Climate Changes Updates 16-17 May 2013
1. Billion-Year-Old Water Found in Canada Holds Clues About Ancient Life
2. Farming with Martians? – NASA Floats Idea of Crops in Mars
http://highlightpress.com/farming-with-martians-nasa-floats-idea-of-crops-in-mars/1438/sdavis
3. Fuel poverty gap widens, although fewer in fuel poverty
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22552112
4. Experts say climate change will sink coastal neighborhoods
Experts say climate change will sink coastal neighborhoods – Quincy, MA – The Patriot Ledger http://www.patriotledger.com/topstories/x1160895488/Experts-say-climate-change-will-sink-coastal-neighborhoods#ixzz2TdV4zqxb
5. Violent Arctic storm a climate-change ‘harbinger,’ study finds
6. Under fire, EPA nominee can’t give ground on climate change
7. Climate Change May Have Little Impact On Tropical Lizards: Study Contradicts Predictions of Widespread Extinction
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130517085821.htm
8. How Should Geophysics Contribute to Disaster Planning?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130516182002.htm
9. World’s Melting Glaciers Making Large Contribution to Sea Rise
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130516142547.htm
10. Tar sands make climate change ‘unsolvable’: Hansen
11. Business to save £1bn from simplifying environmental regs says Defra
http://www.edie.net/news/6/Business-to-save-1bn-from-simplifying-environemntal-regs-says-Defra/
12. Scientists concur that man is causing climate change
http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/news/53448
13. Ice Age Climate Changed Quickly
http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/45989
14. Methane Across the Country
http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/45988
15. Tundra Carbon Impact?
http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/45987
16. Defra prepares to slash climate adaptation team to just six officials
17. Scientific ‘consensus’ that humans to blame for climate change
18. Out of 11,944 peer-reviewed climate papers, 97.2% agree on man-made global warming
19. Cuba hosts int’l forum on coastal management, climate change
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-05/16/c_132386354.htm
20. Time to adapt to climate change, say world’s biggest cities
http://www.rtcc.org/time-to-adapt-to-climate-change-say-worlds-biggest-cities/
21. John Ashton: No UK political party serious about climate change
http://www.rtcc.org/john-ashton-no-uk-political-party-serious-about-climate-change/
22. Keystone XL pipeline ‘needs to go ahead,’ Harper tells U.S
http://news.yahoo.com/keystone-xl-pipeline-needs-ahead-harper-tells-u-230713804.html
23. Scientists: Climate change is real
http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-climate-change-real-170400003.html
24. Analysis: Obama climate agenda faces Supreme Court reckoning
http://news.yahoo.com/obama-climate-agenda-faces-supreme-court-reckoning-051949466.html
25. Climate Change Consensus Tracked
26. Volcanoes Erupting Around the World
http://news.discovery.com/earth/volcanoes-erupt-in-alaska-mexico-italy-and-russia-130516.htm
27. How is atmospheric CO2 measured in the Southern Hemisphere?
http://theconversation.com/how-is-atmospheric-co2-measured-in-the-southern-hemisphere-14219
Climate Change Updates May 17, 2013
- Climate research nearly unanimous on human causes, survey finds http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/may/16/climate-research-nearly-unanimous-humans-causes?CMP=twt_fd survey of thousands of peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals has found 97.1% agreed that climate change is caused by human activity. Authors of the survey, published on Thursday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, said the finding of near unanimity provided a powerful rebuttal to climate contrarians who insist the science of climate change remains unsettled. The survey considered the work of some 29,000 scientists published in 11,994 academic papers. Of the 4,000-plus papers that took a position on the causes of climate change only 0.7% or 83 of those thousands of academic articles, disputed the scientific consensus that climate change is the result of human activity, with the view of the remaining 2.2% unclear.
- UN: $2.5 trillion in disaster losses since 2000 http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/un-2-5-trillion-disaster-234955337.html UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Economic losses from disasters since 2000 are in the range of $2.5 trillion, a figure at least 50 percent higher than previous international estimates, according to a U.N. report released Wednesday. The U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction warned in the 246-page report that economic losses from floods, earthquakes and drought will continue to escalate unless businesses take action to reduce their exposure to disaster risks. N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched the report saying the review of disaster losses in 56 countries clearly demonstrates that “economic losses from disasters are out of control” and can only be reduced in partnership with the private sector.
- Historic carbon peak soon to become global average: WMO http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/news/17150854/historic-carbon-peak-soon-to-become-global-average-wmo/ GENEVA (AFP) – After seeing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere surpass a historic threshold last week, the world should brace for the new peak level to soon become the global annual average, the World Meteorological Organization warned Tuesday. At the current rate of increase, the global annual average CO2 concentration is set to cross the 400 parts per million threshold in 2015 or 2016,” the UN agency said in a statement.
- Drawing in US, China and finance critical to climate deal – S. Africa http://www.trust.org/item/20130313001500-i5lbp/?source=shfb LONDON (AlertNet) – Building a new, ambitious global climate agreement by 2015 will require drawing in China and the United States, and boosting financial help for poor nations so they feel “energised” to act, South Africa’s climate change ambassador has said. With China’s new leadership under domestic pressure to tackle worsening pollution, and U.S. President Barack Obama promising action on climate change after his re-election, now is the moment to press the world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters, said Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko, South Africa’s ambassador-at-large for climate change.
- Scientists say united on global warming, at odds with public view http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/68671 Ninety-seven percent of scientists say global warming is mainly man-made but a wide public belief that experts are divided is making it harder to gain support for policies to curb climate change, an international study showed on Thursday. The report found an overwhelming view among scientists that human activity, led by the use of fossil fuels, was the main cause of rising temperatures in recent decades. “There is a strong scientific agreement about the cause of climate change, despite public perceptions to the contrary,” said John Cook of the University of Queensland in Australia, who led the study in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
- Analysis: Obama climate agenda faces Supreme Court reckoning http://sg.news.yahoo.com/obama-climate-agenda-faces-supreme-court-reckoning-051949466.html WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With a barrage of legal briefs, a coalition of business groups and Republican-leaning states are taking their fight against Obama administration climate change regulations to the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other industry groups, along with states such as Texas and Virginia, have filed nine petitions in recent weeks asking the justices to review four U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations that are designed to cut greenhouse-gas emissions.
- Carbon Capture Able to Be Competitive by 2020s, U.K. Group Says http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-15/carbon-capture-able-to-be-competitive-by-2020s-u-k-group-says.html Technology to trap carbon emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants and store it underground has the potential to be cost-competitive with other green energy in the U.K. by the early 2020s, a government adviser said. The government needs to set out policies and financing to push down costs in the industry to achieve that goal, the Carbon Capture and Storage Cost Reduction Taskforce said in a report. It should spur use of captured carbon dioxide to increase oil extraction, find sites to store and ways to transport the gas.
- China May Not Import Credits as UN Seeks Carbon-Emissions Market http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-05-15/biggest-emitter-china-may-not-import-carbon-credits-for-decades China, the world’s largest greenhouse-gas emitter, probably won’t import carbon credits for two decades as global diplomats craft a new emissions market that will increase supply, the nation’s climate negotiator said. Using offsets from outside China in that period is an “unlikely scenario,” Su Wei said in an interview in Bonn earlier this month. “Rather, internally we will have a lot of offsetting credits.”
- Climate Change Has Shifted the Locations of Earth’s North and South Poles http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-change-has-shifted-location-north-south-poles Global warming is changing the location of Earth’s geographic poles, according to a new study in Geophysical Research Letters. Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, report that increased melting of the Greenland ice sheet — and to a lesser degree, ice loss in other parts of the globe — helped to shift the North Pole several centimeters east each year since 2005. “There was a big change,” says lead author Jianli Chen, a geophysicist.
- President Obama: A majority of scientists say climate change is caused by humans http://www.sciencerecorder.com/news/president-obama-a-majority-of-scientists-says-climate-change-is-caused-by-humans/#ixzz2TWqfbmPL Citing a newly published report, President Barack Obama took to Twitter Thursday, chiding opponents to defend their continued opposition to policies aimed at combating climate change. “Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #HYPERLINK “https://twitter.com/search?q=%23climate&src=hash”climate change is real, man-made and dangerous. Read more: http://OFA.BO/gJsdFp,” read a post on the President’s Twitter account. Obama, who promised to make climate change a major priority during his second inaugural address, has repeatedly faced criticism from supporters who say his administration has pushed the issue to the site, prioritizing issues viewed as more bipartisan, such as immigration reform.
- As climate change broils the Arctic, John Kerry apologizes http://grist.org/news/as-climate-change-broils-the-arctic-john-kerry-apologizes/ “Hello, world? Hey, John Kerry here. Just wanted to apologize for all those decades of America’s non-leadership on that crazy global warming thing. But now we’ve decided to start making some nice sounds about the issue. Hope you can hear me making them over the din of the Arctic ice breaking up behind me.”
- New green technology key to combating climate change: Stephen Harper http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/05/16/stephen_harper_says_closer_canadaus_economic_dealings_possible.html OTTAWA—Prime Minister Stephen Harper says only new green technology will allow the world to combat global warming without damaging economic conditions. Low-carbon technology “is the thing that will allow us to square economic growth with emissions reduction and environmental protection,” Harper said in a question-and-answer session at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Queried about the possibility that Canadians aren’t worried about climate change because they might want a climate “like New Jersey,” Harper said progress will also require commitments to lower emissions from all major countries, rich and poor.
- Mount Everest Melting; Climate Change Likely To Blame, Say Researchers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/16/mount-everest-melting-climate-change_n_3285971.html For years, scientists have worried about the impact of climate change in the invaluable Himalayan region. Recent research seems to confirm worries that a warming world is melting one of Earth’s most iconic, not to mention tallest, summits: Mount Everest. The research was presented this weekduringHYPERLINK “http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-everest-climate-20130514,0,7957473.story” a conference co-sponsored by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Cancun, Mexico. Co-authored by Sudeep Thakuri of the Graduate School of Earth, Environment and Biodiversity at the University of Milan in Italy, the study says glaciers on Mount Everest have decreased by 13 percent over the past 50 years, while the snowline has shifted upward several hundred feet.
- Scientists: Climate change is real http://theweek.com/article/index/244345/scientists-climate-change-is-real As if the backing of NASA, 18 independent American scientific societies, and an intergovernmental panel established under the United Nations weren’t enough to quell the protests popping up in comment sections across the Internet, a new study published in the journalEnvironmental Research Letters confirms — once again — that climatologists almost unanimously believe that climate change is directly related to human-made carbon emissions. Researchers pored over nearly 12,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers from 1991 to 2011. These papers, according to Michael Todd at HYPERLINK “http://www.psmag.com/environment/climate-study-consensus-still-means-consensus-57917/”Pacific Standard, represented the work of 29,083 authors and 1,980 journals. The conclusion could hardly be stronger: 97 percent of scientists agree that anthropogenic, or human-caused, global warming exists
- Predictions Australia will be hardest hit by climate change http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-17/predictions-australia-will-be-hardest-hit-by-climate-change/4695718 A national conference on mining and coal seam gas in the Hunter Valley this weekend will hear the world is past the point of preventing climate change. Community leaders and experts in energy policy, health and renewables are gathering for the three day forum in Kurri Kurri this weekend. Ian Dunlop is a former senior Executive of Royal Dutch Shell and a former chair of the Australian Coal Association. He says the coal industry has known since the 1980’s climate concerns will limit its primacy. He says the world has already left it too late to prevent the onset of major climate change, pointing to the ominous milestone reached in the last week that saw the atmospheric concentration for carbon dioxide surpassing levels not seen in millions of years.
- Tar sands make climate change ‘unsolvable’: Hansen http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/tar-sands-make-climate-change-unsolvable-hansen-20130517-2jpzv.html Exploiting oil and gas trapped in tar sands and shale threatens to make climate change “unsolvable,” said James Hansen, the former NASA scientist who raised concerns about global warming in the 1980s. Conventional reserves of oil, gas and coal already have more carbon embedded in them than is safe to burn without causing “dangerous” levels of warming beyond a rise of 2 degrees Celsius since industrialisation, Hansen told a U.K. panel of lawmakers today. “The potential amount of carbon in these unconventional resources is huge,” Hansen told the Environmental Audit Committee. “If we introduce the tar shale and the tar sands as a source and exploit those resources to a significant extent, then the problem becomes unsolvable.”
- MIT, Harvard sign climate change compact with Cambridge Cambridge http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/features/x1039442877/MIT-Harvard-sign-climate-change-compact-with-Cambridge?rssfeed=true#axzz2TWrySatF — In a first-of-its-kind endeavor, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the city of Cambridge signed an agreement May 6 to collectively tackle climate change. The pledge, called the Community Compact, is a voluntary agreement between the three signatories requiring each of them to begin reporting annually on progress towards nine sustainability goals identified in the document. The compact targets energy efficiency, climate change mitigation and preparedness planning, renewable energy systems, transportation, waste management (including composting and recycling), water management, urban natural resources, public information and education, and green technology incubation and promotion.
- Study shows consensus among scientists about climate change http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/350271 A new study has found that although 33 percent of Americans believe there is “widespread disagreement” among scientists that climate change is happening, there is an overwhelming consensus among environment researchers that it is happening. An April 2013 Yale climate change study found that while 63 percent of Americans believe global warming is happening only 49% believe it is caused by human activities and about 33 percent say there is “widespread disagreement among scientist” that global warming is
***