France's Aquitaine coast stretches north from the Spanish border to the Gironde river estuary, encompassing rocky bluffs, giant lagoons, deltas, beaches and Europe's largest dune. Now climate change has laid siege to this natural oasis, dramatically speeding up the erosion of the 270 kilometre-long (168 miles) Atlantic coastline and threatening local communities. Rising seas threaten renowned French coast, Agence France Press, 4-26-09
Climate change would force Australia's Aborigines off their traditional lands, resulting in "cultural genocide" and environmental degradation, a human rights watchdog warned ... Agence France Press, 5-4-09
Fire must be accounted for as an integral part of climate change, according to 22 authors of an article published in the April 24 issue of the journal Science. The authors determined that intentional deforestation fires alone contribute up to one-fifth of the human-caused increase in emissions of carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas that increases global temperature.Fire Is An Important And Under-Appreciated Part Of Global Climate Change, National Science Foundation, 4-23-09
The Pacific Northwest has spent two decades retooling dams, rebuilding damaged watersheds and restoring stream flows to keep salmon from disappearing. ... No matter what actions the world takes to reduce greenhouse gases, river temperatures in more than half of the lower-elevation watersheds may exceed 70 degrees by 2040 - too hot for salmon. All we do now to save salmon could mean nothing, Idaho Statesman, 5-3-09
Rivers in some of the world's most populous regions are losing water, according to a new comprehensive study of global stream flow. The study, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), suggests that in many cases the reduced flows are associated with climate change. The process could potentially threaten future supplies of food and water.Water Levels Dropping In Some Major Rivers As Global Climate Changes, Terra Daily, 4-28-09
Scientists have calculated that the world has already produced about a third of the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that could be emitted between 2000 and 2050 and still keep within a 2C rise in global average temperatures. At the current rate at which CO2 is emitted globally - which is increasing by 3 per cent a year - countries will have exceeded their total limit of 1,000 billion tons within 20 years, which would be about 20 years earlier than planned under international obligations.Steve Connor, Climate Chaos Predicted by CO2 Study, Independent/UK, 4-30-09
Vice President Al Gore, testifying to Congress, told GOP global warming deniers that they are the victims of "the Bernie Madoffs of global warming." ... "They ordered the censoring and removal of the scientific review that they themselves conducted, and like Bernie Madoff, they lied to the people who trusted them in order to make money." Gore tells GOP deniers they’re victims of ‘the Bernie Madoffs of global warming.’ Think Progress, 4-9-09
The Climate Crisis is Advancing *Invisibly* Only If You Have Shut Your Eyes; It is Escalating *Silently* Only If You Have Plugged Your Ears
By Richard Power
The Climate Crisis and the Crisis in Darfur are Words of Powers' two highest priorities.
Just to close the loop on my recent posts, Mia Farrow ended her hunger strike for Darfur on the 12th day, at the urging of her doctor. Her place was taken by Richard Branson, who carried it on for the next three days. Rep. Donald Payne took over for Branson and will carry it on the next three days.
I will continue to follow this story, and I will do whatever I can, day after night, to increase awareness and outrage about the Crisis in Darfur.
I also want to note that U.S. journalist Roxana Saberi, who had recently conducted her own hunger strike to protest her false conviction and wrongful imprisonment, has been freed by the Iranians.
But in this post, and the next, I will focus on Words of Powers' other highest priority, i.e., the Climate Crisis.
Here are seven stories from recent weeks. Even though their import spans the globe, they only skim the surface of the dire straits into which we have drifted.
France's Aquitaine coast stretches north from the Spanish border to the Gironde river estuary, encompassing rocky bluffs, giant lagoons, deltas, beaches and Europe's largest dune.
Now climate change has laid siege to this natural oasis, dramatically speeding up the erosion of the 270 kilometre-long (168 miles) Atlantic coastline and threatening local communities. ...
Cliffs are sliding into the sea, beaches are disappearing, dunes that protect forests, towns and roads are in danger, and the tourism trade is in jeopardy, local experts said. Rising seas threaten renowned French coast, Agence France Press, 4-26-09
Climate change would force Australia's Aborigines off their traditional lands, resulting in "cultural genocide" and environmental degradation, a human rights watchdog warned Monday. ...
"Problems that indigenous Australians will encounter include people being forced to leave their lands, particularly in coastal areas," the report said.
"Dispossession and a loss of access to traditional lands, waters, and natural resources may be described as cultural genocide; a loss of ancestral, spiritual, totemic and language connections to lands and associated areas." Agence France Press, 5-4-09
"The tragic fires in Victoria, Australia, emphasize the ubiquity of recent large wildfires and potentially changing fire regimes that are concomitant with anthropogenic climate change," said David Bowman of the University of Tasmania. "Our review is both timely and of great relevance globally." ...
The authors state, "Earth is intrinsically a flammable planet due to its cover of carbon-rich vegetation, seasonally dry climates, atmospheric oxygen, widespread lightning and volcano ignitions. Yet, despite the human species' long-held appreciation of this flammability, the global scope of fire has been revealed only recently by satellite observations available beginning in the 1980s." ...
[Jennifer Balch, a member of the research team and a postdoctoral fellow at NCEAS] notes that a holistic fire science is necessary, and points out fire's true importance. "We don't think about fires correctly," she said. "Fire is as elemental as air or water. We live on a fire planet. We are a fire species. Yet, the study of fire has been very fragmented. We know lots about the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, but we know very little about the fire cycle, or how fire cycles through the biosphere." Fire Is An Important And Under-Appreciated Part Of Global Climate Change, National Science Foundation, 4-23-09
Fish that spawn in the south and in the summer will die first as the world warms. Idaho's high-elevation runs may offer one of the best chances the species has.
he Pacific Northwest has spent two decades retooling dams, rebuilding damaged watersheds and restoring stream flows to keep salmon from disappearing.
The United States has invested billions in the effort - $350 million in 2004 alone - by far the most money spent on any endangered species.
But a new threat is more devastating than the gill nets that sent dozens of salmon runs into extinction. It is more deadly than the hydroelectric turbines that still kill millions of migrating smolts. In fact, it raises doubts about whether salmon will survive in the Northern Pacific at all.
Climate change already has made rivers warmer and spring runoff earlier, disrupting the life cycle of the fish that are an icon of the region.
No matter what actions the world takes to reduce greenhouse gases, river temperatures in more than half of the lower-elevation watersheds may exceed 70 degrees by 2040 - too hot for salmon. All we do now to save salmon could mean nothing, Idaho Statesman, 5-3-09
Rivers in some of the world's most populous regions are losing water, according to a new comprehensive study of global stream flow. The study, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), suggests that in many cases the reduced flows are associated with climate change. The process could potentially threaten future supplies of food and water. ... The scientists, who examined stream flow from 1948 to 2004, found significant changes in about one-third of the world's largest rivers. Of those, rivers with decreased flow outnumbered those with increased flow by a ratio of about 2.5 to 1.
Several of the rivers channeling less water serve large populations, including the Yellow River in northern China, the Ganges in India, the Niger in West Africa, and the Colorado in the southwestern United States. In contrast, the scientists reported greater stream flow over sparsely populated areas near the Arctic Ocean, where snow and ice are rapidly melting. Water Levels Dropping In Some Major Rivers As Global Climate Changes, Terra Daily, 4-28-09
"If we continue burning fossil fuels as we do, we will have exhausted the carbon budget in merely 20 years, and global warming will go well beyond 2C," said Malte Meinshausen of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who led the study, published in Nature.
"Substantial reductions in global emissions have to begin soon - before 2020. If we wait longer, the required phase-out of carbon emissions will involve tremendous economic costs and technological challenges. We should not forget that a 2C global mean warming would take us far beyond the variations that Earth has experienced since we humans have been around."
It is the first time scientists have calculated accurately the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that can be released into the atmosphere between 2000 and 2050 and still have a reasonable chance of avoiding temperature rises higher than 2C above pre-industrial levels - widely viewed as a "safe" threshold.
The scientists found the total amount of greenhouse gases that could be released over this time would be equivalent to 1,000 billion tons of CO2. This is equivalent to using up about 25 per cent of known reserves of oil, gas and coal, said Bill Hare, a co-author of the study. Steve Connor, Climate Chaos Predicted by CO2 Study, Independent/UK, 4-30-09
Vice President Al Gore, testifying to Congress, told GOP global warming deniers that they are the victims of “the Bernie Madoffs of global warming.” After Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) mocked global warming as being responsible for the woes of the Dallas Cowboys, Gore said that he and other climate change deniers have been receiving bad information. He pointed out that a front-page story in today’s New York Times reveals that the largest corporate polluters in the United States censored their climate scientists in 1995:
The largest corporate carbon polluters in America, 14 years ago, asked their own people to conduct a review of all of this science. And their own people told them, “What the international scientific community is saying is correct, there is no legitimate basis for denying it.” Then, these large polluters committed a massive fraud far larger than Bernie Madoff’s fraud. They are the Bernie Madoffs of global warming. They ordered the censoring and removal of the scientific review that they themselves conducted, and like Bernie Madoff, they lied to the people who trusted them in order to make money. Gore tells GOP deniers they’re victims of ‘the Bernie Madoffs of global warming.’ Think Progress, 4-9-09
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