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From: Reuters Published December 21, 2007 01:35 AM
China reels from worst drought in a decade
BEIJING (Reuters) - China is suffering its worst drought in a decade, which has left millions of people short of drinking water and has shrunk reservoirs and rivers, state media said on Friday.
Hardest hit are large swathes of the usually humid south, where water levels on several major rivers have plunged to historic lows in recent months.
"The drought is the most serious of the decade and is affecting almost the whole country," the China Daily quoted Zhang Jiatuan, an official from the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, as saying.
The surface area of the country's largest fresh water lake, Poyang, in the southern province of Jiangxi, had fallen to a record 50 sq km (19 sq miles) from several thousand sq km at its peak, the newspaper said.
More than 760,000 residents faced drinking water shortages in the rice-growing province.
A Jiangxi official news portal showed pictures of children playing on bare beds of the Gan river, Poyang's main tributary hit by serious boat traffic jams due to the shallow water.
Similar congestion has also occurred on the Xiang river in neighboring Hunan province and authorities have had to release water from behind the massive Three Gorges Dam to ease cargo ship stranding downstream on the Yangtze River, China's longest.
The southwestern region of Guangxi has been hit by its worst drought since 1951, with over a million people suffering from drinking water shortages.
About 400,000 hectares (1,545 sq miles) of crops have been damaged by drought this year, leading to total grain losses of 37.4 million metric tonnes, the China Daily said, adding the consecutive droughts over past years had compounded the situation.
Drought and floods are perennial problems in China, whose meteorologists have complained about the increased extreme weather and partly blamed it on global climate change.
About 30 million Chinese in the countryside and more than 20 million in urban areas face drinking water shortages every year despite huge government investment to address the problem, the China Daily said.
(Reporting by Guo Shipeng; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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Issue #238
December 21, 2007
EPA Waives Clean Cars Goodbye
Josh Dorner
Note: This will be the last RAW of 2007, we will return on January 4. Happy Holidays!
The Bush Administration sure knows how to ruin a good party. On Wednesday morning, President Bush, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and a whole pack of Congressmen gathered at the Energy Department to enjoy a brief moment of peace between the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue and sing Kumbaya over the energy bill. Then, in a classic bit of Washington high theatre, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson swooped in like the Grinch and stole our Green Christmas by denying California the waiver it (along with at least 16 other states) needs to move forward with its landmark global warming emissions standards for cars.
In an evening press conference called with little more than half an hour's notice, Johnson explained that California's need to deal with global warming did not meet the "extraordinary and compelling" circumstances spelled out in the Clean Air Act and that the energy bill's compromise CAFE provision was the administration's "comprehensive" response to global warming emissions from vehicles, thank you very much. While this decision has long been expected, it was particularly galling that the energy bill, with its ink barely dry, was used as the pretext for denying the waiver.
The reaction of state officials and politicians ranged from "disappointing," "absurd," "indefensible," "a mockery of the law," to "disgraceful." But at least someone was happy. The auto industry -- fresh off yet another stinging loss in the courts just last week -- issued a glowing press statement commending EPA. California, the Sierra Club, and others of course immediately pledged to take EPA to court over the decision.
While EPA may have thought that its hastily-called, Wednesday-evening-before-Christmas presser would be enough to bury the news, they were badly mistaken. For one, the Washington Post obtained internal EPA documents that demonstrate that Johnson denied the waiver over the "unanimous recommendation of the agency's legal and technical staffs." Indeed, the EPA's own lawyers predicted they would lose in court if it denied the waiver and would almost certainly beat back an auto industry lawsuit if it approved it.
Looks like Johnson's got some 'splainin' to do. Luckily, it appears he will have no shortage of venues in which to explain exactly why he overruled his staff and participated in a possibly illegal lobbying campaign against the waiver orchestrated by the White House and the Department of Transportation. Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, whose requests for meetings with Johnson over the past two weeks went unanswered, has pledged to bring him before the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee. Similarly, Congress' Maestro of Oversight, Rep. Henry Waxman -- also of California -- expressed his outrage in a statement and indicated his own Oversight and Government Reform Committee will be delving into the process behind the denial.
As our lawyer who's been fighting this in the courts all year said, these guys are 0-4 and they are about to go 0-5.
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Sierra Club | 85 Second St., San Francisco, CA 94105 | sierraclub.org | w.watch@sierraclub.org
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Global warming causing China's glaciers to melt quickly: survey
A survey of nearly 20,000 square kilometres (8,000 square miles) of China's glaciers showed they were on average 7.4 percent smaller than five years ago, Caijing magazine said, citing a government-funded survey.
A glacier along the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra River on the Tibetan plateau had shrunk by more than 18 percent, the survey found.
Two other glacial areas in China's far northwest Xinjiang region had also melted by more than 18 percent.
"Global warming is causing grave loss to glaciers and it has become a burning need to monitor changes of glacial reserves," the researchers from the China Academy of Sciences said as they released their findings.
The survey, covering roughly one third of China's glaciers, was conducted to trace the impacts of global warming.
China's glaciers, in the west of the country, feed many of Asia's greatest rivers, including the Yangtze, Mekong, Yellow and Ganges, as well as the Brahmaputra.
In the past four decades, China's glaciers shrank by 3,248 square kilometres, or 5.5 percent since the 1960s, according to previous studies published in the state-run press.
One of China's top glaciologists, Yao Tangdong, warned last year of an "ecological catastrophe" in Tibet because of global warming.
He said most glaciers in the region could melt away by 2100.
America will keep on wrecking climate talks as long as those with vested interests in oil and gas fund its political system
by George Monbiot
“After 11 days of
negotiations, governments have come up with a compromise deal that
could even lead to emission increases. The highly compromised political
deal is largely attributable to the position of the United States,
which was heavily influenced by fossil fuel and automobile industry
interests. The failure to reach agreement led to the talks spilling
over into an all-night session.”
These are extracts from a press release by Friends of the Earth.
So what? Well it was published on December 11 - I mean to say, December
11 1997. The US had just put a wrecking ball through the Kyoto
protocol. George Bush was innocent; he was busy executing prisoners in
Texas. Its climate negotiators were led by Albert Arnold Gore.
The European Union had asked for greenhouse gas cuts of 15% by 2010.
Gore’s team drove them down to 5.2% by 2012. Then the Americans did
something worse: they destroyed the whole agreement.
Most of the other governments insisted that the cuts be made at
home. But Gore demanded a series of loopholes big enough to drive a
Hummer through. The rich nations, he said, should be allowed to buy
their cuts from other countries. When he won, the protocol created an
exuberant global market in fake emissions cuts. The western nations
could buy “hot air” from the former Soviet Union. Because the cuts were
made against emissions in 1990, and because industry in that bloc had
subsequently collapsed, the former Soviet Union countries would pass
well below the bar. Gore’s scam allowed them to sell the gases they
weren’t producing to other nations. He also insisted that rich nations
could buy nominal cuts from poor ones. Entrepreneurs in India and China
have made billions by building factories whose primary purpose is to
produce greenhouse gases, so that carbon traders in the rich world will
pay to clean them up.
The result of this sabotage is that the market for low-carbon
technologies has remained moribund. Without an assured high value for
carbon cuts, without any certainty that government policies will be
sustained, companies have continued to invest in the safe commercial
prospects offered by fossil fuels rather than gamble on a market
without an obvious floor.
By ensuring that the rich nations would not make real cuts, Gore
also guaranteed that the poor ones scoffed when we asked them to do as
we don’t. When George Bush announced, in 2001, that he would not ratify
the Kyoto protocol, the world cursed and stamped its foot. But his
intransigence affected only the US. Gore’s team ruined it for everyone.
The destructive power of the American delegation is not the only
thing that hasn’t changed. After the Kyoto protocol was agreed, the
then British environment secretary, John Prescott, announced: “This is
a truly historic deal which will help curb the problems of climate
change. For the first time it commits developed countries to make
legally binding cuts in their emissions.” Ten years later, the current
environment secretary, Hilary Benn, told us that “this is an historic
breakthrough and a huge step forward. For the first time ever, all the
world’s nations have agreed to negotiate on a deal to tackle dangerous
climate change.” Do these people have a chip inserted?
In both cases, the US demanded terms that appeared impossible for
the other nations to accept. Before Kyoto, the other negotiators flatly
rejected Gore’s proposals for emissions trading. So his team threatened
to sink the talks. The other nations capitulated, but the US still held
out on technicalities until the very last moment, when it suddenly
appeared to concede. In 1997 and in 2007 it got the best of both
worlds: it wrecked the treaty and was praised for saving it.
Hilary Benn is an idiot. Our diplomats are suckers. American
negotiators have pulled the same trick twice, and for the second time
our governments have fallen for it.
There are still two years to go, but so far the new agreement is
even worse than the Kyoto protocol. It contains no targets and no
dates. A new set of guidelines also agreed at Bali extend and
strengthen the worst of Gore’s trading scams, the clean development
mechanism. Benn and the other dupes are cheering and waving their hats
as the train leaves the station at last, having failed to notice that
it is travelling in the wrong direction.
Although Gore does a better job of governing now he is out of
office, he was no George Bush. He wanted a strong, binding and
meaningful protocol, but American politics had made it impossible. In
July 1997, the Senate had voted 95-0 to sink any treaty which failed to
treat developing countries in the same way as it treated the rich ones.
Though they knew this was impossible for developing countries to
accept, all the Democrats lined up with all the Republicans. The
Clinton administration had proposed a compromise: instead of binding
commitments for the developing nations, Gore would demand emissions
trading. But even when he succeeded, he announced that “we will not
submit this agreement for ratification [in the Senate] until key
developing nations participate”. Clinton could thus avoid an unwinnable
war.
So why, regardless of the character of its leaders, does the US act
this way? Because, like several other modern democracies, it is subject
to two great corrupting forces. I have written before about the role of
the corporate media - particularly in the US - in downplaying the
threat of climate change and demonising anyone who tries to address it.
I won’t bore you with it again, except to remark that at 3pm eastern
standard time on Saturday, there were 20 news items on the front page
of the Fox News website. The climate deal came 20th, after
“Bikini-wearing stewardesses sell calendar for charity” and “Florida
store sells ‘Santa Hates You’ T-shirt”.
Let us consider instead the other great source of corruption:
campaign finance. The Senate rejects effective action on climate change
because its members are bought and bound by the companies that stand to
lose. When you study the tables showing who gives what to whom, you are
struck by two things.
One is the quantity. Since 1990, the energy and natural resources
sector - mostly coal, oil, gas, logging and agribusiness - has given
$418m to federal politicians in the US. Transport companies have given
$355m. The other is the width: the undiscriminating nature of this
munificence. The big polluters favour the Republicans, but most of them
also fund Democrats. During the 2000 presidential campaign, oil and gas
companies lavished money on Bush, but they also gave Gore $142,000,
while transport companies gave him $347,000. The whole US political
system is in hock to people who put their profits ahead of the
biosphere.
So don’t believe all this nonsense about waiting for the next
president to sort it out. This is a much bigger problem than George
Bush. Yes, he is viscerally opposed to tackling climate change. But
viscera don’t have much to do with it. Until the American people
confront their political funding system, their politicians will keep
speaking from the pocket, not the gut.
George Monbiot is the author of the best selling books The Age of Consent: a manifesto for a new world order and Captive State: the corporate takeover of Britain. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian newspaper. © 2007 The Guardian
/top_stories/article/27485
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world's sea levels could rise twice as high
this century as U.N. climate scientists have predicted, according to
researchers who looked at what happened more than 100,000 years ago,
the last time Earth got this hot. Experts working on the U.N.'s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have suggested a maximum 21st
century sea level rise -- a key effect of global climate change -- of
about 32 inches. But researchers said in a study appearing on
Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience that the maximum could be twice
that, or 64 inches. They made the estimate by looking at the
so-called interglacial period, some 124,000 to 119,000 years ago, when
Earth's climate was warmer than it is now due to a different
configuration of the planet's orbit around the sun. That was the last
time sea levels reached up to 20 feet (6 meters) above where they are
now, fueled by the melting of the ice sheets that cover Greenland and
Antarctica. The researchers say their study is the first robust documentation of how quickly sea levels rose to that level.
"Until now, there have been no data that sufficiently constrain the
full rate of past sea level rises above the present level," lead author
Eelco Rohling of Britain's National Oceanography Centre said in a
statement. Rohling and his colleagues found an average sea level
rise of 64 inches each century during the interglacial period.
Back then, Greenland was 5.4 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than now --
which is similar to the warming period expected in the next 50 to 100
years, Rohling said. Current models of ice sheet activity do not
predict rates of change this large, but they do not include many of the
dynamic processes already being observed by glaciologists, the
statement said.
Climate Sanctions Sought Against US
German Party Launches Efforthttp://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/19/5897/
by Judy Dempsey
BERLIN - The Social Democrats
are calling for sanctions on energy-intensive US export products if the
Bush administration continues to obstruct international agreements on
climate protection, the party’s leading environmental specialist said
yesterday. The
move, after the United Nations climate conference last week in Bali,
Indonesia, has won strong support from the Greens and other leftist
groupings in the European Parliament. Those factions will renew their
bid to impose such levies when the Parliament reconvenes next month.
It also signals a big effort by the Social Democrats to take the
initiative on the environment and perhaps reshape it as a foreign
policy issue that could affect relations between Berlin and Washington.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has taken the lead on climate change, both
domestically and internationally, leaving her junior coalition
partners, the Social Democrats, frustrated. The opposition Greens have
also lost ground on an issue they had long dominated.
But with three important state elections next year, the Social
Democrats, still floundering in the opinion polls, are revamping their
program to stem the decline of public support, party officials say.
“Merkel has made climate change a big issue and has tried to bring
the Bush administration on board, so far without success,” said Ulrich
Kelber, deputy parliamentary leader of the Social Democrats and an
environmental specialist who is leading the campaign to impose levies
on energy-intensive US products.
“We cannot let the US continue to block multilateral agreements, as
it tried with Kyoto, or weaken them, as it did in Bali,” he said,
referring to a compromise agreement on reducing greenhouse gases during
the UN climate conference last week.
“The US is a major part of the problem. Levying special taxes or
sanctions on energy-intensive US products, such as steel and aluminum,
which are exported to Europe, could be the first step,” Kelber said.
US officials and the American Chamber of Commerce in Brussels said that it was too early to react to the proposals.
Environmentalists inside the Social Democratic Party and in the
European Parliament said the idea behind levying taxes went beyond
pressuring the Bush administration to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on
reducing greenhouse gases.
They also want to widen the European carbon emissions system, which
at the moment excludes steel and other intensive energy products
imported by EU member states.
Unless such products are included, they said, it was unrealistic to
believe that the trading system could reduce climate change
significantly.
The EU’s emission trading program was launched in January 2005,
becoming the first international trading system for carbon dioxide
emissions.
It covers more than 11,500 energy-intensive installations across the
EU, which represent nearly half of Europe’s carbon dioxide emissions,
according to the European Commission.
The installations include oil refineries, coke ovens, iron and steel
plants and factories making cement, glass, lime, brick, ceramics, pulp
and paper.
Earlier attempts by Germany’s Social Democrats and the European
Parliament to widen such levies were met with opposition from Gunter
Verheugen, the EU’s commissioner for industry and enterprise, who is
German and a Social Democrat.
Turmes said Verheugen wanted to protect industry and Germany’s car
sector rather than support moves to either impose levies on steel and
other imports or expand the European emissions trading system.
“What we don’t want is a situation where the US, between now and the
next climate accord, which is supposed to be concluded in 2009, will do
everything they can to block it,” Kelber said.
From: http://green.yahoo.com/news/nm/20071215/ts_nm/bali_corrected_dc.html
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Nearly 200 nations agreed at U.N.-led talks in Bali on Saturday to launch negotiations on a new pact to fight global warming after a reversal by the United States allowed a historic breakthrough.
Washington said the agreement marked a new chapter in climate diplomacy after six years of disputes with major allies since President George W. Bush pulled out in 2001 from the Kyoto Protocol, the main existing plan for combating warming.
"This is the defining moment for me and my mandate as secretary-general," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said after making a special return trip to Bali to implore delegates to overcome deadlock after the talks ran a day into overtime.
Ban had been on a visit to East Timor. "I am deeply grateful to many member states for their spirit of flexibility and compromise," Ban told Reuters.
The Bali meeting approved a "roadmap" for two years of talks to adopt a new treaty to succeed Kyoto beyond 2012, widening it to the United States and developing nations such as China and India. Under the deal, a successor pact will be agreed at a meeting in Copenhagen in late 2009.
The deal after two weeks of talks came after the United States dramatically dropped opposition to a proposal by the main developing-nation bloc, the G77, for rich nations to do more to help the developing world fight rising greenhouse emissions.
Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar, the host of the talks, banged down the gavel on the deal to rapturous applause from delegates, weary after intensive talks and numerous disputes over the past fortnight.
"I think it was encouraging. That was a real sign of willingness to compromise," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said of the U.S. climbdown.
The accord marks a step towards slowing global warming that the U.N. climate panel says is caused by human activities led by burning fossil fuels that produce carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.
Scientists say rising temperatures could cause seas to rise sharply, glaciers to melt, storms and droughts to become more intense and mass migration of climate refugees.
"U.S. HUMBLED"
"The U.S. has been humbled by the overwhelming message by developing countries that they are ready to be engaged with the problem, and it's been humiliated by the world community. I've never seen such a flip-flop in an environmental treaty context ever," said Bill Hare of Greenpeace.
The European Union was pleased with the deal.
"It was exactly what we wanted. We are indeed very pleased," said Humberto Rosa, head of the European Union delegation.
"We will have now two tremendously demanding years, starting right in January. Many meetings, many discussions, many people passing many hours doing things," he said.
Agreement on a pact in 2009 would give governments time to ratify the pact and give certainty to markets and investors wanting to switch to cleaner energy technologies, such as wind turbines and solar panels.
Kyoto binds all industrial countries except the United States to cut emissions of greenhouse gases between 2008 and 2012. Developing nations are exempt and the new negotiations will seek to bind all countries to emission curbs from 2013.
DAY OF DRAMA
In a day of drama and emotional speeches, nations had berated and booed the American representatives for holding out. A wave of relief swept the room when the United States relented.
"The United States is very committed to this effort and just wants to really ensure we all act together," said Paula Dobriansky, head of the U.S. delegation.
"With that, Mr. Chairman, let me say to you we will go forward and join consensus," she said to cheers and claps from delegates. The United States is the leading greenhouse gas emitter, ahead of China, Russia and India.
"There is no question that we have opened a new page and are moving forward together. It is a strong commitment jointly reached by all countries to advance negotiations," said James Connaughton, Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, in Bali.
"This is not a step taken alone by America. This is a step taken by all the countries that the time had come to open a new chapter," he added.
-- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on:
http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/
(Reporting by Adhityani Arga, Sugita Katyal, Alister Doyle, Ed Davies, Gde Anugrah Arka and Gerard Wynn; writing by David Fogarty; editing by Alister Doyle)
Copyright © 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Gore: US Blocking Climate Talks Progresshttp://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/sns-ap-bali-climate-conference,1,6979429.story?track=rss&ctrack=1&cset=true
By CHRIS BRUMMITT,
Associated Press Writer
12:08 PM PST, December 13, 2007
BALI, Indonesia -- Nobel laureate Al Gore said Thursday the
United States is "principally responsible" for blocking progress at the U.N.
climate conference, and European nations threatened to boycott U.S.-led climate
talks next month unless Washington compromises on emissions reductions.
The former vice president urged delegates to take urgent action to
reduce emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, and told them
that the next U.S. president will likely be more supportive of international
caps on polluting gases.
"My own country, the United States, is
principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali," said Gore, who
flew to Bali from Oslo, Norway, where he received the Nobel Peace Prize for
helping alert the world to the danger of climate change.
White House
press secretary Dana Perino said Thursday Gore was wrong in blaming the United
States for holding up progress. "I think he is incorrect," she said.
Kristen Hellmer, a member of the American delegation in Bali, said of
Gore's remarks: "The U.S. is being open and working very constructively with the
other countries that are here. We are rolling our sleeves up and really working
to come up with a global post-2012 framework."
Earlier, the United
Nations warned that time was running out for an agreement aimed at launching
negotiations for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012 and
the talks in Bali were in danger of "falling to pieces."
The United
States, Japan and several other governments are refusing to accept language in a
draft document suggesting that industrialized nations consider cutting emissions
by 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020, saying specific targets would limit the
scope of future talks.
European nations said they may boycott a U.S.-led
climate meeting next month unless Washington compromises.
"No result in
Bali means no Major Economies Meeting," said Sigmar Gabriel, top EU environment
official from Germany, referring to a series of separate climate talks initiated
by President Bush in September. "This is the clear position of the EU. I do not
know what we should talk about if there is no target."
It is a
continuation of the September White House meetings called the Major Economies
Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change, proposed for Jan. 30-31 in
Honolulu, according to Kristy Hellmer, spokeswoman White House Council on
Environmental Quality.
The European Union and others say the proposed
emissions caps reflect the measures scientists say are needed to rein in global
warming and head off predictions of rising sea levels, worsening floods and
droughts, and the extinction of plant and animal species.
The U.S.
invited 16 other major economies, including European countries, Japan, China and
India, to discuss a program of what are expected to be nationally determined,
voluntary cutbacks in greenhouse gas emissions.
Perino said that while
there were some voices calling for a boycott of the Washington meeting, it did
not appear to be the official position of the EU. She said such comments were
"not constructive to a conversation where everybody wants to get together for
this meeting to talk about a framework for moving forward."
"And it's
not just the United States who has expressed concern and surprise that the draft
document included a specific reduction number. The specific reduction number was
what was supposed to be negotiated after the Bali conference, once a framework
was in place," Perino said.
The Bush administration views the major
economies process as the main vehicle for determining future steps by the U.S.
-- and it hopes by others -- to slow emissions. But environmentalists accuse the
U.S. of trying to undermine the U.N. process.
Gore urged delegates to
reach agreement even without the backing of the United States, saying President
Bush's successor, who will take office in January 2009, would likely be more
supportive of binding cuts.
"Over the next two years, the United States
is going to be somewhere it is not now," he said. "I must tell you candidly that
I cannot promise that the person who is elected will have the position I expect
they will have, but I can tell you I believe it is quite likely."
Gore,
who helped in the final negotiation of the Kyoto pact in 1997, also called for
implementing a successor agreement two years early, in 2010. The first
implementation period of the Kyoto pact expires at the end of 2012.
"We
can't afford to wait another five years," he said.
U.N. climate chief
Yvo de Boer said he was worried the U.S.-EU deadlock could derail the process
and that a final "Bali roadmap" would contain an agreement to negotiate a new
climate deal by 2009, but may not include specific targets for emission
reductions.
"I'm very concerned about the pace of things," he said. "If
we don't get wording on the future, then the whole house of cards falls to
pieces."
The United States delegation said while it continues to reject
inclusion of specific emission cut targets, it hopes eventually to reach an
agreement that is "environmentally effective" and "economically sustainable."
It also noted that that the conference was the start of negotiations for
a new climate pact, not the end.
"We don't have to resolve all these
issues ... here in Bali," said Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky, the
head of the U.S. delegation.
The United States is the world's largest
emitter of greenhouse gases and the only major industrial country to have
rejected Kyoto, which expires in 2012. It has been on the defensive since the
conference began Dec. 3.
The Kyoto Protocol requires 37 industrial
nations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by a relatively modest average 5
percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
Bush has argued that the pact would
harm the U.S. economy and cutbacks should have been imposed on poorer but
fast-developing nations such as China and India.
The talks in Bali are
scheduled to wrap up Friday. Ominous Arctic Melt Worries Experts by Seth Borenstein An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years. Greenland’s ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer’s end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The Associated Press. “The Arctic is screaming,” said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government’s snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo. Just last year, two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040. This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: “At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions.” So scientists in recent days have been asking themselves these questions: Was the record melt seen all over the Arctic in 2007 a blip amid relentless and steady warming? Or has everything sped up to a new climate cycle that goes beyond the worst case scenarios presented by computer models? “The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming,” said Zwally, who as a teenager hauled coal. “Now as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines.” It is the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels that produces carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, responsible for man-made global warming. For the past several days, government diplomats have been debating in Bali, Indonesia, the outlines of a new climate treaty calling for tougher limits on these gases. What happens in the Arctic has implications for the rest of the world. Faster melting there means eventual sea level rise and more immediate changes in winter weather because of less sea ice. In the United States, a weakened Arctic blast moving south to collide with moist air from the Gulf of Mexico can mean less rain and snow in some areas, including the drought-stricken Southeast, said Michael MacCracken, a former federal climate scientist who now heads the nonprofit Climate Institute. Some regions, like Colorado, would likely get extra rain or snow. More than 18 scientists told the AP that they were surprised by the level of ice melt this year. “I don’t pay much attention to one year … but this year the change is so big, particularly in the Arctic sea ice, that you’ve got to stop and say, ‘What is going on here?’ You can’t look away from what’s happening here,” said Waleed Abdalati, NASA’s chief of cyrospheric sciences. “This is going to be a watershed year.” 2007 shattered records for Arctic melt in the following ways: • 552 billion tons of ice melted this summer from the Greenland ice sheet, according to preliminary satellite data to be released by NASA Wednesday. That’s 15 percent more than the annual average summer melt, beating 2005’s record. • A record amount of surface ice was lost over Greenland this year, 12 percent more than the previous worst year, 2005, according to data the University of Colorado released Monday. That’s nearly quadruple the amount that melted just 15 years ago. It’s an amount of water that could cover Washington, D.C., a half-mile deep, researchers calculated. • The surface area of summer sea ice floating in the Arctic Ocean this summer was nearly 23 percent below the previous record. The dwindling sea ice already has affected wildlife, with 6,000 walruses coming ashore in northwest Alaska in October for the first time in recorded history. Another first: the Northwest Passage was open to navigation. • Still to be released is NASA data showing the remaining Arctic sea ice to be unusually thin, another record. That makes it more likely to melt in future summers. Combining the shrinking area covered by sea ice with the new thinness of the remaining ice, scientists calculate that the overall volume of ice is half of 2004’s total. • Alaska’s frozen permafrost is warming, not quite thawing yet. But temperature measurements 66 feet deep in the frozen soil rose nearly four-tenths of a degree from 2006 to 2007, according to measurements from the University of Alaska. While that may not sound like much, “it’s very significant,” said University of Alaska professor Vladimir Romanovsky. - Surface temperatures in the Arctic Ocean this summer were the highest in 77 years of record-keeping, with some places 8 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, according to research to be released Wednesday by University of Washington’s Michael Steele. Greenland, in particular, is a significant bellwether. Most of its surface is covered by ice. If it completely melted - something key scientists think would likely take centuries, not decades - it could add more than 22 feet to the world’s sea level. However, for nearly the past 30 years, the data pattern of its ice sheet melt has zigzagged. A bad year, like 2005, would be followed by a couple of lesser years. According to that pattern, 2007 shouldn’t have been a major melt year, but it was, said Konrad Steffen, of the University of Colorado, which gathered the latest data. “I’m quite concerned,” he said. “Now I look at 2008. Will it be even warmer than the past year?” Other new data, from a NASA satellite, measures ice volume. NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke, reviewing it and other Greenland numbers, concluded: “We are quite likely entering a new regime.” Melting of sea ice and Greenland’s ice sheets also alarms scientists because they become part of a troubling spiral. White sea ice reflects about 80 percent of the sun’s heat off Earth, NASA’s Zwally said. When there is no sea ice, about 90 percent of the heat goes into the ocean which then warms everything else up. Warmer oceans then lead to more melting. “That feedback is the key to why the models predict that the Arctic warming is going to be faster,” Zwally said. “It’s getting even worse than the models predicted.” NASA scientist James Hansen, the lone-wolf researcher often called the godfather of global warming, on Thursday was to tell scientists and others at the American Geophysical Union scientific in San Francisco that in some ways Earth has hit one of his so-called tipping points, based on Greenland melt data. “We have passed that and some other tipping points in the way that I will define them,” Hansen said in an e-mail. “We have not passed a point of no return. We can still roll things back in time - but it is going to require a quick turn in direction.” Last year, Cecilia Bitz at the University of Washington and Marika Holland at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado startled their colleagues when they predicted an Arctic free of sea ice in just a few decades. Both say they are surprised by the dramatic melt of 2007. Bitz, unlike others at NASA, believes that “next year we’ll be back to normal, but we’ll be seeing big anomalies again, occurring more frequently in the future.” And that normal, she said, is still a “relentless decline” in ice. On the Net National Snow and Ice Data Center on 2007 Arctic sea ice: http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/20070810_index.html NASA’s “Tipping Points” panel and slide show materials: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/tipping_points.html Published on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 by Grist Magazine Beyond the Point of No Return
It’s too late to stop climate change — so what do we do now? by Ross Gelbspan As the pace of global warming kicks into overdrive, the hollow optimism of climate activists, along with the desperate responses of some of the world’s most prominent climate scientists, is preventing us from focusing on the survival requirements of the human enterprise. The environmental establishment continues to peddle the notion that we can solve the climate problem. We can’t. . . . Beyond the Point of No ReturnIt’s too late to stop climate change — so what do we do now? - CommonDreams.org
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