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EU paper shows options on warming Europe
Aoife White, Associated Press
Water shortages in the Mediterranean, flash floods along the Rhine and summers so hot that nuclear power stations can’t cool down. This is what Europe can expect as its climate warms over the next decades, a European Union paper warned Friday, as it laid out options for what governments can do now to prepare for the effects of climate change.
“Our aim is to raise awareness across Europe of the urgent need to adapt to climate change and to spark a broad public debate about what our priorities for adaptation should be,” EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said.
The paper says that taking early action would save on future costs. Without flood defenses to cope with rising sea levels, damages would be four times higher, it estimates.
(29 June 2007)
Chance for livestock to breathe easy
Errol Kiong, NZ Herald
Satellite images of greenhouse gas clouds over New Zealand suggests methane from livestock may not be as big a problem as first thought.
And the New Zealanders who found the satellite discrepancy believe that if their theory proves true, the find could have major implications on taxpayers and the country’s Kyoto responsibilities. ..
Niwa scientist Keith Lassey said New Zealand emitted relatively small levels of methane compared to the rest of the world – too little to be picked up by the space sensor. The lack of a methane cloud is a curiosity, but Dr Lassey said he and a colleague had looked at the issue two years ago and deduced that in order to be able to measure the country’s emission from space, the instrument would need a 1 per cent level of precision. ..
Dr Lassey said Niwa had been monitoring methane levels on the ground since 1989 and had seen them grow. “We know what levels are in the atmosphere on average. What we haven’t been able to do is look for the evidence of the methane cloud coming off New Zealand. We’re not well positioned to do that here … It’s beyond any funding we’ve got to do that.”..
(2 July 2007)
Global warming could increase U.S. death rate
Amy Norton, Reuters Health
An increase in summertime heat waves from global warming could mean more deaths among Americans each year, a study by Harvard researchers suggests.
It’s well known that extreme temperatures, whether in the form of heat waves or cold snaps, can be deadly. However, the new findings suggest that any increase in heat-related deaths from global warming would not be offset by a drop in cold-related deaths.
Using weather data and death rates for 50 U.S. cities between 1989 and 2000, researchers found that, on average, a two-day cold snap increased death rates by 1.6 percent. Heat waves, on the other hand, triggered a 5.7 percent increase.
“We saw that the effects of cold temperatures are not as big as the effects of hot temperatures,” said lead study author Dr. Mercedes Medina-Ramon, of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.
This means that relatively milder winters attributable to global warming are unlikely to make up for the health effects of summertime extremes, she told Reuters Health.
Medina-Ramon and colleague Joel Schwartz report their findings in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
(2 July 2007)
