Among the most unpredictable -- yet predictable -- of the
apocalypses.
Predictable, according to mountains of evidence from the most
dispassionate scientists in the world, who can hardly believe what they're seeing.
Unpredictable, because the interconnecting systems are beyond our
ability to accurately model.
Many feedback systems are at play: in the human systems, we have China
building one coal-fed power plant every week, and an increasing desire within India (one+ billion), Indonesia (one+ billion), and Africa (one+ billion), and more
for an increasingly energy-intensive lifestyle -- not unlike the US
experience. This demand
is most cheaply met by treating the atmosphere as an open sewer;
rapid change is quite costly to the huge financial systems currently in power.
In the natural systems, other feedback systems look equally bleak.
The former permafrost now melting in Siberia
is releasing gigantic amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
The increasing openness of the Arctic waters means less reflection,
and more absorption, of solar heat. The same is true of land, as the
glaciers retreat. New evidence indicates that many
plants, as the temperature rises, begin to release CO2
instead of absorbing it. The interconnected, mutually exacerbating
systems make this apocalypse exceedingly difficult to halt, and merely "very
difficult" to slow down.
We are projecting, over the next ten years, using mostly pessimistic predictions, the following scenario:
- Ocean levels and, more importantly, storm surges will rise
two feet and seven feet, respectively
- Significant economic disruption on industries and economies based in
coastal areas will affect worldwide economies (as ports are affected by the rising tides)
- The multitude of direct impacts on coastal residents (home values, insurance
costs, transportation costs, etc.) will create new kinds of economic refugees
-- some "telecommuting" remotely, others having to just up and leave
- Coastal infrastructure (sewer systems, bridges, roads, shipping
systems, and more) will be pressured, requiring significant financial outlay and consequent pass-on to consumer prices
and taxes
- Insurance and reinsurance industries
recalibrate, creating great economic turmoil, and greater final costs to
both businesses and consumers
- New opportunities will be created by the disruptions, and there will
be sufficient global capital to provide both seed capital and
development capital for energy, infrastructure, and societal realignment
- Energy will continue to be expensive, but availability will not drop
off precipitously for the 10 year period in question
- Large swathes of farmland, especially in the Midwest, China, and
Russia, not to mention Africa and South America, will be
affected by drought, heat, and/or decreases in aquifir replenishment
through lower snow- and -rainfall, causing significant economic disruption
and much higher food prices, resulting in famine in many areas of the
developing world
- Al-Qaeda and the "war on terrorism" in
general are recognized as functionally meaningless, compared to the
real crisis
- The internet, and communications technologies, will continue to
grow and prosper, as telecommuting and entertainment help us to forget
(or watch incessently) the predictable and unpredictable chaos going on around the
world.
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| Recent Climate Chaos News |
World's Marine Parks 'May Not Save Corals'
They warn that many existing 'no take areas' (NTAs) in the Indian Ocean and around the world, while effective in protecting local fish, may not be much help in enabling reefs to recover from major coral bleaching events caused by ocean warming.
The research, published in the journal PLoS ONE, is the largest study of its kind ever carried out, covering 66 sites in seven countries in the Indian Ocean and spanning over a decade.
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Global warming time bomb trapped in Arctic soil: study
Climate change could release unexpectedly huge stores of carbon dioxide from Arctic soils, which would in turn fuel a vicious circle of global warming, a new study warned Sunday.
The study, published in the British journal Nature Geoscience, found that the stock of organic carbon "is considerably higher than previously thought" -- 60 percent more than the previously estimated.
This is roughly equivalent to one sixth of the entire carbon content in the atmosphere. And that is just for North America.
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Carbon Emissions Across the United States
"Electric power production and transportation are the two largest sources of carbon emissions in the United States. But there are big differences in emissions between companies, and from state to state, that may make it harder to reach any agreement on cuts." State-by-state graphic.
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Drier, Warmer Springs In US Southwest Stem From Human-caused Changes In Winds
Since the 1970s the winter storm track in the western U.S. has been shifting north, particularly in the late winter. As a result, fewer winter storms bring rain and snow to Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, western Colorado and western New Mexico.
"We used to have this season from October to April where we had a chance for a storm," said Stephanie A. McAfee. "Now it's from October to March".... McAfee's co-author Joellen L. Russell said, "We're used to thinking about climate change as happening sometime in the future to someone else, but this is right here and affects us now. The future is here."
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Beauty spots to be devoured by sea
"Some of Britain's most famous coastal landmarks will be radically changed or even lost because it is no longer possible to hold back rising seas and coastal erosion, according to the National Trust. The castle of St Michael's Mount off the coast of Cornwall, the white cliffs of Birling Gap in East Sussex, Studland beach in Dorset and the dunes of Formby, near Liverpool, are among the places which could alter dramatically. In one of the most extreme cases to be identified by the trust, the entire 18th-century fishing village of Porthdinllaen on the north-west coast of Wales could be left to crumble into the sea."
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Madonna's carbon footprint under scrutiny
"Madonna may have headlined last year’s Live Earth concert promoting climate change, but her carbon footprint for her world tour has come under scrutiny. The emissions generated by the singer’s 45 date tour is the equivalent to that created by 160 Britons in an entire year.
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World heading towards cooler 2008
"Data from the UK Met Office shows that temperatures in the first half of the year have been more than 0.1 Celsius cooler than any year since 2000.
The principal reason is La Nina, part of the natural cycle that also includes El Nino, which cools the globe."
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Future Impact Of Global Warming Is Worse When Grazing Animals Are Considered, Scientists Suggest
"The impact of global warming in the Arctic may differ from the predictions of computer models of the region, according to a pair of Penn State biologists. The team -- which includes Eric Post, a Penn State associate professor of biology, and Christian Pederson, a Penn State graduate student -- has shown that grazing animals will play a key role in reducing the anticipated expansion of shrub growth in the region, thus limiting their predicted and beneficial carbon-absorbing effect."
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Climate change could be impetus for wars, other conflicts, expert says
In a survey of recent research published earlier this summer in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Scheffran concluded that “the impact of climate change on human and global security could extend far beyond the limited scope the world has seen thus far.”
Scheffran’s review included a critical analysis of four trends identified in a report by the German Advisory Council on Global Change as among those most possibly destabilizing populations and governments: degradation of freshwater resources, food insecurity, natural disasters and environmental migration.
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Satellite Images Show Continued Breakup Of Two Of Greenland's Largest Glaciers, Predict Disintegration In Near Future
Researchers monitoring daily satellite images here of Greenland's glaciers have discovered break-ups at two of the largest glaciers in the last month.
They expect that part of the Northern hemisphere's longest floating glacier will continue to disintegrate within the next year.... What worries Jason Box [and other colleagues] even more about the latest images is what appears to be a massive crack further back from the margin of the Petermann Glacier.
That crack may signal an imminent and much larger breakup.
"If the Petermann glacier breaks up back to the upstream rift, the loss would be as much as 60 square miles (160 square kilometers)," Box said, representing a loss of one-third of the massive ice field.
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Glacier Park: Disappearing namesake may make pristine wilderness symbol of climate change
"The national parks in general, and Glacier Park in particular, have become the poster child for climate change, and that means they really are stepping up as leaders in both research and education." ... Which explains Kloeck's daily talks, seven times a day, up there on Logan Pass.
"It's called 'Goodbye to Glaciers,'" said Sherry Forbes, the park's chief of interpretation and education. "And it's part of a much broader effort."
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Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's
also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Australian expert says sea levels to rise four metres
"An Australian climate change expert says the world's sea levels could rise by up to four meters this century.
The head of the climate change unit at the Australian National University and science adviser to the federal Government, Professor Will Steffen, says he believes the scientific community is underestimating the speed at which the climate is changing.
Rising sea levels from global warming are predicted to make some Pacific islands unlivable within the next decade, with Tuvalu expected to be underwater by 2050."
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Anti-Regulation Aide to Cheney Is Up for Energy Post
"A senior aide to Vice President Cheney is the leading contender to become a top official at the Energy Department, according to several current and former administration officials, a promotion that would put one of the administration's most ardent opponents of environmental regulation in charge of forming department policies on climate change."
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As the ice melts, control ebbs in the Arctic
The Northwest Passage may be ice-free this summer, for only the second time in recorded history. The Canadian Arctic is being fundamentally transformed.
As the ice diminishes, new actors and interests will arrive. Who is coming? What will they do? What does it mean for Canada? Many people expect international shippers to take advantage of the shorter distances between Europe and Asia to carry goods through an increasingly ice-free Passage. Most shipping experts, however, think that will happen only in the medium term. Before the larger companies commit themselves to Arctic voyages, they will need longer, and much more certain, times of open water.
The increased use of the Arctic for other economic activities is much more likely. In particular, the huge oil and gas resources in and around the Northwest Passage may be best brought to market by ship rather than by pipeline.... Our Coast Guard's icebreaking fleet is small and aging; our search-and-rescue capability is based in the south; our navy has a very limited ability to go north; we require industry to provide for their own rescue capability; and we maintain almost no oil-spill response equipment in the North.
In short, we are not prepared for any shipping, let alone for large tanker traffic.
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Climate Change Caused Widespread Tree Death In California Mountain Range, Study Confirms
Warmer temperatures and longer dry spells have killed thousands of trees and shrubs in a Southern California mountain range, pushing the plants' habitat an average of 213 feet up the mountain over the past 30 years, a UC Irvine study has determined. White fir and Jeffrey pine trees died at the lower altitudes of their growth range in the Santa Rosa Mountains, from 6,400 feet to as high as 7,200 feet in elevation, while California lilacs died between 4,000-4,800 feet. Almost all of the studied plants crept up the mountain a similar distance, countering the belief that slower-growing trees would move slower than faster-growing grasses and wildflowers.
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Population Bomb Author's Fix For Next Extinction: Educate Women
"It's an uncomfortable thought: Human activity causing the extinction of thousands of species, and the only way to slow or prevent that phenomenon is to have smaller families ... according to Stanford University scientists Paul Ehrlich and Robert Pringle... Ehrlich and Pringle call for educating women, which has slowed or stopped population growth in the developed countries of Europe. "Education and employment -- for women especially -- along with access to contraception and safe abortions are the most important components," they write."
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Wild elephant seals to track changes in temperature of Antarctic seas
A team of scientists has glued electronic sensors to the heads of 58 wild elephant seals to track changes in the temperature of the Antarctic seas.
Mounting evidence that the Southern Ocean is warming more rapidly than expected has fuelled interest in temperature dynamics and sea-ice formation rates near the South Pole.
But thick sea ice cover makes it virtually impossible to collect data by conventional methods such as buoyant floats and research ships.
Now [a research team] from Paris got round the problem by gluing electronic sensors to the heads of 58 wild elephant seals.
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Antarctic Climate: Short-Term Spikes, Long-Term Warming Linked to Tropical Pacific
Dramatic year-to-year temperature swings and a century-long warming trend across West Antarctica are linked to conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean, according to a new analysis of ice cores conducted by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Washington (UW). The findings show the connection of the world's coldest continent to global warming, as well as to periodic events such as El Niño.
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World Bank, promising to go green, lends to massive coal-fired power plant
"Once the new Tata Ultra Mega power plant in western India is fired up in 2012 and fully operational, it will become one of the world's 50 largest greenhouse-gas emitters. And the World Bank is helping make it possible.
A year after World Bank President Robert Zoellick pledged to "significantly step up our assistance" in fighting climate change, the development institution is increasing its financing of fossil-fuel projects around the globe."
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Arctic meltdown could set new record
The Arctic Ocean ice cover, which appeared earlier this summer to be headed for a moderate recovery after last year's record-setting retreat, has begun disintegrating so rapidly in recent weeks that experts now say the ice loss by mid-September could exceed even 2007's history-making meltdown.
The Canadian Ice Service is reporting an "unprecedented" opening of waters in the Beaufort Sea north of the Yukon-Alaska border... "We've never seen any kind of opening like this in history," CIS senior ice forecaster Luc Desjardins said of the Beaufort's exceptional loss of ice this summer. "It is not only record-setting, it's unprecedented. It doesn't resemble anything that we've observed before."... Desjardins says there's also a "very good likelihood" that the best-known route of the Northwest Passage -- from north of Baffin Island to the Beaufort Sea south of Victoria Island -- will soon become fully navigable for the third consecutive summer, a year after the fabled shipping conduit drew global attention by opening more completely than ever.
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7 in 10 try reduce carbon footprint
"High energy prices are double-teaming with environmental concerns to prompt broad conservation efforts, with seven in 10 Americans saying they're trying to reduce their "carbon footprint," chiefly by driving less, using less electricity and recycling."
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Wicks: All is lost on global warming without clean coal
A dramatic warning that "all is lost on global warming" unless the world finds a new clean coal technology in the next few years has been made by the UK energy minister, Malcolm Wicks.
He insists in a Guardian interview that "the stakes are that high", as he seeks to justify pressing ahead with a new generation of coal-fired power stations starting at Kingsnorth in Kent, currently the site of a major protest.... He also argued India and China were due to increase coal-fired electricity "ginormously" over the next 20 years, so it was vital to develop the technology that would, in the medium term, clean their electricity.
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West Australia may get drier than expected
Computer models have already forecast that global warming will make dry areas even drier, while increasing severe rainfall and flooding in already wet areas such as Australia’s tropical far north.
But the new research, based on satellite rainfall data over the past 21 years, suggest that this polarising trend is even more pronounced than models had foreseen. That is ominous news for southern WA, which has already seen rainfall declines of 20 per cent since the 1980s.
In contrast, wet tropical areas are likely to suffer an increase in heavy rainfall, raising the prospect of flooding, according to Richard Allan, of Reading University, in Britain, who led the study.
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Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's
also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Key degrees of difference
"HAS global warming stopped? The question alone is enough to provoke scorn from the mainstream scientific community and from the Government, which says the earth has never been hotter. But tell that to a new army of sceptics who have mushroomed on internet blog sites and elsewhere in recent months to challenge some of the most basic assumptions and claims of climate change science."
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Extreme Rains to Be Supercharged by Warming, Study Says
"Global warming could make extreme rains stronger and more frequent than previously forecast, a new study suggests. Such a scenario could make floods fiercer, damage more crops, and worsen the spread of diseases such as malaria, scientists say."
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Aphid, sentinel of climate change, appearing even earlier
"Aphid populations are exploding because they are surviving and breeding through the winter. And for every 1ºC rise in mean temperature during January and February they are taking flight on average eight days earlier to feed on crops and gardens. .. And one of the UK's most damaging aphids - the peach-potato aphid (Myzus persicae) - has been found to be flying two weeks earlier than usual."
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Desalination plant receives go-ahead
"private company's proposal to build the nation's largest drinking water desalination plant at Agua Hedionda Lagoon in Carlsbad cleared its final hurdles Wednesday before the California Coastal Commission... The $300 million plant envisioned by Poseidon Resources Inc. of Stamford, Conn., would produce 50 million gallons of drinking water each day, enough to supply 112,000 households."
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Paul Ehrlich, "The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment"
The current two greatest threats that Ehrlich sees are climate change (10 percent chance of civilization ending, and rising) and chemical toxification of the biosphere. "Every cubic centimeter of the biosphere has been modified by human activity."
The main climate threat he sees is not rising sea levels ("You can outwalk that one") but the melting of the snowpack that drives the world’s hydraulic civilizations -- California agriculture totally dependent on the Sierra snowpack, the Andes running much of Latin America, the Himalayan snows in charge of southeast Asia. With climate in flux, Ehrlich said, we may be facing a millennium of constant change. Already we see the outbreak of resource wars over water and oil.
(tip o' the hat to Arnie)
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Anger at police raid on green camp ahead of coal protest
"Environmental campaigners and politicians criticised the police last night after around 200 officers raided a climate camp, seizing hundreds of items that they claimed could be used to break the law.
Activists at the camp, which starts today with a series of workshops on sustainable energy and social justice, said the raid aimed to disrupt legitimate protest.... officers ... found bolt cutters, superglue and climbing ropes in the raid at the end of last week."
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More acidic ocean could spell trouble for marine life's earliest stages
Increasingly acidic conditions in the ocean—brought on as a direct result of rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere—could spell trouble for the earliest stages of marine life, according to a new report.... " If other marine species respond similarly—and there's no evidence yet that they don't—then we're in trouble," said Jon Havenhand of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. "The analogies are quite simple: we observed a 25 percent reduction in fertilization success at reduced pH, which is equivalent to a 25 percent reduction in the spawning stock of the species. Apply equivalent changes to other commercially or ecologically important species, such as lobsters, crabs, abalone, clams, mussels, or even fish, and the consequences would be far-reaching. It could be enough to 'tip' an ecosystem from one state to another."
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Climate change puts seniors' health at risk
"Canada's elderly population -- expected to double in the next 25 years -- will be especially hard-hit by the dire effects of climate change, warns a sprawling study by Health Canada.
The much-anticipated document, released late yesterday, says Canada will face climate change hazards ranging from more natural disasters to increases in infectious disease to spikes in respiratory illness."
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Five ways to trigger a natural disaster
"Few people still doubt that human emissions are causing long-term climate change, which is predicted to increase storm surges, drought and possibly hurricanes. So there's little doubt that humans influence natural disasters over the long term. But can we also trigger sudden "natural" catastrophes?
The answer is yes. From mud volcanoes to disappearing lakes, human actions can have all sorts of unforeseen environmental consequences."
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Melting permafrost poses threats to infrastructure, Alaska economy
"...By definition, permafrost is any ground that’s been frozen for at least two years. It can be dry soil or nearly all ice, and it can start an inch below the surface or many yards below. It can go down a few feet or a few thousand.
Now, as temperatures warm across Alaska, the temperature of the frozen ground is warming, too. In some places, it’s warmed to its own tipping point of 32 degrees Fahrenheit, at which point it stops being permafrost and starts being water and soil."
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Huge chunk snaps off storied Arctic ice shelf
"A four-square-kilometre chunk has broken off Ward Hunt Ice Shelf - the largest remaining ice shelf in the Arctic - threatening the future of the giant frozen mass that northern explorers have used for years as the starting point for their treks.
Scientists say the break, the largest on record since 2005, is the latest indication that climate change is forcing the drastic reshaping of the Arctic coastline, where 9,000 square kilometres of ice have been whittled down to less than 1,000 over the past century, and are only showing signs of decreasing further."
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US environmental agency silences employees on climate change
Amid intensifying scrutiny of its failure to act on climate change, the US environmental protection agency (EPA) has ordered employees not to talk to internal auditors, Congress or the media, according to a leaked email released yesterday by green campaigners.
The EPA has refused repeated requests from Congress to explain its December denial of California's request to regulate greenhouse gas emissions -- a move that overruled the agency's own career scientists.
Three Democratic senators have scheduled a press conference today to discuss the controversy.
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Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's
also the
Recovery Scenario!
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Researchers investigate tundra's steady awakening
"TOOLIK LAKE, Alaska ... Ground here that for tens of thousands of years was frozen solid is terra firma no more.
Across the tundra and coast of the Arctic Ocean, land is caving in. Soils loosed by freshly thawed earth set off a new era of rot, and of bloom — dumping a bonanza of nutrients into a top-of-the-world environment that swirls from months of midnight sun to deep-freeze dark."
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Change in the land of frozen ground, fish and hardy trees
"Alaska is changing, and not just in the booming suburbs or shrinking villages, but in the trees on the hillsides, the fish in the oceans, and the climate itself -- the very things that make Alaska what it is. The spruce and birch of the boreal forest are struggling with warm summers, and shrubs are moving into the tundra. Grizzly bear, moose, and king salmon are showing up in places they haven't been seen before, and subtropical fish are taking fishermen's bait in the Gulf of Alaska."
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Sites endangered by global warming
"That dream vacation -- diving along the Great Barrier Reef, skiing in the Swiss Alps -- could remain a dream forever if you don't get a move on... It's been called climate sightseeing, a kind of farewell tour of Earth's greatest hits. The subject is full of paradoxes: The more you travel, for example, the more you're contributing to the problem that made you go to an endangered site in the first place."
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Democrats: White House must publish 'chilling' climate change document
[W]histleblowers have revealed that the White House ordered the agency to scrap its proposal. Democratic attempts to investigate the backroom dealings were stymied until this week, when senators were finally permitted a look at the plan.
... California Democrat Barbara Boxer, released a summary of the proposal to reporters. Boxer was allowed to take notes on the plan but not given a copy.... Democrats asked the EPA administrator, Stephen Johnson, to testify next week at a hearing exploring allegations of White House obstruction on climate change. But Johnson refused, citing executive privilege and forcing the cancellation of the hearing.
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The Economy: America Love It Or Fix It 2008
"If we’re addicted to oil, our twelve-step program should begin with admitting that we have a problem. As the price of oil creeps ever higher, finding new energy sources is more important than ever. But the search for alternatives, combined with environmental disruptions, is putting new pressures on other essentials like food. There are some things that are going well in the world. Right now, the economy is not one of them."
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Costs Of Climate Change, State-by-state: Billions, Says New Report
"Climate change will carry a price tag of billions of dollars for a number of U.S. states, says a new series of reports from the University of Maryland's Center for Integrative Environmental Research (CIER). The researchers conclude that the costs have already begun to accrue and are likely to endure... "We don't have a crystal ball and can't predict specific bottom lines, but the trend is very clear for these eight states and the nation as a whole: climate change will cost billions in the long run and the bottom line will be red," says Matthias Ruth, who coordinated the research and directs the Center for Integrative Environmental Research at the University of Maryland."
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Warming world 'drying wetlands'
"More than 700 scientists are attending a major conference to draw up an action plan to protect the world's wetlands. Rising temperatures are not only accelerating evaporation rates, but also reducing rainfall levels and the volume of meltwater from glaciers.
Although only covering 6 percent of the Earth's land surface, they store up to an estimated 20 percent of terrestrial carbon."
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Climate change affecting Uganda
Rainfall in the March to June rainy season is becoming more erratic, followed by heavy downpours from October to December, which destroy crops and increase soil erosion.
Long droughts have led to farmers producing less food, while pastoralists find traditional grazing areas are shrinking and turning arid. This has curtailed their movements and led to competition and conflict for ever-smaller resources. When rains arrive they are often torrential, causing floods and doing more harm than good. Floods destroy crops and increase the prevalence of water-borne diseases.
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Half the Amazon Rainforest to be Lost by 2030
"Due to the effects of global warming and deforestation, more than half of the Amazon rainforest may be destroyed or severely damaged by the year 2030, according to a report released by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
The report, "Amazon's Vicious Cycles: Drought and Fire," concludes that 55 percent of the world's largest rainforest stands to be severely damaged from agriculture, drought, fire, logging and livestock ranching in the next 22 years."
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Massive greenhouse gases may be released as destruction, drying of world wetlands worsens: UN
Warming world temperatures are speeding both rates of decomposition of trapped organic material and evaporation, while threatening critical sources of wetlands recharge by melting glaciers and reducing precipitation.... Says UN Under Secretary-General Konrad Osterwalder, Rector of UNU: "Too often in the past, people have unwittingly considered wetlands to be problems in need of a solution. Yet wetlands are essential to the planet's health -- and with hindsight, the problems in reality have turned out to be the draining of wetlands and other 'solutions' we humans devised."
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A tough new row to hoe
"The Green Revolution that began in 1945 transformed farming and fed millions in developing countries. But its methods over the long run are proving to be stunningly destructive... Now, almost half a century later, the Green Revolution's key innovations - chemicals and monocultures - are being blamed for a recent pest and disease epidemic that has ravaged Asian rice fields and sharply curtailed the supply of the main food staple of half of the world's population."
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World Bank says Asian cities at risk
"The World Bank has urged Asian cities to come up with climate resilient programmes to safeguard people from natural hazards triggered by climate change and rising sea levels."
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Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's
also the
Recovery Scenario!
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