2004 Signals More Global Warming, Extreme Weather: UN

[Ithaca 37]

Global warming (news - web sites) is set to continue, and bring with it an increase in extreme weather such as hurricanes and droughts, scientists from the United Nations (news - web sites)' World Meteorological Organization (news - web sites) warned on Wednesday.



The year 2004 is set to finish as the fourth-warmest since record-keeping began in 1861, fitting a pattern that has placed nine of the past 10 years among the warmest on record, the WMO said in its annual global climate report.


"The series of warm years is continuing," Soobasschandra Chacowry, a director at the WMO, told journalists.


The year is also finishing with an above average number of hurricanes and deadly typhoons, with floods killing thousands in the Philippines and Haiti and storms wreaking $43 billion in damage in the United States. Droughts swept Africa, India and Australia and contributed to record forest fires in Alaska. The global mean surface temperature in 2004 is expected to reach 0.44 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 annual average of 14 degrees, with October the warmest October ever recorded.


"It is expected from models that the air temperature will go on rising and the surface temperature will go on rising and the glaciers will go on melting," said WMO scientist Gilles Sommeria.


"There is the likelihood of an increase in extreme events in the coming decade."


PINNED BLAME


Sommeria said the rise in greenhouse gases was man-made.


"The controversy on the greenhouse effect is somewhat artificial," he said, pointing to a 2001 U.N. report predicting global temperatures will rise by 1.4-5.8 degrees by 2100, mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels such as gasoline and coal -- the sharpest rise over a century in the last 10,000 years.


Environment ministers from 80 countries met on Wednesday for the final days of a U.N. conference on climate change that has been unable to crack U.S. resistance to join international efforts against global warming.


The conference of nearly 200 nations has turned into a polarized affair, with the European Union (news - web sites) and nations supporting the Kyoto protocol to cut greenhouse gases in one camp and the United States, the world's biggest polluter, in the other.


Just two months before Kyoto goes into force thanks to Russia's recent ratification, the United States has made it very clear it will not sign up for Kyoto's mandatory caps on emissions after Washington withdrew from the agreement in 2001.


Scientists say rising temperatures are likely to disrupt the climate and trigger more floods, storms and droughts. As glaciers melt, sea levels may rise, swamping low lying Pacific islands and coasts from Florida to Bangladesh.


Chacowry urged governments and people to take heed of year-to-year developments in the abnormal weather patterns documented in the WMO study.


In the last century, the global surface temperature rose by over 0.6 degrees Celsius, with the rate of change since 1976 three times higher than for the past 100 years on the whole, the WMO said.


Over the same period, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased by 40 percent.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...e=3&u=/nm/20041215/sc_nm/weather_climate_dc_1

I'm going to continue posting these glabal warming articles so we can watch the SI nuts who think it's a liberal conspiracy keep telling us it's not really happening.

 

[BuzzH]

Ithaca, in line with your post, look at how the religious right zealots in OUR CONGRESS are choosing to "deal" with the environment...this was troubling to read...

An article from Bill Moyers (shortened version):

As difficult as it is, however, for journalists to fashion a readable narrative for complex issues without depressing our readers and viewers, there is an even harder challenge – to pierce the ideology that governs official policy today. One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.

Remember James Watt, President Reagan's first secretary of the Interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."

Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the bible is literally true – one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index. That's right – the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the left-behind series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious right warrior, Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.

Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical lands," legions of the anti-Christ will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the Messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts, and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.

I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed – an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 – just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of god will return, the righteous will enter heaven and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.

So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist, Glenn Scherer – "The Road to Environmental Apocalypse." Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed – even hastened – as a sign of the coming apocalypse.

As Grist makes clear, we're not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half the U.S. Congress before the recent election – 231 legislators in total – more since the election – are backed by the religious right. Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Senator Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the senate floor: "the days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land." he seemed to be relishing the thought.

And why not? There's a constituency for it. A 2002 TIME/CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of Revelations are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations or in the motel turn some of the 250 Christian TV stations and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, "to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same god who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?"

I read that the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has declared the election a mandate for President Bush on the environment. This for an administration that wants to rewrite the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act protecting rare plant and animal species and their habitats, as well as the National Environmental Policy Act that requires the government to judge beforehand if actions might damage natural resources.

I not only read the news but the fine print of the recent appropriations bill passed by Congress, with the obscure (and obscene) riders attached to it: a clause removing all endangered species protections from pesticides; language prohibiting judicial review for a forest in Oregon; a waiver of environmental review for grazing permits on public lands; a rider pressed by developers to weaken protection for crucial habitats in California.

view entire article here:http://www.alternet.org/story/20666

 

[yz1]

Interesting argument, but wrong, to compare our current weather abnormalites, with past weather phenomenon since 1861, is ludicrous, at best |oo |oo . Your information made no mention of the interference with near-surface tempertures, beset by problems of increasing urbanization of data collection, urban heat island effect and a growing disparity with data collected with the other measuring techniques indicating an increasing rate of warming . About greenhouse gases, read a post from another BB:

We’re as much a part of the environment as the minimal single-cell life form, amoeba, to the largest known living organism, giant fungus, Armillaria ostoyae, or the honey mushroom. Neither of which, have much say as to what happens to their environment, as we surely don’t have much control over the weather either, a major component of our environment. You seem prepared to believe that having too much CO2 in our atmosphere a bad thing, well let’s see, I’ll state my case, and maybe just maybe I’ll change your lefty ideology about CO2, but I doubt it. Let’s examine this current flap about CO2 emissions, fact, or fiction, a cause for global warming, and its supposed cataclysmic consequences. Scientist and politicians make strange bedfellows, as each have their own agenda, scientist to acquire funding, and politicians as a means to an end, to bolster their ideology. Politicians desire to control people, they do this in numerous ways, for which they need causes to further their agenda, so whenever a Politician starts spouting science, watch out! They will use any means to do this, mostly by using emotions, innuendo, telling half-truths, snippets of the whole truth, it’s up to their constituents to ferret out and vote their conscience.

Senators John McCain R-AZ and Joseph Lieberman D-CN, in 2003 peddled their take on CO2 emissions, which didn’t pass 43 yeas, 55 nays, 2 not voting, interestingly, Edwards didn’t vote. This bill, touted by the elitist Established media, as a good bill, didn’t research the science behind this bill, which didn’t show enough to gain support from the Senate. Yeah, I haven’t proved myself yet, just stay with me, I’ll get there, as you’re saying big business and oil killed this one, right! Previously the Byrd-Hagel resolution in July 1997 by a vote of 95-0, preemptively rejected the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N. global-warming treaty, as too costly and unfair to the United States. This action also ignored or didn’t consider the science behind global warming, as its main manifest, was too costly and unfair.

Just where the term Global-warming comes, my research shows that Dr. James Hansen of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency is reputed to be the godfather of the global warming scare. From his prominent position at NASA, he claimed in 1988 to be "99 percent sure" that man’s activity was responsible for causing a rise in the Earth’s temperature. However, by 1999, he backed off from his dire assessment and stated; "The forces that drive long-term climate change are not known with accuracy sufficient to define future climate change.” Yet advocates of larger and more intrusive government continue to present global warming as a threat and man’s supposed role in causing it as a fact. Be patient, I’m getting there, just stating some background facts. See this link Patrick Michaels Reviews Hansen's Global Warming Forecasts for a rebuttal of Hansen’s paper.

Now, let’s start stating some facts, atmospheric CO2 is rising; Geological Society of America’s GSA Today presented the results of independent studies conducted by a Canadian geologist and an Israeli astrophysicist. Jan Veizer of the University of Ottawa and Nir Shaviv of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, state: “we have shown that Cosmic Ray Flux variations appear to be the largest driver of climate change over geological time scales. One of the secondary conclusions we reached was the CO2 had only a secondary role over the geological time scales, and that Earth's sensitivity to changes in the radiation budget are not as large as most of the climate community believes. This of course, has various interesting ramifications, which is why our work attracted many assaults.” These studies conducted separately, came to the same conclusions, which square with the claims of internationally renowned scientists Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon, who have maintained for years that solar activity is the principal cause of climate fluctuations. Does the burning of fossil fuels contribute to the level of atmosphere CO2, you bet, but not significantly. Want healthy plants, than higher levels of atmosphere CO2 would be your goal! Also, follow this link to Human Contribution to Climate Change Remains Questionable, by S. Fred Singer
EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Society, Vol 80, page 183-187, April 20, 1999.

I could go on, if you’re still not convinced, consider following this link, Carbon Dioxide and Global Warming, Where We Stand on the Issue, C. D. Idso and K. E. Idso, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. Or this link The Collapsing Scientific Cornerstones of Global Warming Theory.

Now considering the size of our planet Earth, to the size of our solar system, and the universe, our gross human mass is so infinitesimal, in fact the biomass of all the insects on the planet is larger than our sum total for all higher living organisms, mammals, birds, etc. It’s ludicrous to consider that we're the sole reason for global warming!

Ken

 

[ELKCHSR]

No, this argument won't work if you actually look at the big picture.
1. We need to look at the history of weather and causes around the planet since it was first born. (Impossible)
2. We need to take note of the times the world was hit with devestating heat waves and cold spells that dwarf any thing we have today.
3. Look at the biggest culprit that puts the supposed problems into the atmosphere (China, large third world countries) and look who they are trying to extort the actual money and fixes from.
I personally don't think there is a thing valid, no matter what is shown, until I see further proof from times in the Earths history when this is actually worse. This planet is not static, you can take a picture of any place there is, and given some time, will be different than the last. Especially on the surface. There is not a place on the surface that is never in motion of some sort and everchanging.
But, if you follow the place to where the $$$ is being funelled off to, you will more than likely find the ones that will keep the fires hot. If this were a true problem, if the $$$ were removed, there would still be those looking for a fix.
I say, dry up the $$$, global warming would immediatly cease and another world problem will arise where there is $$$ to burn...

 

[1_pointer]

Elkchsr- They can get a pretty good idea what the climate was like a LONG time ago by sampling the air trapped in bubbles found in glacier ice. Has the climate changed more in the past? Sure, they have proof of that. Has it changed at a faster rate in the past than it has since the industrial revolution?? That is what worries me, not that it is changing, but the increase in the rate of change.

IMO, the reason they are going after large industrial nations is that they are the only ones that can afford to even do anything about it. Just like our tax system. Take from those with more to help out those that can't afford it. Same reason we fight wars with little to no direct effect to the US, we can afford to.

 

[MarlandS]

It sometimes amazes me that seldom in these reports the authors fail to mention that the makeup of the greenhouse gases held responsible for global warming is 95% water vapor and of the remaining 5%, only 0.2% to 0.3% of the greenhouse effect (depending on whose numbers you use) is due to emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases from human sources. Carbon Dioxide from all coal burning worldwide comprises only 0.013% of the greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere

Science is clear on what controls cycles of climate change. Global warming (and cooling) cycles are controlled primarily by:

1) Cyclical variations in the sun's energy output
2) Eccentricities in Earth's orbit
3) The influence of plate tectonics on the distribution of continents and oceans
4) The so-called "greenhouse effect," caused by atmospheric gases such as gaseous water vapor (not droplets), carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxides, which help to trap radiant heat which might otherwise escape into space.


Now understand , I'm not saying that Global Warming isn't occurring, I just contend that it may not be the terrible thing many would have us believe, especially when you consider that historically we are overdue (by estimates) for another ice age. Which might have been the basis for the 70's scare of global cooling...

 

[ELKCHSR]

Thanks Mars.
I also was watching a thing on the Bermuda Triangle last night, plus I remember some thing from the Discovery channel I saw around a month ago about the amount of C02 and Methane released by the sea and it was a tremendous amount.
The puff of one volcanoe releases more ozone depleating material into the atmosphere than all of man does in a years time. To me, that is just amazing considering the amount of volcanoes going off all of the time, including one getting ready to lose it's head in Washington state.
There are a lot of things that are overdue on this planet that have been mentioned, huge earthquakes and major floods and eruptions on scales the scientists are the only ones that can truely appreciate.
The U.S. puts out very little of this theory into the atmosphere any more, but it is us that the world wants the main amount of $$$ from. It reminds me of a bumper sticker "Save Tibet", that is one of the funniest things I have seen, it is these same people that don't want war, but to save Tibet, you have to go to war with China, the same as with the amount of man made gases being made. You have to go to China and have talks with them...
I liken it to this. Lets say we have a problem with rape and murder in this country, and it is every one on this thread that the law comes to for $$$ and aid to help stop it in it's tracks, never go to the source of the problem and confront it, only to us. We have no way to stop it, especially if it is happening a couple thousand miles from where we live, now, one more addition to this, to help stop this violence, you have to give up every thing that you use that is made with plastics, metals, and petroleum. Before you jump down my thoat, use your noodles and just think of this, because this is what you are asking us all to do, and that includes you fellows also, you can not be exempted from it no matter what your feelings.
So, to make this happen the way that nato would like, we (the U.S.) have to give up any thing that is created by industrie, our military, and every thing we could possibly want to use in our modern society, and then take on China (but not in a war like means) to end all of this self made madness we have supposedly gotten ourselves into. Do you honestly think China will listen?
One thing I will state, if we have to be at war, which I believe we do, then let it be on some one elses shore and not ours. One thing that seems to be forgotten about this war, is that they (those in the MidEast) started it. Iraq was just the most logical place to start, the rest are on notice and are patiently waiting their turn.
You guy's that want every thing but in some one elses back yard should appreciate this war and it's location better then the rest of us.

 

[cjcj]

Don`t you guys know by now that "global warming" is caused by ATV`s and GW Bush!

 

[1_pointer]

Mars- There's a scientist (I can't remember his name) that believes that one of the ways to keep the Earth from warming is to add nutrients to the oceans near the poles. His theory is that with extra nutrients the phytoplankton would remove ALOT of the CO2. He even has a slogan, "Give me a few tankers of iron and I'll give you another ice age"

 

[BuzzH]

Mars, actually we arent over-due for another ice-age based on the cycle of 17,000 years between ice-ages...we're at about 11,000 right now.

 

[ELKCHSR]

That means things are supposed to still be warming up before the next one starts isn't it?

 

[BuzzH]

I dont think you "snap" your fingers and start an ice-age. It aint on a switch.

Its also fair to note that the past few hundred thousand years havent seen things like the last 100 or so have...

For the educated its kind of hard to tell who's right and who's wrong on global warming...I say excercise caution.

 

[ELKCHSR]

I also have been watching this topic of ice ages, the scientists that study this stuff all of the time say it happens very fast, under 100 years. They also have stated that when it ended it happened just about as fast.
It isn't some thing that just happened gradually, on either end of the ice age.
Caution?
It's not us that would be creating the problem any more, we are not the ones to go to war with on this topic.
It is the Chineese and those other third world countries on the up and coming.
But, they are not the ones with the unlimited amount of $$$ to just give the U.N. to sit back and tell us how evil we really are.
It still comes back to the fact that we as humans really don't do much if any thing to change the course of what this planet does on the scale that is being stated.

 

[1_pointer]

It still comes back to the fact that we as humans really don't do much if any thing to change the course of what this planet does on the scale that is being stated.

I'd have to see proof and lot of it before I believed it. Humans are having an impact at a global scale that is for sure and un-deniable.

 

[ELKCHSR]

Just like they have over the other bad things the Earth has seen over the last few billion years?

 

[MarlandS]

While I do agree that erring on the side of caution is prudent, we also must not move faster than sound science dictates, there's too much political pressure and gain to be had over this , an issue which I think we all can agree has no solid, agreed on cure. Patches and bandaids maybe, cure ? nothing is definate yet. I guess that could be verified by the number of political figures pushing on this compared to the number willing to take a chance on fixing Social Security. They can be all for "fixing" the environment because it is "safe". They can't be "for" fixing SSI because it scares constituents.

Anyone remember the Little Ice Age? A.D. 1400 to about A.D. 1860 Today we enjoy global temperatures which have warmed back to levels of the so called "Medieval Warm Period," which existed from approximately A.D. 1000 to A.D. 1350.

A question for the panel. We all know of people who hate the human race so much they would kill a person before they would allow someone to kill a deer. Is it possible a few shrill environmentalist (not true one's, in name only) created the scare for "the greater good" so to speak?

Like I say, let science catch up, but be ready for action if warranted.

 

[BuzzH]

Marland,

Good post, and I'm pretty much in agreement with you.

The only question I have is when do we start making things happen when the science catches up? And how do we know for sure when the science has caught up? And who do you believe?

I honestly dont think that the global warming deal is a scare tactic by a few fringe enviromentalists. Theres some pretty credible science and scientists that are convinced its happening. What isnt sure is what the implications will be. I guess we'll find out...

I've read some things on both side of the issue, both made sense to me from a scientific stand point, but I'd still rather error on the side of caution.

My thoughts are pretty much that global warming is happening, humans are accelerating it, and there are steps to take to slow it down. I dont think the end of the world is coming or any of that crap, but there will be an effect, no question in my mind about that.

 

[MarlandS]

To what end is the main question, Look at a population map of Canada, isn't most of it huddled right next to the US? Suppose Global Warming has the effect that more of their land becomes hospitable to habitation for 500 years.
Other side of the coin, it could change current flows moving fisheries too far offshore and too deep to be effectively harvested. Or possibly create havoc with waterfowl breeding grounds.
The possibilities are endless both ways but only for a period of time.

Buzz, science is surely making great strides since enough of them are working it and enough money is being pumped into research. I'd wager that in a decade there's a breakthrough and a consensus.

 

[ELKCHSR]

Worded very well Mars...
That is exactly what I have been trying to say, just by no means as well.
Thanks.
I would also add that caution is good to an extent, but it also has to be tempered with some thing that meets in the middle and not to one extreme or the other...

 

[1_pointer]

I agree Mars, science doesn't have the answer yet. But, it has made strides in what I feel is the right direction. Look at the ozone. Regualtion changes have made that less of an 'issue'. The science is getting better, but I'm like proactive strategies rather than reactive. However, the caveat that hindsight is 20/20 does ring true.

In many ways, I find the global warming issue exciting for a few reasons. No other time in human history have we had the luxury of being able to even consider conservation (developed countries). Also, it's kind of like a suspense thriller as no one is sure how this is going to play out. In most of the models that I've seen/read about, a small change in just one or two variables sends us into another ice age or to more desertification.