Against the waves: Flood defences in Bangladesh
Our finger is on the trigger. If we don’t cut carbon in the developed world, we’re taking lives in the emerging world.
This Guardian photo series shows courageous people in Bangladesh trying to keep rising sea levels from destroying their villages.
The Real Cost of Our High CO2 Emissions Lifestyle
Germanwatch has produced a short film about Carbon Debt–whereby developing countries pay, through climate change impacts, for the Carbon-intensive lifestyles of developed countries. It’s one of the greatest challenges of our time, and one of the reasons that a truly global deal in Copenhagen is so important.
“If global justice means anything”, rich West must make deeper emissions cuts
“Carbon offsetting makes sense if you are seeking a global cut of 5% between now and for ever. It is the cheapest and quickest way of achieving an insignificant reduction. But as soon as you seek substantial cuts, it becomes an unfair, impossible nonsense, the equivalent of pulling yourself off the ground by your whiskers. Yes, let us help poorer nations to reduce deforestation and clean up pollution. But let us not pretend that it lets us off the hook.”
Important Resource Material on Climate War Scenarios
Useful links, dating from 2003, to five and a half years of various reports and articles on possible future conflicts related to dangerous climate change, an important reference for governmental and non-governmental decision makers.
Alert: The Rest of This Year Could Be Much Hotter
NCDC: “Based on preliminary data, the globally averaged combined land and sea surface temperature was the second warmest on record for June, and the January-June year-to-date tied with 2004 as the fifth warmest on record.” The ocean temperature was the warmest on record. In fact, it was a full 0.11°F warmer than the 2005 record. This is almost certainly the new El Niño on top of the long-term warming trend, and that means record temperatures are coming and this will be the hottest decade on record.
Satellite Shows Big Thinning of Winter Arctic Sea Ice, in Just Four Years
The volume of older crucial sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk by 57 percent from late 2004 to 2008. That is losing more volume of ice than water in Lake Michigan. Thin seasonal ice has replaced thick older ice as the dominant type for the first time on record.
Breakup of the tongue of Greenland’s Petermann glacier due within weeks
Arctic glacier poised to split up July 15, 2009 Sidney Morning Herald Environment An ice island weighing many millions of tonnes is poised to break off the northern hemisphere’s largest glacier, say independent scientists travelling aboard a Greenpeace ship. Altogether, 5 billion tonnes of ice is set to crumble from the Petermann Glacier on Greenland’s [...]
Climate Change: The Hard Numerical Reality, and What We Can Do About It
In this FORA.tv presentation given earlier this year at the Long Now Foundation, Griffith examines the numerical reality of the fight against climate change. Drawing from a personal assessment of his own energy needs, Griffith argues that we not only need to switch to alternative energies, we also need to drastically reduce their consumption in order to prevent a global catastrophe. In this clip, Griffith lays out in hard numbers the need for a massive increase in “green” energy, and proposes how it can be achieved.
One Canadian Mother Calls for Action on Climate Bill
Even though many Canadians lobbied the Environment Committee on the urgency of addressing Bill C-311, it was not expedited on the Committee’s schedule and was only first addressed on June 18th, at the final meeting before Parliament recessed for the summer – almost three months after it passed second reading. It will not be discussed in Committee again until Parliament resumes in the latter part of September. And some Committee members have indicated a preference for drawing out the bill’s process even longer, by debating the Climate Change Accountability Act over numerous sessions, something that was already done last year in the Environment Committee. It does not appear that our government officials have grasped the urgency of the climate crisis.
Jim Hansen Blames Waxman-Markey Climate Bill for US Failure to Get Necessary Emissions Targets at G-8 Summit
With a workable climate bill in his pocket, President Obama might have been able to begin building that global consensus in Italy, but it didn’t take long for the counterfeit climate bill known as Waxman-Markey to push back against President Obama’s agenda to achieve meaninful greenhouse gas targets
