Archive for March 30th, 2014

Global Warming to Exacerbate Global Security Issues – UN Report

International Business Times: As the world's temperatures continue to warm up, so does the tempers globally. Hot tempers may exacerbate global security issues as people fight over resources, particularly water and energy, which could lead to civil wars and strife between nations and refugees, a report by a recent United Nations climate panel due for release said. Geoff Dabelko, Ohio University security and environment professor, one of the lead authors of the report's chapter on security and climate change, told AP. "Climate...

Climate change: smell the coffee while you can

Guardian: The members of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are purveyors of doom. Their report, looking at the impact on the global way of life of increases in average temperatures of 2C or more over the pre-industrial average, is no easy read. But after the past few months of weather – floods in the UK, drought in California and extreme blizzards in New York – its message will only be disregarded by the most sceptical of sceptics (stand up Tony Abbott, prime minister of Australia). Climate...

Scientists warn NZ not ready for climate change

3News: One-in-100-year floods like those which recently submerged parts of Christchurch could be an annual event by the end of this century, scientists are warning. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release a report this afternoon that outlines the increasing effects of rising temperatures on New Zealand's agricultural industry and coastal communities. Last year's report showed that the concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases had increased to levels unprecedented...

Climate change impact ‘being felt’

Press Association: Climate change is already having an impact across the world in areas ranging from human health to agriculture and wildlife, a major international report has found. Rising temperatures will increasingly threaten security, health and food supplies, and exacerbate poverty and damage species and habitats, the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned. The world is in "an era of man-made climate change" and has already seen impacts of global warming on every continent and...

UN report dials up humanity’s global warming risks; scientist says ‘We’re all sitting ducks’

Associated Press: Global warming is driving humanity toward a whole new level of many risks, a United Nations scientific panel reports, warning that the wild climate ride has only just begun. Twenty-first century disasters such as killer heat waves in Europe, wildfires in the United States, droughts in Australia and deadly flooding in Mozambique, Thailand and Pakistan highlight how vulnerable humanity is to extreme weather, says a massive new report from a Nobel Prize-winning group of scientists released early...

James Lovelock: environmentalism has become a religion

Guardian: Environmentalism has "become a religion" and does not pay enough attention to facts, according to James Lovelock. The 94 year-old scientist, famous for his Gaia hypothesis that Earth is a self-regulating, single organism, also said that he had been too certain about the rate of global warming in his past book, that "it’s just as silly to be a [climate] denier as it is to be a believer” and that fracking and nuclear power should power the UK, not renewable sources such as windfarms. Speaking...

IPCC Says Climate Change is Here, World Needs to Adapt

Climate Central: The overall warming of the planet has had a clear impact on Earth's natural systems and human society and will pose increased -- and potentially disastrous -- risks in the future if the world does not make a more concerted effort to adapt and try to prevent the worst possible outcomes. That's the continued message from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations-established body made up of hundreds of scientists who review and summarize the state of climate science and...

IPCC report: how humans are changing the climate

Advocate: Welcome to our live blog on the release of the second report of the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report. The much-anticipated - and leaked - report is the work of a small army of researchers and reviewers. In fact, there are some 309 coordinating lead authors, lead authors and review editors, without counting the hundreds of contributing editors and expert reviewers. The Working Group II report has been produced by 309 coordinating lead authors, lead authors and review editors, who in turn enlisted...

U.N.: Little time left to reduce world’s heat

CNN: That's the latest conclusion from the United Nations, which urged governments to address the "increasingly clear" threats posed by a warming climate before some options are closed off for good. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that taking steps to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions blamed for rising temperatures could buy more time to adjust to a warmer world. Cutting emissions now "increases the time available for adaptation to a particular level...

IPCC report finds world might be irreversibly changed

Sydney Morning Herald: The IPCC report finds Artic-sea ice is at very high risk under two degrees of warming beyond that observed in 1986 and 2005. Photo: AP Climate change is already being felt in all corners of the globe and some parts of the natural world may already be undergoing irreversible change, a major assessment by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has found. The report on the impact of climate change -- the first of its kind in seven years -- stresses that the likelihood climate change will...