EnMasse

[bshmr]

Adding to my RSS sources, I happened on this 'light' read.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/11/burning-questions.h...

Your Top 20 Econundrums—Solved!
NEWS: Disposable or cloth diapers? Netflix or video store? Our green advice guide goes way beyond paper v. plastic.
By Ben Whitford; November/December 2008 Issue

[Hephaestion]

Hot Argentinian Man Melts to Draw Attention to Global Warming
_________________
"The dignity of an animal is measured by his capacity to revolt in the face of oppression." -- Mikhail Bakunin

[bshmr]

Carbon trade has some realism added.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081209125830.htm

Secret Ingredient For The Health Of Tropical Rainforests Discovered

[bshmr]

Two more.
Keeping the planet and inhabitants in focus:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-12/su-ww121008.php

Wind, water and sun beat biofuels, nuclear and coal for clean energy, Stanford researcher says

[Reverend Blair]

[bshmr]

[transplant]

It seems that the official period used to determine annual average global temperatures is December through November, as opposed to the January through December calendar year. That means that the last 10 years hasn't covered the 1998 El Nino, and the consequent anomalously high temperatures of 1998, for some time now. Which means that global warming/climate change denialists can no longer cherry pick 1998 to compare to 2008 and insist that the temperature trend is down over "the last 10 years."

Although it wasn't "down" in any case, because the length of time period needed to separate a long-term trend in climate from the year-to-year and longer variation in weather "noise" is commonly accepted as 30 years, but even using the denialists' too-short 10 year period it's more than clear that the trend is up, not down.
Here's what the trend for "the last ten years" now looks like:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1999/plot/uah/from:1999/t...

[Thanks to bob at Open Mind]
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/12/17/2008-temperature-summaries-a...

[Legless_Marine]

[Hephaestion]

New EU Prez: Global Warming Is A Myth

[Rufus Polson]

So, total dork on global warming. He may have a point on the EU and the Lisbon Treaty. Certainly what I heard about the draft European constitution the Lisbon Treaty is replacing wasn't good. At least part of it was apparently a bid to give neoliberal ideas unassailable legal status.

[Hephaestion]

Arctic melt 20 years ahead of climate models

[transplant]

Much of China's rapidly increasing CO2 emissions are actually outsourced US emissions, since the US imports so much of the goods that those emissions produced. Turns out that outsourced US CO2 emissions more than triple the official figure for US emissions growth over the eight years of the Bush administration from 200 to 700 million tonnes. For an analysis see this item at Climate Progress.

[Rufus Polson]

Well, that is probably going to be one silver lining to the whole "New Great Depression" thing--the US won't be able to afford nearly as many of those imports. Chances are, neither will we. That should put a crimp in emissions. Um, hurray?

[sparqui]

[Tehanu]

Well, well. Obama's continuing his nice little roll, today announcing that he's going to reverse Bush's position blocking states' efforts to impose vehicle emission standards. He's also announced that he's backing Congress's federal emissions standards due to take effect in 2011.

[Cartman]

I usually like to see politics move faster, but it is fun to watch him slowly dismantle all of Bush's work. Old Georgie must be seriously pissed off.

[Tehanu]

Hee, slowly indeed. I mean, it's been a whole week, almost! Jeez.

[TS.]

Obama is looking pretty damn good on domestic policy (with some obvious exceptions like opposition to equal marriage). Though I wonder how much of how good he is looking is due to the fact that Bush II was so awful?
_________________
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson

[Cartman]

[Hephaestion]

[Tehanu]

Change is coming sooner than expected, say researchers. Plus, we're adding CO2 into the atmosphere even faster than in the 1990s. Ouch.

[Hephaestion]

Earth entering climate change danger zone faster than anticipated?
_________________
"The dignity of an animal is measured by his capacity to revolt in the face of oppression." -- Mikhail Bakunin

[transplant]

There's been a lot of talk lately that one silver lining of an imploding world economy will be a decline in CO2 emissions.

While true, it won't have much, if any, short term effect on global warming for two reasons:

1) We have yet to see the full warming impact from the CO2 that has already been emitted due to the thermal inertial of the ocean, and since that CO2 is not going anywhere soon it will continue to give its gift of warming for many decades to come, if not centuries.

2) Along with CO2, chimneys, smoke stacks and tailpipes the world over also spew sulfate aerosols and particulates, which reflect and block incoming sunlight, offsetting some of the CO2-induced warming, known as Global Dimming.

But as economic activity slows, not only less CO2, but also fewer aerosols and particulates will be emitted, and since both wash out of the atmosphere quickly, we can expect a sudden boost in CO2-induced warming when the aerosols and particulates of the so-called Asian Brown Cloud no longer mask part of the existing warming.

This is exactly what we saw after the collapse of East Block economies in the 1990s and after the aerosols and ash of Mt Pinatuno cleared in 1992-93. It's also no coincidence that the last 30 years of rapid warming commenced just as clean air legislation took effect in the US and Western Europe.

Unfortunately, silver linings are not always what they appear to be.

[Hephaestion]

Ice bridge supporting Antarctic ice shelf cracks up

[transplant]

Antarctica's tumultuous past revealed

The Andrill drilling project is showing that the West Antarctic Ice sheet has retreated and regrown at least 60 times over the past 14 million years, suggesting that it is prone to rapid and catastrophic collapse over as little as 1000 years at atmospheric CO2 concentrations of 400 to 450 ppm. (We're currently at 387 ppm.) That translates into a rate of .5 to 1 meter of sea level rise per century.

[transplant]

A new paper in Nature presents evidence of rates of sea level rise of 5+ cm per year over a 50 year period (2.5+ meters total) 121,000 years ago during the last interglacial (the Eemian). By comparison, current sea level rise is just over 3 mm per year, projected to increase to .3 to 1.4 cm per year as polar melting accelerates.

Story at Climate Progress.

Abstract at Rapid sea-level rise and reef back-stepping at the close of the last interglacial highstand.

[Rufus Polson]

Mind you, so far nearly all the mainstream projections have kept being exceeded.

[Chester]

1,500 indian farmers have committed sucide this year.

[transplant]

The next time some one tries to tell you that global warming is a myth or hoax, that it's just the urban heat island effect in populated areas and that there hasen't been any warming, show them this little interactive map that shows the northward shift in plant hardiness zones since 1990.

NOTE: I held off posting this so as not to bump Chester's post about Indian farmer suicides from TAT. Odd that that topic did not elicit any comment at all.

[Feral]

Cool map. It's a puzzling map, but it's cool nonetheless. I'm not at all sure why Arborday.org would want to claim that Zone 7 has gone and swallowed the region I live in. I wouldn't suggest relying on this map if you're planning on planting something that you expect to... oh, I don't know... live.

Averages are averages, but here you really can reliably expect the annual low to be 15 to twenty degrees lower than that map suggests. Not the "Average Annual Low," to be sure... but the low temperature that's going to freeze your trees, shrubs, and assorted other green-thumberies solid.

As for the change... the map clearly indicates that this very region has warmed by one full Hardiness Zone. Huh. The record cold temperature was in 1994. No one was surprised (though no one was pleased). It was worthy of Zone 5. If you're planting here, you very much do want to remember that Zone 5 is what you're likely to get, Zone 6 is a certainty, and Zone 7 is something you like to imagine on a sunny day in February. Plants don't much want to hear about "averages." Frozen is frozen.

Not that I'd want to suggest that the puzzling aspects of that map are "evidence" of anything. The right-proper "Average Annual Low" here is quite warm... mostly due to the not at all low "lows" we experience in the summer. It is warmer... just not in winter.

[transplant]

A different kind of tipping point has finally been reached:

EPA: Global warming a health hazard

[transplant]

Oh, look, just like the tobacco industry did, the fossil fuel industry has been ignoring their own science advisors and lying to you for 15 years:

Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate

"For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995. ..."

[lawlibrarian2]

And California goes on the offensive: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/24/california-carbon...

Alberta worried California measures may mean end of oil sands:
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Alberta/2009/04/24/9226801-sun.html
http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/International/2009/04/24/004-c...

The tough California clean air standards will serve as a template for Obama in Washington.

[transplant]

It's not just the Arctic and Antarctic that are melting:

Snow Cover Turning to Lakes in the Himalayas
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46761

"These are the world's greatest repositories of snow and ice outside of the polar regions, and yet they may melt away in just 20 to 30 years, leaving more than a billion people desperately short of water...."

Six of the world's major rivers rise in the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau (Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Yangtze, Yellow, Mekong). We're talking about the water source for over a billion people.

[Reverend Blair]

It's not just the Himalayas either, Transplant. Glaciers in the Andes are in trouble too:

[bshmr]

A relatively thorough, multi-level article for lay people on keeping us alive day-to-day <g>. An easy read with smoothly mentioned facts.

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/globalrecession/2009/05/20095161...

The 21st century's bleak harvest; By Asif Mehdi, development practitioner

[Tehanu]

The Conservatives have announced their cap 'n trade plan. Seems nobody's paying attention, though, it was on Wednesday and I didn't hear a peep about it. Anyone else?

[TS.]

It won't be possible to trade the credits that are generated in Canada internationally. Why, you may ask? Because of the benchmark year. To be internationally tradeable, the credits must use 1990 as the base year, where as the Canadian ones will use 2006 as the baseline year. Thus they won't be able to be traded in the North American carbon market that is planned, or with other parts of the world.
_________________
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson

[transplant]

Multi-agency US government report on the impacts of climate change finally released:

Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States

The report is downloadable in full or in bite-size sections here.

[Hephaestion]

Night-Shining Clouds Encroach on the UK

[Legless_Marine]

[Searosia]

[transplant]

[Rufus Polson]

[Hephaestion]

Canadian scientists breeding cows that burp less

Yeah, 'coz climate change is all about the cows, not anything to do with the tar sands, or nuthin'...
_________________
"The dignity of an animal is measured by his capacity to revolt in the face of oppression." -- Mikhail Bakunin

[A_J]

[transplant]

[Tehanu]

Cow farts are methane culprits too, aren't they?

That article that Heph linked to was very unclear. Are they breeding the cows or genetically engineering them? (Possibly the writer doesn't know much about genetics or agriculture so is obfuscating, but that might just be snarky of me.)

Of course, if we wanted to reduce the amount of cow burps, we could just reduce the amount of cows. By eating less meat. And (argh) less dairy.

[Searosia]

Same thing, different end Teh

I'm guessing a lil selective breeding, but potentially some genetic manipulation...you're right, that article is unclear. The carbon credit bit almost seems silly, we're gonna pay you a loonie a head for every cow of your's that farts less than it did in 2006.
_________________
Now is not the time for you Liberal fools, its time for a witch hunt. - Bloc Party

[Legless_Marine]