The Associated Press

    Tuesday 09 October 2007

    Sydney, Australia - Strong worldwide economic growth has accelerated the level of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere to a dangerous threshold scientists had not expected for another decade, according to a leading Australian climate change expert.

    Scientist Tim Flannery told Australian Broadcasting Corp. that an upcoming report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will contain new data showing that the level of climate-changing gases in the atmosphere has already reached critical levels.

    Flannery is not a member of the IPCC, but said he based his comments on a thorough review of the technical data included in the panel's three working group reports published earlier this year. The IPCC is due to release its final report synthesizing the data in November.

    "What the report establishes is that the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is already above the threshold that can potentially cause dangerous climate change," Flannery told the broadcaster late Monday. "We are already at great risk of dangerous climate change, that's what these figures say. It's not next year or next decade, it's now."

    Flannery, whose recent book "The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth," made best-seller lists worldwide, said the data showed that the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions had reached about 455 parts per million by mid-2005, well ahead of scientists' previous calculations.

    "We thought we'd be at that threshold within about a decade, that we had that much time," Flannery said. "I mean, that's beyond the limits of projection, beyond the worst-case scenario as we thought of it in 2001," when the last major IPCC report was issued.

   
    By Paul Brown
    AlterNet.org

    Wednesday 10 October 2007

The talk of sea level rise should not be in centuries, it should be decades or perhaps even single years. And coastal regions like New York and Florida are in the front line for devastation.

    It is hard to shock journalists and at the same time leave them in awe of the power of nature. A group returning from a helicopter trip flying over, then landing on, the Greenland ice cap at the time of maximum ice melt last month were shaken. One shrugged and said:"It is too late already."

    What they were all talking about was the moulins, not one moulin but hundreds, possibly thousands. "Moulin" is a word I had only just become familiar with. It is the name for a giant hole in a glacier through which millions of gallons of melt water cascade through to the rock below. The water has the effect of lubricating the glaciers so they move at three times the rate that they did previously.

    Some of these moulins in Greenland are so big that they run on the scale of Niagra Falls. The scientists who accompanied these journalists on the trip were almost as alarmed. That is pretty significant because they are world experts on ice and Greenland in particular. We were visiting Ilulissat, Greenland, once a stronghold of Innuit hunters but now with so little ice that the dog sleds are in danger of falling through even in the depth of winter. But it is not the lack of sea ice that worries scientists and should be of serious concern to the inhabitants of coastal zones across the world. Cities like New York and states like Florida are in the front line.

    Scientists know this already, but just to give you some idea of the problem, the Greenland ice cap is melting at such a fast rate it is triggering earthquakes as pieces of ice several cubic kilometres in size break up.

    Scientists say the acceleration of melting and subsequent speeding up of giant glaciers could be catastrophic in terms of sea level rise and make previous predictions published this year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) far too low. The glacier at Ilulissat, which it is believed spawned the iceberg which sank the Titantic, is now flowing three times faster into the sea than it was 10 years ago.

   
    By Tara Lohan
    AlterNet.org

    Thursday 11 October 2007

Thanks to global warming, pollution, population growth, and privatization, we are teetering on the edge of a global crisis.

    Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, the Hungarian biochemist and Nobel Prize winner for medicine once said, "Water is life's matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water."

    We depend on water for survival. It circulates through our bodies and the land, replenishing nutrients and carrying away waste. It is passed down like stories over generations - from ice-capped mountains to rivers to oceans.

    Historically water has been a facet of ritual, a place of gathering and the backbone of community.

    But times have changed. "In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water has become the victim of his indifference," Rachel Carson wrote.

    As a result, today, 35 years since the passage of the Clean Water Act, we find ourselves are teetering on the edge of a global crisis that is being exacerbated by climate change, which is shrinking glaciers and raising sea levels.

    We are faced with thoughtless development that paves flood plains and destroys wetlands; dams that displace native people and scar watersheds; unchecked industrial growth that pollutes water sources; and rising rates of consumption that nature can't match. Increasingly, we are also threatened by the wave of privatization that is sweeping across the world, turning water from a precious public resource into a commodity for economic gain.

    The problems extend from the global north to the south and are as pervasive as water itself. Equally encompassing are the politics of water. Discussions about our water crisis include issues like poverty, trade, community and privatization. In talking about water, we must also talk about indigenous rights, environmental justice, education, corporate accountability, and democracy. In this mix of terms are not only the causes of our crisis but also the solutions.

    
    By Tara Lohan
    AlterNet.org

    Saturday 06 October 2007

Whether we avert catastrophe with climate change may actually be decided by Citibank and Bank of America.

    We're nearing the end of the window of opportunity we have to avert the catastrophic effects predicted from the earth's changing climate. We're either going to sink or swim. Our best hope at this time is to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, like carbon dioxide.

    Global leaders are putting their heads together to come up with solutions. Across the world, countries and municipalities are passing legislation to limit GHG emissions; people are cutting consumption; new technologies are being developed to further alternative energy sources. And yet, in the United States, the coal industry has us poised to move in the absolute wrong direction. Right now, there are about 150 new coal-fired power plants on the drawing board. The amount of polluting emissions they will release is staggering - between 600 million and 1.1 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year, for the next 50 years. And this, according to Rainforest Action Network (RAN), will basically negate every other effort currently being considered to fight climate change.

    Over the last 20 years since Bill McKibben wrote the first global warming book for a general audience, only a few things have changed: Scientists have realized the problem is worse than they thought, and the crisis is coming on faster than predicted.

    "The final question as to whether we can address it in serious fashion is whether the coal that is in the ground stays in the ground," said McKibben. "We already know that we are going to burn all the oil we can get our hands on because we have gotten our hands on most of it and it is intensely valuable. Coal, on the other hand, is the question. If the 150 power plants get built, there is no use talking about compact fluorescent light bulbs or mass transit or any of those other things ... we'll have no hope of averting climate change short of catastrophic proportions."

    And what's the quickest way to halt those plants? Follow the money.

   
    By Lewis Smith
    The Times UK

    Thursday 04 October 2007

    Climate-change emissions from the shipping industry have been significantly underestimated and are racing ahead of those of aviation, a study has found.

    The quantity of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by tankers and container ships is 50 per cent higher than was previously believed.

    The findings, part of an investigation by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), come amid rising concern that the industry's impact on global warming is being ignored. Aircraft and cars have borne the brunt of criticism by environmentalists who are concerned about the impact of emissions from the transport sector, but the new calculations are likely to focus more attention on ships.

    The findings, seen by The Times, suggest that shipping is dirtier than was previously assumed and is causing significantly higher levels of damage to the environment.

    The reputation of shipping as an efficient means of transporting 90 per cent of the world's goods is unlikely to be lost, but the sector will be under pressure to reduce emissions.

    Previous calculations have put global shipping emissions at about 800 million tonnes per year, compared with about 650 million tonnes for aviation. A new method of calculation, based on a reassessment of the quantity of marine bunker fuel used by vessels over 400 gross tonnes, puts shipping at 1.2 billion tonnes.

    The figure is almost twice that of the emissions most commonly attributed to the aviation industry.

    
    Environmental News Network

    Wednesday 03 October 2007

    Washington, DC - A US supreme court decision has cleared the way for the Environmental Protection Agency to order shipping companies to lower the pollution caused by ships.

    Today a coalition of environmental advocates filed a petition today with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), asking the agency to set pollution rules for large, ocean-going marine vessels. These vessels include cargo and cruise ships. Earthjustice, the leading U.S. public interest environmental law firm, filed this first ever petition on behalf of Oceana, Friends of the Earth and the Center for Biological Diversity.

    California Attorney General Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown, Jr. also filed a petition to U.S. EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson on behalf of the state of California today, with a similar request.

    The petitions would require the EPA to assess ships' contributions to global warming, seek public comment and issue rules to reduce this pollution or explain why it will not act.

    The April 2007 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court clearly established that the Clean Air Act gives the EPA authority to address global warming. The EPA must act immediately and issue regulations to limit pollution that contributes to global warming. The petitions filed today begin the process of imposing mandatory regulations on the marine transportation sector. The petitioners asked the EPA to respond within 180 days.