A hack of an “environmental scholar” working for an organization that consistently seeks to undermine efforts to fight global warming got schooled on climate change policy by Senator John Kerry during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on November 10th. Kerry rebuked Green’s comments for a solid five minutes, leaving a floundering Green unable to defend his views as anything other than his own personal opinion.

Kerry: “You may know something that thousands of other scientists don’t. They won a Nobel Prize. You and I didn’t.”

Ken Green’s title as ‘resident environmental scholar’ at the American Enterprise Institute may seem to indicate that he has a clue what he’s talking about. But who, exactly, are Green and this Institute?

From a 2007 Treehugger article:

The American Enterprise Institute, according to the Guardian, was called out in February for ” offering scientists and economists $10,000 each, “to undermine the IPCC report. .” AEI visiting scholar Kenneth Green made the $10,000 offer “to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere,” in a letter describing the IPCC as “resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent.” They noted also that AEI “has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil, and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI’s board of trustees.”

It just goes to show who these people really are – and how easy it is for them to misrepresent themselves to climate change skeptics as “experts”. What a joke.

Link [Treehugger]

How do you get adults to care about the environment? How about scaring their kids shitless with the specter of a ‘carbon monster’ in the sky that’s going to get them if their parents don’t act against global warming? That’s the tact the British government has chosen to take with an ad that seeks to change skeptics’ minds about climate change, but has only angered viewers who saw it during prime-time television broadcasts.

The intentions behind the ad are understandable. It’s a response to a recent survey in Britain showing that 52% of people don’t think they’ll be personally affected by climate change, but 74% would change their lifestyles if they knew that climate change would have a serious affect on the lives of their children.

From the Times Online:

Ministers sanctioned the campaign because of concern that scepticism about climate change was making it harder to introduce carbon-reducing policies such as higher energy bills.

The advertisement attempts to make adults feel guilty about their legacy to their children. It features a father telling his daughter a bedtime story of “a very very strange” world with “horrible consequences” for today’s children.

The storybook shows a British town deep under water, with people and animals drowning.

Carbon dioxide is depicted as rising in clouds of black soot from cars and homes, including from a woman’s hairdryer. The soot gathers into a jagged-toothed monster menacing the town.

Watch the ad over at the Times Online.

Predictably, global warming skeptics are having a field day with this one, calling it propaganda. People in Britain who saw it on TV were so angry about it that the ad has been pulled and is currently being investigated.

But one fumbled ad doesn’t mean that people should forget or ignore the harsh reality. Children will, indeed, be the victims of climate change if we don’t act – in fact, the Telegraph reports that 250,000 children could die due to climate change next year and that number could rise to more than 400,000 annually by 2030.

Climate change is a real and pressing problem, and far too many people across the world are covering their eyes and plugging up their ears so they don’t have to deal with it.

Link [Times Online]

What could be more environmentally harmful than fossil fuels? Try biofuels. That’s right, a new study claims that we’ll make global warming even worse if we rely too much on the new generation of biofuels, because rules governing their production encourage deforestation. And, as another recent report illuminated, our forests are our most important line of defense against climate change.

From Reuters:

In a study to be published Friday in the US journal Science, a group of 13 scientists called for the rules, which contain a loophole exempting carbon dioxide emitted by bioenergy regardless of its source, to be overturned.

“The error is serious, but readily fixable,” said lead researcher Timothy Searchinger of Princeton University.

The study called for the issue to be addressed in the climate treaty that nations around the world are hoping to sign at the Copenhagen summit in December to supercede the Kyoto Treaty.

Researchers said numerous analyses — including one released by the US Department of Energy — have found that this loophole “could lead to the loss of most of the world’s natural forests as carbon caps tighten.”

The loophole needs to be closed before oil companies, power plants and other energy industry firms – who stand to benefit the most from it – can exploit it.

But that’s not the only problem with biofuels. Another study published in Science Express on Thursday noted that there’s not enough oversight on land use when it comes to producing biofuels, meaning some unscrupulous companies could cut down forest lands and use them to grow fuel.

Burning biomass releases almost as much carbon dioxide as burning fossil fuels, but that CO2 is partially offset by the plants themselves, grown for biofuel, absorbing CO2 from the air. That’s a big benefit – but we can’t cut down forests to grow these plants. Talk about counterproductive.

Link [Reuters]
Photo credit: Dave Reede

The best way to fight against global warming isn’t expensive, potentially ecologically disruptive carbon capture methods. It’s saving the forests that we already have, which act as massive carbon sinks, protecting the planet against catastrophic climate change.

According to a new report released by WWF Sweden, world leaders have got to join together in an international agreement to halt forest loss as a highly cost effective measure on climate change.

From Panda.org:

“Sweden should follow the examples set by its northern neighbors in developing systems to halt deforestation,” said WWF CEO General Lasse Gustavsson.. “One Swedish krona to stem deforestation results in the same emissions reductions as five kronor for the controversial carbon capture and storage technique,”

Gold in Green Forests, a report issued today by WWF-Sweden, says that next to energy efficiency halting forest loss and degradation is the most cost-effective method for mitigating climate change.

The annual loss of natural forests in developing countries is equivalent to one third of Sweden’s surface area. Forest fires, the conversion of forests to agricultural land and the cultivation of energy crops are responsible for the high rate of forest loss.

A program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation, known as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) is currently being discussed in the negotiations for a global climate deal. REDD aims to make it worthwhile for developing countries to maintain their forests, as opposed to cutting them down.

Preventing deforestation should be among our first lines of defense against climate change. It definitely makes sense financially. The trick is getting nations like Indonesia – which is cutting its forests down at an alarming rate to make room for lucrative palm oil plantations – to agree to the program.

The whole report is available over at Panda.org.

Link [Panda.org]
Photo credit: Flickr user zoutedrop

Conservatives love to whine about perceived costs of climate legislation, but they’re clearly more worried about their own bottom lines than about the true costs of catastrophic climate change. A new report issued by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) states that the world will have 25 million more starving children by the year 2050 as climate change causes food shortages and soaring food costs.

From The Guardian:

The grim scenario is the first to gauge the effects of climate change on the world’s food supply by combining climate and agricultural models.

“The food price crisis of last year really was a wake-up call to a lot of people that we are going to have 50% more people on the surface of the Earth by 2050,” said Gerald Nelson, the lead author of the report. “Meeting those demands for food coming out of population growth is going to be a huge challenge – even without climate change.”

After several years in which development aid has been diverted away from rural areas, the report called for $7bn a year for crop research, and investment in irrigation and rural infrastructure to help farmers adjust to a warming climate. “Continuing the business-as-usual approach will almost certainly guarantee disastrous consequences,” said Nelson.

The G20 industrialised nations last week began discussing how to invest some $20bn pledged for food security earlier this year.

Some regions of the world outlined in the report are already showing signs of vulnerability because of changing rainfall patterns and drought linked to climate change.

And this is the great irony about religious conservatives in particular: they’re so worked up over abortion, yet they don’t seem to give a rat’s ass about the people who already live on our planet. Twenty five million starving children in addition to the millions that already exist – now that’s something to be angry about.

Link [The Guardian]
Photo credit: MiaFarrow.org

The Arctic’s geological record provides all the evidence we need that global warming is man’s doing, experts say. A closer look at the sediment timeline has shown that increased ice melt falls right in line with the birth of the Industrial Age, when those billowing clouds of greenhouse gases first started to flow from factory smokestacks.

From the LA Times:

For more than 2,000 years, a natural wobble in Earth’s axis has caused the Arctic region to move farther away from the sun during the region’s summer, reducing the amount of solar radiation it receives. The Arctic is now 600,000 miles farther from the sun than it was in AD 1, and temperatures there should have fallen a little more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since then.

Instead, the region has warmed 2.2 degrees since 1900 alone, and the decade from 1998 to 2008 was the warmest in two millenniums, according to a team headed by climatologist Darrell S. Kaufman of Northern Arizona University.

Not only was the last half-century the warmest of the last 2,000 years, “but it reversed the long-term, millennial-scale trend toward cooler temperatures,” Kaufman said.

The results seem to negate the primary argument of those who say the current warming of Earth is simply a natural variation, he said.

It’s not too difficult to understand the argument that people have against anthropomorphic global warming – that we, as humans, are simply too small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things to cause such changes in the earth and its natural balance. After all, nature is quite an amazing force.

But, to believe that we aren’t capable of causing global warming is to ignore the massive destruction we have unleashed upon this planet as we rose to the top of the food chain and began industrializing. We have changed the atmosphere. We have destroyed ecosystems and decimated much of the rainforest that would otherwise be helping to balance the greenhouse gases we’re pumping into the air.

It’s real, it’s happening, and we did it. Now we have to find a way to make up for it.

Link [LA Times]

Photo credit: Flickr user A6U571N

The Dutch have always been a little bit ahead of the curve, so it’s no surprise to learn that they’re not just sitting on their hands waiting for global warming to cause the seas to rise up around them. They’re being proactive to ensure that the Netherlands, which is well below sea level, survives the coming challenges.

As glaciers in Switzerland melt, the water level of the Rhine will rise, necessitating a long-term solution to keeping water out of the city. Dutch people remember all too well the great flood of 1953, which killed over 1800 people and wiped too villages off the map, and they don’t want a repeat performance.

From Reuters:

Some 70 percent of the country’s economic output is generated below sea level, protected by a complex-system of ancient dikes and modern cement barriers that hold back water from the sea and the multitude of rivers that weave through the country.

Now, with scientists’ predicting that sea levels will rise by about one meter (3.3 feet) this century, the Dutch are reversing centuries of tradition to create natural flood plains for rivers as well as rebuild mangrove swamps as buffers against the sea.

“We’ve been adapting for 1,000 years. That’s nothing new. It’s just that climate change is going faster than it was before,” said Lennart Silvis, the operational manager of the public-private Netherlands Water Partnership.

Instead of raising dikes, the Dutch want to reclaim land and build public recreation areas that can absorb storm surges.

Plans in the works include developing floating housing that rises and falls with the water level. And, even if there were to be dangerous flooding, these people are prepared – children start a five-year course of swimming lessons at the age of four, which requires a test that includes swimming 100 meters while fully dressed in heavy winter clothing.

If you’re going to live in a vulnerable area, it’s important to accept reality and not just wait until a crisis happens. Communities around the world could definitely learn a thing or two from the Dutch.

Link [Reuters]
Photo credit: Flickr user Daveness_98

It may start happening extremely quickly, or it may take centuries, depending on whom you ask – but enough pure methane is currently escaping into the atmosphere from thawing permafrost to make many scientists very worried about effects on climate.

Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is currently building up in the atmosphere at rapidly increasing rates after bubbling up from underwater vents.

From The Columbia Daily Tribune:

Researchers say air temperatures here in northwest Canada, in Siberia and elsewhere in the Arctic have risen more than 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1970 — much faster than the global average. The summer thaw is reaching deeper into frozen soil, at a rate of 1.5 inches a year, and a further 13-degree temperature rise is possible this century, said the authoritative, U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC.

In 2007, air monitors detected a rise in methane concentrations in the atmosphere, apparently from far northern sources. Russian researchers in Siberia expressed alarm, warning of a potential surge in the powerful greenhouse gas, additional warming of several degrees and unpredictable consequences for Earth’s climate.

Others say massive seeps of methane might take centuries. But the Russian scenario is disturbing enough to have led six U.S. national laboratories last year to launch a joint investigation of rapid methane release. And in July, IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri asked his scientific network to focus on “abrupt, irreversible climate change” from thawing permafrost.

As the world warms, surface permafrost at a depth of about 5 meters is at risk of thawing. That would release a hell of a lot of methane into the atmosphere, causing a serious acceleration in climate change.

Scientists may disagree right now on how fast permafrost can thaw, but one thing is clear: there’s a very good chance that failing to act could have extremely negative consequences. While it’s encouraging that there are many research teams currently studying this issue, policymakers around the world have got to make fighting it a priority.

Link [Columbia Tribune]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Oceans warmed by the rise in greenhouse gas levels could cause the Earth’s axis to tilt, according to a new study by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Researchers say the tilt would be significant enough to create a large shift in the distribution of the Earth’s mass, especially when combined with the tilt being caused by the melting of Greenland’s ice.

From New Scientist:

The researchers modelled the changes that would occur if moderate projections made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a doubling of carbon dioxide levels between 2000 and 2100 – were to become reality.

The team found that as the oceans warm and expand, more water will be pushed up and onto the Earth’s shallower ocean shelves. Over the next century, the subtle effect is expected to cause the northern pole of Earth’s spin axis to shift by roughly 1.5 centimetres per year in the direction of Alaska and Hawaii.

Luckily, the effect is expected to be relatively small, and shouldn’t induce any negative feedback in the planet’s climate. It just needs to be taken into account when interpreting shifts in Earth’s axis.

Still, this should be a strong message to those who still insist that we insignificant little humans can’t affect the planet we live on to a great extent. We may be relatively unimportant in the scheme of things, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t capable of causing some serious changes.

Link [New Scientist]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

The biggest-ever youth gathering on climate change took place last Thursday in Daejeon, Republic of Korea with 700 participants releasing a statement to world leaders expressing “concern and frustration that their governments are not doing enough to combat climate change”, adding that “we now need more actions and less talking”.

The statement was the product of eight-week-long web discussions between young people across the world about their governments’ track record on addressing climate change. It was finalized as part of the global UN ‘Seal the Deal!’ campaign to garner public support for a comprehensive global climate agreement.

The children and youth asked governments around the world to agree on a more fair, just and action oriented post-Kyoto agreement adopted and implemented by all countries, strict laws against pollution, carbon action plans and much more.

From UNEP:

“It is very important to include the voice of children and youth in every environmental decision. It is our request to all politicians that they please take this statement into consideration in Copenhagen,” said 13-year-old Yugratna Srivastava from India.

The children and youth also addressed the citizens of the planet and urged them to push their governments to create a global green economy. Other recommendations included a call to pressure businesses, producers and governments to promote environmentally friendly products and eco-labeling policies.

“We are the generation of tomorrow. The decisions that are made today will define our future and the world we have to live in. So we young people of the world urge governments to commit to a strong post-Kyoto climate regime. It is our lives we are talking about,” said youth delegate, 23-year-old Anne Walraven from the Netherlands.

Visit UNEP.org to read the full statement and learn more about the youth conference.

It’s nice to know that even if the generation currently holding power around the world refuses to act, the next generation is ready to take the reigns and do what needs to be done. There’s a lot of security in this kind of enthusiasm among youth.

Link [UNEP]
Photo: Art by Li Pik Hei, 13-year-old winner of the 2008 International Children’s Painting Competition on Environment