INFORMATION / IDEAS / GLOBAL WARMING

2012-01-05T04:02:00.000-08:00

GLOBAL WARMING / 2011 / 41-43 /

2.41 Warmer oceans taking toll on world's coral reefs

"We probably sometime around the 1980s passed the levels that are conducive to coral-reef growth in terms of temperatures and CO2 in the atmosphere," Eakin said. "What we really need is to get back to where we were in the '80s."
That would mean reducing greenhouse gases to about 350 parts per million. It's 390 now and will be 560, or double preindustrial levels, by mid-century, according to the latest projections.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2014403231_coralreefs06.html

2.42 Global warming quiz

Which entity among the following is truly serious about global warming:

1. The scientific community

2. The engineering community

3. Economists

4. The media

5. The government of USA

6. The government of China

7. The government of India

8. The European Union

9. The Democratic party in USA

10. The Republican party in USA (Also known as GOP)

The answer will surprise you ..... scroll down.

The answer is 10. The Republican Party in USA (Also known as GOP).

Why?

Because they alone realize the sacrifices that will be required to solve the problem.

I don't believe the others have done even a back of the envelope calculation.

Regards,

Selvaraj

2.43 Full cost of coal

By now, we all know coal’s climate change reputation: Power plants that burn it release enormous amounts of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.

But a new report released today by the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School looks deeper at the full cost of coal, following its life cycle from exploration, through transportation, processing, and burning to estimate that coal is costing the U.S. one-third to over one-half a trillion dollars annually. The report was released aboard the Arctic Sunrise at Rowe’s Wharf, Greenpeace’s chartered icebreaker.
The report, being published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, notes that fully accounting for these costs would double to triple the price of electricity from coal, thus making wind, solar, and other forms of renewable energy far more competitive.

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/greenblog/2011/02/new_harvard_study_looks_at_ful.html

2012-01-05T03:55:00.000-08:00

GLOBAL WARMING / 2011 / 36-40 /

2.36 Ocean acidification

The problem was recently highlighted by the head of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Dr Jane Lubchenco. She described ocean acidification as global warming's "equally evil twin". It is a powerful comparison, though it is clear that of the two, the crisis facing our seas has received far less attention. The last UN climate assessment report was more than 400 pages long but had only two pages on ocean acidification – mainly because studies of the phenomenon are less well advanced than meteorological and atmospheric research in general.

.. Few scientists doubt that the impact on reefs will be anything short of devastating, however. The Caribbean has already lost about 80% of its coral reefs to bleaching caused by rising temperatures and by overfishing which removes species that normally aid coral growth. Acidification threatens to do the same for the rest of the world's coral reefs.

.. Acidification has affected the oceans in the past. However, these prehistoric events occurred at a far slower rate, said Dr Jerry Blackford of Plymouth Marine Laboratory. "The waters of the world take around 500 years to circulate the globe," he said. "If carbon dioxide was rising slowly, in terms of thousands of years, natural factors could then compensate. Sediments could buffer the carbonic acid, for example."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/global-warming-threat-to-oceans

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Most people don't seem to understand that the rate at which co2 is being pumped into the atmosphere is much greater than anytime in the past. Rate, rate, rate .. is what counts: this also means we have very little time left to act.

.. Despite all the hype, what we observe is the massive failure of the worldwide educational system in the 20th century. I don't recall even one subject which discussed the environment in which Engineers operate (or ought to operate in), when I was studying engineering!

Selvaraj

2.37 Everest glacier 'turning into a lake'

Global warming has melted one of Mount Everest's most-visited glaciers into a vast and growing lake which now poses a threat to villagers and trekking tourists, scientists have warned.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/8538974/Everest-glacier-turning-into-a-lake-due-to-global-warming.html

2.38 The Stockholm Memorandum

On Wednesday, 17 Nobel laureates who gathered in Stockholm have published a remarkable memorandum, asking for “fundamental transformation and innovation in all spheres and at all scales in order to stop and reverse global environmental change”. The Stockholm Memorandumconcludes that we have entered a new geological era: the Anthropocene, where humanity has become the main driver of global change. The document states:

Science makes clear that we are transgressing planetary boundaries that have kept civilization safe for the past 10,000 years. [...]
We can no longer exclude the possibility that our collective actions will trigger tipping points, risking abrupt and irreversible consequences for human communities and ecological systems.
We cannot continue on our current path. The time for procrastination is over. We cannot afford the luxury of denial.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/05/nobel-laureates-speak-out-2/

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Unfortunately the only way to do this will be to rewrite the economics textbooks. We will also have to learn to communicate in a better way, since most people seem to be too busy to look up and see what is going on around them.

The way forward:

1. People should spend only 50 % of their time working in a formal organization, the remaining 50% should be spent in social organizations (or agricultural communities).

2. Cities and Towns should be designed in 1Km x 0.5 Km grids, where mode of transport is only by walking and cycling, motorized vehicles being permitted only on encircling roads.

Selvaraj

2.39 Canada's Arctic glaciers melting fast: Study

Canada's Arctic glaciers have lost almost a Great Lake's worth of water in recent years, a new study has found. Using satellites and ground crews, researchers monitored Canadian Arctic ice between 2004 and 2009, and found the ice-loss rate in those years was four times what NASA estimated in the '90s.

The equivalent of about three quarters of Lake Erie was lost to melting during those six years, explained Alex Gardner, co-author of the study, in a University of Alberta press release.

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/05/04/canadas-arctic-glaciers-melting-fast-study

Ice Sheets Melt Faster; Sea Levels Could Rise Five Feet By 2100:

The ice in Greenland and the Arctic is melting even faster than first anticipated, raising sea levels as much as 1.6 meters (five feet) by the end of the century.

The new estimates come from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, the scientific division of the Arctic Council, a group of eight nations that have interests in the region. AMAP's assessments will be presented to representatives of the member nations, including the U.S., next week at a conference in Greenland. It is also being discussed this week at a scientific conference in Copenhagen.

The new estimates draw on several recent studies and new techniques. The last major assessment of sea level rise was made in 2007, by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That report said there were, broadly speaking, two possibilities by the year 2100. One is for 18 to 38 centimeters (7 to 15 inches) and the other is for 26 to 59 centimeters (10 to 23 inches).

The new studies point to sea level rise at nearly twice that rate, at 90 to 160 centimeters (35 to 63 inches). That is enough to put much more pressure on low-lying areas in the U.S. such as Cape Cod, Florida and New Orleans.

2.40 Fire and Ice

Climatologists have been raising alarms about global warming for years, and now geologists are getting into the act, warning that melting glaciers will lead to an increasing number of earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions in unexpected places.

http://environment.about.com/od/globalwarming/a/earthquakes.htm

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The quake was the largest ever to hit Japan, the fifth-strongest tremor worldwide since 1900 and the seventh-strongest in history, according to the US Geological Survey and Japanese seismologists.

http://planetsave.com/2011/03/11/japan-earthquake-update-ship-with-100-people-passenger-train-still-missing/

2012-01-05T03:40:00.000-08:00

GLOBAL WARMING / 2011 / 31-35 /

2.31 The role of Sulfur in Global Warming

While the decade of the 2000s was one ofthe hottest on record, the pace of warming had eased until 2009 and 2010, whentemperatures lurched upward.

The reason for the seeming plateau, according to the study, wasthe added sulfur polluting the atmosphere from the sharp increase incoal-burning industrial activity in China.

http://www.app.com/article/20110704/NJNEWS18/307040012/Global-warming-plateau-linked-to-air-pollution

2.32 The long history of the science of Global Warming

THE science behind the climate change controversy - despite recent hysterical attacks on scientific integrity - is robust, and not particularly recent. And yet, despite the heat (without depth) of the controversy about the proposed carbon tax, politicians on both sides fail to address the scientific evidence for human contribution to climate change. They say ''I believe'' or ''I reject'' without examination or analysis. There has been a spectacular failure to distinguish between genuine expertise and strongly held opinions, and an excessive deference to vested interests.

In 1824, the French mathematician Joseph Fourier anticipated what we came to call ''the greenhouse effect'', arguing that surface heat on Earth was maintained by the atmosphere - otherwise the planet's orbit was too remote from the sun for a temperature that could support life.

In 1859, the Irish physicist John Tyndall identified the role of water vapour, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) as key factors in maintaining temperature despite their tiny percentage of the total atmosphere.

In 1896, the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius named ''the greenhouse effect'' and calculated the relationship between changes in CO2 levels and atmospheric temperature with astonishing accuracy.
In 1925, the prodigious American statistician Alfred James Lotka (1880-1949) described what we now call ''anthropogenic climate change'', a century after Fourier's work....
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/climate-debate-deserves-more-than-hysteria-fear-and-populism-20110630-1gsuj.html#ixzz1Qlut7jAv

Australia's place in the global web of climate denial:

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2775298.html

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Just as with Peak Oil, we could have changed course with respect to Global Warming, fifty years back! Shows very clearly that our system of research and even our educational system has been enslaved by business interests.

Selvaraj

2.33 Himalayan meltdown

When people talk about global warming and its impact on the world, we generally think about rising sea levels - and the threat that may pose to coastal areas or low-lying cities, such as Bangkok.

It depends where you live, of course. People in mountainous areas, such as the Himalayas, face a very different challenge: a higher snowline, plus ice-caps and glaciers melting at a quicker rate than ever before.

Faster-melting glaciers - and bigger glacial lakes with the potential to burst their banks and sweep away any number of villages downstream - are a problem faced by communities in various countries.

This phenomenon is the subject of a fascinating new documentary that's a co-production of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Arrowhead Films.

"Revealed: The Himalayan Meltdown" examines the shrinking glaciers of the Himalayas and the effects they have on the lives of people in five countries - Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India and Nepal.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/Himalayan-meltdown-30158716.html

2.34 Bringing global warming into a lab

Bringing global warming into a lab:

Let’s bring global warming into a lab. Imagine a basin containing four liters of water at zero deg C, in which a block of ice having a mass of 1 Kg is floating. Let’s light a fire under

the basin and assume that water in the basin is absorbing heat at the rate of 2000 calories / minute. The process is assumed to be adiabatic so that we don’t have to deal with the slippery nature of heat, and we also assume that heat is transferred instantaneously to the water and ice (to make calculations simpler).

It so happens, that just before the start of our experiment, two Lilliputians friends (of Gulliver’s travel fame), one a global warming believer and another a sceptic take a wager regarding warming of the water; the sceptic offers to spend a night on the ice and measure the temperature of the water and prove that no warming is taking place. The global warming believer rows the sceptic to the ice block, leaves him there and rows back.

After measuring the temperature for fifteen minutes, where the thermometer refuses to nudge beyond the zero degree C reading, the sceptic curses the global warming crowd and falls asleep in his thermal sleeping bag. He is rudely awakened twenty minutes after he fell asleep to find that he is soaking wet and that the ice has practically disappeared. He starts the long swim to the shore and is saved from hypothermia by the gradually warming water; by the time he gets out of the water however he is badly scalded by the hot water – however happy to be alive. What happened?

Our lab thermometer shows that the temperature of the water increased as follows: (Time in minutes – Temp in degree C) 1-0, 5-0, 10-0, 30-0, 40-0, … 50-4, 60-8, 70-12, 90-20, 110-28, 130-36, 150-44, 170-52.

(Moral of the story: in such matters you cannot go by temperature readings alone - or whether your backyard is covered with snow : - )

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Personally I believe the strongest proof that global warming is taking place is the disappearance of ice cover over the Arctic Ocean; since this fact is not in disputed, it is better that everyone concentrates on this issue. The laborious tabulation of temperatures worldwide to obtain global mean temperatures is perhaps important for scientific research, but in my view not the most important proof of global warming.

Selvaraj

P.S. News from Pakistan: Kaghan loses four glaciers in twenty years:

http://www.dawn.com/2011/06/26/kaghan-loses-four-glaciers-in-20-years.html

2.35 Global warming at breakneck speed

Global warming at breakneck speed:

Now while the rate of warming 56 million years ago was 0.025°C per century, current trends suggest a minimum rise of 1 to 4°C just this century. And while it took 20,000 years for the Earth to heat up by 5°C back then, current trends will see a rise of 2 to 10°C over the next 200 to 300 years.

Kump tells us that when you compare the present warming with the last one, "the climate shift currently under way is happening at breakneck speed."

http://blogs.redding.com/dcraig/archives/2011/06/the-last-time-t.html

2012-01-05T03:26:00.000-08:00

GLOBAL WARMING / 2011 / 26-30 /

2.26 Rowers reach 'impossible' North Pole, thanks to global warming

The break-up of the Arctic ice during summer is now so extensive that it has opened up the region to the possibility of oil and gas exploration. Some scientists believe the impact of global warming on the region is so extreme that the Arctic could be largely free of ice by the end of summer as soon as 2030.

There is evidence that in the last 20 years alone average temperatures in the Arctic have risen by at least 1C, making the winters shorter and lengthening summertime.

Mr Wishart said that it was obvious just from looking out of the boat that "a lot of the ice has disappeared" from areas that a few years ago would have been frozen over: "There is more open water. We have demonstrated that there is currently a diminution of the ice sheet," he said.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/rowers-reach-impossible-north-pole-thanks-to-global-warming-2344689.html

Hospitals contribute to global warming:

The seemingly harmless operation theatre is responsible for global warming, with certain anaesthetic gases contributing up to 2,000 times to climate change than the much-maligned carbondioxide.

Moreover, much of the anaesthetic gases used in operation theatres are let out into the atmosphere with only five per cent being metabolised by the patient.

.... The team suggested that hospitals adopt methods for reclamation of gases instead of sending them out into the atmosphere.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/cities/hyderabad/hospitals-greater-global-warmers-reveals-study-736

Leon Trotsky is reputed to have quipped, "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." Substitute the words "climate change" for "war" and the quote is perfectly suited for the governors of Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, all of whom have ridiculed or dismissed the threat of climate change even as their states suffer record-breaking heat and drought.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-linden-climate-20110828,0,879690.story

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http://warmingofglobe.blogspot.com/

Selvaraj

2.27 NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas

So where does all that extra water in Brazil and Australia come from? You guessed it--the ocean. Each year, huge amounts of water are evaporated from the ocean. While most of it falls right back into the ocean as rain, some of it falls over land. "This year, the continents got an extra dose of rain, so much so that global sea levels actually fell over most of the last year," says Carmen Boening, a JPL oceanographer and climate scientist. Boening and colleagues presented these results recently at the annual Grace Science Team Meeting in Austin, Texas.

But for those who might argue that these data show us entering a long-term period of decline in global sea level, Willis cautions that sea level drops such as this one cannot last, and over the long-run, the trend remains solidly up. Water flows downhill, and the extra rain will eventually find its way back to the sea. When it does, global sea level will rise again.

"We're heating up the planet, and in the end that means more sea level rise," says Willis. "But El Niño and La Niña always take us on a rainfall rollercoaster, and in years like this they give us sea-level whiplash."

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-262

2.28 Time lapse proof of extreme ice loss

Time lapse proof of extreme ice loss.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjeIpjhAqsM

Most of the time, art and science stare at each other across a gulf of mutual incomprehension. There is great confusion when the two look at each other. Art, of course, looks at the world through the psyche, the emotions - even the unconscious at times - and of course the aesthetic. Science tends to look at the world through the rational, the quantitative - things that can be measured and described - but it gives art a terrific context for [knowledge and] understanding.

In the Extreme Ice Survey, we're dedicated to bringing those two parts of human understanding together, merging art and science to the end of helping us understand nature and humanity's relationship with nature better. Specifically, as a person who's been a professional nature photographer my whole adult life, I am firmly of the belief that photography, video and film have tremendous power to help us understand, and shape the way we think about nature and about ourselves in relationship to nature…

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My global warming blog:

http://warmingofglobe.blogspot.com

Selvaraj

2.29 Glacier photos illustrate global warming

CHICO -- After flying through the air over some of the world's most impressive glaciers, photographer David Arnold said the images he captured are "shocking."

"Al Gore low-balled what's happening," the photographer said. "It's happening much faster."

Arnold spoke at Chico State University Wednesday night to discuss his photographs that are currently part of the Gateway Science Museum's exhibits on climate change.

The photographs, taken this decade, are paired with photos taken by Bradford Washburn 50-80 years ago.

Washburn was a "gentleman explorer" who lugged around a 50-pound high-quality camera, documenting glaciers in Switzerland and Alaska ...

http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_18584683

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Please visit my global warming blog:

http://warmingofglobe.blogspot.com/

Selvaraj

2.30 World Stock Markets Over-Exposure to Fossil Fuels Putting Investors at Risk

James Leaton, project director at Carbon Tracker in London and author of the report, said much analysis has focused on past corporate emissions, but it is important to also consider how the market values and assesses the potential for future emissions.

“While people are critical of China for its emissions increasing, or Brazil or India, it’s actually the global capital markets that finance that,” he said.

Regulators should require tougher corporate disclosure of fossil fuel reserves and carbon emissions, and should improve the assessment of financial risk associated with unburnable carbon, he added.

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/World-Stock-Markets-Over-Exposure-to-Fossil-Fuels-Putting-Investors-at-Risk.html

2012-01-05T03:12:00.000-08:00

GLOBAL WARMING / 2011 / 21-25 /

2.21 Why climate change skeptics remain skeptical

All climate models rely heavily on temperature records from thousands of recording stations around the world; if the stations are inaccurate, they can skew the results. In fact, it was Muller's concern that past climate studies might rely on too much erroneous temperature data that led him to found BEST. Statisticians on his team employed complex error analysis, averaging methods, and clever data filtering to minimize uncertainty in their set of 1.6 billion temperature reports; the team also separately analyzed a subset of the data coming from only the highest quality stations.

Though they ended up finding the same 1 degree C of warming since the 1950s that past climate studies found, they reduced the statistical uncertainty in that result nearly to zero.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57329755/why-climate-change-skeptics-remain-skeptical/

Climate emails: Storm or yawn?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15846886

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My Global Warming blog:

http://warmingofglobe.blogspot.com/

Selvaraj

2.22 Global warming

As world leaders meet next week in South Africa to tackle the issue of climate change, several scientists said their projections show it is unlikely the world can hold warming to the target set by leaders just two years ago in Copenhagen.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/greenhouse-gases-soar-scientists-see-little-chance-of-arresting-global-warming-this-century/2011/11/21/gIQAOgltiN_story.html

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When the First World War and the Second World War were being fought, did the newspapers relegate the war news to the inside pages?

It is amazing how the world leaders are going about tackling this serious problem.

- Step one, make a common declaration that the problem of Global Warming is as serious as fighting a Third Word War.
- Step two, make a common declaration that world leaders will try to persuade their media to put Global Warming News (and other sustainability related news) on the front pages of newspapers. Since the visual media is very important these days; include this media also in the fight against Global Warming. Since branding is important (Coca Cola knows this), the media presentation should carry the logo 'Global Warming News".
- Step three .... everything else.

Selvaraj

2.23 Mass extinction

.. This extinction killed off more than three-quarters of life on the planet in an event scientists have called the Great Dying. The Chinese dig sites provide new dates and details of the event, which occurred at the end of the Permian Era. It happened 252 million years ago and may have lasted less than 100,000 years, far shorter than scientists had thought, according to the study published Thursday in the journal Science.
The study also bolsters the prevailing scientific concept that the giant die-off was caused by a massive shift in climate — global warming, prehistoric style — triggered by volcanic activity that is far beyond modern levels. The research also makes the case that the burst of carbon dioxide and methane thrown into the atmosphere that triggered the die-off took only about 20,000 years, less than previously thought, though the ecological damage lasted long
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-scene-when-nearly-all-life-on-earth-died-252-million-years-ago-fiery-hot-and-smoky/2011/11/17/gIQA6MM7UN_story.html

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In the just concluded Hey Festival in Trivandrum, Jeremy Leggett, founder and chairman of Solarcentury, gave a talk on 'The Triple Crash and the Green New Deal'.

The triple crash referring to 1) Financial meltdown 2) Peak Oil 3) Climate change.

The solution suggested by him was, massive deployment of renewable energy, mainly solar power.

- Will provide large employment opportunities
- solve our energy problems
- prevent the tip over of the climate (we have only a few year to prevent this tip over)

- Carbon based fuels will not do the job because we cannot use more than 20% of reserves, if we are to keep global warming below 2 degrees C.
- Nuclear power ... according to Jeremy will be too late; with existing regulatory environment no new Nuclear power plants are expected to come up in UK within the next 10 years.

In the INDIAN CONTEXT we need to ask, how much are we investing in solar power?

Presently, a one KW solar array costs around Rs 12 lakhs. If we improve the technology on a war footing, and take advantage of economies of scale, we should be able to bring down the cost to Rs 3 lakhs.

Worth keeping in mind:

1. Solar energy is a surprisingly dense form of energy. At noon we receive 1 Kw of it on every sq M.
2. Once the solar panels are in place the energy is practically free for the next 15 to 20 years.
3. Initially we need not think in terms of energy storage. Feed all the power to the grid. Make 10 AM to 2 PM the peak time for industrial activity; pump water to agricultural fields during this time.
4. In the ref below the solar power plant is being set up mainly with external funding. For rooftop solar panels the owners of houses will chip in with part of the finance, this option needs to be seriously explored. (This solar power plant is expected to be commissioned by end 2012 - in slightly more than a year!)

Selvaraj

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150 MW solar power plant to be set up at Dhule soon:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/150-MW-solar-power-plant-to-be-set-up-at-Dhule-soon/articleshow/10801407.cms

2.24 Chinese sceptics see global warming as US conspiracy

A new study by the Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency shows China now emits far more greenhouse emissions than any other country, with emissions doubling between 2003 and 2010.

China's carbon emissions rose 10 per cent last year alone, to 9 billion tonnes, compared with 5.2 billion tonnes for the United States.

The report showed India's emissions also rose rapidly, by 9 per cent, although its total emissions are still only one-fifth of China's.

The most startling finding, however, is that China's per capita emissions are now higher than several rich nations including France and Italy. China's per capita emissions could even overtake the US within six years, the study said.

2.25 Editor resigns over flawed paper

The latest flap over climate science — and specifically about human-caused global warming — shows once again how ideological and political this issue has become, to the detriment of average citizens who are trying to understand what’s going on with greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

A short timeline sets the scene: Earlier this summer, global warming skeptic Dr. Roy Spencer published a paper that discussed the role of clouds in the Earth’s climate system and purported to show how the Earth’s atmosphere was more efficient at releasing heat to outer space than previously believed. Last week, the editor of the journal that published the paper resigned after saying it was flawed.

Even though Spencer has a record of publishing research that’s been called into question by many other climate scientists, his July paper was pounced on by the few remaining media outlets that insist on pretending there’s still a legitimate debate about the fundamental physics of global warming. Fox News and Forbes, for example, trumpeted headlines suggesting that this one paper out of thousands somehow cast doubt on the entire body of climate science that’s been meticulously compiled and scrutinized again and again … and again.

Those headlines don’t even deserve to be repeated, especially now that the editor of the journal that published Spencer’s paper resigned last week, acknowledging that the peer review of the science was flawed, that the paper was “problematic,” and should not have been published.

What’s most interesting is that Spencer and his defenders are now circling the wagons. But rather than defending the paper on its merits, they are claiming that he is a victim of scientific orthodoxy, perpetrated by what they believe is a global warming alarmist conspiracy consisting of thousands of scientists from nearly every country on the planet, led, of course, by U.S. government agency researchers, who for some reason are the favorite target of the global warming skeptics.

This works well for the global warming deniers and skeptics, because even if the debate is about a debate — rather than the actual science in question — it serves to create the illusion that there is still some doubt about the causes and consequences of increased concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases.

http://summitcountyvoice.com/2011/09/04/global-warming-journal-editor-resigns-over-flawed-paper/

But not before taking a parting shot at the media. Writing that he would "like to personally protest against how the authors and like-minded climate skeptics have much exaggerated the paper’s conclusions in public statements," he specifically cites the University of Alabama, Huntsville press release and Spencer's writings on his website as part of the exaggeration; the Forbes article that triggered our own coverage, along with a follow-up from Fox News, also get singled out. No one result created our current understanding of the climate system or provided evidence that it's being forced by greenhouse gasses; as a result, Wagner argues, no single result is likely to tear it down.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/09/editor-of-journal-behind-controversial-climate-paper-resigns.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

2012-01-05T03:00:00.000-08:00

GLOBAL WARMING / 2011 / 16-20 /

2.16 Present food production system is ‘heading for disaster’

Food production is one of the planet’s biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions and will be the primary victim of global warming, with yields falling as temperatures rise and rainfall patterns shift.

Those realities are not uppermost in the minds of most governments attending the international climate treaty meetings in Durban this week, according to the authors of new book addressing the challenges of climate, food, water and poverty.

“I’m astonished by how unaware legislators are about the size of the carbon and ecological footprint of industrial agriculture,” said Michel Pimbert, a leading food and agriculture researcher at the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development.

Pimbert co-authors a new book called Virtuous Circles published last week in London (available as a free e-book).

“We’re inviting disaster with the current food production system,” Pimbert said.

Some 193 nations are in Durban for COP17 – negotiations for a new climate change treaty under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Industrialised food production wastes huge amounts of energy, water and other resources, said Pimbert.

Something like 50 steps are involved in making something as simple as a bottle of tomato sauce. “The various bits that go into tomato sauce move huge distances. It makes no sense at all, but agribusiness still makes money because they’ve rigged the system to work for them.”

Growing concerns about high food prices and rising numbers of hungry – more than 1 billion currently – has resulted in a number of high-profile “talking shops” – conferences and symposiums in the last two years, said Pimbert.

However, the small landholders or women who feed their families with small gardens that account for 85% of the world’s farms are rarely invited and their voices go unheard.

“A farmer in Mali told me the leaders and experts in his own country are disdainful of village life and traditional knowledge. He said they have contempt for local farmers,” Pimbert said.

At big international conferences it is almost always elites talking to each other far removed from reality. Since these experts and professionals represent the status quo, they resist fundamental changes, he said. “We need to hear other voices, the voices of local people.”

Without a major overhaul of the global food production system, the multiple challenges humanity faces – climate change, food security, water shortages, loss of ecosystems and poverty – can never be addressed.

http://www.thenewage.co.za/36642-1061-53-Present_food_production_system_is_%E2%80%98heading_for_disaster%E2%80%99

2.17 Melting of permafrost

An international team is warning that permafrost — which covers almost half of Canada — could release climate warming gases more quickly than expected.

There is "cause for serious concern," say the scientists, who underscore "the urgent need to reduce atmospheric emissions from fossil-fuel use and deforestation" to help "keep permafrost carbon frozen in the ground."

The Permafrost Carbon Network, which includes researchers from Siberia to Australia, estimates that a staggering 1,700 billion tonnes of carbon is stored in the top few metres of northern soils — the remains of plants and animals that have been accumulating for thousands of years.

"That is about four times more than all the carbon emitted by human activity in modern times and twice as much as is present in the atmosphere now," the team reports Thursday in the journal Nature.

"The volumes are massive," says co-author Charles Tarnocai, a soil scientist and permafrost researcher at Agriculture and Agri-Foods Canada.

Tarnocai, who has been doing field work in the Arctic for more than 30 years, has been instrumental in showing there is much more carbon locked in the frozen ground than previously estimated.

The "problem," he says, is that as permafrost thaws the organic material begins to decompose, releasing carbon into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and methane, gases that help trap heat in the atmosphere.

2.18 Destabilizing lives

Perhaps those who aren’t yet concerned about climate change will be persuaded by hail on their roofs or cracks in the very foundations of their homes. “Unfortunately, a year like 2011 does our work for us,’’ said Sharlene Leurig, insurance analyst for Ceres, the Boston-based nonprofit that promotes corporate responsibility on climate change. “Insurers think it is a crisis unfolding. Real estate experts are starting to recalculate the value of real estate in areas of frequent extreme weather. We’re getting to the point where climate destabilization is really beginning to destabilize the real lives of people.’’

The destabilization is clearly increasing. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this month issued a new report saying that the frequency and magnitude of warm daily temperature extremes are “virtually certain’’ to increase this century. But it is possible that higher bills from insurers will change minds in Washington more effectively than a preponderance of scientific evidence has.

http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/2011/11/30/bad-weather-policy-insuring-against-climate-change/knGgWx1IAxB6lp26G1sWtM/story.html

2.19 Assessing Risk

Is the global warming scare the greatest delusion in history?

To grasp the almost suicidal state of unreality our Government has been driven into by the obsession with global warming, it is necessary to put together the two sides to an overall picture – each vividly highlighted by events of recent days.

On one hand there is the utterly lamentable state of the science which underpins it all, illuminated yet again by “Climategate 2.0”, the latest release of emails between the leading scientists who for years have been at the heart of the warming scare (which I return to below). On the other hand, we see the damage done by the political consequences of this scare, which will directly impinge, in various ways, on all our lives.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8917737/Is-the-global-warming-scare-the-greatest-delusion-in-history.html

Global warming may not be as severe as predicted

The authors of the National Science Foundation-funded study say there's no doubt that globalwarming is real, and that increases in atmospheric CO2 will have multiple serious impacts.

However, their data suggests that a doubling of CO2 wouldn't increase the rate of global warming by as much as the worst estimates of some previous studies – or even than projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 2007.

http://www.tgdaily.com/sustainability-features/59843-global-warming-may-not-be-as-severe-as-predicted

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Should we accept the above write ups at face value? How good are we at risk assessment? What metrics must the public evolve to make an independent assessment of risk, free from the bias of interested parties?

1) First, how much credibility do our scientists, engineers, leaders and the media have?

It is good to keep in mind that even as the above actors were making themselves hoarse trying to convince us that we must cultivate a scientific spirit, they themselves were the main players in:

- - Over populating our planet.

- - Nearly completely destroying the natural environment that supports life.

- - Taking our economy beyond its sustainability limit

In short, these actors have no idea about risk, and it would be unwise to trust them fully.

2) Do our scientists in particular have the ability to assess risks?

- The second paper above says it all. Scientists will confuse one another so that all action gets delayed. Since they are highly dependent on supercomputers, it is not possible for them to visualise anything simple. This paper tries to derive wisdom from a time when a large part of North America was covered in ice. It is puzzling how this model can throw light on a situation when temperature is increasing and there is every possibility of a tipping event taking place, with uncontrolled release of methane and co2 locked in permafrost.

3) So, how should we ordinary folks react to all this creative confusion created by interested parties. After all, our lives will be on the line eventually?

- - Let’s keep our mental model simple. I have been trying to understand the problem of ‘posture’, and I have a simple mental model; the x rays in Fig 6 of www.humanposture.com says it all; it provides 80% of the argument, that something is seriously wrong. (It is interesting to note that the Medical profession is still to even acknowledge that a problem exists!)

- - Coming to the problem of global warming, we need to simplify our reasoning and not be diverted by each new media report put out by interested parties. My mental model for Global Warming is the melting of ice in the Arctic and the Antarctic….

OTTAWA — The current rate of sea ice loss in the Arctic is a change without precedent for 1,450 years, a paper published on Thursday by Nature concludes.

Scientists from Canada and the United States reconstructed the Arctic sea ice cover back to the year 561 using a variety of factors including ice core samples, tree ring counts and lake sediment analysis and, where available, ice observation records.

The scientists conclude that warmer air temperatures, most likely caused by climate change, are responsible for the decline of the multiyear sea ice at a rate of 8.6 percent a decade and “may soon result in an ice-free Arctic Ocean.” Other periods of Arctic sea ice loss were, by contrast, caused by shifts in the directions of warm ocean currents. The scientists said that both the magnitude and the duration of the current ice melt is without precedent.

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/looking-way-back-at-the-rate-of-arctic-melting/

- - When ice melts, it does so silently, absorbing in the process 80 cal of heat for every gram of ice, even as the temperature remains constant at zero degrees C. Eighty cal is an enormous amount of heat; applied to a gram of water at zero degrees C, it would take the temperature of water to a sizzling 80 degrees. So, this talk of whether the atmosphere is actually heating up or not, and by how much, is misleading. We should be far more worried about the fact that so much ice is melting .

- - Please visit my blog: http://warmingofglobe.blogspot.com/

4) Can the nations of the world afford to delay actions to reduce the release of CO2 into the atmosphere?

- The answer is No. In engineering terms, the margin of safety we are working with is too low; in terms of (1) Our ability to properly model the phenomenon of global warming (2) Deploy resources to combat it (with severe constraint on resources looming over the horizon, the more we delay, the less resources we will eventually have to combat the problem – and the more resources we would have wasted on useless activities).

Selvaraj

2.20 Google Ends Concentrated Solar Power Research Program

.. But as Energy Matters has reported in the past, and an explanation from Google about the shutdown concedes, with the price of solar panels at record lows, solar thermal technology is becoming an unpopular investment choice for large-scale installations.

"We’re excited that some technologies are so quickly approaching cost competitiveness with traditional forms of energy in parts of the US and the world. Power tower technology has come a long way, too. But the installed cost of solar photovoltaic technology has declined dramatically over the past few years, making solar photovoltaic technology a compelling choice for consumers," read part of the statement.

http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=1900

2012-01-05T02:42:00.000-08:00

GLOBAL WARMING / 2011 / 11-15 /

2.11 Two degrees is too much

The paleoclimate record also shows that 560 ppm would be enough to melt all the ice in the Arctic, and later the Antarctic. Rohling said that once the Antarctic melts, sea levels would rise by 60 to 70 meters. “If governments keep going the way they are going,” Hansen added, “the planet will reach an ice-free state.”

Hansen concluded with a message to negotiators at the current climate talks in Durban, South Africa. If the world begins reducing CO2 emissions by 6 percent a year starting in 2012, Hansen said, atmospheric levels can return to the “safe” level of 350 ppm that he and others have long called for. “If the world waits until 2020 to begin,” he noted, “it will need to reduce CO2 by 15 percent a year to reach 350 ppm. We are out of time.”

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/12/06/two-degree-global-warming-limit-is-called-a-prescription-for-disaster/

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This problem can be solved only if ENGINEERS get involved. 80% of remediation measures are also engineering in nature. (Let's keep in mind that Global Warming is not the only problem, we are also running out of resources).

It is not possible for Economists, Politicians, Media People, Religious People and Lawyers to understand the great danger in delaying action. I have also wondered how the 2 degree figure was cooked up. When a phenomenon is likely to be very non linear you do not take chances.

Why do USA (the guru, also supposed to be the biggest leader in science), and the two chellas, CHINA and INDIA, who try to emulate USA in everything, don't get it.

Selvaraj

2.12 Unveiling the aerosol factor in climate change

Black carbon aerosol, Dr. Satheesh says, can influence cloud formation and alter rainfall pattern. It may also enhance atmospheric warming by green house gases. “Observations over India for the last two decades show a five-fold increase in aerosol abundance,” he points out.

Dr. Satheesh feels that there is much to learn about the way aerosols affect regional and global climate and their influence on the Indian monsoon.

According to him, the fast increase in aerosol abundance and its distribution in high altitudes close to the Himalayan region is disturbing because of its potential to cause faster melting of glaciers.

Dr. Satheesh is the lead author of chapter seven on ‘Aerosols and Clouds' in the fifth assessment report of the Inter governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) slated to be released in 2013. “It is an honour for an Indian scientist to be selected for this role,” he says.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Thiruvananthapuram/article2681564.ece

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Planning Cities, Towns and Villages in 1 Km x 0.5 Km format, with vehicles restricted to peripheral roads, will allow ample space to adequately compost biodegradable material locally, without having to cart them long distances, or having to burn them. The compost can be used for urban agriculture.

A bonfire close to my house:

https://picasaweb.google.com/106506122647440401725/December72011#5683311509334042562

Selvaraj

2.13 Involvement of civil society

BUSINESS and civil society need greater involvement in climate change talks because 80% of the funds needed to deal with the effects of global warming have to come from ordinary people and the private sector, says Yannick Glemarec, head of finance and executive co-ordination at the United Nations Environmental Programme’s (Unep’s) Global Environmental Facility.

There is no formal negotiating status for business and civil society at the UN climate change summit (COP-17) in Durban, which enters its second week on Monday as almost 200 nations thrash out how to curb climate change induced by the release into the atmosphere of gases linked to global warming.

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=160375

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But this is not going to happen till Big Business controlled media starts educating people instead of entertaining them.

Selvaraj

2.14 Declare war on climate change

Some of the players in Durban get it - they've seen the devastation and the data and are connecting the dots. They feel the urgency. They understand that we are dealing with a terror that is man-made but we are not going to track these men down in caves in Afghanistan. Some countries are willing to be on the front lines to fight the new form of global terror. They realize that by default we are all part of the problem and so this is a war that must be waged on our technology, on our energy sources and ultimately on our life style. It's a war that is not about tearing down but about eliminating the causes of the current crisis - it needs to be a war on waste and inefficiency, and a phasing out of the fossil fuel economy.

... So, rather than only putting a few cards on the table, Durban needs to be addressing the whole concept of how we do business on a global scale. The current system of free trade puts the decision of capping emissions into the hands of multinationals as they are the ones choosing where to invest. And to them capping emissions is a nice concept but it does nothing for this quarter's profitability. China is a convenient engine for that profitability and at the same time, serves as a convenient scapegoat for inaction on climate change. A League of Green Traders could potentially wrestle power from the multis and put it into the hands of decision-makers who want their cities and societies to survive the ravages of climate change.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-gary-ginsberg/message-to-durban-declare_b_1124688.html

2.15 Surviving progress

We are no better than chimps who abandon complex puzzles that don’t offer immediate rewards.

http://www.thestar.com/article/1095859--surviving-progress-the-stench-of-truth

2012-01-05T02:28:00.000-08:00

GLOBAL WARMING / 2011 / 6-10 /

2.6 Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane

Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane - a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide - have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region.

The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Igor Semiletov of the International Arctic Research Centre at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who led the 8th joint US-Russia cruise of the East Siberian Arctic seas, said that he has never before witnessed the scale and force of the methane being released from beneath the Arctic seabed.

"Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of metres in diameter. This is the first time that we've found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures more than 1,000 metres in diameter. It's amazing," Dr Semiletov said.

"I was most impressed by the shear scale and the high density of the plumes. Over a relatively small area we found more than 100, but over a wider area there should be thousands of them," he said.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/methane-discovery-stokes-new-global-warming-fears-shock-as-retreat-of-arctic-releases-greenhouse-gas-6276278.html

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My Global Warming Blog:

http://warmingofglobe.blogspot.com/

Selvaraj

2.7 Liability for disinformation campaign

The first question, as far as I can tell, apparently boils down to: it’s legal because we have yet to make the deliberate manipulation of science illegal.

Yet while people and companies enjoy the First Amendment right to free speech, legal scholars have argued that right does not extend to influencing people under false pretenses. According to former tobacco industry lawyer Stephen Susman, when it comes to fossil fuel companies and supporters funding their own research on climate change, if “they knew the information they were spreading was false and being used to deliberately influence public opinion—that would override their First Amendment rights.”

This question may soon be playing out in the courts.

... Industries like oil and large manufacturers created the lobbying group Global Climate Coalition(GCC) in 1989, with the stated purpose of “cast[ing] doubt on the theory of global warming.” A Freedom of Information Act request unearthed 2001 U.S. State Department documents to the GCC suggesting former President George W. Bush’s decision to pull out of UN international negotiations on climate change had been shaped in part by GCC and Exxon.

The George W. Bush Administration not only resisted GHG regulations, but actively edited government reports to question the science of climate change, one time drawing upon research funded in part by ExxonMobil. As documented by Greenpeace and others, ExxonMobil and Koch Industries went on to become major donors of such research, finding a platform in conservative think tanks and media.

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/12/13/387253/fossil-fuel-companies-face-liability-for-climate-change-disinformation/

2.8 Canada formally withdraws from Kyoto Protocol

Canada agreed under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce CO2 emissions to 6.0 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, but its emissions of the gases blamed for damaging Earth's fragile climate system have instead increased sharply.

... "To meet the targets under Kyoto for 2012 would be the equivalent of either removing every car, truck, ATV, tractor, ambulance, police car, and vehicle of every kind from Canadian roads or closing down the entire farming and agricultural sector and cutting heat to every home, office, hospital, factory, and building in Canada."

http://zeenews.india.com/news/eco-news/canada-formally-withdraws-from-kyoto-protocol_746699.html

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Something appears wildly wrong. Can any economist explain, why a nation already highly developed in 1990 could not reduce CO2 emissions by 6%.

Selvaraj

2.9 U.S. winning climate debate?

Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S., long accused of blocking progress in international climate talks, is winning a two-decade old debate about how to curtail global warming.

The decision yesterday by China and India to move toward an agreement with the “legal force” to limit their fossil fuel emissions marked the first step toward treating developing nations the same as industrial ones when it comes to reducing pollution.

President Barack Obama, and George W. Bush before him, had pushed for that parity after the Senate refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which limits greenhouse gases for industrial nations. Developing nations such as China and India had no commitments under Kyoto.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-11/obama-winning-climate-debate-as-china-moves-toward-legal-accord.html

In return for the promises, the European Union agreed to accept a second phase of the Kyoto Protocol, which limits its own emissions in the intervening years, even though few other industrialised nations agreed to join.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21273-climate-talks-end-with-promise-for-a-deal-in-2020.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

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The European Union should be congratulated for its honesty and seriousness on the issue of climate change. We can only hope that all countries will become more serious on the issue within a year’s time, since waiting till 2020 will probably be suicidal.

There is one simple fact that is worth keeping in mind. The issue of energy is more serious for countries where the climate is cold - North America, Europe, (probably even China). So the immediate engineering challenge lies in figuring out how a person living in a cold climate can consume the minimum amount of energy, while maintaining a high quality of life. Insisting that the developing nations should also step forward (most are situated in warmer climates), before the developed nations will act appears illogical. The countries that are now dropping out of the Kyoto protocol, and USA, which never joined need to think deeply on this issue. If USA had joined the kyoto protocol (mooted 14 years back); the moral leadership this would have provided, would have seen the world in a safer position today – we would not be cutting it as fine as we are now.

Living a low energy lifestyle is easier said than done. It will involve simple living and high thinking.

Selvaraj

2.10 'Norway may sign Kyoto 2 voluntarily'

Norway has announced that it may sign up to a second round of emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol even if all wealthy countries do not join a new global climate treaty by 2015.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/214446.html

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The way to go! It is high time nations decided on their future course of action without looking over their shoulders to see what others are doing.

Selvaraj

2012-01-04T10:49:00.000-08:00

GLOBAL WARMING / 2011 / 1-5 /

2.1 What the Frack?

The recent press about the potential of shale gas would have you believe that America is now sitting on a 100-year supply of natural gas. It's a "game-changer." A "golden age of gas" awaits, one in which the United States will be energy independent, even exporting gas to the rest of the world, upending our current energy-importing situation.

The data, however, tell a very different story. Between the demonstrable gas reserves, and the potential resources blared in the headlines, lies an enormous gulf of uncertainty.

.. Arthur Berman, a Houston-based petroleum geologist and energy sector consultant, along with petroleum engineer Lynn Pittinger, has long been skeptical of the claims about shale gas. Their detailed, independent work on the economics of shale-gas production suggests that not only are the reserves claims overstated, but that the productivity of the wells is, too.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/future_tense/2011/12/is_there_really_100_years_worth_of_natural_gas_beneath_the_united_states_.html

2.2 Energy Makes America Great

As a conservative commentator and energy expert, she is known as Marita Noon. She is the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). Together they work to educate the public and influence policy makers regarding energy, its role in freedom, and the American way of life.

http://energymakesamericagreat.org/

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Why do Americans think of only themselves first, second and last? It is our luck to be locked in one planet (for better or for worse). Would it not be better to work towards solutions that benefit everyone?

Selvaraj

2.3 Slowing of climate studies

When 2010 ended, it seemed as if people had lived through a startling year of weather extremes. But in the United States, if not elsewhere, 2011 has surpassed that.

A typical year in this country features three or four weather disasters whose costs exceed $1 billion each. But this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has tallied a dozen such events, including wildfires in the Southwest, floods in multiple regions of the country and a deadly spring tornado season. And the agency has not finished counting. The final costs are certain to exceed $50 billion.

“I’ve been a meteorologist 30 years and never seen a year that comes close to matching 2011 for the number of astounding, extreme weather events,” Jeffrey Masters, a co-founder of the popular Web site Weather Underground, said last month. “Looking back in the historical record, which goes back to the late 1800s, I can’t find anything that compares, either.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/science/earth/climate-scientists-hampered-in-study-of-2011-extremes.html

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Similar causes produce similar effects. If we want to change things we have to start thinking differently.

Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

Selvaraj

2.4 Why is it so easy to save the banks – but so hard to save the biosphere?

They bailed out the banks in days. But even deciding to bail out the planet is taking decades.

Nicholas Stern estimated that capping climate change would cost around 1% of global GDP, while sitting back and letting it hit us would cost between 5 and 20%. One per cent of GDP is, at the moment, $630bn. By March 2009, Bloomberg has revealed, the US Federal Reserve had committed $7.77 trillion to the banks. That is just one government's contribution: yet it amounts to 12 times the annual global climate change bill. Add the bailouts in other countries, and it rises several more times.

This support was issued on demand: as soon as the banks said they wanted help, they got it. On just one day the Federal Reserve made $1.2tr available – more than the world has committed to tackling climate change in 20 years.

... So why is it so easy to save the banks and so hard to save biosphere? If ever you needed evidence that our governments operate in the interests of the elite, rather than the world as a whole, here it is.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/dec/16/durban-banks-climate-change

2.5 India's stance on climate a suicidal one

A 25% loss of food production would be an almost measureless calamity for India. It now produces just enough food to feed its 1.1 billion people.

If the population rises by the forecast quarter- billion in the next 20 years, and meanwhile its food production falls by 25% due to global warming, half a billion Indians will starve.

Like almost every other country, India has signed a declaration that the warming must never exceed two degrees, but it is just too attached to the principle that the "old rich" countries must pay for the damage they have done.

If only those countries accept limits on their emissions, then the average global temperature soars through plus-2 degrees C and Indians start to starve.

Most developed countries do not face similar losses in food production at plus-2 degrees C, for they are further away from the equator. Their position is merely selfish and shortsighted; India's is suicidal.

http://www.thesudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3405903

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This article has important elements of truth; unfortunately, in a game of chess we cannot go back to earlier moves. Cursing the west is also not going to lead anywhere.

We have to learn to think for ourselves; blindly copying western ways of life is not going to bring down our energy consumption.

Selvaraj

2012-01-04T10:11:00.000-08:00

GLOBAL WARMING / 2011

Dear Friends,

The purpose of this blog is to make available to a larger audience my posts, mainly in the IIT Global Current Affairs Group and a few other groups.

Most of these posts refer you to the store house of knowledge - The Word Wide Web. A few of the posts are also my 'bright?' ideas.

This blog is for posts in the category 'Global Warming'.

2. GLOBAL WARMING .... YEAR 2011

2.1 What the frack? (31/12/2011)

2.2 Energy makes America great (25/12/2011)

2.3 Slowing of climate studies (25/12/2011)

2.4 Why is it so easy to save the banks and so difficult tosave the biosphere (17/12/2011)

2.5 India’s stance on climate change suicidal (15/12/2011)

2.6 Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane(15/12/2011)

2.7 Liability for disinformation campaign (13/12/2011)

2.8 Canada formally withdraws from Kyoto protocol(13/12/2011)

2.9 U.S. winning climate debate? (12/12/11)

2.10 Norway may sign Kyoto 2 voluntarily (7/12/11)

2.11 Two degrees is too much (7/12/11)

2.12 Aerosol factor in climate change (7/12/11)