Mar 31, 2014 8:05pm
It’s not the future: It’s here now.
Climate Change Is Here Now, Says UN Report
It’s not the future: It’s here now.
Lower Manhattan underwater from rising seas during hurricane Sandy; wildfires — many more of them like the one in Colorado; droughts in the American West; and wicked hurricanes and typhoons like Haiyan, the one in the Philippines last year: All these, according to a new report from the UN’s climate panel released today, are signs of the impact of climate change.
“We are experiencing the impact here and now; Global warming is occurring,” Noah Diffenbaugh, associate professor Stanford University and coauthor of the report told ABC News. “The impact of global warming is already being felt. It is being felt across the continents; they are being felt in the ocean. This is not just about the risk of climate change a century from now but it’s really about managing the risk of the current climate.”
And while global warming is easiest to see at the poles, with ice caps being drastically reduced over the past 10 years, this new report by a United Nations sanctioned science panel says there is no more debate: Global warming is real, here now, wreaking havoc worldwide and caused by humans.
The first sentence of the report lays it pretty simply: “Human interference with the climate system is occurring, and climate change poses risks for human and natural systems.”
Last year alone, the U.S. suffered seven weather disaster events, costing the country $7 billion and 109 lives, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“We have very clear observations of global warming, we know it is happening. We also know that is not consistent with the natural variations in the climate system,” Diffenbaugh said. “It is consistent with human activity, particularly the emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.”
(Michael S. Nolan/Getty Images/age fotostock RM)
While those living in the northeast corridor of the United States might find it hard to believe after a winter with record snowfall, around the world 2013 was one of the warmest years on record.
“It’s very easy to look outside one’s doorway and draw conclusions about whether the temperature is going up or down,” Diffenbaugh said. “The reality is that globally, 2013 was one of the hottest years on record, and the winter of 2014, while it was extremely cold in parts of the United States, it was actually one of the warmest Januaries on record.”
According to NOAA, Anchorage, Alaska’s above average January temperature of 29.4 degrees F was slightly warmer than the below average temperatures seen in Philadelphia (28°) and New York City (29 ºF).
And what the current and future global warming means is real risk of climate extremes impacting lives, livelihoods, security, and crops.
“It’s very likely that if global warming continues along the current pathway, that we are likely to see more of the extreme heat that can be damaging to crops in the United States. In terms of water supply; we now know that further global warming is likely to increase how many extremely low snow years we experience in the western United States — this has important impacts for water supply in the western united states; When we look at sea level over the coming decade, this suggests we are likely to see increased risk of extremely strong storm surges in land falling storms and extremely large flooding events.”
The good news is, if we caused it, the report says, we can fix it. In fact, fossil fuel use is dropping in the United States, but unfortunately China and India more than make up for the difference.
“There are a lots of ways I know I can improve how much I am impacting the climate system, certainly the air travel, whether or not I leave my lights on, whether or not I ride my bike or take a short trip in the car, I know that all of these activities that I engage in end up contributing CO2 to the atmosphere and when we add all that up all over the world, that is what’s causing the global warming that we are very clearly observing,” Diffenbaugh said.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/03/climate-change-is-here-now-says-un-report/
everything from Politics and dirty politics,Power, Coruption, Greed,The World Family Group,Oil,Sock puppet's paid by businesses with self serving interests (ie;more money to them without having to give a toss about how they go about it),Mining,Big Business,Power, disimpowerment of the people,distruction of our environment and our way of life,the CO2 and Mining Tax,Murdoch media,our Governments urgent need to push their anti climate change message (in order to remove the Carbon tax and remove the red and green tape),ethics,morals,92 year old Aussie diiggers being arrested trying to save his part of Australia from destruction from mining magnates,Foreign trade deals and agreements,reduction in our rights as Australians as well as our rights at work and much more fits with this topic.
I do hope that can be respected here.
Who stands to win out of the anti science propaganda ? The filthy rich
I agree about forests too
IPCC report: climate impacts on wildlife
Plants, animals and entire ecosystems are on the move as rising temperatures force species to seek out cooler climes
March 31 2014
Climate change will reduce the "populations, vigour and viability" of species confined to small, isolated habitats, the report warns. Themountain pygmy possum of Australia is being affected by warmer winters, emerging from hibernation before its prey, the bogong moth, and often dying of starvation. The spectacular Haleakala silverswordlives only on a single volcano summit in Hawaii, but shifting weather patterns have made the plant's environment too dry and warm for new seedlings to survive, and older plants are dying off.
Tree deaths
Higher rates of tree death and forest dieback have been increasingly attributed to climate change. While warmer temperatures are makingNorth America's forests more vulnerable to infestations from insects like the ips, spruce, fir and mountain pine beetles, sizeable areas of forest in Australia, Russia, France and other countries have experienced die-offs, mostly caused by drought, high temperatures, or both.
Young, healthy pine trees stand in stark contrast to the pines killed by pine beetles near Radium Hot Springs, eastern British Columbia, Canada. Photograph: Udo Weitz/Getty images
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/31/ipcc-climate-report-wildlife-impact
Bill Ryan, 92, arrested for taking action against coal at Maules Creek mine site, near Leard State Forest.
"I’m now 92 years of age and I was a veteran of the second world war. I served in the Kokoda campaign in New Britain. I thought what we were fighting for there was proper democracy. But I’ve learned that was not the situation. The government doesn’t listen to the people, and this mine is a good example. There were over 300 submissions against the mine, and one submission for it. But it was approved. […]
Something is wrong. We’re faced with a catastrophe. I owe it to my grandchildren, and I owe it to all children. I was willing to put my life on the line in the second world war, so putting my body on the line here is a small inconvenience.”
Read Bill’s story in full on The Guardian
@catsnknots wrote:I learnt something amazing this week.... and it was not political or being pushed by a greens group... it was just some really interesting information in a documentary about the local people of the Amazon and their life and degradation of it... but there was some very interesting facts that came out of it.
Amazon Rain Forest..... Statistics say that we are losing 2.4 acres of rain forest per second. That is equal to two U.S. football fields per second or 120 football fields per minute. There is about 78 million acres of rain forest being destroyed each year..... more CO2 is created each year by loss of this rain forest that ALL CO2 emission produced by the rest of the world.....
So what that means is that if you believe man made CO2 is what causes climate change then you must also believe the science that says that nothing that we do to reduce our emissions will make any difference to our climate while they are cutting down the lungs of the earth.....
no matter how much we reduce our emissions by it will not impact the environment one bit....
We need real action to repair the forests that we have cut down, to repair the waterways and to stop rubbish from flowing into our oceans.... that is the only way that we can make a real difference in my opinion.
how are those waterways and forests going in QLD ?
Queensland's largest drought-declared area ever
Updated Tue 11 Mar 2014, 10:50am AEDT
It is official -this drought is Queensland's most widespread on record, with almost 80 per cent of the state now drought-declared
Queensland's Agriculture Minister has announced the largest drought-stricken area ever for the state, with 15 new shires added to the list.
This takes the number of drought-declared shires to 38, and it is the first time large sections of the Queensland coast have been included.
Most widespread drought ever grips Queensland
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-07/queensland-drought/5306168
Cane areas drought declared, from Bundaberg to the Sunshine Coast
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-07/rural-qld-cane-stewart-0703/5306510
Stock agent has never seen country in such poor condition.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-07/rural-qld-drought-close-0703/5306508
