The research findings indicate that even if climate remained the same Bhutan would lose almost 10% of its glaciers within a few years. In what could be a shocking revelation, a research conducted in the mountains of Bhutan ...
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Obama To Name Climate Hawk John Kerry Secretary Of State
Kerry is one of the Senate's leading climate hawks who has said he believes that climate change is the "biggest long term threat" to national security.
Of course, team Obama is known for effectively muzzling the most ardent of climate hawks. Back in February 2009, for instance, Energy Secretary and Nobelist Steven Chu said "Wake up," America, "we're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California." But one hardly hears such language from him these days. Same goes for science advisor and one-time climate hawk John Holdren.
Kerry, however, seems far less likely to be muzzled. Indeed, in a speech this summer on the Senate floor, he slammed the U.S. political discussion as a "conspiracy of silence ... a story of disgraceful denial, back-pedaling, and delay that has brought us perilously close to a climate change catastrophe." He called it:
... a silence that empowers misinformation and mythology to grow where science and truth should prevail. It is a conspiracy that has not just stalled, but demonized any constructive effort to put America in a position to lead the world on this issue....
Climate change is one of two or three of the most serious threats our country now faces, if not the most serious, and the silence that has enveloped a once robust debate is staggering for its irresponsibility....
I hope and pray colleagues commit to transformative change in our politics. I hope we confront the conspiracy of silence head-on and allow complacence to yield to common sense, and narrow interests to bend to the common good. Future generations are counting on us.
One would certainly expect Kerry to not merely use his position to speak out on the issue but also to push both domestic and international action. He was after all coauthor, with Senators Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), of broad climate legislation in 2009 and 2010 (that withered like our wheat crop in a Dust Bowl as Obama tended to other matters, like health care).
National Journal reports:
"No senator since Al Gore knows as much about the science and diplomacy of climate change as Kerry," said David Goldwyn, an international energy consultant who served as Clinton's special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs. "He would not only put climate change in the top five issues he raises with every country, but he would probably rethink our entire diplomatic approach to the issue."
Climate hawks should be enthusiastic supporters of this nomination, which is expected to sail through the U.S. Senate (in part because Republicans want Scott Brown to have another shot at a Massachusetts Senate seat).
I'm not sure Kerry could become Secretary of State fast enough to influence the Keystone XL pipeline decision, but it is hard to believe he would not have raised this issue with the President, since a go-ahead decision would immediately undercut the Administration's credibility on the climate issue both at home and abroad.
Related Post:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/12/16/1342191/obama-to-name-clim
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Report: Humanity Has Overshot The Earth's Biocapacity
The report measures that demand by "ecological footprint," which takes into account the area people use to produce the renewable resources they consume, the area that's taken up by infrastructure, and the area of forest needed to absorb CO2 emissions not absorbed by the ocean. The report then compared that to the Earth's biocapacity, which measures the amount of area available to serve all those purposes.
Both factors are measured in units of global hectares (gha), which represent "the productive capacity of one hectare area of utilized land at global average biological productivity levels." And as it turns out, humanity's footprint now outpaces the planet's total biocapacity to the point that it would take one and a half Earths to sustain our total level of consumption:
In 2008, the Earth's total biocapacity was 12.0 billion gha, or 1.8 gha per person, while humanity's Ecological Footprint was 18.2 billion gha, or 2.7 gha per person. This discrepancy means it would take 1.5 years for the Earth to fully regenerate the renewable resources that people used in one year, or in other words, we used the equivalent of 1.5 Earths to support our consumption.
Just as it is possible to withdraw money from a bank account more quickly than the interest that accrues, biocapacity can be reused more quickly than it regenerates. Eventually the resources - our natural capital, will be depleted just like running down reserves in a bank account. At present, people are often able to shift their sourcing when faced with local resource limitations. However, if consumption continues to increase as it has in the past decades, the planet as a whole will eventually run out of resources. Some ecosystems will collapse and cease to be productive even before the resource is fully depleted.
Smart use of energy and resources could also help close the overshoot gap from the other side as well: As the graph shows, the global ecological footprint has essentially plateaued over the last few decades, while the Earth's biocapacity has continued to drop. Which in turn brings up the limitations of how we currently measure human economic progress - even as global gross domestic product has climbed over the last four decades, global biocapacity has been in a continuous decline.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/12/15/1329841/report-humanity-ha
Friday, December 14, 2012
IPCC critical of report leak
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change criticises a blogger who publishes a draft version of its next report.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20726355#sa-ns_mchannel=
Next IPCC climate assessment due 2014 now everywhere online
No particular surprises - have a read yourself
A draft of the United Nations organisation's fifth climate report (IPCC AR5), due to be completed 2014, has been leaked onto the internet....
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Satellite's final images focus on changing glaciers / Space for our - Esa
8 July 2011. Some of the last images from ESA's ERS-2 satellite have revealed rapidly changing glacial features in Greenland. In its final days, the veteran satellite gave us frequent views of the Kangerdlugssuaq glacier and its advancing ice ...
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Space_for_our_cl
Chasing Ice: Film chronicles melting Arctic glaciers | RTCC ...
New film from photographer James Balog chronicles collapsing ice sheets in Greenland's Ilulissat glacier.
http://www.rtcc.org/chasing-ice-film-chronicles-melting-arctic-glacier
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