Dangerous Climate Change In the Arctic is Dangerous for the Whole World
The danger is that if too much methane is released, the world will get hotter no matter how drastically we slash our greenhouse gas emissions. Recent studies suggest that emissions from melting permafrost could be far greater than once thought. And, although it is too early to be sure, some suspect this scenario is already starting to unfold: after remaining static for the past decade, methane levels have begun to rise again, and the source could be Arctic permafrost.
Columnist Ray Grigg: Need for energy fostering environmental destruction
We need more electricity to keep our high energy lifestyle functioning, and more oil to keep our transportation systems moving. We need more land to feed our growing populations, more oceans to supply our fish, more resources to fuel our industries, and more consumption to satisfy our corporations. So we can always find the justification for destroying something we haven’t yet ruined.
Professor Andrew Weaver: Will Environmentalists Stand With Science?
Environmental organizations and citizen groups will have to work constructively to support emissions-free energy options. Modern society has no choice but to move toward carbon neutrality if we hope to preserve our well-being. Emissions-free energy production is the only means of getting there.
Impact of Climate Change Exacerbates Poverty In Waterfront Slums
Flooding caused by climate change is exacerbating effects poverty and disease in South Asia. This year’s surges in Jakarta were unusually high and strong, wrecking havoc between the end of January and early February, threatening slum dwellers.
Closing Plenary of Copenhagen Climate Change Congress
Panel discussion at closing plenary session of Copenhagen Climate Congress, including Congress Chair Katherine Richardson, Stefan Rahmstorf, Will Steffen, Lord Nicholas Stern, and Dan Kammen, plus Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen
The Moral Choice between Mitigation or Adaptation to Dangerous Climate Change
The world won’t adapt and can’t adapt to dangerous climate change: the only adaptive response to a global shortage of food is starvation. Of the two strategies it is mitigation, not adaptation, which turns out to be the most feasible option, even if this stretches the concept of feasibility to the limits. As Dieter Helm points out, the action required today is unlikely but “not impossible. It is a matter ultimately of human well being and ethics.”
Many prominent climate change scientists’ predictions were wrong
The overly optimistic predictions in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment, released in 2007, appear to have been driven, in part, by the political dynamics involved in the international effort. The underestimation means that government negotiators meeting in Copenhagen later this year to write a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol will have a tougher task than previously imagined.
Risk of extreme climate change accelerating
Message from Copenhagen Climate Science Congress: For many key parameters, the climate system is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived. These parameters include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, ocean and ice sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events.
Hopeful UK leading article on climate change predictions
Curbing emission has to be part of a global partnership. That is why December’s international meeting in Copenhagen to agree on a successor to the Kyoto protocol is of such critical importance. Despite the evident frustrations of scientists on display this week, the signs of success for a new global agreement on curbing emissions have never been more promising.
Worst case climate change scenario trajectories are being realized
Recent observations confirm that, given high rates of observed emissions, the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised. For many key parameters, the climate system is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived. These parameters include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, ocean and ice sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events. There is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.
