Monthly Archive for November, 2011

World Emissions of Carbon Dioxide Soar Higher Than Experts’ Worst Case Scenario for Climate

Published on November 27, 2011 in News. 0 Comments

From the Washington Post

The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world’s efforts are at slowing man-made global warming.

The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.

“The more we talk about the need to control emissions, the more they are growing,” said John Reilly, co-director of MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

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Eastern U.S. Forests Not Keeping Pace With Climate Change, Large Study Finds

Published on November 20, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From ScienceDaily

More than half of eastern U.S. tree species examined in a massive new Duke University-led study aren’t adapting to climate change as quickly or consistently as predicted.

“Many models have suggested that trees will migrate rapidly to higher latitudes and elevations in response to warming temperatures, but evidence for a consistent, climate-driven northward migration is essentially absent in this large analysis,” says James S. Clark, H.L. Blomquist Professor of Environment at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.

Nearly 59 percent of the species examined by Clark and his colleagues showed signs that their geographic ranges are contracting from both the north and south.

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Nations Can Anticipate More Climate Extremes

Published on November 19, 2011 in News. 0 Comments

John Kerstholt photo

By Mike de Souza, Postmedia News from The Vancouver Sun

OTTAWA — Record-breaking temperatures, stronger winds and heavy precipitation in the form of rain and snow are becoming more frequent events in the 21st century due to climate change that evidence indicates is being caused by human activity, says a new assessment released Friday by governments from around the world.

Canadian scientists who contributed to the review, a special report on managing the risks of extreme weather events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation, also say Canada is facing more violent weather that could cause greater economic damage at home than in developing countries.

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Scientists Predict Faster Retreat for Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier

Published on November 13, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From physorg.com

The retreat of Antarctica’s fast-flowing Thwaites Glacier is expected to speed up within 20 years, once the glacier detaches from an underwater ridge that is currently holding it back, says a new study in Geophysical Research Letters.

Thwaites Glacier, which drains into west Antarctica’s Amundsen Sea, is being closely watched for its potential to raise global sea levels as the planet warms. Neighboring glaciers in the Amundsen region are also thinning rapidly, including Pine Island Glacier and the much larger Getz Ice Shelf. The study is the latest to confirm the importance of seafloor topography in predicting how these glaciers will behave in the near future.

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UK’s Carbon-capture Failure is Part of a Global Trend

Published on November 8, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By Fred Pearce from newscientist.com

Whatever happened to clean coal? A global push to develop technology for capturing and burying carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants is faltering as governments and business bicker over who should pay R&D costs, and hopes recede that a global carbon market will pay for future operations. Public opposition is also growing.

The latest victim is a British scheme at Longannet, Europe’s third-largest coal-fired power station. British ministers last week abandoned the scheme – which won a government funding competition initiated four years ago – because it would have cost too much. The government would not increase its £1 billion offer to pay the additional £562 million which industry collaborators Scottish Power and Shell wanted as contingency. The government says its money was still on offer for any alternative scheme.

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The Ethical Dimension of Tackling Climate Change

Published on November 3, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By Steven Gardiner from Energy Bulletin

The global challenge of climate change poses a perfect moral storm — by failing to take action to rein in carbon emissions, the current generation is spreading the costs of its behavior far into the future. Why should people in the future pay to clean up our mess?

Sometimes the best way to make progress on a problem is to get clearer on what that problem is. Arguably, the biggest issue facing humanity at the moment is the looming global environmental crisis. Here, the problem is not that we are unaware that trouble is coming. After all, the basic science is both well known and continually being reiterated in major national and international reports. Rather, the core problem is that thus far effective action seems beyond us. We seem at best paralyzed, and at worst indifferent. Put starkly, there seems little place within our grand institutions and busy lives for what may turn out to be the defining issue of our generation.

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