Clipmarks | papananook's 'climate' clips

Arctic Melting Shows Global Warming Serious

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:22:37 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: I don't know why I clip this stuff--the denialists are too brainwashed to change and if you pay attention, you already know.

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

OTTAWA - The incredibly rapid rate at which Canada's Arctic ice shelves are disappearing is an early indicator of the "very substantial changes" that global warming will impose on all mankind, a top scientist said on Wednesday.

An undated photo from the Center for Northern Studies shows the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf disintegrating. The incredibly rapid rate at which Canada's Arctic ice shelves are disappearing is an early indicator of the "very substantial changes" that global warming will impose on all mankind, a top scientist said on Wednesday. (REUTERS/Denis Sarrazin/Center for Northern Studies/Handout)

Researchers announced late on Tuesday that the five ice shelves along Ellesmere Island in the Far North, which are more than 4,000 years old, had shrunk by 23 percent this summer alone.

"Climate models indicate that the greatest changes, the most severe changes, will happen earliest in the highest northern latitudes," said Warwick Vincent, director of the Centre for Northern Studies

New evidence of Global Warming

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:59:54 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: For all the denialists--more fodder for your insanity

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

ScienceDaily (Sep. 2, 2008) — Researchers confirm that surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere were warmer over the last 10 years than any time during the last 1300 years, and, if the climate scientists include the somewhat controversial data derived from tree-ring records, the warming is anomalous for at least 1700 years.

"We looked at a much expanded database and our methods are more sophisticated than those used previously," says Mann. In today's (Sept. 2) online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers note, "Conclusions are less definitive for the Southern Hemisphere and globe, which we attribute to larger uncertainties arising from the sparser available proxy data in the Southern Hemisphere."

study shows that, with caveats, tree-ring data can be used, but that even without including that data, it is clear that the anomalous nature of recent warmth, which most scientists believe to be a result of human impacts on climate, is a reality.

-Are Humans Destroying the Planet's Web of Life?

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:33:28 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: Very sobering, disturbing article. Just put global climate disruption aside and think about what we humans are doin to the life in the oceans and the air and land, the forests, the over fertilizing, the plastics...it's abominable and has to be changed or we die.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

“Humanity doesn’t need a moon-base or a manned trip to Mars. We need an expedition to planet Earth, where probably fewer than 10 per cent of species are known to science, and fewer than 1 per cent of those have been studied beyond a simple anatomical description and a few notes on natural history. At the same time, we are engaged in a genocide against those species, known and unknown; the sixth mass extinction has begun."

E.O. Wilson, Harvard evolutionary biologist and author of "The Creation."

n the 200 years since French naturalist Georges Cuvier first floated the concept of extinction, after examining fossil bones and concluding "the existence of a world previous to ours, destroyed by some sort of catastrophe", we have slowly begun to recognize a potentially lethal threat to our planet and human existence.

forget about life's origins and focus on the fact that while nature achieves "sustainability through complexity," human activities are driving myriad species into extinction

Climate Change Is Already Affecting the West's Water

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:15:38 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: Unless it slaps them in the face, the typical American can't be bothered by an abstract threat. If there's a global warming event -- a mammoth hurricane, tornado, or forest fire -- in our neighborhood, then we get concerned. From this perspective, the loss of a few thousand acres of ice in a remote corner of Montana hardly seems significant. Most of us don't see it as a danger sign.

But it is. Disappearing glaciers is a harbinger of huge problems. In the West, the most obvious is drought.

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

By 2020 Glacier National Park will be "Puddles National Park" and the rest of the west won't be much better off. So where's the concern?

It's said our primeval ancestors had a simple arithmetic system: "One, two, three, many." That describes the focus of many 2008 voters, whose concerns are the economy, energy prices, Iraq, and "those other problems." As we get closer to the presidential election, most Americans aren't worried about global warming. Maybe they will be when they turn the tap and no water comes out.

In early August we toured Glacier National Park with the Sierra Club, catching a glimpse of several of the humongous ice fields. In 1910 there were 150 glaciers in the park; now there are 25, which are losing 9 percent of their mass per year. Sometime between 2015 and 2020 they'll disappear. Locals joke the 1.4 million acres will be renamed "Puddles National Park."

Why isn't global climate change seen as a more important issue?

Why T. Boone Pickens' 'Clean Energy' Plan Is a Ponzi Scheme

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:36:44 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: read the article.

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

The controversial oil magnate has made headlines for a supposed conversion to cleaner energy, but there's ample reason to be suspicious.

"If you are going out of business, you don't go down with the ship, you get another ship. For us, it's natural gas." -- T. Boone Pickens, "Becoming a Billionaire"

You can't always get what you want, the Rolling Stones counseled. But if you try sometimes, you get what you need. Factor billions of dollars, questionable loyalties and a privatization rap sheet invested more in profit than people into the equation, and you usually can get both what you want and what you need. In the case of hyper-loaded oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, that means having your cake on climate crisis, fossil fuel addiction, eminent domain, water privatization and corporate earnings -- and eating it too.

Europe's 'Earth Explorer' to Map Planet "Inside Out" From Space

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:24:32 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: The five hundred million dollar satellite is expected to survive for 20 months - at twenty-five million a month that makes it even higher maintenance than Paris Hilton, but infinitely more useful. Data provided by the satellite will map everything from ocean depths to the magma core of the planet, providing data of unprecedented accuracy for everything from climate physics to geophysics.

In an interesting coincidence, GOCE will be launched on the same day the Large Hadron Collider powers up. Project leader Kal-El urges readers not to pay too much attention to this, nor ask why the nose cone seems to be full of diapers and a red cape.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

The most accurate gravity map of Earth ever will soon be recorded - from space, of course. The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Explorer (GOCE) will be launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) on the 10th of September, there to explore Earth inside and out like never before.

GOCE is equipped with a triple-accelerometer gradiometer, accurate to within one part in one hundred trillion of standard Earth gravity. Don't pretend you understand that - a one hundred trillionth is beyond the human minds ability to usefully picture. For reference, it's the size of a virus compared to a sixteen wheeler truck.

The image above provides a global model of the Earth's gravity field and of the geoid. The geoid (the surface of equal gravitational potential of a hypothetical ocean at rest) serves as the classical reference for all topographical features -important for studies of Earth interior processes, ocean circulation, ice motion and sea-level change.

Enthusiasm gap plagues GOP convention

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:02:47 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: Maybe they'll just take a last gasp and die...good riddance!

Clip Source: www.politico.com

While excitement is building for a Democratic Party convention capped by Barack Obama’s historic acceptance speech before a sold-out, 75,000-seat football stadium, the GOP convention the following week is shaping up to be a considerably more staid affair, marked by the conspicuous absence of many of the usual convention attendees.

Compared to past conventions, lawmakers, lobbyists and candidates aren’t beating a path to St. Paul.

Photo: AP

Republicans aren’t exactly planning to avoid the convention in droves. But compared to past conventions, lawmakers, lobbyists and candidates aren’t beating a path to St. Paul either.

“Nobody likes a funeral,” said a Senate Republican press secretary who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing “the overall climate of general malaise about the party” as the reason for hesitance on the part of Republicans.

Tom Cole of Oklahoma discouraged congressional hopefuls from attending, saying that doing so would potentially be a “waste of time.”

their greatest crime of all--ignoring the climate change

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:33:08 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: He added that they should, in his opinion, "be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature… I anticipate testifying against relevant CEOs in future public trials." That's a novel thought in our nation's capital. Oh, and while he was at it, he probably should have thrown in George W., Dick C., and crew. What they haven't done (and what they've blocked from being done) over these last eight years may turn out to be their greatest crime of all. Talk about smoking guns... or is it melting ice?
And here's the sad thing, as with so much else in these last years, the only way global warming has gotten the slightest respect in Bush's Washington is as a national security issue. Big surprise. The Navy, for instance, was already holding a symposium entitled "Naval operations in an Ice-Free Arctic" in April 2001; now, it seems that by 2010, or 2015 at the latest, it may have its wish -- an iceless Arctic Ocean in the summer for the first time in perhaps one million years and a scramble for

Clip Source: www.tomdispatch.com

For those who didn't happen to notice, perhaps because it wasn't exactly front-page news in most of the country, NASA's James Hansen, the man who first alerted Congress to the dangers of global warming 20 years ago, returned to testify before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming this week. This time around, he was essentially offering a final warning on the subject. Unless the U.S. begins to act soon, he pointed out, "it will become impractical to constrain atmospheric carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas produced in burning fossil fuels, to a level that prevents the climate system from passing tipping points that lead to disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity's control.

For the "elements of a 'perfect storm,' a global cataclysm" being assembled, he placed special blame on the "CEOs of fossil energy companies [who] know what they are doing and are aware of [the] long-term consequences of continued business as usual."

4 Senate Dems urge EPA chief to resign

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:48:07 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: I've watched this foot-dragging, Bush's-ass-kissing hack testify on C-SPAN and he is one of the most frustratingly not-so-subtle stonewallers ever to grace a Congressional hearing.

Clip Source: www.sfgate.com

Four Senate Democrats called on EPA chief Stephen Johnson to resign Tuesday, alleging that he gave misleading testimony to Congress and repeatedly bowed to pressure from the White House to avoid regulating greenhouse gases.

California Sen. Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and three other Democrats on the panel - Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey - also announced they are urging Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate whether Johnson made false statements to Congress. Mukasey's office said it was still reviewing the request late Tuesday.

The pressure on Johnson is part of an escalating battle between Democrats in Congress and the White House over climate change policy. Democrats are seizing on new evidence that Johnson overrode the opinions of Environmental Protection Agency scientists and reversed two of his own decisions at the request of the White House.

Global Climate Change Research

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:40:20 GMT

clipped by: papananook

Clip Source: www.c-spanarchives.org

Senate Committee
Environment and Public Works

07/28/2008

2 hours, 23 minutes

Witnesses testified about global climate change research, the potential implications of new scientific methods and findings, as well as public policy proposals related to global warming. They also testified about the federal role in regulating emissions and enforcing environmental protection rules.

Watch

Flash Video

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Activists To Ratchet Up Climate Heat

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:54:38 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: Willie's gonna LOVE this shit.

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

NEW YORK - Teams of environmental activists are planning to take to the streets over the coming weeks to put the spotlight on policy makers who they say are prioritizing corporate interests in the coal and oil industries over the impending threat of global warming.“Climate change is here and more and more people are refusing to sit by waiting for governments to act and watching them fail,” said Alicia Ng, an activist associated with the international campaign called “Climate Convergence 2008.”

The Climate Convergence is part of a global campaign that calls for acts of civil disobedience to draw policy makers’ attention to the threat of climate change and its impact on the natural environment and indigenous communities across the world.

As part of their worldwide campaign, a little over a week ago, thousands of activists gathered in the Australian town of Newcastle to register their protest against over-reliance on fossil fuels.

The Timeline For 21st Century “Climate Change Events”

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:17:15 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: See the link for the timeline--it's pretty interesting, if grim for the future of our grandkids. By the time my son is my age in 25 yrs., the world will be in many crises. I'm such a person as to not want to see it.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Earlier this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), reported that there is a 90 percent likelihood that humans are significantly contributing to the change.

Scientist Stephen Hawking described climate as a greater threat to the planet than . Hawking made the remarks earlier this spring as other prominent scientists turned the giant hand of the Doomsday Clock — a symbol of the risk of atomic cataclysm — closer to midnight. The move marked the fourth time since the end of the Cold War that the clock has ticked forward and Hawking warned that "as citizens of the world, we have a duty to alert the public to the unnecessary risks that we live with every day."

The international panel of scientists predicts the global average temperature could anywhere from 2 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 and that sea levels could rise by 2 feet.

The following is a predicted timeline for events that will likely occur this century:

The Day the Seas Died

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:10:44 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: But the permafrost melting is probably more dire. All that methane imbedded will be released and accelerate the climate's disruption.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

The Day the Seas Died: What Can the Greatest of All Extinction Events Teach Us About Climate Change?

The "Great Dying" at the end of the Permian period, some 250 million years ago, was the most catastrophic of the five mass extinctions in Earth’s fossil record. More than half of the families of living things died out, and as many as 95 percent of the planet’s marine species were lost. At the same time, perhaps 70 percent of the land’s reptile, amphibian, insect, and plant families became extinct

What caused the calamity has long been a source of scientific controversy, due both to the extreme remoteness of the event, and to an absence of geological evidence – the world’s seas retreated at the same period, reducing the amount of sedimentary rock entering the geological record.

In 1991, scientists reported that the largest known volcanic event in the past 600 million year -known as the Siberian Traps (image above)- occurred at the same time as the end-Permian extinction.

"Do Humans Have 23 years to Go?" Play Superstruct and Find Out -Invent the Future!

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:22:20 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: The Institute sees super-threats are "massively disrupting global society as we know it. There’s an entire generation of homeless people worldwide, as the number of climate refugees tops 250 million. Entrepreneurial chaos and “the axis of biofuel” wreak havoc in the alternative fuel industry. Carbon quotas plummet as food shortages mount. The existing structures of human civilization—from families and language to corporate society and technological infrastructures—just aren’t enough. We need a new set of superstructures to rise above, to take humans to the next stage."

The Institute says: "You can help. Tell us your story. Strategize out loud. Superstruct now."

Twitter that, Galaxians. Kind of makes Malthus look like a children's book.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

The Institute for the Future is inviting the world to play Superstruct,the worlds first massively multi-player forecasting game. It’s not just about envisioning the future—it’s about inventing the future, creating superstructures to solve and counter super threats facing the planet.

Developed by the Palo Alto-based non-profit think tank, it will launch on September 22 for six weeks. Superstruct allows participants to use their “collective intelligence” to create solutions that can apply to real-world problems. Everyone is welcome to join the game.

Based on the results of a year-long supercomputer simulation, the Global Extinction Awareness System (GEAS) has reset the "survival horizon" for Homo sapiens - the human race - from "indefinite" to 23 years.

“The survival horizon identifies the point in time after which a threatened population is expected to experience a catastrophic collapse,” GEAS president Audrey Chen said. “It is the point from which it a species is unlikely to recover.

Naomi Klein: Bush Sees Crises in Fuel, Food, Housing and Banking as Chance to Exploit Us More

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:38:21 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: ... Food, fuel, housing, climate change -- talk about these crises. First, start with oil.

Klein: There really is a kind of a tsunami of shocks facing not just the economy but people's lives, people's real lives. They're all intersecting. They're making each other worse. And I think we really are seeing some very live examples of what a write about in the book, which is how there is a strategy. And this is what I mean by "the shock doctrine." There is a clear political strategy, and has been for several decades, to exploit these moments when people are desperate for quick-fix solutions and more inclined to believe in a kind of a magical cure, to push through very, very unpopular policies that don't actually solve the crisis at hand, that don't actually help people, but are incredibly profitable for multinational corporations.

And I think we are seeing a very vivid example of this with this speech from George Bush yesterday, where he is taking a very real crisis, which is demandi

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

People are desperate for solutions but instead they're handed policies that don't solve the crises, and are highly profitable for corporations.

As the country and the world reel from crises ranging from skyrocketing oil prices and global food shortages to housing and climate change, how best to understand the government policies being pushed through? Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman interviewed Naomi Klein, author of 'The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism'

Amy Goodman: President Bush has lifted an almost two-decade-old executive order banning offshore and natural gas drilling. With prices at the pump over $4 a gallon, Bush has been pushing to allow more drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf and the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge, amidst strong opposition from environmentalists.

President George Bush: The failure to act is unacceptable.