During a visit to Henderson Nevada, President Obama explained basic climate science for the people who had gathered to listen to him at the town hall.
“First of all, we just got five feet of snow in Washington and so everybody is like — a lot of the people who are opponents of climate change, they say, see, look at that, there’s all this snow on the ground, this doesn’t mean anything. I want to just be clear that the science of climate change doesn’t mean that every place is getting warmer; it means the planet as a whole is getting warmer. But what it may mean is, for example, Vancouver, which is supposed to be getting snow during the Olympics, suddenly is at 55 degrees, and Dallas suddenly is getting seven inches of snow.
The idea is, is that as the planet as a whole gets warmer, you start seeing changing weather patterns, and that creates more violent storm systems, more unpredictable weather. So any single place might end up being warmer; another place might end up being a little bit cooler; there might end up being more precipitation in the air, more monsoons, more hurricanes, more tornadoes, more drought in some places, floods in other places.”
The key moral imperative of the Synthesis Report is “Inaction is inexcusable”.
In December 2009 the governments of the world will discuss their responses to the climate emergency facing the planet. Civilized, educated , humanitarian people dread the outcome which is likely to be grossly deficient. However in March 2009 2,500 participants (mostly climate science researchers) gathered for the scientific Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (“Climate Change, Global risks, challenges & decisions”, Copenhagen 10-12 March, 2009, University of Copenhagen, Denmark).
The must-read Synthesis Report from the March 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (“Climate Change, Global risks, challenges & decisions”, Copenhagen 10-12 March, 2009, University of Copenhagen, Denmark) has just been released.
This is a vital synthesis of current climate science from the March 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference that involved 2,500 professional participants, most of them climate science researchers. All were welcome and the program and abstracts of the papers presented are available here.
The key moral imperative of the Synthesis Report is “Inaction is inexcusable”.
Nobel peace prize winner, former vice-president and climate crusader Al Gore gives a short (7 minutes) updated presentation on the state of our climate. Besides highlighting some of the latest climate science Gore also talks about the “clean coal” lie.
The video comes from a TED conference in February 2009. Watch it:
Global warming is exaggerated and is just hyped by climate scientists. It’s not a big deal. That is what you might think if you listen to the mainstream media and its misinformation, or if you believe in the denier’s lies and their anti-science rhetoric about man-made climate change.
But that is so far from the truth that it’s absurd as a recent poll among climate experts and scientists clearly show. The poll conducted by the Guardian during the scientific conference in Copenhagen earlier this year shows that 9 out of 10 climate experts don’t believe we will be able to restrict climate change to 2C:
“Almost nine out of 10 climate scientists do not believe political efforts to restrict global warming to 2C will succeed, a Guardian poll reveals today. An average rise of 4-5C by the end of this century is more likely, they say, given soaring carbon emissions and political constraints.
Such a change would disrupt food and water supplies, exterminate thousands of species of plants and animals and trigger massive sea level rises that would swamp the homes of hundreds of millions of people.
The poll of those who follow global warming most closely exposes a widening gulf between political rhetoric and scientific opinions on climate change. While policymakers and campaigners focus on the 2C target, 86% of the experts told the survey they did not think it would be achieved. A continued focus on an unrealistic 2C rise, which the EU defines as dangerous, could even undermine essential efforts to adapt to inevitable higher temperature rises in the coming decades, they warned.”
The 2009 Australian Climate Action Summit of Climate Change Activists will be held in Canberra on the weekend before the first day of the 2009 Federal Parliament – Saturday 31st January – Monday 2nd February 2009.
According to the organizers: “Australia’s Climate Action Summit will be two days of facilitated meetings and workshops. There will be an open public program for anyone to join, and a restricted program for people from climate change groups, who will create a strategic national climate campaign and form a national grassroots network. The weekend will be followed on the Monday by one day of dynamic training in climate campaigning skills for taking action, facilitating climate action groups, effective lobbying and more.”
On Tuesday 3rd February, the first day of the 2009 Federal Parliament, there will be a demonstration at Parliament House and the grassroots climate network created at Australia’s Climate Action Summit will launch its national campaign at Parliament House.
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