Fatalistic Friday
Fatalistic Friday: Climate treaty still stalled, catastrophic climate change forecast, more
Published October 02, 2009 @ 03:53PM PT
Above: At a press conference held midway through the Climate Change Talks in Bangkok, Yvo de Boer told reporters that progress has been made key areas including adaptation, technology and capacity-building in developing countries. However, progress on rich nation emission reduction targets and financial support for climate change action in developing countries is still elusive.
Grab a stiff drink and take in this week's bad news about global warming:
Climate talks stall on targets, finance: Efforts to convince rich nations to toughen emissions cuts have failed to make much headway at climate talks in the Thai capital, the U.N. said on Friday. "Progress toward high industrialized world emissions cuts remains disappointing during these talks. We're not seeing real advances there," Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told reporters. "Movement on the ways and means and institutions to raise, manage and deploy financing support for the developing world climate action also remains slow." (Reuters)
Catastrophic climate change could happen with 50 years: If average global temperatures arc toward a rise of 7.2 deg. F (4 deg. C) by 2100 (over those of the mid-19th century), according to a study released this week by the UK's Met Office, we'd be screwed in diverse ways as soon as 2060: Arctic temperatures would increase by 28.8 deg F (16 deg C), while parts of sub Saharan Africa and North America would be devastated by an increase in temperature of up to 18 deg F (10 deg C); rainfall could decrease by 20 per cent in Central America, the Mediterranean and parts of coastal Australia, causing mass drought; Temperature rises in the Amazon would cause the rainforests to die, while Alaska and Siberia would see the melting of the permafrost causing more carbon dioxide to be released. (The Telegraph)
Fatalistic Friday: GOP Senator may protect polluters from greenhouse gas curbs
Published September 18, 2009 @ 06:10PM PT
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) wants to slice and dice the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gas pollution. Cars and trucks: okay. Power plants and factories: not so much.
Murkowski has said she hopes to introduce an amendment to the $32.1 billion fiscal 2010 appropriations legislation for the Department of the Interior, the EPA, and the Forest Service (part of the Dept. of Agriculture).
Murkowski's rider would limit EPA to creating rules to regulate greenhouse gas pollution from mobile sources only -- that is, automobiles -- while preventing the agency from devising regulations for stationary sources like factories and power plants off-limits until after September, 2010:
Effective during the 1-year period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act, none of the funds made available for the Environmental Protection Agency under this Act may be expended to regulate or control carbon dioxide from any sources other than a mobile source as described in section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act or to treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act except for purposes of section 10 202(a) of that Act.
Murkowski, the top-ranked Republican member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is opposed to creating a cap-and-trade system for lowering greenhouse gas pollution. She supports drilling for oil and gas on the Outer Continental Shelf off Alaska's coast.
Fatalistic Friday: 'We're waiting for our climate speech, Mr. President', major Arctic melt, more
Published September 11, 2009 @ 02:37PM PT
Above: Pacific walrus swimming to shore at an Alaskan beach. The Obama administration may give the species special protections under the Endangered Species Act, because it is losing critical habitat to global warming. Source: US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Presented for your amusement: our semi-regular horse pill of bad news about climate change. Look out -- there's a signpost up ahead that reads...Fatalistic Friday.
Climate Activists Wait for an Obama Speech to Call Their Own: As President Obama delivered his health care speech this week, climate change activists said they were waiting patiently for a similar rhetorical moment. While there is broad acceptance about the president's decision to push global warming to the back burner for now, Obama needs to grant climate change equal attention on prime-time television in coming months, they say.
With less than 100 days until the Copenhagen talks begin, time is running out. "I don't have a problem with him keeping the climate powder dry for now," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, which is pushing to strengthen global warming legislation that passed the House in June. "But, ultimately, it may take a big goosing from the White House to achieve some resolution in the Congress." (ClimateWire)
Arctic ice meltdown greater than average again in 2009: The Arctic sea ice has retreated to the third-lowest level in recorded history -- the fourth time in the past five years that the annual summer meltdown has been far greater than average. The ice has already diminished this year to less than 5.3 million square kilometres, with a week or two of melting left to go. The all-time biggest retreat was recorded in 2007 at 4.13 million square kilometres, and the 2008 retreat fell just short of that record. (CanWest News Service)
Effects of Arctic warming seen as widespread: The Arctic Circle has been warming faster than other latitudes. And the impacts are showing on the region's plants, birds, animals and insects. "The Arctic as we know it may soon be a thing of the past," Eric Post, an associate professor of biology at Penn State University, said in a statement. (Associated Press)
Fatalistic Friday: Storms, heat, drought and double-dealing
Published August 21, 2009 @ 08:14PM PT
Another week's end brings us to another concentrated, hurts-less-this-way burst of the worst of the week's global warming news:
Storm Fells Hundreds of Trees in NY's Central Park: Hundreds of trees in Central Park were damaged and destroyed by severe thunderstorm winds as high as 80 mph. "I've never seen a wind of that velocity in New York City," Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe said. "It looks like pictures that I've seen of war zones where artillery shells have shredded trees." (The New York Times)
In hot water: World sets ocean temperature record: The ocean is 72 degrees F in Maine, 88 in Ocean City, Maryland. And all around the world, July was the hottest the world's oceans have been in almost 130 years of keeping records. "The average water temperature worldwide was 62.6 degrees, according to the National Climatic Data Center, the branch of the U.S. government that keeps world weather records. That was 1.1 degree higher than the 20th century average." (Associated Press)
Mexico Hit By Lowest Rainfall In 68 Years: It's killing cattle, threatening millions of tons of crops, and reducing the supply of water to Mexico City. (Reuters)
ConocoPhillips works to undermine climate bill, despite pledge to support climate action: Despite being a member of the pro-business US Climate Action Partnership, ConocoPhillips is now putting its weight behind opposition to climate change legislation. (Grist)
Fatalistic Friday (Our 501st Post!): Antarctic glacier thinning at astonishing rate
Published August 14, 2009 @ 06:36PM PT
Here's the latest bad news on how global warming is changing the environment -- super concentrated into one regular weekly burst of woe:
Antarctic glacier 'thinning fast': One of the southern continent's largest glaciers is thinning four times faster than it was 10 years ago. The Pine Island Glacier is dropping at a rate of up to 16 meters (52 feet) a year. "Since 1994, the glacier has lowered by as much as 90m, which has serious implications for sea-level rise," reports the BBC about the research, which is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "This is unprecedented in this area of Antarctica. We've known that it's been out of balance for some time, but nothing in the natural world is lost at an accelerating exponential rate like this glacier," said co-author Andrew Shepherd of Leeds University. (BBC News)
Study looks at warming’s effect on Beartooth glaciers: When Dr. Edward Chatelain first climbed Montana's 12,604-foot Castle Mountain as a teen, in the mid-1970s, he was awed by the size of the glacier and the deep crevasses that sliced into its core. Flying over it two decades later, "We were absolutely aghast to see what was left," he said. The Castle Rock Glacier lost 60 meters (197 feet) of ice from its surface between 1952 and 2003, an average of 1.26 meters (1.434 feet) of melt per year. (The Billings Gazette)
Vast expanses of Arctic ice melt in summer heat: In late July the mercury soared to almost 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, Canada, home of 900 Inuvialuit. Kids were swimming in the ocean. "As of Thursday, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center reported, the polar ice cap ... shrunk an average 41,000 square miles (106,000 square kilometers) a day in July -- equivalent to one Indiana or three Belgiums daily. The rate of melt was similar to that of July 2007, the year when the ice cap dwindled to a record low minimum extent of 1.7 million square miles (4.3 million square kilometers)..." (AP)
Either way, it was really, really warm: Globally averaged land and sea surface temperatures for July were the second hottest on record, according to NASA (data set here). NOAA calls it the sixth hottest on record, with global ocean surface temperature for July 2009 was the warmest on record.
Why do the same groups oppose health care and energy reform? "Perhaps the best explanation is that great unifier, money." That is, the enormous sums a small but powerful coterie of corporations stand to lose if and when these policies are brought up to date for the conditions the 21st century America. (DeSmogBlog)
Money key stumbling block at UN climate talks: Developing countries will need billions to curb carbon pollution and cope with globl warming's effects on their vulnerable lands and populations. Who will foot the bill was a key hurdle at UN climate talks this week in Bonn. "The five-day negotiating session veered to an end with many participants expressing frustration at the lack of progress only four months ahead of the Copenhagen climate conference slated to deliver a planet-saving climate treaty." (AFP)
Related: India called developed nations' failure to implement the Kyoto Protocol the "single biggest issue" facing multilateral talks. (AFP)
As India water and power dry up, the people revolt: Could be global warming, could be natural cycles that are causing an abnormally light monsoon season this year. Not much comfort to the thousands of Indians whose farm fields are drying up, and hydro-powered electricity supply is faltering. (The Los Angeles Times)
Climate change fueling forest fires in Europe: Greenpeace has warned that climate change is fueling forest fires that have already destroyed tens of thousands of hectares in southern Europe this year. "Climate change is driving a new generation of fires with unknown social and economic consequences," said Miguel Soto, Greenpeace Spain forests campaigner. (AFP)
Intensity of Recent Hurricanes Not Matched Since Middle Ages: The Atlantic Ocean is experiencing the most intense period of hurricane activity in 1,000 years. One of the study's authors says, "We believe a substantial part of the reason for that anomalous recent warmth is in fact the human influence on climate." The research has just been published in the journal Nature. (NPR)
Emissions trading scheme defeated in Australia: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said it was a ''disappointing day indeed for Australia...Today, Australia had an opportunity to embrace the future on climate change and instead we find ourselves, courtesy of the Liberal and National parties, dangerously anchored in the past,'' he told Parliament. (The Age)
Life's a bleach for Barrier Reef as climate changes: New research into the potential financial cost of climate change to the world heritage-listed wonder puts the present value of the reef at $51.4 billion - approaching $2500 for every Australian alive today - but warns that nearly four-fifths of this value would be destroyed if the coral was totally and permanently bleached. Warming global ocean temperatures are increasing coral bleaching events. (The Australian)
Related: Australia's Green (liberal) and Coalition (conservative) parties have voted down an emissions plan. It's bad news for the environment. (The Guardian)
Fatalistic Friday: Glaciers shrink, coal lobby spends, more
Published August 07, 2009 @ 06:03PM PT
Retreat of South Cascade Glacier, Washington, during the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st Century. Source: U.S. Geological Survey
Scientists See Alaska, Washington Glaciers Shrinking Fast: Three major glaciers in Alaska and Washington state have thinned and shrunk dramatically, clear signs of a warming climate and signaling lower stream flows in summer months, according to a study released Thursday by the U.S. Geological Survey. (Associated Press)
Coal's biggest lobbying group is launching a $1 million campaign to win support from Senate Democrats, an effort that employs the same public relations firm ensnared by a scandal over forged letters to Congress. (Greenwire)
Climate Action May Stall in Fall: With the fight over health care reform absorbing all attention on Capitol Hill, Democrats fear climate change legislation may lose momentum. (Politico)
Realtors Get Labels Cut From Climate Bill for Older Houses: Real estate industry gets older homes exempted from energy labeling provision of energy and climate legislation, saying it threatened a lucrative corner of their industry. (Climatewire)
The Trouble With Nuclear Fuel: Nukes represent a promising bridge from fossil fuels to truly clean energy technologies. But it's really hard to prevent it from being used to make bombs. (The Economist)
Some California Amphibians May Need a Lift to Survive Climate Change:
As amphibian habitat shifts with global warming, some species will be trapped in shrinking territories, and need human interventions to survive. (Scientific American)
"Serious" Climate Talks Hinge On U.S. Bill: The success or failure of international climate treaty talks depends upon the U.S. passing a strong bill to slash carbon pollution, says American Clean Energy and Security Act co-sponsor Edward Markey (D-Mass.) (Reuters)
Tiny Prairie Grouse Native To Wind-Rich Swath Of America: If the lesser prairie chicken is listed as threatened or endangered – the species' numbers have dropped 80 percent nationally since 1963 – significant restrictions would be placed on companies hoping to plant towering turbines across a five-state region believed to have some of the nation's best wind energy potential. (The Dallas Morning News)
Climate Bill Demands Pile Up for Boxer, Kerry Headed Into Summer Break: "Liberal Democrats, for example, want stronger emission targets compared with the House-passed bill. Coal-state senators are pressing for changes to a delicately crafted House deal that would send their electric utilities a larger share of free allocations. And expanded energy production sits atop the wish list for oil patch Democrats." (Climatewire)
Nobel Halo Fades Fast for Climate Change Panel: As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gears up for its next climate review, many specialists in climate science and policy, both inside and out of the network, are warning that it could quickly lose relevance unless it adjusts its methods and focus. (The New York Times)
Fatalistic Friday: 'Cash for Clunkers' could save 16 mpg Hummer
Published July 24, 2009 @ 11:02AM PT
Source: failblog
It's been an unusually fertile week for apocalypcious news, so let's dive right in:
'Cash For Clunkers' Program Could Boost Hummer: People who trade in their gas guzzlers for more fuel-efficient cars can get a government subsidy -- even if they trade in old pickups for ones that get just 2 miles per gallon more. Which means the program could provide an unexpected boost to the beleaguered Hummer brand. Its H3T pickup gets 16 mpg. (NPR)
Related:
Cash for Clunkers: Compare the fuel savings (Consumer Reports)
Cars.gov, the official cash for clunkers website
Energy companies opened wallets wide to sway house climate bill: Electric utilities boosted lobbying in the second quarter of 2009, narrowing the gap with oil and gas companies that had dominated spending on persuasion by a wide margin earlier this year. (Greenwire/The New York Times)
Grist grades senate websites on climate transparency; flunks some: Grist combed the Web sites of 99 senators and issued report cards grading them on how well they explained the senators' positions on climate change and energy. "The results aren't pretty. We found a distinct lack of information among Democrats and Republicans alike, senators with and without strong environmental voting records, and from all regions of the country." (Grist)
Meet Belcha - Europe's biggest carbon polluter (and it's about to get even bigger): The biggest single producer of carbon emissions in the European Union has been named - and it is about to get even bigger. The appropriately titled Elektrownia Belchatow - a massive coal-fired power station - belched out 30,862,792 tonnes of CO2 last year and by 2010 the whole generating facility will have grown by 20%. (The Guardian)
Sea Ice Melting Faster Than Expected: A NASA study finds that Arctic ice is melting at a rate that scientists didn't anticipate. (Environment Report)
Massive Glacier In Sub-Antarctic Island Shrinks By A Fifth: French scientists say satellites show a glacier on a southern Indian Ocean island shrunk dramatically in recent decades. They think global warming may be a factor. (AFP)
Warmest june on record for global ocean surface temperature: The world's ocean surface temperature in June rose to its warmest since 1880, breaking the previous high mark set in 2005, according to a preliminary analysis by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville. (Environment News Service)
Arctic Mystery: Identifying The Great Blob Of Alaska: The mysterious, miles-long "blob" found floating in the Chukchi Sea is not an oil spill or alien life-form, according to early tests, but an unusual algal bloom. (TIME)
Caribou Populations Fall Sharply: Scientists are finding what seems to be a global decline in caribou populations, due to global warming (Christian Science Monitor)
Shrinking fish, dying sequoias, rampant tomato fungus, and more after the jump.
