Pollution Haze in Asia Could Affect World Food Supply

Thick brown clouds of pollution hang in the sky from the Persian Gulf to Asia in what the U.N. is calling the newest threat to the global environment. The regional haze, made up of soot, particles and chemicals, contributes to glacial melting, reduces sunlight and helps create extreme weather conditions that impact agricultural production, giving it the power to threaten health and food supplies across the world.

From MSNBC:

The huge plumes have darkened 13 megacities in Asia — including Beijing, Shanghai, Bangkok, Cairo, Mumbai and New Delhi — sharply “dimming” the amount of light by as much as 25 percent in some places.

Caused by the burning of fossil fuels, wood and plants, the brown clouds also play a significant role in exacerbating the effects of greenhouse gases in warming up the earth’s atmosphere, the report said.

“Imagine for a moment a 3-kilometer-thick band of soot, particles, a cocktail of chemicals that stretches from the Arabic Peninsula to Asia,” said Achim Steiner, U.N. undersecretary general and executive director of the U.N. environment program.

“All of this points to an even greater and urgent need to look at emissions across the planet because this is where the stories are linked in terms of greenhouse emissions and particle emissions and the impact that they’re having on our global climate,” he said.

Some of the particles in the atmospheric brown clouds, such as soot, absorb sunlight and heat the air. That has led to steady melting of the Himalayan glaciers, which are the source of most of the rivers in Asia. If they keep on melting at their current rate, the glaciers could shrink as much as 75 percent by 2050.

Scientists are stressing that this isn’t a regional problem – it’s a global one. The cloud masses can move across continents within three to four days, affecting weather and bringing health problems to other parts of the world.

With all of these warning signs, it would be pretty dumb of us not to take serious, immediate action on problems like this. We can only hope that the combination of major threats to the environment and the economic crisis will spur a green movement that will span the globe. That’s what we need to fight this – commitment and involvement from the entire world. Can it happen? I sure hope so.

Link [MSNBC]

Climate Change Destroying Walden Pond Flowers

Climate change is causing species of flowers found at Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts to die off, according to Harvard biologists. Walden Pond was made famous by writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau, who lived on its shores for two years and wrote about it in his book Walden.

The biologists at Harvard are comparing their recent observations with data recorded by Henry David Thoreau more than a century and a half ago. Their reports in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences show that more than a quarter of Walden’s plant species have already died off and an additional 36 percent are in ‘imminent danger’.

From Wired:

“It had been thought that climate change would result in uniform shifts across plant species, but our work shows that plant species do not respond to climate change uniformly or randomly,” said co-author Charles Davis, a biologist at Harvard, in a release.

The Walden study shows that even small changes in temperature can have outsized impacts on plants that are evolutionarily adapted to fulfill ecological niches. Together with changes seen in other locations, like the unprecedented pine beetle damage in the West, the new work suggests that finely tuned biological systems are having a difficult time keeping up with the rapid pace of human-induced climate change.

The average temperature at Walden Pond has risen by more than 4 degrees over the last century due to global warming, and scientists are surprised to find that while some species of plants can’t adapt to the changes, others have fared significantly better. The scientists’ ability to measure the changes that have occurred at Walden Pond is rare because very little pre-Industrial data exists. Thanks, Thoreau.

It’s scary how fast things are happening, isn’t it? And yet, there are still so many people out there that can’t see the forest for the trees.

Link [Wired]
Photo credit: Roberta Rood

Cow Burps Responsible for More Greenhouse Gases than Cars

A herd of cows produces more greenhouse gases than a family car just by burping, a researcher at the University of Portsmouth said this week.  Dr. Andy Thorpe explained that 200 cows belch out enough methane each year to equal the emissions produced by a car being driven 111,850 miles.

From The Independent:

He added that while CO2 emissions have increased by 31 per cent during the past 250 years, methane, which has a higher warming potential and a longer lifetime in the atmosphere, has increased by 149 per cent during the same period.

Dr Thorpe added that methane in the atmosphere was believed to be responsible for one-fifth of global warming experienced since 1750.

The main animal producers are domestic animals, particularly cows, sheep, goats and camels which have an additional stomach, he said.

I’ve got an easy solution: sell the family car and starting riding around on cows. It’ll be way more fun, if slower. Seriously though, cutting back on the amount of meat and dairy we consume would be a huge help. The reason there are so many cows on this earth at any given time is that huge numbers are raised for meat and dairy.

A single dairy cow can produce as much as 176 pounds of methane per year. If there wasn’t as much demand, factory farms wouldn’t breed so many cows. It wouldn’t just cut back on greenhouse gas emissions, it would also reduce the amount of grain needed for cattle feed (and the land, fertilizer, pesticides and water used to grow it). It’s simple. If you’re not willing to go vegetarian, at least cut back.  Having fewer meat-centered meals per week isn’t that big a sacrifice when you consider what we’re up against.

Link [The Independent]
Photo credit: Flickr user foxypar4

A Different Perspective on Our Atmosphere

“When I look up in the sky, the atmosphere seems endless.”
“How could that silly, invisible carbon-stuff really hurt anything?”

“WOW, is that really how thin our atmosphere is?”
“It looks so FRAGILE from up here.”

EXACTLY.

Check out the full-sized version of this image by Brad Sharek on “Who Knew? An Occasional Look at Things From a Different Perspective”.

Link [Sharek.com]

Experts Reveal ‘Dramatic Evidence’ of Arctic Warming

Sea ice is melting at a rapid pace, the Arctic Ocean is getting warmer and less salty and reindeer herds are declining, experts revealed in a report released Thursday. The Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H. warns that people should take notice, because the planet is interconnected and what happens in the Arctic will affect the rest of the world.

MSNBC gives details of the third annual Arctic Report Card for the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:

“There continues to be widespread and, in some cases, dramatic evidence of an overall warming of the Arctic system,” the experts stated in their report.

Compiled by 46 scientists from 10 countries, the report looks at six areas in the Arctic: atmosphere, sea ice, Greenland, ocean, biology and land. It found a “warming” trend in the first three signals and “mixed” signals in the latter three.

“Changes in the Arctic show a domino effect from multiple causes more clearly than in other regions,” said James Overland, an oceanographer at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. “It’s a sensitive system and often reflects changes in relatively fast and dramatic ways.”

For example, autumn air temperatures in the Arctic are at a record 9 degrees Fahrenheit above normal.

The report noted that 2007 was the warmest year on record the Arctic, leading to a record loss of sea ice. This year’s sea ice melt was second only to 2007.

The study also noted a warming trend on land, with an increase in greenness as shrubs move north into areas that were formerly permafrost. Other findings include increased warming in Greenland, an unprecedented rate of sea level rise, a decline in reindeer herds and increasing goose populations.  Experts stress that increased solar output only accounts for about 10 percent of global warming, saying “You can’t use solar to say that greenhouse gases are not a major factor.”

Still in denial?

Link [MSNBC]
Photo credit: Bob Strong/Reuters

ABC Blocks a Renewable Energy Ad

The ‘We Can Solve It’ campaign is dedicated to promoting clean energy legislation and education, and they’ve been very effective at demonstrating to the world all of the options we have available to us right now.  We Can Solve It has run ads on many major television networks – even Fox News.  Yet, ABC recently refused to air one of their ads, even though they run ads from oil companies that mislead the public about the role fossil fuels play in the climate crisis.  Here’s the ad:

From Eco Geek:

So why on earth would ABC refuse to air one of their ads? That’s right, the above ad (which contains far more truth than either Obama or McCain’s ads have of late) has been rejected by ABC.

It is absolutely true that America’s oil and coal lobbies have consistently blocked legislation and mis-represented facts about global warming to the American people. The travesty was when the oil lobby aired the “carbon is life” advertisement, not when the We Can Solve It campaign tried to set the record straight.

This is straight up, ABC protecting it’s big-oil advertising revenue…I don’t think there’s any other way to look at it.

We Can Solve It needs your help – send a comment to ABC about why you think they should run the ad.  It takes just a minute at the We Can Solve It website.

Link [We Can Solve It] + [Eco Geek]

Climate Change Helps Spread Deadly Diseases

The Wildlife Conservation Society said Tuesday that a “deadly dozen” diseases including avian flu and yellow fever are likely to spread more due to climate change.  Closer monitoring of wildlife health is urged by the society in the hopes of getting an early warning of how pathogens might spread with global warming.

From MSNBC:

It listed the “deadly dozen” as avian flu, tick-borne babesia, cholera, ebola, parasites, plague, lyme disease, red tides of algal blooms, Rift Valley fever, sleeping sickness, tuberculosis and yellow fever.

“Even minor disturbances can have far reaching consequences on what diseases (wild animals) might encounter and transmit as climate changes,” said Steven Sanderson, head of the society.

“The term ‘climate change’ conjures images of melting ice caps and rising sea levels that threaten coastal cities and nations, but just as important is how increasing temperatures and fluctuating precipitation levels will change the distribution of dangerous pathogens,” he said.

William Karesh of the Wildlife Conservation Society pointed out that, for thousands of years, people have known of a relationship between health and climate.  The diseases named are already killing millions of animals annually, and all pose a major threat to human health.

It just goes to show the far-reaching effects global warming is having on the earth, and will continue to have in the future.  The time to act is yesterday.

Link [MSNBC]
Photo credit: National Geographic

BBC Investigated After Global Warming Denier Claims Program ‘One-Sided’

Television watchdogs are investigating the BBC after a ‘leading climate change skeptic’ claimed that his views were ‘deliberately misrepresented’ in a program about global warming. Lord Monckton, a former advisor to Margaret Thatcher, had been interviewed for the program by Dr. Iain Stewart, a geologist.  Monckton is accusing the BBC of unfair editing and called the program “a one-sided polemic for the new religion of global warming”.

From Mail Online:

Earth: The Climate Wars, which was broadcast on BBC 2, was billed as a definitive guide to the history of global warming, including arguments for and against.

‘I very much hope Ofcom will do something about this,’ he said yesterday.

‘The BBC very gravely misrepresented me and several others, as well as the science behind our argument. It is a breach of its code of conduct.

‘I was interviewed for 90 minutes and all my views were backed up by sound scientific data, but this was all omitted. They made it sound as if these were just my personal views, as if I was some potty peer. It was caddish of them.’

Ofcom confirmed it was looking into a ‘fairness complaint’ about the documentary.

A BBC spokesman said: ‘We stand by the programme.’

This is the guy who played a key role in a legal challenge heard in the High Court in October 2007 in an attempt to prevent the film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ from being shown in English schools.  Sorry, global warming deniers: you deserve every bit of ridicule thrown your way.  Especially this Lord Monckton – he’s such a nut, he calls for Mann, Bradley and Hughes (of the hockey stick graph) to be put on trial for genocide.  Indeed.

Link [Mail Online] + [Deltoid]

Creationists and Climate Change Deniers: Two Peas in a Pod

Every now and then, a new nugget of ‘information’ comes to our attention that supposedly proves that climate change ‘can’t be man-made’. One such story was that “Captain Cook and Lord Nelson’ s logs indicate 1730’s global warming wasn’t man made”.  DeSmogBlog and The Guardian both already debunked that one, so we won’t go there.  But, it does call attention to the fact that climate change deniers often distort facts to fit their narrow viewpoint.  For many, it has called to mind comparisons between those who deny climate change and those who deny evolution.  It all comes down to a refusal to accept a logical scientific argument.

Greenfyre dug into the similarities:

Some small kernel of fact is distorted and mutated until it emerges appearing to say the opposite of what it originally said. Rarely do the Deniers seem to make things up out of thin air. Whether this is so that they can argue that their’s is a plausible interpretation of the facts or a subconscious attempt to retain some small shred of integrity by pretending that what they do is not lying cannot be known.

The second interesting thing is how the strategy and tactics of the Climate Change Deniers is identical to those of the Evolution Deniers.

This excellent little video by potholer54 “Creationist Junk Debunked #1 – Introduction” could just as easily be talking about Climate Deniers. It is well worth watching for understanding both Evolution and Climate Change  Denier methods, and because it is fun.

It’s true – watch this video and see how easy it is to replace ‘creationists’ with ‘climate change deniers’.  It’s easy to understand once you realize they’re the same people.  Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not talking about climate change skeptics who are seeking facts so they can better understand the issue.  I mean the flat-out deniers who perpetuate and cling to misinformation and lies.

The Ethical Paleontologist explains the connection:

If you believe that all the coal, oil and gas we’re burning was laid down over no more than 6,000 years, rather than 300 million years, then effectively fossil fuels are a renewable source of energy. As we’re only releasing 6,000 years of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere rather than millions of years’ worth, then we can’t be responsible for the increase in carbon dioxide, so we haven’t caused any climate change, right? And if you believe the Earth is only 6,000 years old, then those sea level and oxygen isotope curves going back hundreds of thousands of years mean nothing to you. It’s all an artefact. The last glacial period ended 10,000 years ago - 4,000 years before the Earth was created. So all the usual evidence for MMCC is lost on them.

There’s no arguing with people who close their eyes and stick their fingers in their ears when presented with scientific fact.  That’s what’s scary – that so many Americans are evolution deniers, and that America is responsible for most of the world’s pollution and greenhouse gas emissions (second only to China).  It’s an uphill battle, indeed.

Link [Greenfyre] + [The Ethical Paleontologist]

Arctic Sea ‘Foaming with Methane’ as Permafrost Melts

Scientists have discovered the first evidence that millions of tons of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, are being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed.  It’s not yet confirmed, but if it turns out to be true, it could be an extremely bad sign for the future of every living thing on earth.  Scientists believe that underground stores of methane, when suddenly released into the atmosphere, cause rapid increases in global temperatures.

From The Independent:

In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through “methane chimneys” rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a “lid” to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.

They have warned that this is likely to be linked with the rapid warming that the region has experienced in recent years.

Methane is about 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and many scientists fear that its release could accelerate global warming in a giant positive feedback where more atmospheric methane causes higher temperatures, leading to further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane.

The area where the methane was discovered covers thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf.

So, basically, the damage we’ve already done has led to the permafrost melting.  The permafrost had been keeping all of this methane from escaping.  As the methane escapes, it will accelerate global warming at such a dramatic pace that there might not be anything we can do to counteract the effects.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that we should stop all of our efforts to fight global warming – the opposite is true.  This news, if it’s confirmed, should light a fire under our collective asses and force us to get serious about the things that are causing global warming.  It might be too late, but isn’t fighting better than sitting around waiting for Mother Nature to squash us like ants?

Link [The Independent] via [WorldChanging]

Al Gore Urges Civil Disobedience to Fight Coal Plants

Al Gore has a message for you, environmentalists: it’s okay to engage in a little civil disobedience here and there when the goal is as important as stopping the construction of coal plants that don’t have the ability to store carbon.  After all, civil disobedience is one of the few ways ordinary citizens still have to make sure our voices are heard.  Gore, speaking to a philanthropic meeting in New York, said on Wednesday that “the world has lost ground to the climate crisis”.

From Reuters:

“If you’re a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration,” Gore told the Clinton Global Initiative gathering to loud applause.

“I believe for a carbon company to spend money convincing the stock-buying public that the risk from the global climate crisis is not that great represents a form of stock fraud because they are misrepresenting a material fact,” he said. “I hope these state attorney generals around the country will take some action on that.”

According to the government, about 28 coal plants are currently under construction in the United States right now and another 20 projects have permits or are near the start of construction.  The carbon emitted from coal plants are a key factor in global warming.

Part of the problem is the fact that we, as a nation, have been apathetic for too long.  We’ve allowed money-hungry corporations to control our lives and dictate our futures, to the extent that every living creature on earth is now in danger. The truth is that we do hold a lot of power in our hands.  We outnumber the executives and the government officials.  If we all stand together and demand something, it will be done.  We just haven’t taken that power into our hands on a mass scale.  So we say, hell yeah, Al.  Civil disobedience is definitely called for in these frightening times.

Link [Reuters]
Photo credit: Sydney Indymedia

Rubber Ducks Deployed in Attempt to Track Melting Glacier

What was a rocket scientist’s solution to help figure out what’s happening inside the fastest-moving Greenland glacier? An army of rubber ducks.  It sounds like a joke, but a U.S. rocket scientist really did send 90 rubber ducks into the ice in the hopes that someone will find them if they emerge in Baffin Bay.

From Reuters:

“Right now it’s not understood what causes the glaciers themselves to surge in the summer,” Behar said. One theory is that the summer sun melts ice on the top glacial surface, creating pools that flow into tubular holes in the glacier called moulins.

The moulins can carry some water all the way to the underside of the glacier, where it acts as a lubricant to speed the movement of ice toward the coast. But because it cannot be seen, no one really knows what occurs.

That’s where the rubber ducks come in, along with a probe about the size of a football loaded with a GPS transmitter and instruments that can tell much about the glacier’s innards.

The ducks are labeled with the words ‘science experiment’ and ‘reward’ in three languages, along with an email address.  So far, they haven’t received any emails, but the places where the ducks might end up are pretty remote.

What an awesome idea – sort of low-tech (the rubber ducks), but high-tech (the probe) at the same time.  Who would have thought rubber ducks could play a part in global warming research?

Link [Reuters]
Photo credit: EarthFirst composite - REUTERS/Konrad Steffen/University of Colorado/Handout

Doomsday Tourism: See Natural Wonders Before They’re Gone Forever

As the world rapidly changes in response to global warming, people are beginning to realize a hard truth: we only have a limited amount of time left before many of these endangered destinations vanish altogether. Habitats are shrinking and changing; species are dying; the sea level is rising. That’s driving a large increase in what has been dubbed ‘doomsday tourism’ – a surge in travelers visiting the places most threatened by global warming.

From Forbes.com:

The Nature Conservancy’s list of endangered destinations includes the Sonoran & Chihuahuan desert borderlands, the Patagonian grasslands of Argentina and the Great Lakes in the U.S. and Canada. In these places the threats range from rapid population growth to invasive species to land use practices. Also on the list are the arid lands of Namibia, the Appalachians, and stretches of the West Indian Ocean coastline.

Travelers looking to explore these places have numerous options. The National Geographic Center for Sustainable Destinations, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that promotes thoughtful forms of tourism, has created innovative maps for visitors to Mexico’s Sonora desert and the Appalachians. The maps feature not only attractions like wildlife refuges and state parks, but also recommendations on local cultural events, food vendors and eco-friendly hotels and resorts.

Of course, hoards of people stomping around, disturbing wildlife and producing trash isn’t exactly beneficial to the endangered areas.  We’ve already messed up the world to a disgusting extent; it’s all too easy to imagine ‘doomsday tourism’ accelerating the destruction of such places. So, hopefully, as people travel to vulnerable areas, they’ll remember that limiting their footprint should be at the top of their priorities.

Link [Forbes]
Photo credit: Flickr user alex.ch

UK Court Decides Threat of Global Warming Justifies Breaking the Law

Talk about a precedent: a UK court ruled last week that the threat of global warming is such a pressing issue, that Greenpeace activists were right to cause more than $62,000 dollars in damage to a coal-fired power station.  Last October, the six protesters had scaled the chimney at the Kingsnorth power plant in Kent and painted Prime Minster Gordon Brown’s name on it.  The activists were upset about a plan to build another coal-fired power plant, which they said would be ‘a disastrous setback in the battle against global warming’.

From The Independent:

Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a “lawful excuse” to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. The defence of “lawful excuse” under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire.

During the eight-day trial, the world’s leading climate scientist, Professor James Hansen of Nasa, who had flown from American to give evidence, appealed to the Prime Minister personally to “take a leadership role” in cancelling the plan and scrapping the idea of a coal-fired future for Britain. Last December he wrote to Mr Brown with a similar appeal. At the trial, he called for an moratorium on all coal-fired power stations, and his hour-long testimony about the gravity of the climate danger, which painted a bleak picture, was listened to intently by the jury of nine women and three men.

The activists said they acted lawfully, believing that their attempt to stop emissions from Kingsnorth would prevent further damage to properties worldwide caused by global warming.  They said that their actions were designed to cause only the amount of damage necessary to close the plant down.

It’s pretty amazing that Johnny Law came down on the side of the earth – especially given the fact that the jury was made up of ordinary people, not necessarily environmentalists.  It’s a good sign that people are starting to take the threat of global warming seriously, and yet another wake-up call to turn away from coal and start using cleaner technology.

Link [The Independent]
Photo credit: Greenpeace

New Study: Paint Your Roof White, Save the Planet

A recent study by Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory scientists has revealed a simple, low-tech way that anyone can use to help cool the planet and reverse global warming: painting your roof white.  Everyone knows that white reflects heat, resulting in a cooling effect.  But, these scientists have put a number on it: according to Hashem Akbari, a physicist at the Lawrence Berkeley lab, the average 1,000-square-foot roof could offset 10 metric tons of carbon dioxide.

From Machinist:

According to his data, roofs constitute 20 to 25 percent of urban surfaces, while pavement is about 40 percent. Therefore, if all of those surfaces were switched to a reflective material (or color) in the 100 largest urban areas in America, his calculations show, this would offset 44 metric gigatons of carbon dioxide. That’s more than all countries emit in a single year. Further, that’s worth about $1.1 trillion at current carbon trading rates.

Obviously, this is a rather large undertaking, but legislation requiring white on the roofs of buildings is one easy way to make sure that these effects are felt. As the Los Angeles Times reports, flat commercial buildings in California must have white roofs — a rule that’s been around since 2005. However, a new state law says sloped roofs on residential and commercial structures when constructed new or being retrofitted must have reflective coloring. This new rule takes effect in July 2009.

It makes sense.  There are an awful lot of dark-colored roofs out there absorbing heat – why not use this low-tech solution to reflect it instead? Obviously, this isn’t going to fix all of our problems, but it’s a step that a lot of people can take to help.

Read the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory’s press release to get all the details on the study.

Link [Machinist]
Photo credit: Flickr user Robert Whitlock

GOP VP Pick Sarah Palin is a Global Warming Denier

Sarah Palin questions global warming science and favors drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She also opposed a state initiative that would have banned metal mines in her state from discharging pollution into salmon streams, and dropped a lawsuit intended to prevent polar bears from being listed as a threatened species. Not that any of these things are surprising considering that she’s a Republican, but the party’s questionable pick for VP is governor of Alaska, where the ANWR is located, and the state that has already seen the most dramatic effects of global warming.

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

The Alaska Governor has said that she has tried to persuade McCain to agree with her on drilling in the wildlife refuge. She also has said that she was happy that he changed his position over the summer and now supports offshore oil drilling.

Palin’s environmental views could get more of an airing now that she has landed on the national stage.

Last month, the state of Alaska under Palin’s guidance sued Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne in an attempt to reverse his decision to list polar bears as a threatened species. Palin said that scientists’ predictions that global warming would eliminate the ice where the bears live in summer were unreliable.

As we noted in an article posted yesterday, ‘7 Places Global Warming is Smacking the Crap Out of the Earth Right Now’, Alaska is the only U.S. state currently experiencing global warming effects on par with other areas of the world.  In some areas of the remote state, villages are being relocated because global warming has battered them with severe storms and melting ice has caused erosion and floods.

Besides, how does McCain aim to protect the environment when his #2 would be fighting him all the way?

Link [Sydney Morning Herald]
Photo credit: AP/Sydney Morning Herald

New Jersey Assemblyman Fighting State’s Global Warming Response Act

Michael Doherty is convinced that global warming is a sham, and the Assemblyman in the good old Garden State is trying to get New Jersey’s landmark Global Warming Response Act repealed. Doherty claims that various new ‘scientific’ reports questioning the concept of global warming back up his stance.

From PolitickerNJ.com:

“There are many credible members of the scientific community who have questioned the theory of global warming, and now we have some scientists actually suggesting the earth’s temperatures may be entering a period of dramatic cooling,” said Doherty, R-Warren and Hunterdon. “With this growing level of scientific uncertainty, it makes no sense to enact a new set of economically damaging regulations prompted by the global warming hysteria of recent years.”

The Global Warming Response Act was signed last year by Corzine, which requires the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. The law required the state Department of Environmental Protection to release a report detailing how the state would meet the goals, with recommendations now expected to be issued this fall.

It’s not known whether Doherty’s misconceptions about global warming are caused by a defective gene, or the fact that he lives in New Jersey. Seriously though, New Jersey environmentalists should get together and show this guy the state bird. You know, the one on the third finger of their hands. Because, anyone with at least half of a functioning brain knows that there’s no credible bloc of scientists who dispute global warming.

Link [PolitickerNJ.com]
Photo credit: Flickr user kcjc009

Prehistoric Giant Animals May Have Been Killed by Man, Not Climate Change

Scientists have uncovered new evidence that suggests that giant prehistoric mammals like the prehistoric giant kangaroo may not have been killed by climate change after all, as has long been thought. Last week, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences argued that ‘mega-fauna’ were probably hunted to death by man on the Southern island of Tasmania. The discovery that prompted the new stance is a giant kangaroo skull found in a cave in the rainforest in the northwest of Tasmania in 2000.

From BreitBart.com:

Scientists dated the find at 41,000 years old, some 2,000 years after humans first began to live in the area.

“Up until now, people thought that the Tasmanian mega-fauna had actually gone extinct before people arrived on the island,” a member of the British and Australian study, Professor Richard Roberts, told AFP Tuesday.

He said that it was likely that hunting killed off Tasmania’s mega-fauna — including the long-muzzled, 120 kilogram (264 pound) giant kangaroo, a rhinoceros-sized wombat and marsupial ‘lions’ which resembled leopards.

Roberts, from the University of Wollongong south of Sydney, said the idea that climate change could account for the death of the animals was disputed by the fact the area had a very stable climate in the critical time period.

“Things were very climatically stable in that part of Australia and yet the mega-fauna still managed to go extinct,” he said. “So it’s down to humans of one sort or another.”

Roberts said because the large animals were slow breeders, it would not have required an aggressive campaign to see them quickly die out.

Interesting theory. It wouldn’t be surprising, would it? We humans seem pretty good at messing things up.

Link [BreitBart.com]
Photo credit: Opal Fossils of South Australia

Poor Countries Left in the Dust as Center for Atmospheric Research Drops Important Program

For poor nations, the upcoming effects of climate change will now be even more difficult to get through. The National Center for Atmospheric Research, a major hub of work on the causes and consequences of climate change, has eliminated a program that aimed to help poor countries deal with droughts, floods and other climate-related hazards.

Faced with a shrinking budget, the center apparently decided that poor nations’ ability to help their people through incredible hardships that could occur as climate change wreaks havoc on the planet, just wasn’t one of their ‘core’ goals.

From The New York Times:

One scientist, Ilan Kelman, a senior research fellow at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, said he was “appalled” that the National Center for Atmospheric Research, based in Boulder, Colo., “would suddenly end one of the most productive programs and would let go of one of the most productive scientists within the institute.”

“In terms of value for money,” he added, “Dr. Glantz’s science was among the best, being cutting-edge and cost-effective, yet influencing the world. He also ensured that science was used for humanity and by humanity.”

This is bullshit. It amounts to washing their hands of the people who need them most. If anything, they should be expanding programs like this, to ensure that climate science research touches on its potential effects on the people of the world and not just abstract theories.

Note: Hit up BugMeNot.com to get logins and passwords for The New York Times if you don’t want to register.

Link [The New York Times]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

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