Climate Change

Contents:

Articles, Resources, Tips, Videos, Recommended Reading

President Obama’s use of the EPA to bypass congress and refer directly to the health of the American citizens to create a better future is extremely clever and has similarities to Our Future Planets  vision of harnessing global cooperation to create change. The real outcome of Copenhagen won’t be known until after everyone flies home but it looks like the citizens of our present planet may have to rely heavily on themselves to make things happen through organisations like Our Future Planet etc. Our Future Planet is being represented in Copenhagen by  advisor to the organisation Anil Markandya a leading participant in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - the members of which were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 with Al Gore.  Read more http://bit.ly/8RwStB

Scientific research has shown that the climate is changing and the Earth is heating up and that this is due to carbon emissions from human activities.

Carbon dioxide levels are now above 380ppm increasing from less than 320ppm in 1957. Ice cores drilled to a depth of 3km from the Antarctic icecap have been analysed to study changes in the Earth’s climate and carbon dioxide levels over the past 650,000 years. The level of carbon dioxide varied from 180ppm to 280ppm up until the industrial revolution when the levels exceeded 300ppm and have now exceeded 380ppm and are rising every year. Levels are predicted to reach 600ppm, a critical turning point, by 2050 unless we halt carbon emissions.

As the carbon dioxide levels increase so does the temperature and the planet Earth is subsequently heating up. Other greenhouse gases, released as a result of human activities, contribute to enhanced global warming including methane from agricultural activities, nitrous oxide from land use changes including intensive farming and tropical rainforest clearance, and hydro-fluorocarbons from refrigeration.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has shown that temperatures could rise by 3 to 6 degrees Celsius – the kind of temperature change that initiated the massive end-Permian extinction 250 million years ago. Large local variations in warming will occur across the world e.g. the Arctic is predicted to reach higher temperatures which is critical given that the Arctic glaciers are already melting rapidly.

The effects of enhanced global warming are numerous and widespread, some effects are already being experienced. Glaciers and icecaps are melting around the globe, there is already an increase in catastrophic weather events including droughts, tropical cyclones, storms, and subsequent flooding and these disasters will get worse if the planet continues to warm up.

Sea levels around the globe are predicted to increase due to melting sea ice, and icecaps leading to rising river levels and flooding. Given that 90% of the worlds 6 billion plus people live close to seas and rivers the effects of this flooding would be catastrophic on a global scale leading to enormous loss of lives, famine, devastated societies and failed economies. As well as human losses there would also be major losses of biodiversity including vegetation and wildlife which as well as providing aesthetic benefits provide our food, clothes, furniture and medicines. Some species are already at risk of extinction as a result of global warming, for example, polar bears, coral reefs species and seabirds.

Like a heated kettle the warmed earth will take a while to cool down if carbon emissions were reduced today. We must however act now to keep the global temperature rise at 1.3 degrees and prevent it from escalating to 6 degrees Celsius.

Resources:

Articles:

Why should the Green movement be at one. Says Jonathon Porritt Monday, 14 June 2010
Managing peat to sink carbon Monday, 24 May 2010
Conferencing in crisis: How can conferences like Rio 2012 move the world towards sustainability Tuesday, 18 May 2010
Water Warning: Previous attention may have focused on oil, but there’s an equally disconcerting threat to global water supplies. Wednesday, 07 April 2010
Environmental expectations - Most people immediately think of climate change, but there’s a lot more to developing environmental stability. Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Does man-made global warming actually exist? Wednesday, 17 February 2010 To Copenhagen and Beyond a Discussion Paper Thursday, 14 January 2010
World agreement on climate change hangs in the balance. Can Copenhagen really deliver the goods? Friday 11th December
Supporting Documents:
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Reports:
Fact sheet: 10 frequently asked questions about the Copenhagen deal
Fact sheet: Copenhagen – Background information
Fact sheet: The Kyoto Protocol
Fact sheet: Why technology is so important

The Essential Role of the Amazon Tuesday, 01 December 2009
Money isn’t everything but it’s far ahead of anything else when it comes to destroying our planet Wednesday 18 November 2009
With global temperatures spiralling, is carbon pricing the only way to put consumerism and the environment on a symbiotic path? Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Turning Carbon into Biochar Thursday, 03 September 2009
Microalgae Carbon Capture Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Climate Change and Polar Bears Tuesday, 12 May 2009

Tips: As summer approaches, more of us will be heading outside to cook – but which is the most eco-friendly fuel to use? Charcoal barbeques burn around 11kg of CO2 an hour, with 5.6kg for Gas and 11kg an hour for electric. However charcoal is carbon neutral due to it absorbing CO2 when living, which is not really the case with gas. However when you take into account the large distances charcoal travels, and the fact that 97% of the 40 000 tonnes of it used annually in Britain come from unsustainable sources, its benefits diminish. Charcoal also emits lots of carbon monoxide, which isn’t to handy for your lungs or the environment. If you already have a charcoal barbeque and don’t want to fork out for a new gas one, then when buying new charcoal check the packet to see if it’s Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) certified, meaning its sourced from sustainable sources.

Videos:

Greenpeace - Angry Kid
This is one of the videos entered into the international short film competition on climate change: 1 minute to save the world

Recommended Reading:

High Noon By J F Rischard
In this age of instant communication and biotechnology, on this ever-smaller planet, what kinds of problems have we created for ourselves? How do we tackle them in a world where the accustomed methods used by nation-states may be reaching their natural limits? In High Noon, J. F. Rischard challenges us to take a new approach to the twenty most important and urgent global problems of the twenty-first century. Rischard finds their common thread: we don't have an effective way of dealing with the problems that our increasingly crowded, interconnected world creates. Our difficulties belong to the future, but our means of solving them belong to the past.

Heat By George Monbiot
Monbiot demonstrates how a necessary 90% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 can be acheived - without bringing civilisation to an end. Combining his unique knowledge of campaigning and environmental science, he shows how we can transform our houses, our power and our transport systems. But he also shows that this can happen only with a massive programme of action which no government has yet been prepared to take. His exciting, disturbing ideas expose the cowardice of our politicians. By showing that we can save the biosphere without losing our comfort and security, Monbiot sweeps away their perpetual excuse for doing nothing: that it would be too painful and expensive to sustain life on earth.

Hot, Flat & Crowded By Thomas L Friedman
Friedman explains a new era—the Energy-Climate era—through an illuminating account of recent events. He shows how 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the flattening of the world by the Internet (which brought 3 billion new consumers onto the world stage) have combined to bring climate and energy issues to Main Street, but not very far. Friedman sets out the clean-technology breakthroughs we, and the world, will need.

Person/Planet By Theodore Roszak
Roszak brings together the insights of deep ecology and humanistic psychology. The result is a powerful reassertion of Personalism, the philosophy that has most stubbornly resisted the dehumanising forces of industrial society. As bleak as the environmental fate of the Earth may seem, "Person/Planet" offers a daringly original and hopeful hypothesis: that the Earth herself is already working in the depths of the human psyche to heal our troubled urban-industrial culture. Google Books Preview

Peak Water By Alexander Bell
Peak Water was written by Alexander Bell to alert the world to a crisis: we are using more water than is available in the places where we live. For some, in the wet regions, peak water will never occur, but for the people of the USA, Africa, Southern Europe, India, Middle East and China, it is already here. We can either stop soaking it up or face up to the greatest threat to our way of life we have ever known.