The Daily Mail’s website, on the 26th of February 2009, has an article about a report detailing how a 4C temperature rise this century will threaten human survival and change the world beyond recognition.
As part of their research into the article the New Scientist spoke to leading climate experts from around the world to create a map of how our world might look 4C warmer.
Rivers from the Danube to the Rhine would be reduced to a trickle while melting glaciers and storm surges would drown coastal regions under two metres of water.
Humans will become mostly vegetarian with most animals being eaten to extinction by desperate people.
Large chunks of Earth's biodiversity would vanish because they could not adapt in such a short time.
In the world's oceans, numbers of fish would drop dramatically as acid levels rose because of decreasing plankton.
'I think they'll survive as a species all right, but the cull during this century is going to be huge,' former Nasa scientists James Lovelock said.
'The number remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less.'
Thursday, 26 February 2009
Friday, 13 February 2009
Save up fossil fuel reserves to fight the next ice age
The Register website, on the 13th of February 2009, has an article about a Danish scientist that is telling us to stop using all the world’s fossil fuels and save them for the next ice age.
According to Shaffer [Professor Gary Shaffer] "the greatest climate challenge mankind has faced has been surviving ice ages that have dominated climate during the past million years".
But there's no need to panic. By burning fossil fuels, we have already put enough CO2 into the atmosphere to stand off ice ages for 55,000 years. Shaffer thinks it would make sense to save a lot of the remaining fossil reserves for the far future, when we'd need to bump up atmospheric carbon or face life in the deep freeze.
“Fossil fuel reserves may be too valuable for regulating climate far into the future to allow the reserves to be consumed within the next few centuries,"
According to Shaffer [Professor Gary Shaffer] "the greatest climate challenge mankind has faced has been surviving ice ages that have dominated climate during the past million years".
But there's no need to panic. By burning fossil fuels, we have already put enough CO2 into the atmosphere to stand off ice ages for 55,000 years. Shaffer thinks it would make sense to save a lot of the remaining fossil reserves for the far future, when we'd need to bump up atmospheric carbon or face life in the deep freeze.
“Fossil fuel reserves may be too valuable for regulating climate far into the future to allow the reserves to be consumed within the next few centuries,"
UK's ex-science chief predicts century of 'resource' wars
The Guardian newspaper, on the 13th of February 2009, reports on a talk given by the Sir David King where he says this century with be full or wars over resources like oil and water.
The Iraq war was just the first of this century's "resource wars", in which powerful countries use force to secure valuable commodities, according to the UK government's former chief scientific adviser. Sir David King predicts that with population growth, natural resources dwindling, and seas rising due to climate change, the squeeze on the planet will lead to more conflict.
"Unless we get to grips with this problem globally, we potentially are going to lead ourselves into a situation where large, powerful nations will secure resources for their own people at the expense of others."
King summed up by saying that with growing population and dwindling resources, fundamental changes to the global economy and society were necessary. "Consumerism has been a wonderful model for growing up economies in the 20th century. Is that model fit for purpose in the 21st century, when resource shortage is our biggest challenge?"
The Iraq war was just the first of this century's "resource wars", in which powerful countries use force to secure valuable commodities, according to the UK government's former chief scientific adviser. Sir David King predicts that with population growth, natural resources dwindling, and seas rising due to climate change, the squeeze on the planet will lead to more conflict.
"Unless we get to grips with this problem globally, we potentially are going to lead ourselves into a situation where large, powerful nations will secure resources for their own people at the expense of others."
King summed up by saying that with growing population and dwindling resources, fundamental changes to the global economy and society were necessary. "Consumerism has been a wonderful model for growing up economies in the 20th century. Is that model fit for purpose in the 21st century, when resource shortage is our biggest challenge?"
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Dark comets may be on collision course with Earth
The Daily Mail newspaper, on the 12th of February 2009, has an article about comets that can not been seen and could collide with Earth without warning.
Thousands of invisible 'dark' comets may be posing an unseen threat to Earth, according to two British astronomers.
Professor Bill Napier, from the University of Cardiff, told New Scientist magazine: 'There is a case to be made that dark, dormant comets are a significant but largely unseen hazard.'
The rate that bright comets pass through the Solar System suggests there should be 3,000 of them flying around, yet only 25 have been detected. Most may have remained hidden because they are too dark to see, say the astronomers.
Thousands of invisible 'dark' comets may be posing an unseen threat to Earth, according to two British astronomers.
Professor Bill Napier, from the University of Cardiff, told New Scientist magazine: 'There is a case to be made that dark, dormant comets are a significant but largely unseen hazard.'
The rate that bright comets pass through the Solar System suggests there should be 3,000 of them flying around, yet only 25 have been detected. Most may have remained hidden because they are too dark to see, say the astronomers.
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
'Apocalyptic climate predictions' mislead the public
The Guardian website, on the 11th of February 2009, has an article about the Met Office moaning that there are too many alarmist reports about Climate Change and it is having a negative affect on the public.
Experts at Britain's top climate research centre have launched a blistering attack on scientific colleagues and journalists who exaggerate the effects of global warming.
The Met Office Hadley Centre, one of the most prestigious research facilities in the world, says recent "apocalyptic predictions" about Arctic ice melt and soaring temperatures are as bad as claims that global warming does not exist. Such statements, however well-intentioned, distort the science and could undermine efforts to tackle carbon emissions, it says.
"It is easy for scientists to grab attention by linking climate change to the latest extreme weather event or apocalyptic prediction. But in doing so, the public perception of climate change can be distorted. The reality is that extreme events arise when natural variations in the weather and climate combine with long-term climate change."
The criticism reflects mounting concern at the Met Office that the global warming debate risks being hijacked by people on both sides who push their own agendas and interests.
Experts at Britain's top climate research centre have launched a blistering attack on scientific colleagues and journalists who exaggerate the effects of global warming.
The Met Office Hadley Centre, one of the most prestigious research facilities in the world, says recent "apocalyptic predictions" about Arctic ice melt and soaring temperatures are as bad as claims that global warming does not exist. Such statements, however well-intentioned, distort the science and could undermine efforts to tackle carbon emissions, it says.
"It is easy for scientists to grab attention by linking climate change to the latest extreme weather event or apocalyptic prediction. But in doing so, the public perception of climate change can be distorted. The reality is that extreme events arise when natural variations in the weather and climate combine with long-term climate change."
The criticism reflects mounting concern at the Met Office that the global warming debate risks being hijacked by people on both sides who push their own agendas and interests.
Monday, 2 February 2009
Plight of the humble bee
The Times online, on the 1st of February 2009, has an article where the worst case scenario is give to highlight the continuing disaster of the slow extinction of bees in the UK.
Native British bees are dying out — and with them will go flora, fauna and one-third of our diet. We may have less than a decade to save them and avert catastrophe. So why is nothing being done?
…and that is the thin end of the long-term catastrophe that now stares us in the face. You take one brick out of the ecological wall, others crumble around it. Then more crumble, on and on until the edifice collapses. Ecologists call it an extinction vortex. You lose bees, you lose plants. You lose plants, you lose more bees. Then more plants, then other insects, then the birds and animals that depend on them and on each other, all the way up the food chain. But never mind animals — if you stretch the process far enough, you’re talking about humans.
“The wars for control of the dwindling resources, the suffering, and the tumultuous decline to dark-age barbarism would be unprecedented in human history.” Wilson concedes that we might survive quite happily without body lice and malarial mosquitoes. Otherwise, he says: “Do not give thought to diminishing the insect world. It would be a serious mistake to let even one species of the millions on Earth go extinct.”
In November 2007 the then food-and-farming minister, Lord Rooker, declared in the House of Lords that if things went on as they were, the honeybee in the UK would be extinct within 10 years. The situation since then has worsened, so at the best estimate the 10 years have shrunk to eight.
Native British bees are dying out — and with them will go flora, fauna and one-third of our diet. We may have less than a decade to save them and avert catastrophe. So why is nothing being done?
…and that is the thin end of the long-term catastrophe that now stares us in the face. You take one brick out of the ecological wall, others crumble around it. Then more crumble, on and on until the edifice collapses. Ecologists call it an extinction vortex. You lose bees, you lose plants. You lose plants, you lose more bees. Then more plants, then other insects, then the birds and animals that depend on them and on each other, all the way up the food chain. But never mind animals — if you stretch the process far enough, you’re talking about humans.
“The wars for control of the dwindling resources, the suffering, and the tumultuous decline to dark-age barbarism would be unprecedented in human history.” Wilson concedes that we might survive quite happily without body lice and malarial mosquitoes. Otherwise, he says: “Do not give thought to diminishing the insect world. It would be a serious mistake to let even one species of the millions on Earth go extinct.”
In November 2007 the then food-and-farming minister, Lord Rooker, declared in the House of Lords that if things went on as they were, the honeybee in the UK would be extinct within 10 years. The situation since then has worsened, so at the best estimate the 10 years have shrunk to eight.
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