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

Photo credit: azrainman

Top German scientist Hans Joachim Schellnhuber warns that climate change is now happening much more quickly than anyone thought was possible.

In an interview with Saarbruecker Zeitung newspaper Schellnhuber, who heads the Potsdam Institute for Research on Global Warming Effects and acts as an adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on climate-change issues, said that “the threats posed by climate change are worse than those imagined by most governments.”

“In nearly all areas, the developments are occurring more quickly than it has been assumed up until now. We are on our way to a destabilization of the world climate that has advanced much further than most people or their governments realize.”

Schellnhuber points out that the Arctic ice is melting faster than previously expected and says that “the entire climate pattern at the North Poll has been disrupted to the extent of causing irreversible change.”

The Arctic sea ice is melting more quickly than expected. There are also signs that the entire climate pattern at the North Poll has been disrupted to the extent of causing irreversible change.

For the Arctic, the global warming which has already occurred of 0.8 degrees Celsius has already stepped over the line, Schellnhuber said. If Greenland’s ice cap melts completely, water levels will rise by seven meters (23 feet).

“The current coastline will no longer exist, and that includes Germany,” he said.

Schellnhuber says that to be able to stop global warming the industrial countries need to decrease their emissions by 80-90% and that by 2020 “this process has to be well underway”.

Newly released data from the UK Met Office shows that during the first half of 2008 the global temperatures was more than 0.1 Celcius cooler than any other year after 2000. The reason for this is La Nina, an ocean-atmosphere phenomenon that has a cooling effect on the earth.

But this doesn’t mean the deniers are correct about anything else. Scientists still expects that 2008 will be the 10th warmest year since 1850. And the UK Met Office says that the global temperatures will continue to rise again when La Nina eases away.

“The big thing that’s been happening this year is La Nina, which has lowered global temperatures somewhat,” said John Kennedy, climate monitoring and research scientist at the Met Office’s Hadley Centre.

“La Nina has faded in the last couple of months and now we have neutral conditions in the Pacific,” he told BBC News.

Dr Kennedy also said that “2008 will still be significantly above the long-term average,” and that “there’s been a strong upward trend in the last few decades, and that’s the thing to focus on.”

Even during the temporarily cooling effect from La Nina we see evidence that the rapid man-made warming continues. Images from National Aeronautics and Space Administration satellites show continued breakup of 2 of Greenland’s largest glaciers. According to Canadian authorities the Northwest Passage is navigable. Recently scientists warned that the Arctic could become ice-free during the summers as early as 2013. And just yesterday a huge chunk of ice shelf nearly the size of Manhattan broke away in Canada’s northern Arctic.

The morning sessions of the Convergence were devoted to a series of succinct addresses by a series of very well-informed speakers who variously addressed topics such as the Bali Conference, the Pacific Islands facing inundation, Carbon Equity, Technological Solutions, Opportunities for Business, Forests, Youth activism, Union Solidarity and Green Enterprises, North-South Issues , Social Justice and Equity, Arctic ice loss and Climate Emergency and the urgent need for a Climate State of Emergency Declaration. A repeated theme was indeed the current Climate Emergency and Sustainability Emergency and the need to take effective action to convince society, business and politicians to declare a Climate State of Emergency NOW.

The afternoon sessions began with the launch of “Climate Code Red – the Case for a Sustainability Emergency” by David Spratt (Carbon Equity) and Philip Sutton (Greenleap Strategic Institute) (http://www.climatecodered.net) (I will review this important book in detail on Green Blog shortly but a brief summary is provided below). The Convergence then continued with specific Workshops and Regional Climate Action Group (CAG) get-togethers. A key outcome was the decision by some of these groups to reinforce sentiment from a prior initial meeting by agreeing to form a Coalition for a Climate Emergency Declaration.

The essence of the exhaustively referenced “Climate Code Red” book is that the IPCC 2007 Report was several years out of date when it appeared (their literature for consideration cut-off date was 2005) and that the global situation is far more serious than hitherto surmised. The latest climate research, in particular from NASA’s Dr James Hansen and his colleagues, reveals that we have already reached a “tipping point” in relation to the complete melting of Arctic summer ice (now predicted by some to occur as soon as in a few years’ time). The massive thinning and complete melting of Arctic ice is being driven by “positive feedback” elements (notably the so-called “albedo flip” involved in conversion of light-reflecting white ice to light-absorbing dark sea and consequent further sea and air warming). However this Arctic ice melting is promoting OTHER adverse events with attendant positive feedback effects leading to accelerated warming and ice melting phenomena e.g. the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets are melting much faster than hitherto predicted (due to increased polar temperature and lubrication of glacier movements by melt water) and the tundra is thawing (with release of the greenhouse gases methane [CH4] and carbon dioxide [CO2], increased global warming etc).

The authors of “Climate Code Red” agree with NASA’s Dr James Hansen that the appropriate RESPONSE to this present situation of ACTUAL massive ecosystem damage (and with evident initiation of other likely non-linear global warming related events, notably ice sheet and tundra melting) is no longer the Bali-style “finite CO2 emission reduction targets”) or even “zero emissions” but must be an urgent global policy of “negative CO2 emissions”. This will involve cessation of coal power, and other fossil fuel burning, rapid expansion of renewable energy provision and mechanisms to REDUCE existing atmospheric CO2 from 385 ppm to a “safe”, sustainability-consistent 300-350 ppm (e.g. re-forestation, sulphate aerosols and return of carbon to the soil with pyrolytic biomass charring) (see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/…/).

According to Dr James Hansen, in calling for an immediate cessation of coal power:

“If disintegration of these ice sheets passes their tipping points, dynamical collapse could proceed out of our control. If it melts completely, West Antarctica alone contains enough water to cause about 20 feet (6 meters) of sea-level rise. There are also tipping points in life systems. Today, as global temperature increases at a rate of about 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade, isotherms (a line of average temperature) are moving poleward at a rate of about 50-60 kilometers (35 miles) per decade. In response, some species are moving.” (see “: http://www.thebulletin.org/columns/james-hansen/20080124.html ).

David Spratt and Philip Sutton crystallized the road ahead as indicated by “Climate Code Red – the Case for a Sustainability Emergency” by 5 key propositions that I have reproduced as headings below and addressed succinctly using my own words and perceptions.

1. “Our goal is a safe-climate future – we have no right to bargain away species or human lives.” Massive species extinctions have already occurred; there is massive ecosystem damage ALREADY; un-ameliorated current 2.5 ppm per year increases in CO2 from the present 385 ppm CO2 threaten even more damage (world coral dies above 450 ppm; the ocean phytoplankton system goes at 500 ppm; sea level rises of 5 meters this century due to Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheet loss); current global warming ALREADY harms billions of people; and projected unaddressed global warming acutely threatens 6-9 billion people this century with over 6 billion predicted to perish this century by Professor Lovelock FRS (see: (see: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/…/ ; http://climateemergency.blogspot.com).

2. “We are facing rapid warming impacts: the danger is immediate, not just in the future.” Temperature increases approaching 2 degrees C above the pre-industrial (an average global temperature not seen for a million years) are ALREADY implicit in the system – a global average 0.8 degrees C above pre-industrial ALREADY, with a further 0.6 degrees C in-built from current CO2 levels and 0.4 degrees C per decade temperature increases possible from continuing “business as usual” CO2 pollution and declining carbon sink efficacy (through de-forestation, phytoplankton decline and storm-impacted loss of net CO2 absorption by the Oceans – this has ALREADY occurred with the Southern Ocean). Major UN relief programs are ALREADY being impacted by global warming effects, notably in Africa.

3.”For a safe climate future, strong action is required now to stop emissions and to cool the earth.” According to Dr Hansen we have ALREADY passed the “tipping point” for complete melting of Arctic sea ice and the attendant threats of accelerating Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheet melting, carbon sink failure, permafrost loss, phytoplankton and forest loss with non-linear effects and positive feedbacks. The technology and the economic incentives are ALREADY available to replace fossil fuel burning by renewables (essentially ALL renewable energy sources are ALREADY cheaper than the “true cost” of coal–based power which is about 5 times higher than the current “market cost” (see: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com). Cooling the Earth can be further achieved by sulphate aerosols, soil carbon sequestration by adding pyrolytically charred biomass and massive re-forestation.

4. “It is necessary to plan a large-scale transition to a post-carbon economy and society.” There are analogous precedents for rapid, highly profitable, industrial conversion in the WW2 US armaments-geared economic boom, the post-war economic boom, the Asian Tiger economic expansion, the current China and India expansions and the IT revolution of the 1990s. 10,000 times more solar energy hits the Earth than is needed for Man’s current energy needs and the major renewable technologies are ALREADY cheaper than the “true cost” of coal power (see “Renewables: how the numbers stack up”: http://www.newmatilda.com/2007/08/08/how-numbers-stack).

5. “We should recognize a climate and sustainability emergency, because we need to move at a pace far beyond business and politics as usual.” Dramtic industrial turn-around has happened before in war-time (driven by the absolute need for victory), it has happened before in relation to New Technologies (driven by desire for profit) and it has happened in Asia (driven by a post-colonial desire for a better life above the starvation level of the colonial era). Aside from the moral obligations for biosphere and species sustainability, there is an extraordinary economic, social and indeed political advantage from Declaration of a Climate State of Emergency.

We have got to this present parlous state because of LYING – through the myth that the Powerful can take what they want with impunity from the water, air, land and biological resources that are the COMMON Property of ALL Humanity. As soon as these climate criminal, climate genocidal barbarians are made to pay the FULL environmental and human cost of what they are doing, the ALREADY AVAILABLE and economically-dictated renewable, sustainable solutions will become imperative. But before that can happen and as dictated by the climate science, we must ACT to Declare a Climate Emergency, a Climate State of Emergency, and we must do it NOW (see: “Climate Sustainability Emergency. Negative CO2 emissions needed now to save Planet“: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/20133/42/ ; “Climate Emergency, Sustainability Emergency”).

Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com ).