The British Antarctic Survey found that during past periods of high carbon dioxide, temperatures in Antarctica were up to 6C above current levels. This could cause a sea level rise of up six metres, threatening coastal cities like London, New York and San Francisco.
Women in developing countries will be the most
vulnerable to climate change, a report from the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA) has warned.
The agency said there was a disproportionate burden on those women and called for greater equality.
They
do most of the agricultural work, and are therefore affected by
weather-related natural disasters impacting on food, energy and water,
it said.
Slower population growth would help cut greenhouse gas emissions, it added.
A federal judge said Monday that Tim DeChristopher won't be allowed to argue that global warming posed an imminent threat that justified placing bogus bids to derail a Bureau of Land Management oil and gas lease auction last year.
"The court finds that DeChristopher's necessity defense fails because there were reasonable, legal alternatives open to DeChristopher other than his alleged criminal acts," U.S. District Judge Dee Benson wrote in his nine-page ruling.
Last month, the Pew Research Center released its latest poll of public
attitudes on global warming. On its face, the news was not good: Belief
that global warming is occurring had declined from 71 percent
in April of 2008 to 56 percent in October - an astonishing drop in just
18 months. The belief that global warming is human-caused declined from
47 percent to 36 percent.
Lobbying groups for the energy companies and environmentalists have boosted their spending by double digits in a year because they knew that the US Senate would debate environmental legislation ahead of global climate change talks next month.
But science and specifics are hard to find in the barrage of ads and messages about green jobs, alternative energy and the dangers of pollution.
The snows of Mount Kilimanjaro will be gone within two decades, according to scientists who say that the rapid melting of its glacier cap over the past century provides dramatic physical evidence of global climate change.
If the forecast - based on 95 years of data tracking the retreat of the Kilimanjaro ice - proves correct it will be the first time in about 12,000 years that the slopes of Africa's highest mountain have been ice-free.
One of the world's leading climate change gurus urged people to become
vegetarian today, to help beat global warming.
Nicholas Stern, the author of an influential 2006 review of climate change,
said methane emissions from cows and pigs were putting "enormous pressure"
on the world and people needed to think about what they ate.
In 1992, I attended an event that filled me with hope.
Canada and the rest of the world had just signed a climate change treaty at the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
I remember being optimistic that the world could come together to fight the greatest threat to our planet and our own survival. We had done it before in overcoming other threats, like defeating Nazism in Europe and beating back horrific diseases like polio.
It's an interesting phenomenon to live in a town where the level of
public vitriol over nearly every political question runs incredibly
high. Here in "high Sonoran" Arizona, we enjoy an amazingly diverse and
oftentimes starkly polarized topography -- you can go from snow-capped
peaks to wind-blown deserts in very short order -- and the cultural
landscape seems to follow suit when issues such as immigration, health
care, education, or warfare are raised in the public dialogue.
I never much
liked the idea of arms control. During the Cold War, we managed our nuclear
arsenals rather than reduced them. We treated our nukes like huge, dangerous
animals. We restricted their movements but gave them ample care and feeding.
Until recently, getting rid of the animals altogether wasn't part of the
political agenda. After all, our leaders believed that these beasts were
useful. They scared away the covetous neighbors.
