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
Barrier reef protesters are not 'eco-terrorists', they're ordinary Australians
Big miners and their spruikers have a razor sharp agenda to smear the everyday Australians working to protect the Great Barrier Reef
At 92, I was arrested for protesting against mining. I'm glad I took a stand
The people worried about climate change have got to take action, because the government has completely ignored them. So I’ll continue to protest – I owe it to all children
you are a true Aussie Champian Bill .Thank you
A post well worth reading
Public not buying a climate apocalypse
Public not buying a climate apocalypse
and the POLL graph from the above post
The Australian Government Chooses Climate Change Denier to Head Renewables Review
The Australian government has nailed its colours to the mast on the issue of renewable energy by choosing manufacturing chief and climate change denier Dick Warburton to head its review into the renewable energy target.
Warburton will head a four-person panel that will report to the Prime Minister’s office, rather than to either the environment department or the ministry for industry, which includes the energy portfolio. Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s chief business advisor, Maurice Newman, shares Warburton’s view of climate science and dislikes renewable energy, wind farms in particular, and
Abbott himself has blamed renewable energy for rising electricity costs.
Warburton was one of the main campaigners against the carbon price under the previous Labor government. He said on repeated occasions that climate science was not settled. “On the cause there’s huge debate about whether carbon dioxide is the main cause,” he said at the time.
The other members of the panel will be Matt Zema, the CEO of the Australian Energy Market Operator,Shirley In’t Veld, the former head of WA government owned generation company Verve Energy, and Brian Fisher, the former long-term head of ABARE who gained notoriety for his positions on climate policies and is a noted free-market hardliner.
The selection of key members with an antipathy to renewable energy will not be a surprise to those who have watched the Abbott government in its first six months. The government is under pressure from the coal lobby, incumbent utilities, network operators and state governments to either dump, or sharply reduce the renewable energy target.
from Michael Smith news.. re Earth Hour
Dear Michael,
About candles and the dioxide of carbon.
I worked out the chemistry of it to find out how much CO2 is produced by a candle compared to that from an equivalent electric light bulb.
Based on a paraffin wax candle which burns according to the equation:
C25H52 + 38O2 --> 25CO2 + 26H2O Mol.wt. of C25H52 = (25x12)+(52x1) = 352 Mol.wt. of CO2 = (1x12)+(2x16) = 44 So 352g of wax yeilds (25x44) = 1100g of CO2
A household candle of 50g will burn for about 4 hours, so 1 hour will burn 12.5g of candle,and produce 12.5/352 x 1100 = 39g of CO2 per hour.
Coal burning power stations produce from about 0.8g to 1.35g of CO2 per Watt hour of generated power.
If a 5 Watt bulb (night light) is taken as being equivalent to a candle, and assuming 1g per Watt hour as the CO2 produced by the power station, the 5 Watt bulb will produce only 5g of CO2 per hour, which is about 1/8th of the CO2 output of the candle.
Obviously all candles should be burnt immediately to save the planet.
Regards: Ian Macmillan
Is that this Ian Macmillan ?
Ian C. MacMillan is the Dhirubhai Ambani Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He is also the executive director of the school’s Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Research Center. He has taught at Columbia University, Northwestern University, and New York University.
He has been a director of companies in the travel, import-export, and pharmaceutical businesses in the United States, South Africa, Canada, Hong Kong, and Japan. He has also consulted for numerous companies, including Microsoft, DuPont, General Electric, IBM, and Citibank.
MacMillan is the author or a coauthor of books and articles on new ventures, innovation, organizational politics, and strategy formulation
http://hbr.org/authors/macmillan
MacMillan received a BS in chemical engineering from the University of Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, and both a master’s degree and a doctorate in management from the University of South Africa
Prior to joining the academic world, MacMillan was a chemical engineer and gained experience in gold and uranium mining, chemical and explosives manufacturing, oil refining, and soap and food production; he was also a scientist at the South African Atomic Energy Board.
http://discoverydrivengrowth.com/site/authors/
Education
DBA, University of South Africa, 1975; MBA (**bleep** laude), University of South Africa, 1972; BS, University of Witwatersrand, 1963
Consulting
Merck, Microsoft, Air Products, Citibank, Greenwich Pharmaceuticals, Chubb and Sons, NYSE, Dupont, General Electric, GTE, IBM, Metropolitan Life, American Re-Insurance, Panasonic (Japan), Olympus (Japan), L.G. Group (Korea), Texas Instruments, KPMG, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Fluor Daniel; Workout initiative, GE, 1989-92
Academic Positions Held
Wharton: 1986-present (named Dhirubhai Ambani Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 2005; named Fred R. Sullivan Professor, 1999-2005; Director, Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Research Center, 1986-present; Director, Goergen Entrepreneurial Management Program, 1998-2003; George W. Taylor Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies, 1986-99; Academic Director, Advanced Management Program, 1988-89). Previous appointments: New York University; Columbia University; University of South Africa. Visiting appointment: Northwestern University
Other Positions
Chief Chemical Engineer, Consolidated Oil Products, Republic of South Africa, 1965-70; Scientist, Atomic Energy Board, Government Metallurgical Labs, Republic of South Africa, 1963-64
Professional Leadership
Academy of Management Fellows, 1997-present; Editorial Board, Strategic Management Journal, 1980-present; Editorial Board, Human Resource Management, Long Range Planning
https://mgmt.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/1338/
The Wharton Global Family Allience (WGFA),The Wharton School
CCC Allience
