Clipmarks | invictus's 'climate change' clips

Eat less meat to fight climate change: UN expert

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:12:09 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: OK Mousie, no way out: drop that bacon back on the table and put your hands in the air. Um... And stop contaminating bourbon with that meat, please.

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

People should cut their consumption of meat to help combat climate change, a top United Nations expert told a British Sunday newspaper.

Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told The Observer that people should start by having one meat-free day per week then cut back further.

The 68-year-old Indian economist, who is a vegetarian, said diet change was important in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and environmental problems associated with rearing cattle and other animals.

Tags: climate change, carbon emission, vegetarianism, united nations, science

Water Shortage: Worst nightmare becoming true

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 01:55:55 GMT

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clipper's remarks: Amy Goodman interviews Peter H. Gleick and Maude Barlow about "water problems" appearing seriously on the horizon, globally.

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

For the longest time, people have taken water for granted. Most people don't think about where their water comes from. They just turn on the tap, and they expect it to be there. Those days are ending.

This notion that we'll have water forever is wrong. California is running out. It's got 20-some years of water. New Mexico has got 10, although they're building golf courses as fast as they can, so maybe they can whittle that down to five. Arizona, Florida, even the Great Lakes now, there's huge new demand.

The Nile River doesn't reach its end. The Colorado River, the Yellow River in China, they, for the most part, don't flow anymore to the sea.

You know those movies where there's the comet coming at the earth, and all of a sudden the governments of the world say, "Gee, we're not -- our differences aren't so big anymore, because we're about to all die"? That's really where we are. There is a comet coming at us. It's called water shortage.

Tags: water, climate change, earth, resources, water shortage, science

An Inconvenient Truth

Sat, 27 May 2006 03:07:25 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: www.climatecrisis.net

Opening Day in New York and Los Angeles

May 24th, 2006

Opening day has arrived in New York and Los Angeles along with some terrific reviews - please help spread the good word by linking/posting to them on your blogs:

“surprisingly engaging…intellectually exhilarating,…could hardly be more urgent. “An Inconvenient Truth” is a necessary film” - A.O. Scott, The New York Times

“…illuminating, fascinating and sometimes frightening.” - Claudia Puig, USA Today (* * * 1/2 out of 4 stars)

“highly persuasive” - Kevin Crust, The Los Angeles Times

Currently we’re 88% fresh at Rottentomatoes.com with 100% Fresh Rating with the Cream of the Crop critics (as of 11am ET)

We’ve listed the theaters opening today. Please click on the theater for showtimes and tickets.

AMC Loews Lincoln Square 12 in New York
Landmark Sunshine Cinema in New York
The Arclight Cinemas in Los Angeles
Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex in Santa Monica

Posted in News | 18 Comments »

Tags: climate change, global warming, al gore, an inconvenient truth, documentaries

Climate change evidence stronger

Thu, 11 May 2006 22:27:47 GMT

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Clip Source: today.reuters.co.uk

Climate change evidence stronger: scientist

COLOGNE, Germany (Reuters) - Global temperatures may be increasing more quickly than first thought, and evidence is stronger that humans are causing the rise, the World Bank's Chief Scientist Robert Watson told Reuters on Thursday.

Scientists widely accept that climate change is happening and could cause more extreme weather, global warming and rising sea levels.

But the scale of change and its cause are hotly contested, as blocs of countries including Europe and the United States are split on how quickly the world should act.

The U.N.-founded group, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has prepared its fourth report, at draft stage and due for publication in 2007, on the case for climate change, and finds that evidence has hardened, Watson said.

The IPCC's research work is split into working groups, with scientific evidence delegated to Working Group 1.

"Everybody I've talked to in Working Group 1 says the evidence (for climate change) is getting stronger, that this is more and more solid ... and (evidence) that most observed warming is due to human activities," said Watson, who is former chairman of the IPCC.

The third report in 2001 spoke of "new and stronger evidence" that human activities were warming the globe, in turn stronger than the previous report in 1995, which described a balance of evidence suggesting discernible human influence.

Citing most recent, and not necessarily IPCC research, Watson also found a consensus emerging that an expected rise in world temperatures by 2100 compared to 1990 was at the upper end of previous estimates. Continued...

Tags: climate change, global warming

Antarctic shelf 'hangs by thread'

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:44:45 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A chunk of ice the size of the Isle of Man has started to break away from Antarctica in what scientists say is further evidence of a warming climate.

Satellite images suggest that part of the ice shelf is disintegrating, and will soon crumble away.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf has been stable for most of the last century, but began retreating in the 1990s.

Six ice shelves in the same part of the continent have already been lost, says the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

Professor David Vaughan of BAS said: "Wilkins is the largest ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula yet to be threatened.

"I didn't expect to see things happen this quickly. The ice shelf is hanging by a thread - we'll know in the next few days or weeks what its fate will be."

Tags: climate change, global warming, antarctica, wilkins ice shelf, science

Rising seas 'to beat predictions'

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:37:06 GMT

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Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Sea level rise is fuelled by melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica

The world's sea levels could rise twice as high this century as UN climate scientists have previously predicted, according to a study.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change proposes a maximum sea level rise of 81cm (32in) this century.

But in the journal Nature Geoscience, researchers say the true maximum could be about twice that: 163cm (64in).

They looked at what happened more than 100,000 years ago - the last time Earth was this warm.

The results join other studies showing that current sea level projections may be very conservative.

Sea level rise is a key effect of global climate change. There are two major contributory effects: expansion of sea water as the oceans warm, and the melting of ice over land.

Tags: climate change, sea levels, environment, science

Gore and UN panel win Nobel prize

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:47:59 GMT

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Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth was an unlikely box office hit

Climate change campaigner Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have been jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The committee cited "their efforts to build up and disseminate knowledge about man-made climate change".

Mr Gore, US vice-president under Bill Clinton, said he was "deeply honoured".

Mr Gore, 59, won an Oscar for his climate change film An Inconvenient Truth while the IPCC is the top authority on global warming.

HAVE YOUR SAY

It would have made more sense to wait and see if Gore et al actually had an effect, but at least this might serve as a wake-up call to the naysayers

Geoff, Bensberg, Germany

Send us your comments

Nobel Peace Prize quiz

Indian's surprise at award

IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said he was "overwhelmed" by the award.

Tags: climate change, inconvenient truth, al gore, nobel peace prize

Ancient records help test climate change

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 01:07:05 GMT

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Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

A librarian at this 10th century monastery leads a visitor beneath the vaulted ceilings of the archive past the skulls of two former abbots.

He pushes aside medieval ledgers of indulgences and absolutions, pulls out one of 13 bound diaries inscribed from 1671 to 1704 and starts to read about the weather.

"Jan. 11 was so frightfully cold that all of the communion wine froze," says an entry from 1684 by Brother Josef Dietrich, governor and "weatherman" of the once-powerful Einsiedeln Monastery.

"But on Jan. 13 it got even worse and one could say it has never been so cold in human memory,"

Diaries of day-to-day weather details from the age before 19th-century standardized thermometers are proving of great value to scientists who study today's climate.

The accounts dispel any lingering doubts that the Earth is heating up more dramatically than ever before

Most historians and scientists delving deep into archives seek accounts of disasters and extreme weather events.

Tags: climate change, history, weather

Hurricane Planet: Is the Worst Yet to Come?

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:36:01 GMT

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Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

Aug. 22, 2007 — If Earth is running a fever, then hurricanes like Dean and Katrina are her febrile seizures. As the rise in global temperature has accelerated over the last century, these tempestuous spasms have become more frequent and violent.

Each new spinning storm is also finding ever more victims populating its coastal targets — whether it be Mississippi or Madagascar, Kingston or Connecticut — and more ways to trigger trouble thousands of miles inland by way of an ever-more interdependent, globalized economy.

Climatologists and hurricane scientists now have little doubt there is a connection between hurricanes and global warming. Some of the strongest evidence comes from 100 years of records on Atlantic hurricanes — the most complete archive of its kind for any ocean basin. That record shows hurricanes have been increasing in a stepwise fashion since 1900.

Tags: climate change, hurricanes, weather, world

Arctic sea ice set to hit new low

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 16:00:44 GMT

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Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Measurements made by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) showed the extent of sea ice on 8 August was almost 30% below the long-term average.

The extent of sea ice has been declining over the past 30 years

Because the region's melting season runs until the middle of September, scientists believe this summer will end with the lowest ice cover on record.

"If you look at data for the first week in August, we are way below what we saw in 2005," explained Mark Serreze, a senior research scientist at the NSIDC.

"So unless something really changes, for example the Arctic suddenly becomes a lot colder, it is going to be hard not to beat the previous record."

Scientists fear that this feedback mechanism will have major consequences for wildlife in the region, not least polar bears, which traverse ice-floes in search of food.

On a global scale, the Earth would lose a major reflective surface and so absorb more solar energy, potentially accelerating climatic change across the world.

Tags: climate change, arctic, sea ice

Extreme weather breaks records in 2007

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 22:23:31 GMT

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Clip Source: africa.reuters.com

Extreme weather breaks records in 2007

GENEVA (Reuters) - The world experienced a series of record-breaking weather events in early 2007, from flooding in Asia to heatwaves in Europe and snowfall in South Africa, the United Nations weather agency said on Tuesday.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said global land surface temperatures in January and April were likely the warmest since records began in 1880, at more than 1 degree Celsius higher than average for those months.

There have also been severe monsoon floods across South Asia, abnormally heavy rains in northern Europe, China, Sudan, Mozambique and Uruguay, extreme heatwaves in southeastern Europe and Russia, and unusual snowfall in South Africa and South America this year, the WMO said.

"The start of the year 2007 was a very active period in terms of extreme weather events," Omar Baddour of the agency's World Climate Programme told journalists in Geneva.

Tags: climate change, global warming, weather, science

Lake Superior changes mystify scientists

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:32:25 GMT

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Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Lake Superior changes mystify scientists

MARQUETTE, Mich. - Deep enough to hold the combined water in all the other Great Lakes and with a surface area as large as South Carolina, Lake Superior's size has lent it an aura of invulnerability. But the mighty Superior is losing water and getting warmer, worrying those who live near its shores, scientists and companies that rely on the lake for business.

The changes to the lake could be signs of climate change, although scientists aren't sure.

Superior's level is at its lowest point in eight decades and will set a record this fall if, as expected, it dips three more inches. Meanwhile, the average water temperature has surged 4.5 degrees since 1979, significantly above the 2.7-degree rise in the region's air temperature during the same period.

Tags: climate change, great lakes, lake superior

Hurricanes Brewing in Mediterranean?

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:46:00 GMT

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Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

Hurricanes Brewing in Mediterranean?

July 19, 2007 — Climate change models tailored to investigate some strange storms in the Mediterranean suggest that global warming could lead to hurricanes forming in that sea. If so, countries around the Mediterranean could be in for the most violent weather in centuries.

Most hurricanes form in the tropical Atlantic, rarely reaching Europe. But warming oceans could encourage them in the relatively landlocked Mediterranean, say the authors of a new study.

"It should be a matter of concern," said Miguel Gaertner, a researcher at the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Toledo, Spain. "The consequences could be quite dangerous."

Tags: climate change, hurricanes, mediterranean, weather

A Stormy New Century

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 14:10:36 GMT

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Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

Big Storms Double Since Last Century

July 30, 2007 — The average number of tropical cyclones per year has doubled since the early 1900s, report scientists.

What’s more, the increase in the average number of storms each year has happened in three distinct steps, rather than in a gradual fashion, and tracks right along with rising sea surface temperatures, says Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Holland and Georgia Tech’s Peter Webster have published their discovery in the July 30 issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A.

From 1900 to 1930 there were on average six Atlantic tropical cyclones: four hurricanes and two tropical storms. From 1930 to 1940 the average jumped up to ten: five hurricanes and five tropical storms. There was yet another step up in the mid-1990s, bringing the average to 15: eight hurricanes and seven tropical storms.

Tags: climate change, tropical storms, weather

Global warming blamed for vanishing lake

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 02:17:50 GMT

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Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Global warming blamed for vanishing lake

SANTIAGO, Chile - Scientists on Tuesday blamed global warming for the disappearance of a glacial lake in remote southern Chile that faded away in just two months, leaving just a crater behind.

The disappearance of the lake in Bernardo O'Higgins National Park was discovered in late May by park rangers, who were stunned to find a 130-foot deep crater where a large lake had been.

After flying over the lake Monday scientists said they were able to draw preliminary conclusions that point to climate change as the leading culprit for the lake's disappearance.

They suggested the melting of nearby glaciers raised the lake's level to the point where the increased water pressure caused part of a glacier acting as a dam to give way. Water in the lake flowed out of the breach, into a nearby fiord and then to the sea, said Andres Rivera, a glaciologist with Chile's Center of Scientific Studies.

Tags: climate change, global warming, chile, disappearing lake