New continent-wide study shows effects of warming of the planet
Europe’s mountains show clear and rapid change to a warming climate by ClickGreen 9 Jan 2012 The decade from 2000 to 2009 was the warmest since global climate has been measured, and while localized studies have shown evidence of changes in mountain plant communities that reflect this warming trend, no study has yet taken a continental-scale view of the situation – until now.
With the publication of “Continent-wide response of mountain vegetation to climate change,” scheduled for Advance Online
Publication (AOP) in Nature Climate Change on 8 January, researchers from 13 countries report clear and statistically significant evidence of a continent-wide warming effect on mountain plant communities.
The findings are “clearly significant,” says Ottar Michelsen, a researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and one of the article’s co-authors. “You can find studies that have shown an effect locally, and where researchers try to say something more globally, but in this case, when you have so many mountains in so many regions and can show an effect, that’s a big thing.”
The article describes the results of a comprehensive effort to measure plant community changes in the mountains over the whole of Europe, with nearly a decade of time between the sampling efforts. Continue reading
Climate change deniers hold sway, as global warming evidence mounts
So we start 2012 with an unprecedented understanding of climate science and the consequences of warming, and at the same time seemingly irreconcilable differences on what to do,
Another Year Goes By and We’re No Closer to Solving Climate Change, Rocky Mountain Institute, Auden Schendler January 5, 2012 One version of the myth of King Midas holds that he was not greedy. Instead, he loved his daughter so much that he longed to leave her a stable future. When given the chance, he asked for the golden touch as a way to create an endowment. But when they embraced, she turned to gold as well. In trying to protect his beloved daughter, Midas destroyed her.
Some climate change deniers have the same admirable motive as Midas. The actions required to solve climate, they fear, will preclude us from capturing the wealth that can benefit or save many children today. Even the left argues that a rising economic tide lifts all boats, despite the fact that continued growth probably dooms the planet to runaway warming. Environmentalists fear that no action on climate condemns us to an even more costly fate that threatens every child, forever.
Finding a fix, then, seems close to impossible. What we learned in 2011–a banner year for human understanding of climate change and its impact on our lives–helps explain why.
In October, climate-change skeptic Dr. Richard Muller released the results of a two-year study at the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project that was funded in part by the Koch brothers, leading climate deniers. Muller’s report, in his own words, found that “global warming is real.” In fact, Muller found warming to be “on the high end” of what others had found. The results were reported in the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page.
2011 also gave a taste of what climatologists have long predicted: that a warmer world will experience more severe weather events, both droughts and storms. PBS reported on “mind-boggling extreme weather” resulting from warming, what Dr. Jeff Masters, Director of Meteorology at the Weather Underground, Inc. calls “steroids for the atmosphere.” This summer, droughts in the Southwest matched those of the dust bowl and a tornado outbreak blew away the record 1974 season. USA Today reported how natural disasters were straining FEMA’s budget. In the last week of 2011, Vermont fixed the last of the roads destroyed by flooding from Hurricane Irene.
At the same time, still more peer-reviewed science came out showing that the anthropogenic warming signal is unmistakable. Continue reading
The definitive answer to the myth of the “nuclear renaissance”
We’re Playing Nuclear Roulette, International to News, 06 December 2011 David Swanson The International Forum on Globalization has published the most concise, useful, readable, and damning denunciation of nuclear technology I’ve seen. And it’s available for free as a PDF right here: Nuclear Roulette: The Case Against a “Nuclear Renaissance”
Nuclear energy suffers from the following drawbacks: The energy put into mining, processing, and shipping uranium, plant construction, operation, and decommissioning is roughly equal to the energy a nuclear plant can produce in its lifetime. In other words, nuclear energy does not add any net energy.
Not counted in that calculation is the energy needed to store nuclear waste for hundreds of thousands of years. Continue reading
Durban: thousands of protesters demand action on climate change
Thousands march in Durban for climate justice, ABC News 4 Dec 11 thousands of people have marched through the streets of Durban calling for “climate justice”. Their appeal was aimed at diplomats locked in negotiations under the 194-nation UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is tasked with beating back the ever-mounting threat of global warming.
The crowd of around 6,500 snaked through the coastal city’s downtown area shouting and singing against a backdrop of drums and vuvuzelas, the high-decibel plastic trumpets that gained worldwide notoriety when South Africa hosted the football World Cup.
Many in the crowd lashed out at the UN talks, which end next Friday, saying that they were moving too slowly in the face of potentially catastrophic impacts of climate change, and that many of the solutions proposed lean too heavily on the market…. Continue reading
France stops nuclear plant due to hot dry weather
Dry weather starts to bite French nuclear output
* Nuclear plants use water to cool their reactors
* Chooz plant already forced to stop in July due to weather
PARIS, Nov 29 (Reuters) – Dry weather conditions are starting to hit output at France’s nuclear reactors with EDF forced to stop one reactor in northern France to protect river flows, EDF said on Monday.France, the European Union’s biggest power exporter, this year experienced its driest March-May spring period in 50 years and its hottest since 1900. While rain fell over the summer, France experienced another dry bout this autumn. Autumn 2011 was the second hottest since the start of the 20th century and rainfall in October was 45 percent lower than average, according to French weather forecaster Meteo France.
Nuclear plants use water to cool their reactors. French power producer EDF, which operates the country’s 58 reactors, is not allowed to keep reactors operating if water temperatures rise beyond a set level or if flows fall below authorised limits.
A spokesman at EDF’s Chooz nuclear plant, located close to the Belgian border, said the utility had not restarted the 1,450-megawatt reactor 1 as planned on November 28 to safeguard minimum river flows.”There is an agreement between France and Belgium whereby France owes Belgium a minimum of 20 cubic metre per second on a 12-day average,” the spokesman said…….http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL5E7MT5UE20111129.
Antarctic radiocarbon from nuclear bomb tests indicates climate change
Bomb spike hints on climate change AUSTRALIAN ANTARCTIC DIVISION 29 Nov 11 The discovery, reported in Global Change Biology, comes after researchers from the University of Wollongong (UOW) and the Australian Nuclear Science and TechnologyOrganisation (ANSTO) found that the dramatic increase in atmospheric radiocarbon (14C), known as the ‘bomb spike’, was detectable in living moss shoots 50 years after nuclear testing, and could be used to track changes in moss growth rates……Bomb spike hints on climate change. AUSTRALIAN ANTARCTIC DIVISION, 29 NOVEMBER 2011 Chemical clues absorbed from the atmosphere by Antarctic mosses during nuclear tests in the 1950s and 60s, have provided scientists with evidence of significant climate change in East Antarctica.
‘Our results point to a profound influence of recent climate change on the Antarctic flora, with δ13C profiles indicating the observed effects of temperature and wind speed are most likely due to the impact of these climate variables on water availability,’ Professor Robinson says. http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20112811-22889.html
Climate Change likely to bring more frequent extreme weather
Extreme weather to worsen with climate change: UN, ABC News, November 19, 2011 An increase in heat waves is almost certain, while heavier rainfall, more floods, stronger cyclones, landslides and more intense droughts are likely across the globe this century as the Earth’s climate warms, UN scientists say.
In a report released in Uganda on Friday, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) urged countries to make disaster management plans to adapt to the growing risk of extreme weather linked to human-induced climate change. Continue reading
Climate change documentary – media self censors the facts
Broadcasters lose their nerve over BBC’s climate change program, Environmental News Network, 15 Nov 11 The final episode of the BBC’s Frozen Planet documentary series that focuses on climate change has been canned in the US and other countries, prompting fierce criticism. All seven episodes of the multi-million pound nature series, written and presented by Sir David Attenborough, will be screened in the UK — but the final show, entitled ‘On Thin Ice’, has been shelved by several foreign TV channels, including the Discovery channel in the US.
The last programme in the series looks at the man-made threat to the environment and examines how Earth’s ice caps are changing and the likely consequences for the rest of the planet. But US audiences will not be shown the final episode, where many fear a show that promotes the theory of global warming could upset viewers.
The package of six episodes has been sold to 30 countries and networks were provided with the option to buy a seventh ‘optional extra’ episode, along with behind-the-scenes footage. The documentary series is said to be an epic portrait of two disappearing wildernesses — the Arctic and the Antarctic – before they change forever, and is already hugely popular with viewers in the UK. However, according to the BBC, ten countries have chosen not to screen the final episode.
In the US, Frozen Planet is being aired by Discovery, which was jointly involved in the production of the series. The seven programmes cost £15 million to produce and took four years to film and edit.It is understood the Frozen Planet DVD will be sold overseas, including the US, containing all seven episodes as broadcast in the UK.
Ben Stewart of Greenpeace today said: “It’s regrettable that millions of viewers in the US won’t be getting the full story when they watch this mesmerising series. It’s like pressing the stop button on Titanic just when the iceberg appears. http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/43567
Legal actions against oil companies on effects of global warming?
Playing the climate blame game, New Scientist 11 November 2011 by Fred Pearce A claim that global warming caused the 2010 Russian heatwave could bring closer the day when climate victims can sue oil firms Editorial: ”Climate blame: send for the lawyers“ BLAMING climate change for extreme weather events, like the 2010 heatwave that set the Moscow region of Russia alight in 2010 or the floods that have ravaged the UK since the 1970s (see “Atmospheric rivers cause the UK’s worst floods“), is one of the hottest topics in climate science. The Russian fires are currently the subject of debate, and the stakes are high. Solving the issue could bring closer the day when disaster victims can successfully sue oil and coal companies. Continue reading
Climate Change has cost $14 billion in health toll
Health Tab for Climate Change: $14 Billion, Mother Jones, —By Kate Sheppard Nov. 8, 2011 Climate change-related disasters caused $14 billion in health costs in first decade of the 2000s, according to a new paper published this week in the journal Health Affairs. The paper looks at six case studies of weather events in the US, all of the type predicted to increase or grow more severe as climate change progresses, like hurricanes, floods, and heat waves. It then determines the cost of disease, injury, and death related to those events…..
Time running out for action on Climate Change
Five years to act on climate: report The Age , Tom Arup and David Wroe November 11, 2011THE world has just five years to make ”urgent and radical policy changes” or lock in dangerous climate change, the world’s leading energy agency has warned, sparking a debate about whether Australia should shift to gas or renewable energy.
The 2011 World Energy Outlook – released by the International Energy Agency late on Wednesday night – finds the world is on track to build enough fossil-fuel power stations, energy-intensive factories and buildings by 2017 to close the door on keeping climate change to a safe level…… The outlook says coal consumption needs to peak well before 2020 if the world wants to halt global warming at a 2 degrees rise, which scientists say is needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
If energy and climate policies currently proposed by all world governments – including Australia’s carbon tax – are put in place, temperatures will rise by 3.5 degrees. If the world remains on its current path of growth in fossil fuels global temperatures will rise by 6 degrees, the outlook says.
Agency chief economist Fatih Birol said if by 2017 there is not a start to major new clean infrastructure investments ”the door to 2 degrees will be closed”. ”I am very worried,” he said, ”if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum. The door will be closed forever.”
The outlook comes as nations prepare to converge on the South African city of Durban later this month for the next round of global climate change negotiations, but there is almost no expectation significant progress on a global pact will be made.
The agency’s report says emissions from existing fossil-fuel power plants, factories and buildings have already locked in 80 per cent of the emissions allowed by 2035 to keep carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million, the maximum possible to keep temperature rises to 2 degrees. The other 20 per cent will be eaten up by 2017 on current development trends the outlook says…. http://www.theage.com.au/national/five-years-to-act-on-climate-report-20111110-1n9he.html#ixzz1dRh1PZbd
Nuclear energy is in no way a solution to climate change
Is Nuclear Energy a Fuel with a Future?, Huffington Post, Andy Mannle, : 10/28/11 “………the nuclear industry needs to do more than build a few plants a year to be a true low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels. A hard look at the science of reducing atmospheric carbon to 350ppm shows why.
To get the world off coal, which produces roughly half of the world’s power, would require 7-8 terawatts of energy. One nuclear power plant yields a gigawatt of power, meaning 8000 nuclear power plants would be needed to produce 8 terawatts. To do this by 2050, 200 plants would need to be built a year, which is roughly one every 1.5 days. Since nuclear plants only have a lifespan of 50 years, by the time the required amount is built, early plants would have to start being decommissioned. After that, new plants would need to keep being built at the same pace just to replace retiring ones.
So if the world goes nuclear, supplying half the power we need would require building a new plant every other day forever.
Even if this rate of growth were feasible, it is clearly unsustainable. Of course, no single strategy is going to wean us off coal in several decades. We will need a combination of carbon reduction strategies — what Princeton researchers Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala call “stabilization wedges” that each reduce a billion tons a year for the next 50 years. The “wedges” include efficiency, renewables, carbon sequestration, reforestation, and replacing coal plants with natural gas. But even for nuclear to generate a single wedge would require tripling our current nuclear capacity.
The reality is global CO2 emissions are rising, not falling. And we can’t build enough nuclear alone to stop them. As such, nuclear’s benefits as a low-carbon alternative would only materialize in the context of a global war on carbon. Absent that, nuclear becomes just another low-carbon energy source competing on the open market with cleaner renewables and cheaper natural gas. Ironically, the current slow growth of nuclear and the possibility of an actual nuclear retreat after Fukushimacould mean an acceleration in our rising CO2 emissions, cautions the International Energy Agency….. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-mannle/nuclear-energy-a-fuel-with_b_1032727.html
Compelling evidence that global warming is real
He and his fellow researchers examined a huge data set of observed temperatures from monitoring stations around the world and concluded the average land temperature has risen 1 degree since the mid-1950s. This agrees with the rise estimated by the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Muller and his colleagues looked at five times as many temperature readings as did other researchers, a total of 1.6 billion records, and now have put that merged database online
It is the know-nothing politicians — not scientists — who are committing an unforgivable fraud
Chilling news for climate sceptics, The Age, Eugene Robinson, October 28, 2011 Research by a former poster boy for doubters makes it much harder to deny warming.
FOR the clueless or cynical diehards who deny global warming, it’s getting awfully cold out there. The latest icy blast of reality comes from an eminent scientist whom climate-change sceptics once lauded as one of their own.
Richard Muller, a respected physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, used to dismiss alarming climate research as “polluted by political and activist frenzy’’. Frustrated at what he considered shoddy science, Muller launched his own comprehensive study to set the record straight.
Instead, the record set him straight. Continue reading
Nuclear power as cure for climate change- the big con
The Big Con Is Nuclear Power Really a Trump Card Against Global Warming?, CounterPunch, by TAKASHI HIROSE OCTOBER 19, 2011 In recent years there seemed to be a nuclear power renaissance. One reason for this has been the adoption by its promoters of the theme of global warming, and their claim that nuclear power is clean energy because it does not produce carbon emissions. But is nuclear power in fact the clean-energy solution its promoters claim? Continue reading Australia joins international initiatives to address climate change
The passage of this initiative is still hugely important, if for no other reason than that it shows Big Coal can be rolled. The coal industry is an even larger part of the Australian economy than it is of the American, and it has an enormous amount of political power. And just like here in the U.S., there are plenty of shrill politicians in Oz who claim that any new tax will lead to economic ruin.
Gillard told Members of Parliament that they would be judged on their vote by every Australian, “because the final test is not are you on the right side of the politics of the week, or the polls of the year.”
“The final test is this: are you on the right side of history?“
Australian Carbon Tax Vote: A Very Big Deal, ROLLING STONE, : OCTOBER 13, By JEFF GOODELL So maybe there is hope for us yet. After what one Aussie columnist calls“the dirtiest and most dishonest campaign ever waged before the Australian public,” with millions of dollars spent on media ads and climate skeptics flown in from around the world, Australia’s House of Representatives voted yesterday, 74 to 72,to levy a tax on carbon pollution. Continue reading
1 This Month
22 June – Virtual Event –Climate Change: New Data, New Debate
Monday, June 22, 2026 2:30 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. CT
YouTube. Register here
Protect Sazan Island from the Trump family! https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/protect_sazan_island_from_the_trump_family_loc/?bqFCVab&v=174511&cl=22707147157&_checksum=5e9dde668860e8231c33699735e16a1fbf22ab2cb01da50c999fe8732b9775ef&utm_source=email&utm_medium=blast_email&utm_campaign=174511
25 June- THE PUKE ON NUKES
Thursday, June 25, 2026
7pm Central Time (8pm ET, 6pm MT, 5pm PT) UTC – 5
From NRC & DOE Deregulation to Techno-Fascist Billionaires Going Nuclear, Plus a Few Songs from Atomic Cabaret REGISTER
26 June – Radiation Trainwreck at the NRC / Join the Protect Better Campaign – https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/4ZlZ5_qLSHGiLSCg8FF6Bg#/registration
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
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