Photo credit: laszlo-photo

As winter weather hits us again, many people confuse the current weather (cold) with the long-term direction of the climate (warmer).

Just because it is cold outside right now doesn’t mean that global warming isn’t real. Global warming has to do with the climate, with the long-term trend of the world’s average temperature. The short-term weather has to do with what is happening this week or next in the part of the world where we currently reside. The two are not identical, and colder weather does not contradict the fact that our climate is warming up.

Another reason the two related but not identical issues are confusing is that global climate change is not uniform across the globe. Just because it is colder where you live doesn’t mean it isn’t warmer, relatively, elsewhere. In fact, global warming is taking place much more at the northern latitudes than in the continental U.S.

This is the reason why, even though the U.S. is experiencing more severe winter weather, the Arctic summer ice is covering less and less of the Arctic water, opening the fabled Northern Passage. It is still very cold at the North Pole, but it is relatively warmer. Average temperatures have already increased in the northern latitudes by almost 4 degrees Fahrenheit, much more than at temperate latitudes.

This is also one reason among many why global warming is so threatening. As temperatures warm more rapidly nearer both poles, two things happen which bode ill for the entire world.

First, ice, ice sheets and glaciers are melting rapidly, much more rapidly than even the most dire predictions of a few years ago. The glaciers on Greenland are melting more quickly, and also accelerating the speed at which they move towards the open seas. In the Antarctic, massive ice sheets are breaking off. Both these developments will cause a faster than predicted rise in the ocean level. Instead of happening over a thousand years, the complete melting of the Greenland glaciers is likely to take a few hundred years – and when they are completely melted that will increase sea levels by over 25 feet, inundating many coastal cities.

Second, as the northern latitudes warm more rapidly, more and more of the permafrost will melt, releasing both carbon dioxide and methane that have been frozen for millennia. This could result in runaway global warming, coming on top of the direct human release of greenhouse gases.

There are many more reasons to be concerned about global climate change, but just because it is cold outside is no reason at all to ignore the problem.

In a thoughtful article at HuffingtonPost, environmentalist Bill McKibben explains why climate change is a different kind of problem. He makes the essential point that what climate change skeptics are fighting is not other politicians or scientists; it’s physics.

In another good article, Bolivia’s ambassador to the United Nations explains the seriousness of even sharper cuts in emissions, and also his concept of “climate debt.”

Author: Marc Brodine, People’s World

350 ppm, as in parts per million, the level scientists have identified as the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere. We are currently at 390 ppm and, according to the science, we need to get back to 350 ppm as soon as possible to be able avoid runaway climate change.

In an interview with a German newspaper Stern endorsed the 350 ppm target saying he “think it’s a very sensible long-term target.” Bill McKibben, environmental writer and founder of 350.org, writes:

“I think it’s a very sensible long-term target.” He went on to explain: “People have to be aware that is a truly long-term target. We have already passed 350ppm, we are at 390 ppm of Co2 and at 435 ppm of Co2-equivalents right now. It is most important to stop the increase of flows of emissions short term and then start the decline of flows of annual emissions and get them down to levels which will move concentrations of CO2 back down towards 350ppm.

McKibben says “Stern is right” and that his endorsement will “help stiffen the push for real measures” at the climate talks in Copenhagen this December.

Stern is right, of course–even if we do everything right at Copenhagen, we won’t be back at 350 soon. But unless we do everything right we’ll be back at 350 never ever. His call will help stiffen the push for real measures at the conference.

Also read:
- Nicholas Stern: Climate change will create billions of refugees, extended world war
- Nicholas Stern: “I underestimated the threat”
- Green Quote of the Week: Nicholas Stern

This “business as usual” approach to the Climate Emergency by the Australian Government (and appallingly, supported by the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Australian Climate Institute) flies in the face of advice from top climate scientists – with many scientists saying that it is already too late to stop catastrophic climate change (e.g. see this recent UK Guardian report subtitled “Guardian poll reveals almost nine out of 10 climate experts do not believe current political efforts will keep warming below 2C” ; also see: http://copenhagenclimatecouncil.com/…/).

Climate Genocide has already begun in the non-European World in which 16 million people die avoidably every year from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease. This Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust is increasingly impacted by Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW; man-made global warming) – there are already hundreds of thousands of Climate Refugees in Darfur (Sudan), India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and the Pacific, with far worse to come, especially for states that are drought-prone, mega-deltaic or which are small islands (see “Climate Disruption, Climate Emergency, Climate Genocide & Penultimate Bengali Holocaust through Sea Level Rise”).

In relation to already-commenced Climate Genocide, Australia is a disproportionate contributor to this man-made holocaust that is largely confined to the non-European World.

Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter, the OECD’s worst per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) polluter and a remorseless world leader in annual per capita GHG pollution. “Annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution” in units of “tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year” (2005-2008 data) is 2.2 (India), 6.7 (the World), 11 (Europe), 27 (the US) and 30 (Australia; or 54 if Australia’s huge Exported CO2 pollution is included). Just as Australia has made contributions Palestinian Genocide tax deductible, so the latest Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) of the extreme right wing, pro-coal, pro-war Rudd Labor Government provides massive, “business as usual” subsidies for GHG polluters (see “Pro-coal Australian Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) devalues Australian lives, threatens Biosphere and ignores Science“).

Western Mainstream media and politicians (including those of climate criminal Australia) simply ignore the looming Climate Genocide – yet global avoidable deaths from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease total 16 million already and are increasingly climate change-impacted, this figure being predicted to average 100 million avoidable deaths per year this century if the prediction of only 1 billion survivors this century by top UK climate scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS is realized (see Gaia Vince (2009), “One last chance to save mankind“, New Scientist, 23 January 2009 ; see also “Climate Disruption, Climate Emergency, Climate Genocide & Penultimate Bengali Holocaust through Sea Level Rise”).

The Western Mainstream media and politicians also turn a blind eye to the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide (post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths 0.3 million, 2.3 million and 3-4 million, respectively; refugees totalling 7 million, 6 million and 4 million, respectively; genocides as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention).

There is nothing quite as racist as genocide, and racist White Australia with the support of both the Liberal-National Party Coalition Opposition and Labor Party Government (collectively known as the Lib-Labs) is intimately involved in all 4 genocides: it supports the ongoing Israeli Palestinian Genocide diplomatically, financially and legislatively (support for the Palestinian Genocide is actually TAX DEDUCTIBLE in racist White Australia) ; it has been actively involved militarily in the ongoing Iraqi Genocide since 1990 and involved financially (and corruptly) by subverting the pre-invasion UN Oil-for-Food Program at an estimated cost of over 20,000 Iraqi lives; it has been involved militarily in the Afghan Genocide, recently increasing its military commitment in response to a request from war criminal Obama by a massive 50% (see: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/…/ ); and Australia leads the world in driving the steadily worsening Climate Genocide as outlined above.

A simple numerical confirmation of this racist Holocaust Denial and racist Genocide Denial in racist White Australia can be obtained by searching for the phrases using “Palestinian Genocide”, “Iraqi Genocide”, “Afghan Genocide” and “Climate Genocide” on Yahoo (yielding URLs totalling 103,000, 78,700, 16,500 and 16,100, respectively); on the Web-censoring Google (yielding URLs totalling 10,200, 12,500, 2,690 and 3,010, respectively); and on the taxpayer-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Search device (see ABC) – this yielding ZERO (0) results in all cases.

The Australian ABC is generally regarded as the most “liberal” of the Mainstream media of racist White Australia – and indeed is regarded as “left wing” by the hacks of the Murdoch and Fairfax media empires that dominate “news” reporting in holocaust-complicit and holocaust denying, “look the other way” Australia – the Land of Flies, Lies and Slies (spin-based untruths). It is not hard to imagine the awfulness of the other generally pro-coal and pro-war Australian Mainstream media in relation to holocaust commission, genocide commission, holocaust-ignoring and genocide-ignoring.

Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Decent people are obliged to inform others about these continuing atrocities.

People such as Bill McKibben are leading the way toward global commitment to reducing atmospheric CO2 concentration from the current 387 ppm to below 350 : “[NASA GISS director] Jim Hansen gave us the number we needed to work with. His team put out a paper saying quite unequivocally that 350 parts per million of CO2 is the max that we can have in the atmosphere, safely. We need to get below that, actually. It is a difficult number, obviously, because we have passed it. But at least it was a number, and something to work with, globally. Something to move these big international negotiations back far closer to science than they’ve been in the past. That’s what we set out to do “ (see “Bill McKibben on building a climate action movement”).

Bill McKibben’s organization 350.org has organized 24 October 2009 as an international day of climate action to demand this realistic and requisite target – please be part of this last ditch attempt to galvanize the tardy politicians of Planet Earth before their meeting in Copenhagen and (hopefully) before it is too late.

However we also need to take other personal actions that make the climate criminals and war criminals ACCOUNTABLE for their appalling crimes. Holocaust commission and genocide commission are unforgivably evil and holocaust denial and genocide denial are utterly repugnant. Decent people are obliged to eschew any avoidable personal or business dealings with – and hence deny any support for – people, media, corporations or countries complicit in genocide commission and genocide denial, whether in relation to the ongoing Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Genocides or the steadily worsening Climate Genocide that threatens the very biosphere of Planet Earth.