Dr. James Hansen’s Report from Norway, of Interest to Canadians
Dr. James Hansen’s experience in Norway, including a letter to the Prime Minister and the government response, have been posted to Dr. Hansen’s website. He condemns the Norwegian government for supporting Statoil’s development of the Canadian Tar Sands.
Future High Temperature Rise Could Cause Up to 6.7 Million Mexicans To Migrate
Note from Dorothy: Many have long been aware of what the heating of our planet will mean for Mexico as it gets hotter and dryer. The study below, however, shows the direct linkages between crop failure and degrees Celsius of warming. The people of Mexico, who have done the least to cause dangerous climate change, [...]
Burning Our Forests For Fuel Will Doom Our Planet
Bioenergy is an urgent problem that requires a real and immediate reduction of CO2 emissions. Burning wood to replace fossil fuels will increase CO2 output for several decades. And there is no assurance that energy from wood-fueled power would replace energy from gas-fired plants; it may just all be additional to the CO2 loading.
Gwynne Dyer Speaks About Climate Wars on Democracy Now
A new book by geopolitical analyst and columnist Gwynne Dyer imagines what the politics and demographics of the world might look like if temperatures continue to rise. Dyer writes ‘In this world our worries are not just hotter summers, bigger hurricanes, rising sea levels, and polar bears swimming for their lives. We’re trying to avoid megadeaths from mass starvation and quite possibly from nuclear wars and the odds aren’t good,” he writes.The June 1, 2010 edition of his book is called “Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats.”
Long Term Effects of Global Warming Will Be Far Worse than Gulf of Mexico Catastrophe
Although the BP oil spill seriously threatens those who live along the Gulf of Mexico, U.S. intransigence on climate change threatens the entire world; a fact that is causing rising anger around the world. Yet the U.S. Congress continues to resist action on climate change on the basis that it will harm some U.S. economic interests, while ignoring our duties, responsibilities, and obligations to others to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to the U.S. fair share of safe global releases. For this reason, while the BP oil spill can be rightfully be understood as a disaster, U.S. Congressional inaction on climate change must be understood as a huge moral failure leading to an even greater disaster.
Oil Drilling Disaster Potential For Canada, Nigeria, Brazil and China
Four Possible BP-Style Extreme Energy Nightmares to Come The disaster in the Gulf is no anomaly. It’s an arrow pointing toward future disasters. By Michael T. Klare, Tomdispatch.com June 22, 2010 Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, TomDispatch.com regular, and the author, most recently, of Rising [...]
Methane in Some Areas of Gulf of Mexico Now 1 Million Times Normal Level
As much as 1 million times the normal level of methane gas has been found in some regions near the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, enough to potentially deplete oxygen and create a dead zone, U.S. scientists said on Tuesday
How Do Empathy and Dangerous Climate Change Relate?
Ray Grigg writes about Jeremy Rifkin’s book, “The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a Time of Crisis.”
“Empathy makes everything personal. This explains why environmental interest continues to rise in profile. And an electronically interconnected world provides no hiding places. If Jeremy Rifkin is correct in The Empathic Civilization – and most likely he is – we are entering a tumultuous time of make-or-break decisions. Our old and narrow awareness is being replaced by an expansive and exacting regard for our planet’s biosphere, that thin and delicate film of life which is, for each one of us, the difference between everything and nothing.”
People in Rural Communities of Nigeria, Which Supplies 40% of US Crude, Now Only Live to 40 Years
With 606 oilfields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of all the crude the United States imports and is the world capital of oil pollution. Life expectancy in its rural communities, half of which have no access to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40 years over the past two generations. Locals blame the oil that pollutes their land and can scarcely believe the contrast with the steps taken by BP and the US government to try to stop the Gulf oil leak and to protect the Louisiana shoreline from pollution.
Opinion: We Must Not Allow Oil Drilling in the Canadian Arctic
There is extreme danger in exploring for oil in the Canadian Arctic. Even with same-season relief well equipment at the ready, there’s no guarantee winds wouldn’t shift the ice during the short Arctic summer and make efforts to repair a well blowout impossible.
Not only would an oil spill in this region be catastrophic, but the response of some concerned with preventing this, as you’ll see below, falls short of what many of us believe is truly needed:
A moratorium on all offshore oil exploration and drilling in the Arctic, by all circumpolar nations, including Canada, pending the negotiation of an international treaty to protect its resources, its people and its environment.
