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No escape: thaw gains momentum
Andrew C. Revkin, NY Times
… Many scientists say it has taken a long time for them to accept that global warming, partly the result of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, could shrink the Arctic’s summer cloak of ice.
But many of those same scientists have concluded that the momentum behind human-caused warming, combined with the region’s tendency to amplify change, has put the familiar Arctic past the point of no return.
The particularly sharp warming and melting in the last few decades is thought by many experts to result from a mix of human and natural causes. But a number of recent computer simulations of global climate run by half a dozen research centers around the world show that in the future human influence will dominate.
Even with just modest growth in emissions of the greenhouse gases, almost all of the summer sea ice is likely to disappear by late in the century. Some of the simulations, including those run on an advanced model at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., show much of the summer ice disappearing by 2050, said Marika Holland, a scientist there who is working on the sea-ice portion of that model.
(25 October 2005)
Climate change ‘could ruin drive to eradicate poverty’
Steve Connor, Independent via Common Dreams
Britain’s most senior independent scientist has warned that global warming threatens to ruin the international initiative to lift Africa out of poverty.
Lord May of Oxford, the president of the Royal Society, said the cost of dealing with the adverse effects of climate change could soak up all the aid to African countries.
In an open letter to G8 environment ministers who are to meet in London on 1 November, Lord May warns that the Gleneagles agreement on aid and debt relief to Africa could amount to nothing.
“As long as greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise, there is the very real prospect that the increase in aid agreed at Gleneagles will be entirely consumed by the mounting cost of dealing with the added burden of adverse effects of climate change in Africa,” Lord May said.
(24 October 2005)
Warm Oceans Threaten Caribbean Coral Reefs
Kenneth R. Weiss and Usha Lee McFarling, LA Times
‘Bleaching’ may kill up to 90% of the colorful undersea polyp colonies in some areas.
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The extremely warm ocean waters fueling this season’s record hurricane season are stressing coral reefs throughout the Caribbean and may kill 80% to 90% of the structures in some areas, scientists reported Monday.
These colorful undersea landmarks — homes for tropical fish and magnets for divers and snorkelers — are turning white, or “bleaching” in an area extending from the Florida Keys to Puerto Rico and Panama because of warmer-than-usual water that has persisted in the Atlantic for months.
“These levels are like nothing we’ve ever seen” in 20 years of satellite monitoring, said Al Strong, coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch. “It’s twice the thermal stress that we’ve ever seen for corals. We are talking extremely high percentage of bleaching and what seems to be extreme mortality.”
(25 October 2005)
The greening of China
The Economist
BEIJING – China is investigating whether its rigid system for assessing the performance of party leaders and civil servants can be used to tackle pollution
AN ELABORATE points system that determines the careers of officials is often blamed for many of China’s problems. In their drive to meet targets for economic growth, local mandarins squander money, ride roughshod over citizens and ravish the environment. So now China is trying to devise and embed into its assessment of officials a way of calculating a “green GDP”—which allows for environmental costs in national accounts—to help mitigate some of these excesses.
President Hu Jintao first endorsed the idea in March 2004, in a speech about the need to foster a “scientific concept of development”, a slogan intended to suggest that in pursuing growth China should pay more heed to such issues as the environment and the depletion of natural resources. Last February, the government said that ten regions, including Beijing, were carrying out a pilot project in green GDP assessment. Pan Yue, the deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, said a “framework” for a green GDP accounting system could be unfolded within three to five years. This would make China the pioneer of a statistical approach that no other country has adopted—and which many economists around the world eschew as an attempt to quantify the unquantifiable.
(20 October 2005 edition)
China dam project tests new environmental policy
Chris Buckley, Reuters via Planet Ark
BEIJING – Chinese plans to turn an untamed river into a hydro-electric hub have sparked a war of words about national priorities as the government rethinks the balance between economic growth and environmental protection.
Officials and experts in Beijing debated at the weekend a plan to harness the Nu River in southwest Yunnan province with a chain of up to 13 hydro-power stations amid signs of revived official favour for the project.
The whole project, which could take a decade or more to build, would generate more power than the mammoth Three Gorges Dam, and displace 50,000 farmers, say supporters.
But opponents claim it will tear the region’s delicate social and environmental fabric with little benefit to locals. They have recently circulated a petition urging the government to release studies of the dams’ environmental impact and allow greater public debate.
(25 October 2005)
A leak in the Ecuadorian oil adventure
Karoline Nolsø Aaen, Upside Down World via Znet
While rivers are being polluted, rainforests cut down and the health of citizens severely threatened by the oil industry, this black gold continues to flow through Ecuador. I am in the northern part of the Ecuadorian Amazon, visiting oil fields and researching the contamination of rivers, soil and forest in order to gain insight into what problems confront the Amazon. The area is ruined. Where there were once primary rain forests there are now oil plants, oil roads and a myriad of pipelines.
At several places, my driver and guide keeps the engine of the 4WD running, in case the military or security guards spot us and we need to leave. Armed with cameras and admonitions to quickly return to the vehicle, I crawl across a hill to survey yet another oil plant where hundreds of small and large pipelines lead oil, gas and wastewater to and from the oil station.
In the Upper Oriente, oil exploration, alone, has led to the deforestation of approximately two million hectares (20.000km) of rain forest. Here, history demonstrates that between 400-2400 hectares of rainforest are colonized for every kilometer of new oil road built.
“We would like to inform the rest of the world about the consequences of oil production for us,” tells Fidel Aguinda, the coordinator of the Young Cofan Indians.
The Cofanes were especially exposed to oil contamination and lack of land during the Texaco era and many communities have been completely demolished.
(24 October 2005)
EU must do more to fight climate change, Dimas says
Jeff Mason, Reuters via ENN
BRUSSELS — The European Union must do more to fight climate change and meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol international environmental treaty, the bloc’s environment commissioner said on Monday.
“In terms of meeting our Kyoto target, the latest data show that greenhouse gas emissions from the EU-25 are 5.5 percent below their level in 1990. That is the good news,” EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said.
“But between 2002 and 2003 emissions increased by 1.5 percent. With current measures, the EU is estimated to achieve an overall reduction of 4.1 percent by 2008-2012, as such a good result — but not enough. More work is clearly needed
(25 October 2005)
