http://www.ems.org/climate/exec_pentago ... change.pdf
http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/cur ... e_wef.html
interesting article.
lc
global warming may lead to global chill
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lostchylde
- Posts: 435
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2003 1:03 am
Damage from Warming Becoming 'Irreversible,' Says New Report
Mon Mar 15, 9:50 AM ET Add World - OneWorld.net to My Yahoo!
Jim Lobe, OneWorld US
WASHINGTON, D.C., Mar 15 (OneWorld) -- Ten years after the ratification of a United Nations (news - web sites) treaty on climate change, greenhouse gas emissions that lead to global warming are still on the rise, signaling a "collective failure" of the industrialized world, according to the Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI), a leading environmental think-tank.
• World Resources Institute
• Earth Island Institute
• OneWorld on Climate Change
Supported by
Cable & Wireless
"We are quickly moving to the point where the damage will be irreversible," warned Dr. Jonathan Pershing, director of WRI's Climate, Energy and Pollution Program. "In fact, the latest scientific reports indicate that global warming is worsening. Unless we act now, the world will be locked into temperatures that would cause irreversible harm."
WRI researchers estimate that greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide rose 11 percent over the last decade, and will grow another 50 percent worldwide by 2020. Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol (news - web sites), the international agreement that sets out specific targets to follow up on the treaty, 38 industrialized countries were supposed to reduce their emissions by an average of seven percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
The administration of former President Bill Clinton (news - web sites) signed the Kyoto Protocol, but President Bush (news - web sites) withdrew the U.S., which currently emits about 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, from negotiations over Kyoto's implementation.
Russia, which indicated initially that it intended to ratify the Protocol, remains undecided. As a result the Protocol--which must be ratified by countries whose greenhouse emissions totaled more than 55 percent of global emissions in 1990 in order to take effect--remains in limbo.
WRI decided to make a relatively rare public statement now, both because the tenth anniversary of the UNFCCC's ratification will take place next weekend and because of the growing pessimism surrounding the international community's ability and will to deal with the problem.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which called for voluntary reductions in greenhouse emissions, was signed by, among others, then-President George H.W. Bush, at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and took formal effect March 21, 1994. Today, 188 countries are signatories.
The Kyoto Protocol grew out of the UNFCCC when it became clear that plans for voluntary reductions would not meet the initial targets, and as climate and atmospheric scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have become increasingly convinced that the rise in global temperatures of about one degree Fahrenheit over the last century is due primarily to artificial emissions, notably the combustion of fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and gas.
Studies over the past decade have shown that the warming trend continues. "The five warmest years in recorded weather history have taken place over the last six years," noted WRI's president, Jonathan Lash.
"The ten warmest years in recorded weather history have taken place since 1987. Whether it's the retreat of glaciers, the melting of the permafrost in Alaska, or the increase in severe weather events, the world is experiencing what the global warming models predict," he said.
Europe, the main champion of the Kyoto Protocol, suffered its hottest year on record last year. Some 15,000 people in France alone died due to heat stress in combination with pollution, while European agriculture suffered an estimated $12.5 billion in losses.
Britain's most influential scientist, Sir David King, recently excoriated the Bush administration for withdrawing from the Protocol and ignoring the threat posed by climate change. "In my view, climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today," he wrote in Science magazine, "more serious even than the threat of terrorism."
Even the Pentagon (news - web sites) recently issued a warning that global warming, if it takes place abruptly, could result in a catastrophic breakdown in international security. Based on growing evidence that climate shifts in the past have taken place with breathtaking speed, based on the freshening of sea water due to accelerated melting of glaciers and the polar ice caps.
Given enough freshening, the Gulf Stream that currently warms the North Atlantic would be shut off, triggering an abrupt decline in temperatures that would bring about a new "Ice Age" in Europe, eastern Canada, and the northeastern United States and similar disastrous changes in world weather patterns elsewhere--all in a period as short as two to three years.
Wars over access to food, water, and energy would be likely to break out between states, according to the report. "Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life," according to the report. "Once again, warfare would define human life."
Even if climate change is more gradual, recent studies have argued that as many as one million plant and animal species could be rendered extinct due to the effects of global warming by 2050. A recent report by the world's largest reinsurance company, Swiss Re, predicted that in 10 years the economic cost of disasters like floods, frosts, and famines caused by global warming could reach $150 billion annually.
"Accelerated development of a portfolio of technologies could stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations, enhance global energy security, and eradicate energy poverty," noted David Jhirad, WRI's vice president for research. "We urgently need the political will and international cooperation to make this happen."
Mon Mar 15, 9:50 AM ET Add World - OneWorld.net to My Yahoo!
Jim Lobe, OneWorld US
WASHINGTON, D.C., Mar 15 (OneWorld) -- Ten years after the ratification of a United Nations (news - web sites) treaty on climate change, greenhouse gas emissions that lead to global warming are still on the rise, signaling a "collective failure" of the industrialized world, according to the Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI), a leading environmental think-tank.
• World Resources Institute
• Earth Island Institute
• OneWorld on Climate Change
Supported by
Cable & Wireless
"We are quickly moving to the point where the damage will be irreversible," warned Dr. Jonathan Pershing, director of WRI's Climate, Energy and Pollution Program. "In fact, the latest scientific reports indicate that global warming is worsening. Unless we act now, the world will be locked into temperatures that would cause irreversible harm."
WRI researchers estimate that greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide rose 11 percent over the last decade, and will grow another 50 percent worldwide by 2020. Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol (news - web sites), the international agreement that sets out specific targets to follow up on the treaty, 38 industrialized countries were supposed to reduce their emissions by an average of seven percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
The administration of former President Bill Clinton (news - web sites) signed the Kyoto Protocol, but President Bush (news - web sites) withdrew the U.S., which currently emits about 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, from negotiations over Kyoto's implementation.
Russia, which indicated initially that it intended to ratify the Protocol, remains undecided. As a result the Protocol--which must be ratified by countries whose greenhouse emissions totaled more than 55 percent of global emissions in 1990 in order to take effect--remains in limbo.
WRI decided to make a relatively rare public statement now, both because the tenth anniversary of the UNFCCC's ratification will take place next weekend and because of the growing pessimism surrounding the international community's ability and will to deal with the problem.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which called for voluntary reductions in greenhouse emissions, was signed by, among others, then-President George H.W. Bush, at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and took formal effect March 21, 1994. Today, 188 countries are signatories.
The Kyoto Protocol grew out of the UNFCCC when it became clear that plans for voluntary reductions would not meet the initial targets, and as climate and atmospheric scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have become increasingly convinced that the rise in global temperatures of about one degree Fahrenheit over the last century is due primarily to artificial emissions, notably the combustion of fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and gas.
Studies over the past decade have shown that the warming trend continues. "The five warmest years in recorded weather history have taken place over the last six years," noted WRI's president, Jonathan Lash.
"The ten warmest years in recorded weather history have taken place since 1987. Whether it's the retreat of glaciers, the melting of the permafrost in Alaska, or the increase in severe weather events, the world is experiencing what the global warming models predict," he said.
Europe, the main champion of the Kyoto Protocol, suffered its hottest year on record last year. Some 15,000 people in France alone died due to heat stress in combination with pollution, while European agriculture suffered an estimated $12.5 billion in losses.
Britain's most influential scientist, Sir David King, recently excoriated the Bush administration for withdrawing from the Protocol and ignoring the threat posed by climate change. "In my view, climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today," he wrote in Science magazine, "more serious even than the threat of terrorism."
Even the Pentagon (news - web sites) recently issued a warning that global warming, if it takes place abruptly, could result in a catastrophic breakdown in international security. Based on growing evidence that climate shifts in the past have taken place with breathtaking speed, based on the freshening of sea water due to accelerated melting of glaciers and the polar ice caps.
Given enough freshening, the Gulf Stream that currently warms the North Atlantic would be shut off, triggering an abrupt decline in temperatures that would bring about a new "Ice Age" in Europe, eastern Canada, and the northeastern United States and similar disastrous changes in world weather patterns elsewhere--all in a period as short as two to three years.
Wars over access to food, water, and energy would be likely to break out between states, according to the report. "Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life," according to the report. "Once again, warfare would define human life."
Even if climate change is more gradual, recent studies have argued that as many as one million plant and animal species could be rendered extinct due to the effects of global warming by 2050. A recent report by the world's largest reinsurance company, Swiss Re, predicted that in 10 years the economic cost of disasters like floods, frosts, and famines caused by global warming could reach $150 billion annually.
"Accelerated development of a portfolio of technologies could stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations, enhance global energy security, and eradicate energy poverty," noted David Jhirad, WRI's vice president for research. "We urgently need the political will and international cooperation to make this happen."
"This SPACE intentionally left BLANK" Zork
So since we're past the date where the damage is reversible, I suppose we'd better stop all emmission regulatory action and re-route that money to solve problems that still can be solved...like too little sausage on pizzas. Now that's a serious problem, not only here in the US, but around the world, I'm sure.
-
lostchylde
- Posts: 435
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2003 1:03 am
I suppose. frankly, id much rather have a veggie pizza then a sausage pizza. or a good juicy steak. been eating too many steaks lately.
i think the point of the article was that we are approaching the deadline, not past it. i think that if we had passed the turning point then we would start seeing dramatic climate change, IE; britain freezing over, europe plunged into a ice age, the us mid west turned into a dust bowl, ect.
and maybe this will never happen. or maybe it will happen sooner then we think.
lc
i think the point of the article was that we are approaching the deadline, not past it. i think that if we had passed the turning point then we would start seeing dramatic climate change, IE; britain freezing over, europe plunged into a ice age, the us mid west turned into a dust bowl, ect.
and maybe this will never happen. or maybe it will happen sooner then we think.
lc
"This SPACE intentionally left BLANK" Zork
-
lostchylde
- Posts: 435
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2003 1:03 am
more fun stuff to think about
Rapid growth of "dead zones" in oceans threatens planet
Mon Mar 29,12:04 AM ET
JEJU, South Korea, (AFP) - The spread of oxygen-starved "dead zones" in the oceans, a graveyard for fish and plant life, is emerging as a threat to the health of the planet, experts say.
AFP/File Photo
For hundreds of millions of people who depend on seas and oceans for their livelihoods, and for many more who rely on a diet of fish and seafood to survive, the problem is acute.
Some of the oxygen-deprived zones are relatively small, less than one square kilometre (0.4 square miles) in size. Others are vast, measuring more than 70,000 square kilometres.
Pollution, particularly the overuse of nitrogen in fertilizers, is responsible for the spread of dead zones, environment ministers and experts from more than 100 countries were told.
The number of known oxygen-starved areas has doubled since 1990 to nearly 150, according to the UN Environmental Program (UNEP), holding is annual conference here.
"What is clear is that unless urgent action is taken to tackle the sources of the problem, it is likely to escalate rapidly," UNEP executive director Klaus Toepfer said.
"Hundreds of millions of people depend on the marine environment for food, for their livelihoods and for their cultural fulfilment."
The world at present gets 17 percent of its animal protein from fish, UN figures show.
That supply is now endangered on at least two fronts: overfishing that has depleted stocks in recent decades and now the challenge of widening dead zones.
The issue was identified as a key emerging problem in the Global Environment Year Book 2003, a health report on the planet released at the start of the UNEP's three-day conference that concludes Wednesday.
The spread of low-level oxygen zones in seas and oceans, identified as early as in the 1960s, is closely related to the overuse of fertilizers in agriculture, whose main ingredient is nitrogen.
On land, nitrogen boosts plant growth. But when it washes into the sea in rivers and rainwater overrun, it triggers an explosive bloom of algae.
When these tiny plants growing on the ocean surface sink to the bottom and decompose, they use up all the oxygen and suffocate other marine life.
Fossil fuel waste from motor vehicles and power plants increases nitrogen content in oceans.
With oxygen depletion, fish, oysters and other marine life eventually die out along with important habitats such as sea grass beds.
Relatively large zones are found in the Gulf of Mexico, the Chesapeake Bay off the US East Coast, the Baltic and Black seas, and parts of the Adriatic.
Others have appeared off South America, Japan, China, Australia and New Zealand. Some zones are permanent, while other occur annually or intermittently.
Most of the 160 million tonnes of nitrogen used as fertiliser annually ends up in the sea.
UNEP said efforts should focus on cutting back on overuse of nitrogen to bring the seas back to life.
With a joint accord, European states within the Rhine River basin successfully cut the amount of nitrogen entering the North Sea by 37 percent between 1985 and 2000, it said.
The UNEP advocates planting of more forests and grasslands to soak up excess nitrogen and better sewage treatment.
Its conference is the first ever held in Asia with more than 100 ministers and high-level officials attending from 155 countries.
Rapid growth of "dead zones" in oceans threatens planet
Mon Mar 29,12:04 AM ET
JEJU, South Korea, (AFP) - The spread of oxygen-starved "dead zones" in the oceans, a graveyard for fish and plant life, is emerging as a threat to the health of the planet, experts say.
AFP/File Photo
For hundreds of millions of people who depend on seas and oceans for their livelihoods, and for many more who rely on a diet of fish and seafood to survive, the problem is acute.
Some of the oxygen-deprived zones are relatively small, less than one square kilometre (0.4 square miles) in size. Others are vast, measuring more than 70,000 square kilometres.
Pollution, particularly the overuse of nitrogen in fertilizers, is responsible for the spread of dead zones, environment ministers and experts from more than 100 countries were told.
The number of known oxygen-starved areas has doubled since 1990 to nearly 150, according to the UN Environmental Program (UNEP), holding is annual conference here.
"What is clear is that unless urgent action is taken to tackle the sources of the problem, it is likely to escalate rapidly," UNEP executive director Klaus Toepfer said.
"Hundreds of millions of people depend on the marine environment for food, for their livelihoods and for their cultural fulfilment."
The world at present gets 17 percent of its animal protein from fish, UN figures show.
That supply is now endangered on at least two fronts: overfishing that has depleted stocks in recent decades and now the challenge of widening dead zones.
The issue was identified as a key emerging problem in the Global Environment Year Book 2003, a health report on the planet released at the start of the UNEP's three-day conference that concludes Wednesday.
The spread of low-level oxygen zones in seas and oceans, identified as early as in the 1960s, is closely related to the overuse of fertilizers in agriculture, whose main ingredient is nitrogen.
On land, nitrogen boosts plant growth. But when it washes into the sea in rivers and rainwater overrun, it triggers an explosive bloom of algae.
When these tiny plants growing on the ocean surface sink to the bottom and decompose, they use up all the oxygen and suffocate other marine life.
Fossil fuel waste from motor vehicles and power plants increases nitrogen content in oceans.
With oxygen depletion, fish, oysters and other marine life eventually die out along with important habitats such as sea grass beds.
Relatively large zones are found in the Gulf of Mexico, the Chesapeake Bay off the US East Coast, the Baltic and Black seas, and parts of the Adriatic.
Others have appeared off South America, Japan, China, Australia and New Zealand. Some zones are permanent, while other occur annually or intermittently.
Most of the 160 million tonnes of nitrogen used as fertiliser annually ends up in the sea.
UNEP said efforts should focus on cutting back on overuse of nitrogen to bring the seas back to life.
With a joint accord, European states within the Rhine River basin successfully cut the amount of nitrogen entering the North Sea by 37 percent between 1985 and 2000, it said.
The UNEP advocates planting of more forests and grasslands to soak up excess nitrogen and better sewage treatment.
Its conference is the first ever held in Asia with more than 100 ministers and high-level officials attending from 155 countries.
"This SPACE intentionally left BLANK" Zork