming and energy independence are on the agenda of a town hall meeting in Portland Thursday night. Oregon State Representatives Jackie Dingfelder and Ben Cannon are going to discuss the issue at the Portland Community College.
Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer will also attend the town hall meeting. He says Oregon will face great difficulties from the effects of global warming.
Earl Blumenauer: “We will be challenged because we will lose snow pack that we rely upon for energy and water, it will change our agricultural patterns and it’s going to make a much different situation in terms of storm events.“
Blumenauer says there are also great opportunities for Oregon in the fight against global warming.
He says new technologies such as wind energy could create tens of thousands of jobs in the state.

Global warming alarm

2008-08-31T23:20:00.000-07:00

Witnesses testifying Thursday at a field hearing of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee said effects of the controversial environmental phenomenon are being felt right now in Rhode Island and particularly in Narragansett Bay.
According to those witnesses, the effects could have dire implications.
“We know for certain that Narragansett Bay is warmer on average and at the extremes than at any other time in recorded history,” said John Torgan, Narragansett Baykeeper for the environmental group Save the Bay. “Over the past 30 years, the average mean temperature of the bay has gone up two degrees Fahrenheit; the average winter temperature has increased four degrees.”
That may seem like a small hike, Torgan said, but “warmer temperatures have caused dramatic changes at many levels and most have a distinctly negative environmental and economic impact.
“The bay's animal and plant communities are fundamentally shifting; critical habitats are threatened; environmental quality and even public health and human life and property are jeopardized.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who chaired the hearing, warned that information questioning the existence of global warming or its connection to human activity “is part of an effort to fool people.” That effort entails labeling those who buy into global warming as “eccentric scientists or wacky environmentalists,” Whitehouse said.
Under the committee's rules, only invited individuals are allowed to speak, with no input from the public. When Whitehouse was asked after the session why no skeptics were invited to testify, the senator said he is not aware of any “climate change deniers” in Rhode Island.
He joked during the hearing that “Washington seems to be the high-water mark” for industry-based groups that he accused of trying to “sow doubt” about the phenomenon. “They are nervous about the changes necessary as we move to a green economy,” Whitehouse said.
“In this case, the science seems to be unequivocal,” the senator said. “We are not responding as a society to this threat as rapidly as we should.”
Rhode Island“has a lot to contribute to climate change solutions because of how far ahead we are in many respects because of the scientific expertise the state holds,” Whitehouse said. “That is coming on us with very, very serious and broad implications. It looks like it's worse than people thought, and the timeline for action is more urgent than many believe.”
On a beautiful summer day with the sun shining off the water at URI's Narragansett Bay campus, the panel of experts described a gloomy climatic outlook over the horizon.
Grover Fugate is executive director of the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council. He said all the data now being collected is lining up according to what was previously thought to be “worst case scenarios.
“Climate change is no longer debatable,” Fugate maintains, “and the rate at which it is occurring is unprecedented. The natural response is outpacing our ability to predict the change, which place all of us at a disadvantage that will have dire consequences unless we act quickly.”
Kate Moran, associate dean of URI's Graduate School of Oceanography, agreed.
“It is unequivocal that climate change is happening and human conduct is the cause,” Moran testified.
“Narragansett Bay is already seeing the effects of climate change. Sea level rise will occur, but we must monitor this closely because both the timing and magnitude are still uncertain. Water temperatures will continue to increase and impact the coastal and bay ecosystems. Hurricane and tropical storm trends have the potential to inflict great damage and, coupled with increased sea level, we should be taking a precautionary approach so that coastal communities become resilient to the possible impacts.”
“Climate change doesn't just affect coastal communities,” warned Caroly Shumway, director of conservation science for the Rhode Island chapter of The Nature Conservancy.
Shumway said people would “react more strongly to climate change if it had a face, was considered immoral and was understood as a present danger with local impact.”
She noted that by testifying at Thursday's hearing, she was carrying on a family tradition. Her grandfather, Roger Revelle, was a pioneer in climate change: Revelle was recruited by then-Congressman Al Gore to be the lead-off witness at the first congressional hearing on global warming.
Already convinced, Shumway said, Gore wrote in his book “An Inconvenient Truth” that “I really believed that my congressional colleagues on the committee would experience the same epiphany I had when they heard this great scientist's clear analysis. I couldn't have been more wrong. The urgency simply didn't come across ... I'd seriously underestimated the resistance – and disinterest – this alarming prognosis of global warming would meet.”
Afterward, Shumway said Thursday's hearing was important in “making a global problem a local one. People can see the specifics of how climate change affects their local economy and their local ecosystems.”
Climate change, she said, “is a great teaching moment, that can help us reach a turning point or a tipping point because climate change connects land, fresh water, the seas and us, and shows how all these things are connected. We tend to think that we are outside the box – that there is nature and there is us. But we are part of nature.”

Worried about GLOBAL WARMING

2008-08-30T23:17:00.000-07:00

Global warming is already having serious impacts on humans and the environment in many ways. An increase in global temperatures can in turn cause other changes, including a rising sea level and changes in the amount and pattern of precipitation. These changes may increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts, heat waves, hurricanes, and tornados.

Other consequences include higher or lower agricultural yields, glacial retreat, reduced summer stream flows, species extinctions and increased spread of disease. Warming is expected to affect the number and magnitude of these events; however, it is difficult to connect particular events to global warming.
Although most studies focus on the period up to 2100, warming (and sea level rise due to thermal expansion) is expected to continue past then, since CO2 has an estimated atmospheric lifetime of 50 to 200 years.
Many scientists are also concerned about feedback loops, where certain factors could lead to greatly increased rates of global warming. One example are tundra landscapes. As tundra melts, previously frozen plant matter can decay and release huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. As this warms the Earth, more tundra will melt and could lead to a feedback loop in global warming.

Climate change factors

2008-08-30T23:14:00.000-07:00

Variations within the Earth’s climate
The effect of glaciers
Variations in the oceans
The memory of climate

Carbon dioxide effects

2008-08-29T23:11:00.000-07:00

CO2 is poisonous to humans, but not at concentrations that we could ever create globally.
It forms carbonic acid when dissoved in water, which is making the oceans more acidic. This will eventually harm corals and other organisms at the base of the ocean food chain because their shells will dissolve. This consequence may be as serious as climate change, but isn't getting the same attention, in part because it is less controversial! (did you realize the more agreement there is among experts, the less you'll hear about it?)

Finally, carbon dioxide helps plants grow, but not necessarily the ones we want (one of the strongest beneficiaries is evidently poison ivy! This and other vines are taking over some forests). Also, the extra growth comes at the expense of lower nutritive value, so it isn't clear that this will be helpful from a food point of view.

About the hurricanes

2008-08-29T23:10:00.000-07:00

Most agree that warming must—other things being equal—slightly increase the maximum hurricane strengths, but that comes nowhere near explaining the recent near-doubling of Atlantic hurricane activity. Some of my colleagues argue that global warming is responsible, but the evidence is ambiguous and it's unexplainable by current theory, so I wouldn't sell your gulf coast property just yet. My guess is it'll be many more hurricane seasons before this is settled. [Update 6/08]: Two recent studies have cast further doubt on whether hurricane intensity or frequency increases will be all that severe.

the Climate Changing

2008-08-28T22:41:00.000-07:00

You may have decided, based on the limited evidence given in Section 1.0, that the climate is warming and that the increase in carbon dioxide is responsible. Or you may have decided that the climate is warming and we do not know why. Or you may think that just because the overall temperature increased by 2°F does not mean that there is a permanent warming of climate — seasonal variation is much greater than this, and it could get cooler again soon, in which case there would be no long-term warming.

For each choice, you could find scientists who would support your opinion. However, most scientists actually working on this subject would support the first conclusion. The reason is that the addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere must produce warming, a fact derived from our basic knowledge of physics. It is not some obscure hypothesis, but a physical principle that if you add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, this will increase the "greenhouse effect" and generate global warming in the lower atmosphere. The real debate then is about the amount of uncertainty on the magnitude that will result from this human-made warming (that is, the size of the "error bars" on the data), not the fact of global warming itself. In other words, we know that our addition of CO2 will cause global temperatures to go up; the question is how bad this warming will be and what its consequences will be.

Environmental issues

2008-08-28T22:34:00.000-07:00

Most discussions of environmental issues (including global warming) seem to implicitly contrast Nature (it) and Humanity (us), as if they weren’t all part of one single natural complexity, endlessly full of feedback loops. This probably all goes back to human bullheadedness: the belief that homo sapiens are somehow ‘affecting nature’, rather than just one more aspect of nature. Observing today’s world is like watching a bacterium colonizing a petri dish. The petri dish has a limited amount of nutrient, and the colony is doubling, doomed at some point to exceed its limit, and then collapse. BUT we don’t shout at the bacteria or encourage them to slow their rate of reproduction or expect them to ‘choose’ to do so. We expect humans to act diffferently than the bacterial colony, but if one simply observes the actions of humans, there’s no more reason to yell at them than to yell at the micoroorganisms. If feedback loops exist between

humans and their environment that preclude disaster (for humans, since life will continue with or without H. sapiens), change will occur. If such feedback loops do not exist, H. sapiens and their cultural artifiacts will disappear from Terra, to be succeeded by other life forms. Evolution will continue, with or without man, a very small part of the biotic fauna populating our world. AND even if any specific person or groups act in some pro- or anti- global warming manner, the ‘decisions’ of that person or group are simply swamped in the larger currents sweeping through time.

The Warming of Pacific Ocean

2008-08-27T22:32:00.000-07:00

One of things we have a very interesting record of is the changes in the number of anchovettes and sardines that are caught in the Pacific Ocean. And we have a record of these catches over a long period of time, like a hundred years, and we find that the abundance of the anchovies and the sardies fluctuates on cycles of around twenty-five years, and that those are very closely related to warming and cooling events. The warming events are favorable for a sardine regime, and the cooling more for an anchovette regime. So it’s a clear historical record showing the very tight correspondence between climate, productivity, and fisheries.

Thermohaline circulation

2008-08-26T22:31:00.000-07:00

Thermohaline circulation: This is the very slow global ocean current (with a fun name!) that, among other things, warms the northeast Atlantic and western Europe. There’s debate about how global warming will affect it; popular wisdom points to western Europe freezing.
Some of these disruptions are already directly observable, but many are still in the realm of complex modeling. The bottom line is that no one really knows what will happen to the oceans and the life they sustain; what’s clear is that change has already begun and that there’s no reversing it now, no matter what we do.

Fuel carbon content,

2008-08-26T22:10:00.000-07:00

Fuel carbon content, or the amount of
greenhouse gases emitted per gallon of
fuel consumed. Counting only the CO2
directly released when fuel is burned,
this factor amounts to 5.3 pounds of
carbon per gallon of gasoline.
These three factors combined result in
the 314 MMTc emitted by U.S. automobiles
in 2004.
Among these factors, only decreases
in fuel use rate (achieved by increasing
fuel economy) have served to partially
limit CO2 emissions. Fuel carbon content
has not significantly changed,
reflecting the tenacity of oil as a useful
resource and the barriers facing alternative
fuels. And many forces drive travel
demand, all of them serving to push
auto sector CO2 emissions upward.

Period of global warming

2008-08-25T22:02:00.000-07:00

During the last 150 years there has been another fairly sustained period of global warming amounting to an increase of about 0.7 degree Celsius. In spite of rhetoric to the contrary, the majority of this warming took place naturally before 1940. This warming trend was interrupted by a 35-year cooling period from 1940 to 1975. This caused many climatologists to actually predict that we were entering another ice age.8 At that time the public was obsessed with “global cooling.” Today, our obsession is “global warming.”

This review of the post–ice-age epoch shows that global warming is, in reality, both common and natural. In fact, for most of this period, the temperatures were much warmer than we see today. While our current level of industrial activity probably contributes to global warming to some degree, the increases that we have seen in the last 25 years are by no means unprecedented.

After viewing global warming from this alternative perspective, it is hard to justify the strong medicine prescribed by the Kyoto Protocol. Ironically, given the fact that the long-term climatic trend suggests global cooling, rather than global warming, our industrial/economic activity may actually serve to impede the natural cooling process. Under these circumstances, the environmental alarmists may want to adopt a new warning label: Enjoy the warm weather, while it lasts!

Covers global warming

2008-08-25T21:59:00.000-07:00

Europe's political leaders supposedly believe Bush is prepared to ignore the "conclusive" scientific evidence that mankind is cooking the planet with an enormous output of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide – that he prefers more economic growth at the expense of Mother Nature. As far as I can tell, Howard, the major media fell right in line with this baloney, your newspaper, the Washington Post, included.
I'll grant you that Bush has not helped much, by switching gears back and forth, expressing concern, then questioning the science, then opposing the Kyoto Treaty on the grounds that India and China are exempt from its provisions.

From my missives, you know I've believed for years and years that global warming is a hoax perpetrated on the political world by Malthusian Greenies whose hidden agenda is a smaller world population and falling standards of living. In a memo yesterday to your colleague at the Post, Ceci Connally, I ran the numbers again. If you had seen "The McLaughlin Group" Sunday, you would have seen Eleanor Clift reaching the conclusion that now everyone knows global warming is caused by mankind, just as everyone has always known that cigarette smoke causes cancer. Do you see how far things have gone?

It was clear to me last week that the New York Times, which has taken possession of this hoax from the beginning, was in the Eleanor Clift camp, when it made the National Academy of Sciences report its lead story on Page 1 and spun it so that there could be no doubt Bush was in the wrong. Where was the Times the following day when Frederick Seitz, the former president of the National Academy of Sciences, issued a press statement denouncing the report of the NAS "panel"?

Here is the statement of Dr. Seitz, who is also president emeritus of Rockefeller University and chairman of the Washington-based Marshall Institute and of the Science and Environmental Policy Project. When you finish reading it, I will append comments by Vice President Dick Cheney, made the following day at the National Press Club, which also went unreported by the Times – or any of the primary press corps! They must have been sleeping.

Global climate history

2008-08-24T21:57:00.000-07:00

Since global climate history reveals wide fluctuations over the earth’s life, it is important to choose an appropriate time frame for reference to allow for reasonable comparisons. Most climate models used by the IPCC cover the last 1,000 years of climate variation. However, most of the data are estimates because surface temperature data have been recorded for only about 150 years. And weather balloon readings have been collected for 30 years, while satellite readings span less than 20 years.

It turns out that greenhouse politics suffers from a tendency to exaggerate. Environmental activists use worst-case scenarios that reflect their own biases to raise funds to support their causes. Politicians have a vested interest in citizens’ believing in catastrophic scenarios that make it easier to levy new taxes, since guilt or uncertain risks make them more willing to surrender more of their income.

While the perceptions of the general public are influenced by these biases, rising incomes also lead to increased demand for higher environmental quality. Politicians and bureaucrats have tended to respond by imposing stricter environmental regulations, with violations receiving ever wider media coverage. In turn, there has been a misperception that environmental quality is worsening when it may actually be improving or perhaps remaining unchanged.

Even if global temperatures are rising, we do not really understand why. Neither do we know if nor how soon the worst-case scenarios might occur. Even their ultimate consequences remain uncertain.

Extreme Weather

2008-08-24T21:56:00.000-07:00

Extreme weather is making headlines. Record summer temperatures in Europe and a large number of heat-related deaths in India joined news about severe flooding in Bangladesh, China, and Sri Lanka. And an unusual number of tornados in the United States have been reported.
For its part the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) suggests that global warming is linked to these events. It also declared that extremes in weather and climate are setting new records and the number of such extreme events has been rising. (The Bush administration plans to spend $103 million to study global climate change.)
But these reports raise many questions. As the director of the WMO admitted, the results reflect the fact that monitoring and communication of weather conditions are better than ever before. It turns out that the only certainty is that reporting of extremes is more common, even if the extremes are not.

As it is, little attention is paid to the fact that some of the vulnerability to extreme weather arises from changing human population patterns. Over the years, foreign aid and emergency disaster relief encouraged the building of slums or suburban housing in flood plains. Similarly, air conditioning allows more people to live comfortably in areas subject to hurricanes and cyclones.

In its report, the WMO notes that global averages for land and sea surface temperatures in May are the second highest since records began in 1880. However, temperatures in the upper atmosphere were not reported. This is no slight oversight. For global warming to be truly global, atmospheric temperatures would also have to be rising. But there is no evidence that air temperatures have risen to match the reports of rising ground temperatures.

Consider the fact that surface temperatures have been increasingly recorded in urban areas or airports that have much more concrete and asphalt than they had even a few decades back. All other things constant, it would be surprising if temperatures taken in such “hot spots” did not increase.

Such alternative explanations tend to be ignored. And so it has become an article of faith that burning fossil fuels increases greenhouse gases (GHG) that lock in heat and cause global warming.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, scientific understanding of climate change remains quite unsettled. In particular, it is not clear that observed global warming trends are significant or relevant to the long-term survival of life on earth. Nor is it clear that attempts to reduce greenhouse gases will offset other factors that influence climate. Indeed, there is a strong correlation between sunspot activity and temperature variations.

In all events, GHGs are not the only possible source of warming trends and not necessarily the most important. Weather and climate patterns depend on influences from oceans and other water systems, the variability of solar radiation, volcanic aerosols, and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as clouds and water vapor, just to name a few.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) considers at least 12 conditions that could change climate. Of these, only greenhouse gases have come under the close scrutiny of the scientific community. Uncertainty over the influence of the other conditions means that they could worsen the warming trend or reduce it or cancel it out completely.

A report released by the United Nations identified a two-mile-thick “Asian Brown Cloud” that is blamed partly on greenhouse gases. However, an examination of the effects of this enormous blanket of haze found that it counteracts global warming by shading land areas that it covers. So, it turns out that sometimes GHGs can induce cooling.

This is not the only beneficial property of GHGs. It is also overlooked that CO2, one of the most infamous carbon-based GHGs, is actually plant food that is converted into oxygen.

Hurricanes Worse

2008-08-23T21:14:00.000-07:00

According to hurricane historian Jay Barnes of Pine Knoll Shores, North Carolina, ocean heat is the key ingredient for hurricane formation. More heat could "generate more storms and more intense hurricanes," he said.

Numerous studies in recent years have found no evidence that the number of hurricanes and their northwest Pacific Ocean cousins, typhoons, is increasing because of the rise in global temperatures.

But a new study in the journal Nature found that hurricanes and typhoons have become stronger and longer-lasting over the past 30 years. These upswings correlate with a rise in sea surface temperatures.

The duration and strength of hurricanes have increased by about 50 percent over the last three decades, according to study author Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

Emanuel's finding defies existing models for measuring storm strength. Current models suggest that the intensity of hurricanes and typhoons should increase by 5 percent for every 1ºC (1.8ºF) rise in sea surface temperature.

"We've had half a degree [Celsius] of warming, so that should have led to a 2.5 percent increase [in intensity], which is probably not detectable," Emanuel said. "What we've seen is somewhat bigger than that, and we don't really know why."

One possibility, Emanuel said, is that ocean temperatures may be increasing more quickly than atmospheric temperatures.

"When that happens we've shown theoretically you get an increase in the intensity of hurricanes," he said.

The human causes of global warming

2008-08-22T21:11:00.000-07:00

In hard times people will look to any excuse to either avoid or even acknowledge their responsibilities if it costs them. Global warming, or more accurately, climate change is a fact Even though we in Western Europe are not feeling the full force of it yet, it does not mean it is not happening. The evidence is growing, yet, as it is said, "There are none so blind as those who will not see."
Mother Nature has been around for billions of years and will always survive. What is not certain is our survival. We are talking about saving our home - the planet earth. We should make sure that our home is still habitable not only for our children but their children too.

In short, we have to reduce our carbon footprint and our ever-increasing reliance on fossil fuels. High oil prices of recent years will go a long way to achieve that in part, this is a simple case of economics in action, but this will take too long. Rather than implicitly punishing us through global economic forces, possibly strengthened by green taxes the best way to achieve our goals of continued human civilization would be to harness those same economic forces and incentivize the general public to take action.
There is a company called Solar Energy4All, who are offering people the opportunity not only to save on their electricity bills but at the same reduce the amount of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere, by installing solar photovoltaic systems in areas where sunshine is in ample supply. IAs electricity generation is responsible for nearly 40% of all CO2 emissions, it's a great start. And it's a start that we can all make to our individual and collective benefit. Don't wait for the politicians to solve this - show the politicians that this is really a case of power to the people.

Global warming is real

2008-08-22T20:58:00.000-07:00

Global warming as a fact is different from global warming as a crisis. People say as a slogan that "global warming is real". And few people deny that there is a current worldwide warming trend, one that that goes back to the late 1970s, or (with a long interruption) to the 1860s. But this is different from asserting the whole package of beliefs that goes by the name of climate change or global warming. The package includes not just the reality of global warming per se, but also the propositions (a) that GW is caused largely by human action (particularly through co2 production); (b) that it can be largely curtailed by human action (limits on emissions, etc.); and (c) that if we don't take serious action swiftly horrible things will result. This is Global Warming Crisis Theory (GWCT). The real political fight is not over the fact of global warming, but over the truth of GWCT, which is more controversial.

Global cooling theory

2008-08-22T20:54:00.000-07:00

Many unproven theories surround this debate. One such unproven theory involves the existence of man-made gases in the Earth’s atmosphere (vapor state). It is forgotten that gases are unstable vapors and the slightest change of the latent heat will cause a change in state. In turn, this change will cause the gases to return to liquid form. Moreover, our modern society is causing heat transmission from the Sun to be slowed down or reflected back to space. The overall result stemming from the potential difference of heat between the Sun and the Earth is that engineered gases will slow down the movement of heat in our atmosphere. Therefore, with the movement of heat being restricted, the existence of a long-term global cooling theory can be supported as existing in our atmosphere.

This theory of global cooling becomes clearly probable when analyzing the physical actions using a simple visual demonstration. Imagine a bucket that is placed under a flow of running water. Now imagine that a water-deflector is placed in between the water source and the bucket. Do we know what the ratio of gains and losses will be as a result of potential difference of intensity between Object One and Object Two (i.e., Sun to Earth)?

And as in another example, the Ocean’s level in relation to the polar ice caps. If we use a glass pitcher with water and on the outside of the pitcher mark the water level with a marker, then place an uncracked raw egg in that water. We will quickly see that the water level has risen! The egg will be 90% immersed in the water, only about 10% of the egg will be above the water level, similar to that if a piece of ice was put in water. After the water level in the pitcher with the egg has equalized, we will now put a mark at that level. If we break the egg and drop the total substance of the egg in the pitcher, what will the water level be now?

Myths and Facts of Global Warming

2008-08-09T06:17:00.000-07:00

Claims that fighting global warming will cripple the economy and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs are unfounded. In fact, companies that are already reducing their heat-trapping emissions have discovered that cutting pollution can save money. The cost of a comprehensive national greenhouse gas reduction program will depend on the precise emissions targets, the timing for the reductions and the means of implementation. An independent MIT study found that a modest cap-and-trade system would cost less than $20 per household annually and have no negative impact on employment.

Experience has shown that properly designed emissions trading programs can reduce compliance costs significantly compared with other regulatory approaches. For example, the U.S. acid rain program reduced sulfur dioxide emissions by more than 30 percent from 1990 levels and cost industry a fraction of what the government originally estimated, according to EPA. Furthermore, a mandatory cap on emissions could spur technological innovation that could create jobs and wealth. Letting global warming continue until we are forced to address it on an emergency basis could disrupt and severely damage our economy. It is far wiser and more cost-effective to act now.

Global Warming and Climate

2008-08-09T06:13:00.000-07:00

Global warming has been deemed a fact. However, the inconvenient truth is that humans are not causing it. Al Gore has been given poor advice. Like Darwin's theory of evolution and Big Bang cosmology, global warming by greenhouse gas emissions has undergone that curious social process in which a scientific theory is promoted to a secular myth. When in fact, science is ignorant about the source of the heat -- the Sun.

The really inconvenient truth is that we cannot control Nature. But we can begin to learn our true place in the Universe and figure out how to cope rationally with inevitable change. Clearly, reducing air pollution is an admirable goal in itself. But we must not be deluded into thinking it will affect climate significantly. The connection between warming and atmospheric pollution is more asserted than demonstrated, while the connection with variations in the Sun has been demonstrated.

Global Warming and economic

2008-08-09T06:10:00.000-07:00

There are many implications on the economic side, but we will take one example for all of the macro-economics issues that climate change involves.
Imagine the Bering Sea melted down, forever. First, it would be a new, persistent channel for communications and shipping between Russia and USA. Then, that part of Russia (Siberia) would be warmer and warmer and suitable for living and visiting, meaning that it will begin to attract more and more interests worldwide.
Other countries, in the other hand, may be too hardly damaged from the change.

Global Warming Awareness

2008-08-09T06:09:00.000-07:00

You know well what a few more degrees in the world mean temperature would mean for the environment. But are you really aware of what this would mean for the whole mankind, for us? Have you ever thought about how many souls would be involved in the disaster, and how?

Global Warming is really a big problem

2008-08-09T06:01:00.000-07:00

Global Warming is really a big problem we have to deal with nowadays, because it has the potential to change forever our lives and our planet's environment as we know them, and this would affect the whole mankind. There are huge social, political, and economic issues that will rise if we don't do something to stop the skyrocketing rise of the temperatures.

There is a debate about who is (or are) to blame for this dangerous phenomenon: what are the causes of global warming? Are them the industry CO2 emissions? Are them other gases, maybe made by animals or producted in another natural way, anyway? Is it the whole mankind itself, with its own way of using and abusing the planet Earth?
We think it does not really matter, because the problem exists (yes, global warming is REAL and it is happening) and is useless to look for someone to blame for it: instead, we need to ACT: everybody should do what is in his/her possibilities to DO something: we as humanity can still slow down the rising of temperature on the planet.

Cause Of Global Warming

2008-08-01T07:27:00.000-07:00

We have all been told that the UN boasts the signatures of 2,000 plus scientists who support the UN's claim that Global Warming is a proven scientific fact, and that it is CO2, and in particular man made CO2 that is to blame. However, what we are not told is that a staggering 17,000 of the worlds leading scientists have signed a petition refuting these claims, and many of them openly accuse the UN of altering its findings for political ends.

But, there are also a growing number of independent scientists who are warning, that the opposite of Global Warming, Global Cooling is taking place. Scientific facts, and not computer simulations, suggest that we are either on the verge of, or are already experiencing the beginning of a new ice age. A threat to our survival that makes even the lies, and absurdly dramatic and over-exaggerated claims of the Global Warming zealots seem welcome and benign.

Some may question why a small online magazine, like The Nottinghamshire Times, should involve itself in a political and controversial debate?

My answer, as editor and chief bottle-washer, is simple - I dislike being lied to.

by Tonyb

Antarctic Biodiversity And Global Warming

2008-08-01T07:16:00.000-07:00

The waters around Antarctica are an anomaly; they're home to a marine ecosystem straight out of the Paleozoic era (the period spanning from 541 million to 251 million years ago). But global warming is about to change that, according to research presented today at AAAS. The reason for the preponderance of ancient organisms is the cold water: Predators that are capable of breaking the skeletons of their prey—modern fish, sharks, skates, and so on—simply can't live there. In fact, the most vicious predator in the Antarctic marine ecosystem right now is either a big sea star or an acid-oozing worm.

Those waters are warming, though, and possibly faster than the rest of the world's oceans. This threatens to bring predators capable of wiping out the ecosystem's ancient creatures, rendering it no different in composition than the rest of the ecosystems around the world. Why is this a big deal? "The reinvasion of predators after millions of years will dumb down the ecosystem," says Richard Aronson of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. Yet another instance of how climate change is robbing the world of its biological diversity.