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Say it again: Another exhaustive study confirms that there's virtually no disagreement among climate scientists about the cause of climate change. An international team of scientists analyzed the abstracts of 11,944 peer-reviewed papers published between 1991 and 2011 dealing with climate change and global warming. That’s right — we’re talking about 20 years of papers, many published long before Superstorm Sandy, last year’s epic Greenland melt, or Australia’s “angry summer.” About two-thirds of the authors of those studies refrained from stating in their abstracts whether human activity was responsible for climate change. But in those papers where a position on the claim was staked out, 97.1 percent endorsed the consensus position that humans are, indeed, cooking the planet. The scientists involved with the new study also asked the authors of the peer-reviewed papers for their personal reflections on the causes of global warming. A little more than one-third expressed no opinion. Of those who did share a view, 97.2 percent endorsed the consensus that humans are to blame. Out of the 1,189 authors who responded to the survey, just 39 rejected the idea that humans are causing global warming.
BBC News
Kidney problems linked to traffic fumes
BBC News
The US investigators who discovered a link in 1,100 patients believe traffic pollution could harm the arteries that supply the kidneys. "Since we know traffic pollution increases the risk of heart disease, the message of this study - that traffic pollution might damage the kidneys - is perhaps to be expected. "The responsibility to reduce traffic pollution falls on everyone, and this study is yet another reason - as if we needed one - to travel on foot or bike where possible." But he cautioned that the current study only showed a link - it does not prove living next to a road definitely affects kidney function. The researchers were unable to control for all socio-economic factors and all of the patients in the study had recently suffered a stroke. They say more studies looking at different groups of people are needed to confirm the findings.
Climate change: When rain, rain won't go away - USA Today
USA TODAY
Such storms have become the signature of climate change across the Northeast, afflicting older cities and towns built at a time of more modest rainfall. This wasn't just another 1-in-500-years event happening, a freak occurrence, a one-off event. Rather, experts see it as the new normal across the Northeast, the latest in a series of calamitous weather events occurring because of, or amplified by, climate change. What's causing the additional rain? It's simple. Warmer air causes more evaporation from streams, lakes and seas. Warmer air also holds more moisture. So, when it falls, it really unloads — thus, more extreme storms. "Increased extreme precipitation in the Northeast is one of the clearest signals of climate change that we can see nationwide," says climate expert Donald Wuebbles of the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "It's not just more rain, but more rain falling in buckets over long periods of time."
To highlight this year’s theme: “Earth day everyday, everywhere for everyone,” the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Earth Day Network Philippines Inc. (EDNPI) kicked off Monday (April 22) a different kind of competition among Metro Manila high schools and colleges. Celebrating Earth Day at the Quezon Memorial Circle, the Mini(mize) Carbon Olympics was launched to pit students of 47 secondary and tertiary private and public schools against pollution. “If they would be competing against each other, it would only be for bragging rights,” EDNPI executive director Voltaire Alferez told the Inquirer. He said the olympics would tap schools in Metro Manila, the pilot area, to educate them in ways to reduce carbon emission through energy-saving measures and efficient solid waste management. “They (schools) would basically be competing with themselves on improving their existing environmentally sound practices as a way of addressing climate change,” he said, adding that during the activity, the schools would be taught how to “audit” greenhouse gas emissions and their energy consumption.
Politico
Think the Planet Isn't Warming? First, the smaller the temporal time scale, the more the short-term fluctuations, forcings and feedbacks — from aerosol emissions to La Niña events — can distort the bigger picture. Over a longer scale, the evidence is increasing that the rate of warming is probably unprecedented in over 11,000 years. Second, The Economist article, and the skeptic narrative that has absorbed it, focuses on what is known as “climate sensitivity,” which is how much surface warming the planet will experience in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations relative to pre-Industrial Revolution levels. Third, the data referred to by The Economist suggest that climate sensitivity may be at the very low end of projected estimates of between 2 degrees Celsius and 4.5 degrees Celsius. If that indeed does prove to be the case, then that’s obviously good news. But, as Zeke Hausfather pointed out in a post at the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media: “A world with a relatively low climate sensitivity — say in the range of 2 °C — but with high emissions and with atmospheric concentrations three to four times those of pre-industrial levels is still probably a far different planet than the one we humans have become accustomed to. And it’s likely not one we would find nearly so hospitable.”
Pollution Crisis Sparks Mass Popular Protests Radio Free Asia Worsening levels of air and water pollution, as well as disputes over the effects of heavy metals from mining and industry, have forced ordinary Chinese to become increasingly involved... "Most people know this is not a trivial matter," Cui said. "We can't wait for government ... departments to [announce things]. It's too urgent."
"We are going to start using our own eyes and our own figures to get to the truth," he said.
Liu Jianqiang, editor-in-chief of the rights website JusticeNet, said that environmental protests had grown larger and more widespread during 2012, and were more high-profile than in previous years, often resulting in a positive response from the authorities.
"There has been a huge increase in public debate and in the self-testing of air quality and water pollution," Liu said. "This shows that the general public isn't going to let pollution go unchallenged."
2 billion USD in 2008, said the bank, adding that the country also has to spend another 780 million USD each year on public health treatment due to environmental pollution (RT @PamMcElwee: WB: environmental pollution costs #Vietnam 5.5 pct of GDP ...
Scientists say the rapid melting of the Quelccaya ice cap, the world’s largest tropical ice sheet, is the latest sign of global warming. (RT @350: 1,600 years of glacial ice, gone in just 25 years. he evidence comes from a remarkable find at the margins of theQuelccaya ice cap in Peru, the world’s largest tropical ice sheet. Rapid melting there in the modern era is uncovering plants that were locked in a deep freeze when the glacier advanced many thousands of years ago. Dating of those plants, using a radioactive form of carbon in the plant tissues that decays at a known rate, has given scientists an unusually precise method of determining the history of the ice sheet’s margins. In the new research, a thousand feet of additional melting has exposed plants that laboratory analysis shows to be about 6,300 years old. The simplest interpretation, Dr. Thompson said, is that ice that accumulated over approximately 1,600 years melted back in no more than 25 years.
20 million people live in Beijing, a literally breathtaking city that has been contending with air quality so bad and Behind the attention to the theme finally on the forefront of Chinese politics are the mounting public unrest, criticism, and widespread anger at environmental degradation. In response, Beijing’s government has pledged to improve sewage disposal, garbage treatment, and air quality, as well as crack down on illegal construction, China Daily wrote, citing a three-year plan released on Thursday. In the next three years, China will spend 100 billion Yuan ($16 billion) to rectify, clear, and deal with Beijing’s pollution. Beijing’s plan includes lying or upgrading 1,290 km (800 miles) of sewage pipeline, building five garbage incineration plants, setting up 47 water recycling plants, and upgrading 20 sewage disposal plants, wrote China Daily. Beijing Mayor Wang Anshan requested that the private sector participate in these investments.
U.S. coal exports hit a new record in 2012. The trend undercuts U.S. progress in cutting greenhouse gas emissions, as more carbon-intensive fuel is burned overseas.
Via Adhi Noegroho
RT @billmckibben: Interesting moment when our military commander in the Pacific says climate change is the greatest threat we face http://t.co/PMyxBBUN7n Locklear commented that “People are surprised sometimes” that he highlights climate change — despite an ability to discuss a wide-range of threats, from cyber-war to the North Koreans. However, it is the risks — from natural disasters to long-term sea-level rise threats to Pacific nations that has his deepest attention. “You have the real potential here in the not-too-distant future of nations displaced by rising sea level. Certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. We are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the Western Pacific. The average is about 17.” "Climate Change merits national security — military — attention for very pragmatic reasons. "The ice is melting and sea is getting higher,” Locklear said, noting that 80 percent of the world’s population lives within 200 miles of the coast. “I’m into the consequence management side of it. I’m not a scientist, but the island of Tarawa in Kiribati, they’re contemplating moving their entire population to another country because [it] is not going to exist anymore.”
New research takes the deepest dive ever into historic climate records and makes the famous "hockey stick" graph look even more dire. Today, it's getting a makeover: A study published in Science reconstructs global temperatures further back than ever before—a full 11,300 years. The new analysis finds that the only problem with Mann's hockey stick was that its handle was about 9,000 years too short. The rate of warming over the last 100 years hasn't been seen for as far back as the advent of agriculture. ... Today's study should help debunk the common climate change denial argument that recent warming is simply part of a long-term natural trend. Indeed, Marcott says, the Earth should be nearing the bottom of a several-thousand year cool-off (the end-point of the rainbow arc in (B) above), if natural factors like solar variability were the sole driving factors. Instead, temperatures are rising rapidly.
Renewable Energy is Actually Cheaper than Coal and Gas in Australia Care2.com (blog) Non-subsidized renewable energy is now cheaper than electricity from new-build coal- and gas-fired power stations in Australia, according to new analysis from research firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s research on Australia shows that since 2011, the cost of wind generation has fallen by 10 percent and the cost of solar photovoltaics by 29 percent. In contrast, the cost of energy from new fossil-fuel plants is high and rising. New coal is made expensive by high financing costs. The study surveyed Australia’s four largest banks and found that lenders are unlikely to finance new coal without a substantial risk premium due to the reputational damage of emissions-intensive investments – if they are to finance coal at all. Finally, a country that gets it. A country with plenty of thriving businesses, wealthy people and politicians, I might add. Yet, somehow, Australia has been able to see what the U.S. refuses to acknowledge: fossil fuels are the dying relics of the past, and to continue to subsidize them is to doom our economy to failure (not to mention all the life-threatening pollution).
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Climate change is a fundamentally unfair phenomenon. For one thing, the countries that have contributed most to atmospheric build-ups of CO2 won't bear the brunt of the consequences. For another, the people who are least ... "We wanted to show that responsibility for climate change isn’t just about current national emissions," says Clark. "It’s also about the extraction and export of fossil fuels, the consumption of imported goods made using those fuels, and emissions from previous centuries that are still in the air. Each of those metrics gives a different but valid view on how responsible each nation is for causing the problem."
TOKYO, May 6 – Japan, China and South Korea agreed Monday to continue cooperating in the fight against cross-border air pollution, despite strained relations between the neighbours because of territorial disputes.
“Apart from domestic countermeasures, it is indispensable for China, South Korea and other countries to cooperate in solving them.” ...
Li Ganjie, China’s vice minister for environmental protection, who attended in his place, said that there was “strong concern” in China about environmental pollution.
“We wish to create a more beautiful environment in Asia by continuing cooperation with Japan and China,” he said.
South Korea’s Environment Minister Yoon Seong-Kyu told the meeting that the three-way cooperation on environmental issues had reached a “new turning point” with new governments in all three countries.
Relations between Tokyo and South Korea have also been strained by a separate territorial row over a Seoul-controlled chain of islets in the Sea of Japan (East Sea).
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached 399.72 parts per million (ppm) and is likely to pass the symbolically important 400ppm level for the first time in the next few days. Readings at the US ...
Carbon bubble will plunge the world into another financial crisis – report
Observer
"They only believe environmental regulation when they see it," said James Leaton, from Carbon Tracker and a former PwC consultant. The so-called "carbon bubble" is the result of an over-valuation of oil,coal and gas reserves held by fossil fuel companies. According to a report published on Friday, at least two-thirds of these reserves will have to remain underground if the world is to meet existing internationally agreed targets to avoid the threshold for "dangerous" climate change. If the agreements hold, these reserves will be in effect unburnable and so worthless – leading to massive market losses. But the stock markets are betting on countries' inaction on climate change.
Corporations Can't Ignore Climate Change
Forbes
When a strong storm can bring the world's largest financial institutions to a standstill, it is crystal clear that the challenges of climate change are inextricably linked to our economy. When it comes to climate-related challenges, it’s in the long-term interest of corporations, investors and other major economic players to adjust business-as-usual models in favor of new, more sustainable models that ensure future prosperity. Getting them to see their own long-term self-interest can be a daunting challenge, however, but we’re making progress. Ford acknowledges quite publicly that fuel-efficient cars and trucks are the wave of the future – it’s what customers want, it’s where the company wants to be ‘best of class.’ What a refreshing change from a decade ago when ‘gas guzzling’ cars and trucks is all they could talk about.
Critics of renewables have always claimed that sun and wind are only intermittent producers of electricity and need fossil fuel plants as back-up to make them viable. But German engineers have proved this is not so.
Global warming will make it difficult to raise grapes in traditional wine country, but will shift production to other regions (RT @ClimateReality: First chocolate & coffee, now wine? "The fact is that climate change will lead to a huge shakeup in the geographic distribution of wine production," said Lee Hannah, a senior scientist at Conservation International and an author of the study. Researchers expect big changes in regions enjoying the cool winters and hot dry summers that produce good grapes. "It will be harder and harder to grow those varieties that are currently growing in places in Europe," Hannah said. "It doesn't necessarily mean that [they] can't be grown there, but it will require irrigation and special inputs to make it work, and that will make it more and more expensive." Wine grapes are known to be one of the most finicky of crops, sensitive to subtle shifts in temperature, rain and sunshine. The industry has been forward-looking when it comes to anticipating the effects of climate change.
Ontario is on the verge of becoming the first industrial region in North America to eliminate all coal-fired electrical generation. Here’s how Canada’s most populous province did it — and what the U.S.
Some people would like you to believe that global warming has been slowing down in the past 15 years, but it has actually accelerated. Completely contrary to the popular contrarian myth, global warming has accelerated, with more overall global warming in the past 15 years than the prior 15 years. This is because about 90% of overall global warming goes into heating the oceans, and the oceans have been warming dramatically.As suspected, much of the 'missing heat' Kevin Trenberth previously talked about has been found in the deep oceans. Consistent with the results of Nuccitelli et al. (2012), this study finds that 30% of the ocean warming over the past decade has occurred in the deeper oceans below 700 meters, which they note is unprecedented over at least the past half century.
U.S. coal exports hit a new record in 2012. The trend undercuts U.S. progress in cutting greenhouse gas emissions, as more carbon-intensive fuel is burned overseas.
Via Adhi Noegroho
Hopes for 'safe' temperature increase within 2C fade as Hawaii station documents second-greatest emissions increase (Large rise in CO2 emissions sounds climate change alarm http://t.co/Zn5oF68JpI... Preliminary data for February 2013 show CO2 levels last month standing at their highest ever recorded at Manua Loa, a remote volcano in the Pacific. Last month they reached a record 396.80ppm with a jump of 3.26ppm parts per million between February 2012 and 2013. Carbon dioxide levels fluctuate seasonally, with the highest levels usually observed in April. Last year the highest level at Mauna Loa was measured at 396.18ppm. What is disturbing scientists is the the acceleration of CO2concentrations in the atmosphere, which are occurring in spite of attempts by governments to restrain fossil fuel emissions. According to the observatory, the average annual rate of increase for the past 10 years has been 2.07ppm – more than double the increase in the 1960s. The average increase in CO2 levels between 1959 to the present was 1.49ppm per year.
I wake up and suck a bowl of charred asbestos through a dirty bong. Well, that’s what it feels like most winter mornings when I open the door of the fourth-floor New Delhi apartment that I currently call home. But according to World Health Organization data covering more than 1,000 cities in 91 countries, China’s capital is not the city that consistently endures the world’s worst air pollution. It doesn’t even come close. One of the crucial measures of dangerous air pollution is the number of parts per million of particles smaller than 10 micrometers (PM10) wafting through the air. Beijing’s residents breathe in air with an average PM10 of 121, but millions of people have it worse. The rankings, cobbled together using air monitoring data from a variety of sources between 2003 and 2010, suggest that the world’s worst air pollution floats over Ahwaz, a city in southwestern Iran where the average PM10 level hovers around 372. Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar, ranks second, enduring a 279 PM10, far higher than the global average of 71.
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