An overwhelming global scientific consensus says that man-made global warming is happening NOW. Indeed for the latest see the report from President Obama’s science advisers that states that massive climatic disruption is already affecting the United States and that projects that the average U.S. temperature could rise by as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century (see “White House: climate change damage happening now. Obama’s first global warming report most dire yet: Ill effects already here, will get worse”). Thus White House report report co-author Anthony Janetos of the University of Maryland:

“There are in some cases already serious consequences. This is not a theoretical thing that will happen 50 years from now. Things are happening now.”

Nevertheless the climate sceptics are unfazed and essentially all governments around the world are committed to continuing to increase atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration above the present level of circa 390 parts per million (ppm) to even more dangerous levels.

In contrast, in climate criminal Australia (one of the world’s worst annual per capita greenhouse gas polluters) climate activists and leading climate scientists are calling for urgent reduction of atmospheric CO2 to 300 ppm. The Australia-based Climate Emergency Network, the Canberra Climate Action Summit (over 140 Australia-wide climate action groups), the influential Yarra Valley Climate Action Group and 300.org all say – informed by the latest science from America’s Dr James Hansen (NASA GISS), Australia’s Professor Barry Brook (climate science, University of Adelaide) and others – that for a safe and sustainable existence for all people and all species the atmospheric CO2 of our warming-threatened planet must be urgently reduced from the current circa 390 ppm to 300 ppm (click here for details and documentation).

(more…)

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.”

(more…)