Let's say you occasionally despair for the future of the planet. In
that case, the place you need to be this week is the website for 350.org.
Every few minutes, something new arrives at our headquarters, where
young people hunched over laptops do their best to keep up with the
pace. News that activists in Afghanistan—Afghanistan—have organized a
rally for our big day of action on October 24. They'll assemble on a
hillside 20 kilometers from Kabul to write a huge message in the sand:
"Let Us Live: 350."
Halloween is around the corner, and children will soon be dressing up and chanting “trick or treat,” their demand for candy backed up by the threat of a prank. Climate-change activists, from pranksters to presidents, are doing the same. This past Monday, the activist-artist group The Yes Men staged another of its hoaxes, with one member posing as an official from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, leading what appeared to be a legitimate press conference and stating the chamber’s complete reversal on its historically adamant opposition to climate-change legislation.
Even two years ago, I was in complete despair about our chances of
fighting climate change. But something's changed. It's not the science,
which has gotten steadily worse. It's the first signs that the planet's
immune system--conscious citizens ready to make a difference--is
finally kicking in. Bloggers, in this metaphor, are key
antibodies--they recognize threats, and rally people to take the steps
needed.
They say that everyone who finally gets it about climate change has an "Oh, shit" moment--an instant when the full scientific implications become clear and they suddenly realize what a horrifically dangerous situation humanity has created for itself. Listening to the speeches, groundbreaking in their way, that President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao delivered September 22 at the UN Summit on Climate Change, I was reminded of my most recent "Oh, shit" moment.
UXBRIDGE, Canada - The prospect of a four-degree Celsius rise in global average temperatures in 50 years is alarming - but not alarmist, climate scientists now believe.
Eighteen months ago, no one dared imagine humanity pushing the climate beyond an additional two degrees C of heating, but rising carbon emissions and inability to agree on cuts has meant science must now consider the previously unthinkable.
"Two degrees C is already gone as a target," said Chris West of the University of Oxford's UK Climate Impacts Programme.
Carbon-dioxide emissions are turning the waters of the Arctic Ocean into acid at an unprecedented rate, scientists have discovered. Research carried out in the archipelago of Svalbard has shown in many regions around the north pole seawater is likely to reach corrosive levels within 10 years. The water will then start to dissolve the shells of mussels and other shellfish and cause major disruption to the food chain. By the end of the century, the entire Arctic Ocean will be corrosively acidic.
Great Lakes water levels could drop by up to two feet by the turn of the century as temperatures rise, according to a recent series of reports released by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The water decline is a response to global climate change, according to the report by the group of scientists and citizens that advocates for science-based solutions to environmental problems. Warming temperatures reduce ice cover and increase evaporation. Lake Huron and Lake Michigan are projected to have the greatest changes.
The
global discussion on climate change has quickly degenerated into a north-south confrontation, for perhaps obvious reasons. On average, carbon emissions per capita in the developed world are about five times those in developing countries.
BANGKOK - Delegates at the start of marathon climate talks in Thailand on Monday were told to speed up "painfully slow" negotiations as they struggle to settle on the outline of a tougher pact to fight global warming.
The Bangkok talks, which run until October 9, is the last major negotiating round before a gathering in Copenhagen in December that the United Nations has set as a deadline to seal a broad agreement on a pact to expand and replace the Kyoto Protocol.
LOS ANGELES - The Arctic ice pack melted this summer to its third-smallest size on record, up slightly from the low points of the past two years but continuing an overall shrinking trend symptomatic of climate change, U.S. scientists said on Thursday.
Northern sea ice retreated to its minimum extent for 2009 on September 12, when it covered 1.97 million square miles (5.1 million square km), and now appears to be growing again as the Arctic starts its annual cool-down, the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported.
