By Simon Leufstedt on August 13th, 2008
Last week the ice at the North Pole melted at an “unprecedented rate.” And that has some scientists worrying that the Arctic could become ice-free during the summers as early as 2013, the Guardian reports.
The storms over the Alaska’s Beaufort Sea last week brought with them not just bad weather but also streams of hot air into the Arctic. Satellite images that were taken shortly after could show that the ice caps had started to “disintegrate dramatically.” And because of that the scientists believes that the melting could exceed last year’s record loss of ice.
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By Simon Leufstedt on August 12th, 2008
In 100 months it will be too late to stop climate change. Then we have passed the “tipping point” where climate change will run out of control and leave us powerless to intervene. The message comes from the new campaign One Hundred Months from the New Economic Foundation (NEF), which wants to highlight this dangerous “tipping point.”
“If you shout “fire” in a crowded theatre, when there is none, you understand that you might be arrested for irresponsible behaviour and breach of the peace. But from today, I smell smoke, I see flames and I think it is time to shout. I don’t want you to panic, but I do think it would be a good idea to form an orderly queue to leave the building,” says Andrew Simms, policy director and head of the climate change programme at NEF.
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By Dr Gideon Polya on August 5th, 2008
Only a few weeks after the release of the Draft Report of the seriously flawed, pro-coal, Australian Garnaut Climate Change Review (4 July, 2008; see my critique on Green Blog, “Pro-Coal, Australian Garnaut Climate Review Damns Coral, Australia & World”), the Australian Federal Government has released a so-called “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” Green Paper (16 July, 2008).
Unfortunately the Australian Federal Government Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) Green Paper is FATALLY FLAWED and if adopted globally would be a DEATH SENTENCE for the planet’s biosphere.
Australia is referred to as “Downunder” by people in the Northern Hemisphere but in so many things Australian mainstream media and politicians turn the truth upside-down as well – and this is outrageously so in relation to man-made climate change. The Liberal-National Party Coalition State and Federal Oppositions and the Labor Party State and Federal Governments (these major parties being referred to collectively as the Lib-Labs) pay public lip-service to the problem of global warming but their de facto policies support Australia’s world-leading coal exports and Australia’s 92% fossil fuel-based power generation.
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By Dr Gideon Polya on July 23rd, 2008
We are familiar with the notion of getting an expert second opinion when an expert medical specialist has diagnosed life threatening circumstances. However a second opinion that is a bit more optimistic simply decreases the perceived odds of death somewhat – the dire initial prediction remains.
Leading world climate experts offer the expert diagnosis that the World faces a life-threatening Climate Emergency requiring urgent action to stop carbon pollution and indeed to reduce existing atmosphere greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution.
“Hopefully these quotes and links will be useful in YOUR advocacy on behalf of the Planet and also help you convince your climate sceptic friends.”
However such expert advice is countermanded by inexpert, non-scientist politicians and corporate spokespersons with vested interests in fossil fuel burning and their inexpert climate sceptic supporters. These climate sceptics and “business as usual” advocates are merely expressing inexpert partisan opinions that would be seen as dishonest and dangerously irresponsible in the context of expert medical specialist diagnosis of life threatening circumstances.
Below are about 2 dozen recent, Web-documented, expert statements from outstanding, world-leading climate change experts, other eminent scientific experts and top scientific organizations with expertise to make authoritative comments about the Climate Emergency and related matters.
These 2 dozen statements can be regarded as expert specialist diagnoses on the environmental health of the Planet’s biosphere. We can seek expert second opinions by all means but these statements represent dire warnings that cannot be ignored.
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By Simon Leufstedt on July 14th, 2008
In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now leading scientist John Holdren says the term “global warming” is wrong. He rather prefer to use the term “global disruption.”
“I don’t like the term “global warming,” because it’s misleading. It implies something that’s mainly about temperature, that’s gradual, and that’s uniform across the planet. And in fact, temperature is only one of the things that’s changing. It’s a sort of an index of the state of climate. The whole climate is changing: the winds, the ocean currents, the storm patterns, snow packs, snowmelt, flooding, droughts. Temperature is just a bit of it.”
“It’s also highly non-uniform. The largest changes are occurring in the far north in the Arctic, in the Antarctic Peninsula in the far south. It is certainly not gradual, in the sense that it is rapid compared to the capacity of ecosystems to adjust. It’s rapid compared to the capacity of human systems to adjust.”
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By Dr Gideon Polya on July 13th, 2008
Ross Garnaut in Adelaide during the launch of the latest draft of the Garnaut Review. Photo by
Carbon Planet.
Prominent Australian academic Economist Professor Ross Garnaut was commissioned by the right-wing, pro-Coal, State and Federal Governments of Australia to review the economic impacts on Australia of climate change; to also examine this in an international context; and to recommend policy options.
“In the U.S. Caribbean, scientists say an average of 50 percent of the coral was lost.”
The Garnaut Review Draft Report was published recently and has made headlines in Australia ever since. This pro-Coal Australian Climate Change Report is of major importance because Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter and if you include the CO2 from these exports, Australia’s annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution (47 tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year) is about 10 times that of China (5) and over 40 times that of India (1).
The Garnaut Report is GOOD in that it indicates (albeit inexplicitly) a serious climate change situation; the need to act now; and a “Cap and Trade” Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to encourage uptake of clean energy options.
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By Simon Leufstedt on July 11th, 2008
A group of Russian scientists had to abandon their polar station near Svalbard when the ice their station was standing on started to melt away, three months too early.
The polar station was placed on a huge flake of ice last year and the scientists expected to be able to stay on the station for one year. But now, after only nine months, the once so huge flak of ice had melted from 15 to 0,12 square kilometres forcing the scientists to abandon their polar station.
It’s clearly not easy being a polar scientist these days!
Source: DN/TT-NTB
By Dr Gideon Polya on July 7th, 2008
Panorama picture of the Climate rally, July 5 2008. Photo:
Peter Campbell.
On July 5, 2008 about 5,000 citizens of Melbourne gathered in the City Square to protest man-made Climate Change and then marched through the City Centre to make a HUMAN SIGN saying “CLIMATE EMERGENCY!” in the nearby Alexandra Gardens. An aeroplane was hired to take photos for the media – for an aerial photo of the “CLIMATE EMERGENCY!” Human Sign and other photos of this great event see: Climate emergency rally Melbourne July 5 2008 over at GreenLivingPedia.org.
The Climate Emergency Rally involved more than 50 community groups concerned about lack of Australian State and Federal Government action on climate change and variously linked to an Australian Climate Emergency Network.
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By Simon Leufstedt on July 3rd, 2008
Refugee children waiting with their family for a food distribution. Photo by
Nicolas Rost.
Two senior foreign policy officials from the European Union says in a new report that the EU should “brace itself” for a new and much larger wave of migration, caused by the effects of climate change. According to their report climate change “threatens to severely destabilise the planet” and will make a fifth of the worlds population homeless.
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By Simon Leufstedt on June 25th, 2008
Dr James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and one of the worlds most prominent climate scientist, says in an article on the WorldWatch Institute website that climate change liars “should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.”
“Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil fuel companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, just as tobacco companies discredited the link between smoking and cancer. Methods are sophisticated, including funding to help shape school textbook discussions of global warming.”
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