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*****Warming is happening*****
Warming is coming
Over 829 geologic phenomena prove the earth is warming:
Adam Hadhazy, 5/14/2008 (staff, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=man-made-warming-
altering-natures-clock)
Starving polar bears are eating one another in the Arctic. Flowers are blooming too soon and
dying. The ice caps are melting so swiftly that rising water levels will threaten coastal towns as far
away as Florida within several decades. These are just a few examples of the dire consequences of climate change supported by a new
analysis in Nature that paints a dark portrait of what a warming world will look like in the years
to come. The researchers assessed 829 geologic phenomena—including melting glaciers—along
with nearly 30,000 changes in plants and animals (from bird migration patterns to plummeting penguin populations),
and found that about 90 percent of them are in sync with scientists' predictions about how global
warming will alter the planet.
Warming is coming
Warming is happening and altering the earth’s ecosystem:
Adam Hadhazy, 5/14/2008 (staff, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=man-made-warming-
altering-natures-clock)
In the past three decades, average global temperatures have risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6
degree Celsius) and are projected to jump by about 3 degrees F (1.7 degrees C) by the end of the
century, says study lead author Cynthia Rosenzweig, who heads the Climate Impacts Group at
NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University in New York City. "We've
already seen that a relatively low amount of warming," she says, "can result in a broad range of
changes." The unnatural warming spurred on by man-made greenhouse gases, especially carbon
dioxide spewed by cars and coal-powered plants, spell trouble for entire ecosystems. In North America
alone, scientists have identified 89 species of plants, such as the American holly, that have blossomed earlier in the spring. In Spain, apple trees
bloom 35 days ahead of schedule in response to the higher temperatures. Other wildlife, like the insects that use certain plants for food and the
birds that feed on the insects, must then move forward their seasonal stirrings and mating patterns to survive.
Permafrost thawing, early plant blooms, and declining lakes all prove
warming:
Steve Cole, 5/14/2008 (National Aeronautics and Space Administration Documents and
Publications; Lexis)
WASHINGTON -- A new NASA-led study shows human-caused climate change has made an impact
on a wide range of Earth's natural systems, including permafrost thawing, plants blooming earlier
across Europe, and lakes declining in productivity in Africa. Cynthia Rosenzweig of NASA's
Goddard Institute for Space Science in New York and scientists at 10 other institutions have linked
physical and biological impacts since 1970 with rises in temperatures during that period. The
study, to be published May 15 in the journal Nature, concludes human-caused warming is
resulting in a broad range of impacts across the globe. "This is the first study to link global temperature data sets,
climate model results, and observed changes in a broad range of physical and biological systems to show the link between humans, climate, and
impacts," said Rosenzweig, lead author of the study.
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Warming is coming
Shrinking glaciers, melting permafrost, and warming rivers all prove
human-induced warming is occurring:
Steve Cole, 5/14/2008 (National Aeronautics and Space Administration Documents and
Publications; Lexis)
Observed impacts included changes to physical systems, such as glaciers shrinking, permafrost
melting, and lakes and rivers warming. Biological systems also were impacted in a variety of
ways, such as leaves unfolding and flowers blooming earlier in the spring, birds arriving earlier
during migration periods, and plant and animal species moving toward Earth's poles and higher in
elevation. In aquatic environments such as oceans, lakes, and rivers, plankton and fish are shifting from cold-adapted to warm-adapted
communities. The team conducted a "joint attribution" study. They showed that at the global scale, about 90 percent of observed changes in
diverse physical and biological systems are consistent with warming. Other driving forces, such as land use change from forest to agriculture,
Next, the scientists conducted statistical tests
were ruled out as having significant influence on the observed impacts.
and found the spatial patterns of observed impacts closely match temperature trends across the
globe, to a degree beyond what can be attributed to natural variability. The team concluded
observed global-scale impacts are very likely because of human-caused warming. "Humans are
influencing climate through increasing greenhouse gas emissions," Rosenzweig said. "The warming is
causing impacts on physical and biological systems that are now attributable at the global scale
and in North America, Europe, and Asia."
There is very little doubt among leading scientists . . . that climate change is a
reality.
These projections are based on computer models that still have some gaps and uncertainties,
but the scientific consensus supporting the forecast of a warmer world has become
overwhelming. Even in the US, where global warming at times has been a political issue, the
influential National Academy of Sciences signed on to the IPCC warming projections in June
2001. After a review requested by US President George Bush, a National Academy of Sciences
committee reported: "The body of the [IPCC Working Group I] report is scientifically credible and
is not unlike what would be produced by a comparable group of only US scientists working with
a similar set of emission scenarios, with perhaps some normal differences in scientific tone and
emphasis."
The “lists” of climate skeptics are inaccurate—many scientists want their names moved to the
pro global warming camp:
Mike Ivey, 5/21/2008 (staff writer, The Capital Times; Lexis, accessed June 1, 2008)
Turns out there are two lists of global climate change skeptics being circulated by the Heartland
Institute, and both contain people who say their names were wrongly included. (See Business
Beat from April 30, May 14.) In fact, the UW has now written a letter to Chicago-based
Heartland on behalf of five scientists who want their names removed, including John Kutzbach,
the former head of the UW Center for Climate Research. "Apparently there have been other
complaints about the accuracy of the lists," says Tom Sinclair of the UW's Nelson Institute for
Environmental Studies.
The fraction of global warming skeptics among scientists who study climate change
has been disputed, partly because there are various degrees of skepticism. The
extreme skeptics are certainly in the minority among mainstream scientists. George
Mason University climate researcher Jagadesh Shukia claims to have come across
no more than a handful of skeptics among the hundreds of active workers in the
field.8
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A second piece of evidence against the skeptics is the balloon data, which go much further back than the
satellite data—all the way to 1958. Over this interval the balloon data show a rise in atmospheric
temperature of +0.09°C per decade, which is very close to the surface data rise of +0.10°C per decade.
That close agreement suggests that the surface data are not in error, and that over a more extended period
of time than the last two decades the surface, satellite, and balloon data sets should agree. In other words,
it would appear that the surface really has warmed since 1979, but the atmosphere has not yet caught up
due to its temporary cooling because of large ocean heat capacity, volcanoes, or other factors.
Weather balloons and satellites. Since the 1960s, atmospheric temperatures have been measured by
thermometers sent up with weather balloons. Equipped with assorted thermometers, balloons were flown
to differing heights at various times. In addition, since the 1970s, satellites have been employed to
measure Earth's temperature. The latter approach, involving special cameras that measure the heat given
off by the upper atmosphere, afforded the first opportunity to actually measure the atmospheric
temperature over Earth's entire surface. But even the most modern methods raise questions. For
instance, the decay of satellite orbits can bias the measurements. In addition, temperatures
taken from balloons and satellites represent a much shorter record than surface temperature
readings, and there is controversy over what they mean.
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But Zhang and other Boston University researchers say NASA satellites show that
the heat island effect is occurring simultaneously with a continentwide warming
that makes growing season changes even more pronounced.
BOULDER, COLO. --- A study published in Friday's issue of the journal "Science" has
found that temperatures in the troposphere as measured by satellites have
apparently risen since 1979, in contradiction to earlier findings that they had not.
The controversial satellite data had been one of the keystones for critics who denied
the warming trend because of the discrepancy between the temperatures as
measured on earth and those measured from satellites.
In some earlier groundbreaking and innovative work, a research group led by John
Christy and Roy Spencer from the University of Alabama at Huntsville had
generated what heretofore was virtually the only data set of tropospheric
temperatures taken from satellites. These satellite data indicated that the
troposphere's average temperature was barely warming at all, while surface
temperatures indicated that the earth was warming considerably. If global warming
is a real phenomenon, surface and tropospheric temperatures should rise roughly in
sync. Now, however, this second group has reassessed the same satellite data and
found a much larger warming signal from it, one that is more in line with
climate models that predict substantial global climate change. Insofar as
policy makers can be convinced by scientific data, the pieces that make up a puzzle
picturing human-caused global warming are falling even more firmly into place.
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CERES measurements, for instance, show that clouds not only reflect visible light,
they also trap infrared radiation in the lower atmosphere. The two effects almost
cancel out, so cloud cover makes little difference to the energy the
atmosphere retains. Earthshine tells only one side of the story.
Even more difficult is cloud type. Low, puffy clouds, such as stratus and the familiar fair-weather cumulus, are so
bright that their ability to reflect the sun's radiation from above exceeds their ability to trap heat (via the greenhouse
mechanism) from below. Consequently, low-level clouds are net coolers of the surface temperature, and increasing
their coverage results in a drop in global mean surface temperature. Above roughly 20,000 feet in the midlatitudes,
most clouds are ice crystals. The prime example is the feathery cirrus cloud. The optical thinness of these clouds (you can
usually see the sun through them) means that they are reflecting not nearly so much radiation as the lower cumulus clouds; and, in the case of thin
cirrus, the effect is a slight net warming as their greenhouse effect overtakes their albedo effect.
Clouds, which reflect sunlight, ought to cool the earth. But they can also hold in
warmth. That second effect swamps the first. According to Minnis' calculations, increased cloud cover
since the 1970s ought to have led to a warming of .36th to .54thF per decade. The actual warming during this period falls within that range, at just
under .5th. That may not sound like much, but when only 9thF separate our current temperature from the last Ice Age, it's clear that a little
warming makes a big difference. "This study," says Minnis, "demonstrates that contrails should be included in climate-change scenarios."
But for the past two decades, measurements from two NASA satellites indicate that
the Earth's global cloud cover was growing thinner. The pace of thinning speeded
up during the late 1990s, according to the satellite data, and as a result,
earthshine on the moon was growing fainter.
Thinning of the Earth's cloud cover over the past 20 years allowed more sunlight to
strike the surface, thereby warming the entire globe as greenhouse gases from
burning fossil fuels trapped the solar radiation, Goode explained in an interview. "It
seems to indicate that greenhouse gases on Earth are continuing to affect our
climate more strongly," he said.
Myth Three: The world is really cooling, not warming. Response: The proposition
is that somehow the entire community of scientific climate experts has
been blind-sided on the basic direction of global temperature change. The
climate skeptics making this argument have long ago run out of legitimate
objections to climate science and therefore have relied on claims like: • Global
temperature readings are upwardly biased because they come from weather
stations in or around cities where the "heat island" effect has distorted
temperature readings. • Temperature measurements were made on land but not
over cooler ocean surfaces. • Even if surface temperatures may have gone up,
satellite data prove that the Earth is cooling.
Even though the authors do not discuss abrupt climate shifts of the past or their
mechanisms, the results of their simulations of ocean circulation are disturbing to
anyone who has been following the news about ice-age climates. The predicted
changes in the North Atlantic Ocean in the next few decades of greenhouse
warming of the atmosphere are like those that others 3,4 have suggested were
responsible for the last major episode of cold and arid climate in Europe (eastern
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North America was affected to a lesser extent). The idea that global warming can
trigger abrupt cooling is far more alarming than the now-familiar predictions of
slowly rising sea level and slowly thinning ozone.
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Other scientists have also reported signs that global dimming halted in the 1990s.
At a joint meeting of American and Canadian geological societies in Montreal this
month, Martin Wild, a climatologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in
Zurich, reported that sunshine measurements from 10 stations worldwide showed
no signs of dimming during the '90s.
"It's an interesting phenomenon, but maybe it's a bit premature to call it global,"
said Martin Wild, a climatologist at the Swiss Federal Technical Institute in Zurich.
"We have no idea what's going on over the oceans, which cover 70 percent of the
Earth." Nor do scientists know how long global dimming has been going on or
whether it will last. Researchers are still analyzing records from the last decade.
There are early indications that the phenomenon may have eased as pollution
controls were taking effect. In Germany, for example, University of South Carolina
researcher Helen Power found that sunlight levels rose several years after many
heavy industries were shuttered. Power warns that her study was limited and offers
no conclusive answers.
Scientists studying earthshine -- the amount of light reflected by the Earth -- say the
planet appeared to dim from 1948 to 2001 and then reversed its trend and
brightened from 2001 to 2003. The shift appears to have resulted from changes in
the amount of clouds covering the planet. More clouds reflect more light back into
space, potentially cooling the planet, while a dimmer planet with fewer clouds
would be warmed by the arriving sunlight.
Not every scientist is convinced that the dimming has been that pronounced. While
radiometers are simple instruments, they do require periodic calibration and care.
Dirt on the glass dome will block light, leading to erroneous indications of declining
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sunlight. Also, all of the radiometers have been on land, leaving the effect over
three-quarters of the Earth's surface to supposition.
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The last of the three suggested measures, fertilizing the oceans with iron, actually
has been tested to a degree, and the results to date are not promising.51 According
to one recent experiment involving an 8-kilometer-diameter patch of ocean, there
was a reduction of CO2 following ocean fertilization, but the CO2 removed from the
atmosphere does not appear to have sunk into the deep ocean.52 Sallie Chisholm, a
scientist involved in this research, is rather pessimistic about the wisdom of this
effort. According to Chisholm, "Artificial fertilization with iron would probably have
unintended side effects, such as deoxygenating the deep ocean and generating
greenhouse gases that are more potent than CO2."53 Moreover, she notes that "in
the long run ocean fertilization is not sustainable.
Alternatively, we could increase the ocean's capacity to mop up excess CO2. Fertilising the
surface of the ocean with iron can encourage plumes of plankton to grow and absorb CO2.
This will probably work best in the Southern Ocean, which is desperately short of iron
through some biogeochemical quirk. Sprinkle some iron filings into the water and plankton
"blooms". As the plankton die and sink to the ocean depths, the CO2 is packed away out of
harm's way for hundreds of years. It's cheap, and on the face of it is easy to do. But as yet
there is no certainty about the fate of the CO2. And at about half a billion tonnes a year,
even the theoretical capacity of the Southern Ocean to absorb CO2 is small. The Cambridge
meeting voted it the least likely technology to succeed.
Experiments have shown that Martin was partly right: A dash of iron sulfate does
cause the ocean's surface waters to bloom with patches of algae tens of miles long,
so vivid they can be seen by satellites. But oceanographers monitoring what
happens in the water have been disappointed to find that when the extra plants and
the animals they nourish die, their remains mostly decay before they have a chance
to sink and be buried. The carbon dioxide from the decay nourishes new
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generations of plants, reducing the need for extra carbon from the atmosphere.
Nature is just too thrifty for iron fertilization to work.
Rather than admitting that our increasing use of petroleum products and coal is altering the
climate, companies making profit from fossil fuels are spending millions of dollars in an effort to
discredit the IPCC and global warming. Claiming that global warming is nothing but an "alarmist
hoax," they have set out to buy the kind of "science" they want, and politicians are paying
attention to these corporate-funded "climate experts." The "Climate sceptics," a handful of
scientists, directly subsidized by the fossil fuel lobby, are promoting blatant misinformation
on climate science. Corporate-funded front groups base their arguments on a combination of
deliberate misrepresentation of IPCC reports, contextual inaccuracy and unsubstantiated
conclusions.
Anti global warming literature is industry propoganda—profit motives taint the research:
BERGER, 2000 (JOHN, Beating the heat: why and how we must combat global
warming, Published by Berkeley Hills Books; Berkeley, California, PG. 59-60)
The oil and coal industries and some of their largest customers are conducting a
sophisticated multimillion dollar campaign to convince the public that climate
change is not a serious threat. The campaign opposes international cooperation to
protect the world's climate. The industries involved have succeeded in confusing
tens of millions of people about climate change and in mobilizing opposition to the
1997 Kyoto Protocol. The U.S. has signed the agreement, but industry opposition greatly
weakened it and to date has blocked its ratification. The Protocol calls on the industrialized
nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by only five percent by 2012, instead of
the sixty percent or more needed to stabilize the atmosphere's carbon dioxide
concentration. (See page 43.) The industries behind the anti-Kyoto campaign include
coal, oil, auto, electric, metal, chemical, paper, cement, and railroads. Their efforts
have been joined by various anti-environmental groups. The members of this
coalition seem to share the belief that the unbridled use of fossil fuels is a good thing.
Thus, I refer to this diverse interest group as "the fossil fuel industry." The natural gas
industry, however, is not linked with the oil and gas people on climate issues, for reasons I
will explain shortly. Why are multibillion dollar industries with many other things to
do busying themselves opposing a consensus about climate change forged by the
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world's leading climate scientists? The executives of these companies live on this
planet, too. They have children and grandchildren. Don't they care about the
environment? Yes, but... they also have conflicting priorities. Since they profit
directly from the production and use of carbon-based fuels, they do not want fuel
sales reduced. They regard the possibility of new taxes that would make fossil
fuels more expensive as a threat to their prosperity.
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Forests, grasslands, and the waters of the oceans must be acting as carbon sinks.
They steal back roughly half of the carbon dioxide we emit, slowing its buildup in
the atmosphere and delaying the effects on climate. Who can complain? No one,
for now. But the problem is that scientists can't be sure that this blessing will
last, or whether, as the globe continues to warm, it might even change to a
curse if forests and other ecosystems change from carbon sinks to sources,
releasing more carbon into the atmosphere than they absorb. The doubts have sent
researchers into forests and rangelands, out to the tundra and to sea, to track down
and understand the missing carbon.
Resurgent forests are soaking up plenty of carbon now, but we owe that mainly to
our ax-wielding forebears, who cleared the land in centuries past. That land sink is
not likely to increase by much, say scientists. And it will eventually saturate as
today's young forests mature. "We can expect this sink to disappear on the order
of a hundred years," says Princeton's Pacala. "You can't count on it to keep getting
larger, like manna from heaven, the way a carbon-fertilization sink would."
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One other piece of evidence in favor of greenhouse gases being a significant cause of planetary warming is the
close connection between atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases and the global temperature at various
prehistoric times. Note, in particular, the times at which the most prominent peaks and valleys occur in the
separate records of temperature, CO2 and methane in figure 6.5, which strongly suggests a connection between
these two greenhouse gases and temperature. Unfortunately, parallel time trends between A and B cannot
While it is certain that some amount of greenhouse effect
establish that A is the cause of B.
has been caused by changes in atmospheric CO2 and methane levels, it is
possible that the reverse direction of causation is more significant. (Reverse
causation implies that changing temperatures lead to changing atmospheric levels
of greenhouse gases.) That scenario is possible because the oceans represent a
tremendous repository of dissolved gases, and as the oceans heat up they
release greater quantities of these gases into the atmosphere. I
The outlook for an increased ocean sink is no brighter. Taro Takahashi of Columbia University's
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory has spent decades on oceanographic research ships, making thousands of
carbon dioxide measurements just above and just below the water surface to track the exchange of gas between
the ocean and the atmosphere. The North Atlantic and the southern oceans have cold, nutrient-rich waters that
welcome carbon dioxide, Takahashi has found. Carbon dioxide dissolves easily in cold water, and the nutrients
foster marine-plant growth that quickly uses up the dissolved carbon dioxide. When the plants and the animals that
feed on them die and sink into the abyss, their remains carry away the carbon and make room for more. The traffic
mostly goes the other way in warmer, less biologically rich seas. But the global balance is favorable, for now at
Takahashi's measurements confirm
least. More carbon dioxide dissolves in the oceans than is given off.
that the oceans take up nearly as much carbon as the regrowing forests and
thickening brush on land: an average of two billion tons a year. "One-half of the
missing carbon is ending up in the ocean" Takahashi says. That may be as good
as it gets, he adds. "My major question is whether this ratio is going to change" as
global warming raises the temperature of surface waters and carbon dioxide
continues to build up in the atmosphere. "The prognosis is not particularly bright,"
Takahashi says. A warm soda fizzing over the rim of a glass illustrates one effect:
carbon dioxide is less soluble in warmer water. What's more, dissolved carbon
dioxide can easily slip back into the atmosphere unless it is taken up by a
marine plant or combines with a "buffer" molecule of carbonate. But the ocean's
supply of carbonate is limited and is replenished only slowly as it is washed into the
ocean by rivers that erode carbonate-containing rocks such as limestone
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As the Earth's ozone shield thins and greenhouse gases increase, higher ultraviolet
radiation will reach the surface layer of the oceans. The findings indicate that
phytoplankton will then produce more DMS in response to this increased ultraviolet
radiation, causing increasing cloudiness and mitigating the effects of global
warming. However, Siegel is careful to note that while the process may mitigate
global warming it will not reverse the trend.
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Another option, with an even bigger theoretical holding capacity, is pouring CO2
into the deep ocean as a gas or liquid. On the face of it, if stored sufficiently far
down, water currents and huge pressure should keep it from returning to the
atmosphere. But will they? Modelling by Ken Caldeira of Lawrence Livermore
suggests about 20 per cent of the CO2 will return to the atmosphere within around
300 years. That doesn't sound too bad: 80 per cent stays put. Except that a similar
proportion of the CO2 pumped into the atmosphere from power stations and car
exhausts ends up absorbed by the ocean anyway, and on a similar timescale. In the
long run, the atmosphere and oceans share out the CO2, meaning that this would
only be a short-term measure. There may be ways of keeping the gas down longer,
such as encasing it in giant plastic bags on the floor of the deep ocean or injecting it
under the floating ice of the West Antarctic ice cap. But ultimately burying it in the
ocean buys us some breathing space, no more.
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As explained, gases containing carbon slow the escape of energy from the atmosphere and cause it to get
warmer. Although it is a misnomer, this warming process is often called "the greenhouse effect," and the gases that produce it are
commonly known as "greenhouse gases." The most important of these gases is carbon dioxide, which is
produced anytime a carbon fuel burns or when any living thing breathes. The other leading heat-trapping gases
influenced by humans are methane (the main component in natural gas), nitrous oxide (a component of auto exhaust), the halocarbons
(which include some refrigerants), and ozone (that acrid smell produced by some air purifiers).
The question is what effect additional fossil fuel emissions have on the delicately balanced planetary
climate on which human societies have come to depend. "We need to be concerned that we may be
changing it," Minschwaner said. Scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimate
Earth's climate could warm 2.5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the next century, driven by greenhouse gases
emitted by fossil fuel burning.
Climate can reach points such that amplifying feedbacks spur large rapid changes. Arctic
sea ice is a current example. Global warming initiated sea ice melt, exposing darker ocean that
absorbs more sunlight, melting more ice. As a result, without any additional greenhouse gases,
the Arctic soon will be ice-free in the summer.
Even that is not the end of the story. A conference of top climate scientists concluded last year that
previous models had underestimated the cooling effect of smoke and other particles in the atmosphere, so
that if it hadn't been for the smoky haze from forest fires and coal-burning power stations, the world
would have warmed up three times more than the 0.6C rise actually experienced. Now that smoke
pollution is in decline, mainly due to efforts to tackle acid rain, the scientists calculate that global
warming could rise by 7C-10C this century. That would be without precedent in recorded geological
history. Yet it could still be intensified by two more factors. One is the die-back of the drought-stricken
Amazon forests in the second half of this century, as predicted by the UK Hadley Centre, which would
release all their locked-up carbon into the atmosphere, thus raising global warming by another 1.5C. But
the most frightening scenario is a feedback effect whereby fast-rising temperatures unlock other global
warming sources - notably vast quantities of methane in the oceans, equal to more than double the
world's fossil-fuel reserves - which could trigger a heating-up that would be unstoppable.
BOULDER, Colo., March 29 (UPI) -- In the great brew of greenhouse gases, one of the most important
ingredients is water. Under the current understanding of the changing climate, as carbon dioxide is added
to atmosphere, it increases the upper atmosphere's capacity to harbor water vapor. Because water vapor is
a strong absorber of infrared radiation, added moisture in the air can operate as an important greenhouse
gas, amplifying the effect of warming by as much as 90 percent.
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Finally, there are some arguments on the other side of the ledger. Although a large amount of global
warming by 2100, i.e., at the upper end of the IPCC estimate is probably an unlikely event, it is not
impossible. Similarly, an irreversible climate change of the sort considered by the IPCC is not out of the
question. Scientists believe that a "runaway" greenhouse effect transformed the surface of Venus to the
hellish present point where lead would melt. Can we be absolutely certain that such a runaway
greenhouse effect could not happen here? For example, were the polar ice sheets to melt it could be a
significant source of positive feedback that would create still more warming than expected.
At least, the modellers, mathematicians and climatologists have filled in the background. The IPCC's
report projected that unless world governments take steps to stabilize emissions of carbon dioxide and
other greenhouse gases, the global average surface temperature will rise by 1.4 degrees C to 5.8 degrees C
(2.5 degrees F to 10.8 degrees F) between 1990 and 2100—a pace of warming that the report said is "very
likely" unprecedented over the past 10,000 years.
According to a recent IPCC report issued in 2000, portions of which are downloadable from the IPCC
web site at www.ipcc.ch, the rate of global warming projected for the coming century "is very likely to be
without precedent during at least the last 10,000 years."1
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Penner cautioned that over longer time scales in the future, the climate cooling due
to the indirect aerosol effect will be minimal when compared to the climate warming
of carbon dioxide. "We've shown that there's more work to be done to discover all of
the various ways we affect the climate."
The atmospheric concentrations of sulfur dioxide are, in most cases, projected to decrease
during the next 100 years. Sulfur-dioxide emissions, which tend to cool the atmosphere, are
projected to range from about 11 million to 93 million tons per year, in contrast with the 1990
emissions ceiling of about 70 million tons. In general, these projections are much lower than
those in 1992 because most countries likely will try to reduce sulfate acid deposition. These
lower projections enhance the magnitude of climate change by reducing the sulfate-aerosol
cooling effect.
This explanation contends that human-induced global warming is masked because of soot from
sulfur dioxide and other human-made aerosols, which cool the atmosphere. But this idea of a
widespread aerosol shading effect fails the test by the scientific method, because the Southern
Hemisphere—which shows no long-term warming trend at all—is relatively free of aerosols.
Besides the greenhouse gases, other chemicals play a role (albeit poorly defined) in regulating
global temperatures. Aerosols, a class of pollutants in the air, are liquid or solid particles small
enough to remain suspended in air. Some aerosol particles reflect light or cause clouds to
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brighten, exerting a cooling effect on the atmosphere. Other aerosol particles are darker, absorb
light, and can exert a warming effect.
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For the uninitiated, cement is made from cooking limestone, clay, sand and iron
oxide at very high temperatures in specially constructed kilns. An unwanted
byproduct of cement production is sulphur dioxide, the chief cause of acid rain.
Yes - but human suffering, poverty, hunger and disease will only increase as the
world's forests are stripped away. Trees and forests are a vital link in the chain of
life. Human life cannot exist on Earth without the other kinds of animals,
plants and bacteria - the interdependent biological diversity that sustains life. As
human activities reduce that biological diversity, we squander one of our greatest
natural resources. The forests produce foods, medicines, clothing, energy and
building materials. They clean our water and air. Their peaceful beauty restores
our spirits. But their role in human survival has not been appreciated. Half the
world's people still use wood to cook their meals. In industrial nations like the
United States, the forests are blasted and bulldozed to make way for
development, scraped bare by strip miners, clear cut to the ground by loggers,
killed by acid rain, drowned behind dams and paved over for highways and
cities.
On the downside, when released into the atmosphere, reactive forms of nitrogen
create smog and aerosols and contribute to global warming and stratospheric
ozone depletion. When they fall back to the earth's surface, they contribute to acid rain, which corrodes
buildings, harms plants and forests, and acidifies lakes and streams.
The result is the formation of harmful chemicals, including tropospheric ozone, which is
hazardous to the health of humans and other living things. Tropospheric ozone is not to be
confused with stratospheric ozone, the abundance of which is essential to our survival, since
it protects us from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays. In fact, the depletion of the latter is another
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environmental concern. Basically, we're doing away with the good ozone (but that's another
story), and adding, in great quantities, to the bad ozone. Especially in California.
(http://www.carleton.ca/~msmith2/45315/gcc_04.html)
Like greenhouse gases, aerosols influence the climate. (Remember, this influence is
called "radiative forcing".) Atmospheric aerosols influence the transfer of energy in
the atmosphere in two ways: directly through the reflection and absorption of solar
radiation (in both the troposphere and stratosphere); and indirectly through
modifying the optical properties and lifetimes of clouds. Estimation of aerosol
radiative forcing is more complex and hence more uncertain than radiative forcing
due to the well-mixed greenhouse gases for several reasons. First, both the direct
and indirect radiative effect of aerosol particles are strongly dependent on the
particle size and chemical composition and cannot be related to mass source
strengths in a simple manner. Second, the indirect radiative effects of aerosols
depend on complex processes involving aerosol particles and the seeding and
growth of cloud droplets. Third, most aerosols have short lifetimes (days to weeks)
and therefore their geographical distribution is highly variable and strongly related
to their sources.
The time history of the Hadley Centre model, published in the Journal of Climate in 1995,
produces a warming of approximately 1.8°C (2.9°F) to date without sulfates. What sulfates
largely do is delay warming, which delays our crossing the 1.8°C threshold until somewhere
around 2060. Note that, even with sulfates, the warming trend remains linear rather than
exponential.
One of the best ways to adjudicate a scientific disagreement is to go out and measure
whatever is in dispute. That is precisely what the University of Washington's Peter Hobbs did
when he measured the properties of sulfate-containing aerosols. Hobbs found that sulfate
aerosols exist in an environment that also contains black soot, which warms things, and that
the net effect is very close to neutral.
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Skeptics also claim that natural variations in solar radiation are responsible for
changes in global temperature. But studies based on sophisticated analysis of
several centuries of temperature data show that the changes in solar energy
could account for no more than a tenth of the global warming observed over
the past century.13 Furthermore, climate models indicate that astronomical
factors, such as changes in the Earth's orbit or the Earth's tilt, are likely to be
responsible for a gradual cooling of the Earth, starting 6,000 years ago. The
warming of the past 100 years, therefore, is especially unnatural in that it
interrupted, and then very dramatically reversed, a prolonged natural cooling
cycle.
In a sign of the complexity of the global warming debate, agreement that the earth
is hotter merely shifted discussion to a new question. Is human activity responsible?
Mounting evidence says yes. The UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) concluded with 60-90 percent confidence early this year that the
observed warming "has been due to the increase in greenhouse gas
concentrations." A White House-commissioned study by the National Academy of
Sciences essentially confirmed this conclusion. But skeptics insist that the observed
warming falls within the earth's natural climatic variation and probably stems from
solar, not human, activity. While scientists agree that the sun can influence climate,
conclusive evidence that it is causing the earth's warming trend is missing.
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In a 1999 paper Thejil and Lassen updated the earlier 1991 study on the connection
between sunspot cycles and global temperatures.19 The more recent data show
that the fit for the years since 1991 is not nearly as good, with actual global
temperatures during the last decade being significantly higher than what would
be predicted based on the sunspot cycle length. Thejil and Lassen's interesting
conclusion is that the higher than expected temperatures observed in the 1990s are
a possible indication of human-caused activity, i.e., the effect of greenhouse
warming.
There are three serious flaws in the skeptic's argument that the cause of global
warming is due to variations in sunspot cycles. The first flaw is that the degree of
match between the two time trends is actually less impressive than it looks in figure
6.7. Bear in mind that the right vertical scale (for temperature) and the left vertical
scale (for length of cycle) are separately chosen to make the two time trends have
the best agreement. The proper choice in the two scales virtually guarantees that
the two time trends can be made to agree somewhere near the beginning and end
of the time interval plotted. A second flaw is that there are other sunspot variables,
such as the maximum height of each cycle, the width of each peak, or the total
number of sunspots per cycle, that might have been used. Any of these variables
might have shown a correlation, but were apparently not used because the cycle
length evidently showed a better fit to the temperature data.
Third, because the cycles are irregular, the definition of the sunspot cycle length
(i.e., the period or length) is not unique and involves various possible types of
averages over successive cycles. The method of averaging that gives the best fit
shown in figure 6.7, for example, involves defining the length of any given cycle as
the weighted average of five cycles centered on the cycle of interest. In other
words, the cycle length plotted for the year 1990 depends in part on the cycle
length two cycles (22 years!) on either side of it. Without such a dubious averaging
— in effect a smoothing over five consecutive cycles—the length of each cycle
would be much too irregular to give any kind of decent fit to the temperature
data.18 Given all the choices to be made in a particular sunspot cycle variable and
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its exact definition, it is not surprising that one of the choices should show a good
correlation with global temperature, when plotted in just the right way. (Recall the
pitfall of making "informed choices" discussed in chapters 2 and 5.)
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In its ensuing assessment reports, the IPCC also predicted that carbon diox-ide levels could
double by the year 2100, causing temperatures to increase from 2 to 10.4 degrees F. Such a temperature
change would likely bring a greater incidence of floods, droughts, heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, and other forms of extreme weather—which
The weather of the
in turn could cause an increase in storm-related deaths, infectious diseases, and economic crises, analysts warned.
1990s—the hottest decade on record— seemed to bear these warnings out. As environmental
journalist Ross Gelbspan points out, the year 1998 "began with a January ice storm that left four
million people without power in Quebec and northern New England. For the first time,
rainforests in Brazil and Mexico actually caught fire. The summer brought killer heat waves in
the Middle East, India and Texas, where residents suffered through a record 29 consecutive
triple-digit days." The following year was even worse, contends Gelbspan: "1999 saw a record-setting drought in
the Mid-Atlantic states. ... A heat wave in the Midwest and northeastern U.S. claimed 271 lives. Hurricane Floyd visited more than $1
billion in damages on North Carolina. A super-cyclone in eastern India killed 10,000 people. That winter, mudslides and rains in Venezuela
claimed 15,000 lives. Unprecedented December windstorms swept northern Europe, causing more than $4 billion in damages."
The 1990s were the warmest decade of the millennium, with 1998 the warmest year so far,
researchers said Wednesday. The study adds to a growing body of evidence that the global
climate has been getting steadily warmer, especially the last half of the 20th century.
"Temperatures in the latter half of the 20th century were unprecedented," Raymond Bradley of
the University of Massachusetts said in a statement.
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What of the skeptic's claim that much of the recent surface warming is due to the
urban heat island effect? The record of nearly equal temperature rises in the two
hemispheres of the planet provides strong evidence against this claim. Since
1979, the rise in global surface temperatures appears in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres: +0.17 and
+0.13°C per decade, respectively. The Southern Hemisphere is 90 percent ocean and significantly less populated
Since the temperature rises
than the Northern Hemisphere, so it should show much less heat island bias.
are fairly similar in the two hemispheres, we can infer that the heat island effect is
not very significant.
The first two objections are simply false. Urban temperature data have been
carefully corrected for urban heat island effects, and ample temperature
measurements have been taken at sea. A distinct upward temperature trend is
evident in all this data.14
Data corrected for the urban heat island effect still shows
warming:
Robert Ehrlich, 2003 (Eight preposterous propositions: from the genetics of
homosexuality to the benefits of global warming; pg.148)
Currently, the Earth is between ice ages, which occur at roughly 100,000-year intervals. During the last ice age
polar temperatures were around 10 degrees Celsius colder than now, and the planet is probably now warmer than
any time during the last 1000 years. The warming that has occurred since the last ice age was, of course, not
human-induced, but rather the result of natural variations. If our interest is mainly in the human influence on
climate, we need to examine shorter time spans corresponding to the period of rapid rise in usage of fossil fuels,
The graph in figure 6.2 shows changes in
i.e., the last century, particularly the most recent decades.
the average global surface temperature since 1860. The data were obtained by averaging many
daily temperature readings taken on land and sea around the globe. The zero level of temperature changes is an
arbitrary reference level chosen as the average temperature between 1961 and 1990.Based on this graph
we can infer that global temperatures have risen about 0.6 ± 0.2°C during the last
century, with the rise being most dramatic in two time periods, 1910-1945 and 1976 to the present. (Throughout
this chapter we'll cite temperature changes in degrees Celsius only. The corresponding changes in degrees 147
Fahrenheit are 1.8 times as large. Uncertainty estimates cited for temperature rises such as the above ±0.2°C will
be given at the 95 percent confidence level.) An enormous number of individual measurements went into
Daily temperature readings made at thousands of
generating the data plotted in figure 6.2.
weather stations spread throughout the globe, on both land and sea, were
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averaged, taking into account the greater concentration of stations in some areas
than others. Corrections also were applied to these data to reflect different
techniques for making the measurements over the years, particularly at sea. Finally,
as explained below, an attempt was made to correct the data for the "urban heat
island effect," which can give rise to a spurious warming.
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Rather than focusing on whether the earth could warm, then, the debate in the
1990s focused largely on whether it has been warming. The answer is yes. Average
surface temperatures increased roughly one degree Fahrenheit during the 20th
century. This number sounds unimpressive, but small variations in global
temperature can translate into dramatic climate changes. During the last Ice
Age, when glaciers covered much of North America, average global surface
temperatures were only seven degrees lower than today.
How much and how fast temperatures rise matters. Small, slow temperature
increases make it easier for humans to adapt. (Whether plants and animals could is
another matter.) Large, rapid temperature changes, however, could swamp
adaptation.
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Delay Bad
Only drastic and immediate action can save the earth from massive
levels of species extinction:
Associated Press, 6/24/2008
(http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080624/global_warming_080
624/20080624?hub=SciTech)
WASHINGTON -- Exactly 20 years after warning America about global warming, a top NASA scientist said
the situation has gotten so bad that the world's only hope is drastic action. James Hansen told Congress
on Monday that the world has long passed the "dangerous level" for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
and needs to get back to 1988 levels. He said Earth's atmosphere can only stay this loaded with man-made
carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse
and dramatic sea level rises. "We're toast if we don't get on a very different path," Hansen, director of the
Goddard Institute of Space Sciences who is sometimes called the godfather of global warming science, told The Associated Press. "This is
the last chance."
Must act now to prevent disastrous climate change which spirals out
of control:
James Hansen, 6/23/2008 (director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies,
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008149.html)
we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global
The difference is that now
warming time bomb. The next President and Congress must define a course next year in which the
United States exerts leadership commensurate with our responsibility for the present dangerous
situation. Otherwise it will become impractical to constrain atmospheric carbon dioxide, the
greenhouse gas produced in burning fossil fuels, to a level that prevents the climate system from
passing tipping points that lead to disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity’s
control.
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*****Warming Impacts*****
Even without warming, carbon dioxide acidifies the ocean and kills
coral reefs:
James Hansen, 6/23/2008 (director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies,
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008149.html)
Coral reefs, the rainforest of the ocean, are home for one-third of the species in the sea. Coral reefs are
under stress for several reasons, including warming of the ocean, but especially because of ocean
acidification, a direct effect of added carbon dioxide. Ocean life dependent on carbonate shells and
skeletons is threatened by dissolution as the ocean becomes more acid.
Clearly,
protected species. We are mostly interested in soft-bodied sessile invertebrates which rely on their chemistry, rather than stinging cells, spines, jaws or teeth for their survival."
conservation of coral, and oceans in general, is linked to human survival and will continue to
be an urgent issue in the 21st century.
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The last serious bleaching on the barrier reef was during the summer of 2001-02 when five per cent of
reefs were severely damaged. Scientists fear global warming will continue to cause bleaching on reefs
around the world.
This is not just a matter of intellectual curiosity. Scorching summers, fiercer storms, altered rainfall
patterns, and shifting species--the disappearance of sugar maples from New England, for example--are
some of the milder changes that global warming might bring. And humanity is on course to add another
200 to 600 parts per million to atmospheric carbon dioxide by late in the century. At that level, says
Princeton University ecologist Steve Pacala, "all kinds of terrible things could happen, and the universe of
terrible possibilities is so large that probably some of them will." Coral reefs could vanish; deserts could
spread; currents that ferry heat from the tropics to northern regions could change course, perhaps chilling
the British Isles and Scandinavia while the rest of the globe keeps warming.
* Coral reef bleaching, a probable effect of ocean warming and other causes, is now present in the
Caribbean, the Galapagos Islands, the Pacific Ocean off Mexico and Panama, the Florida Keys, and
across the seas from Samoa to Africa.
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"It does not matter where on Earth you live, everyone is utterly dependent on the existence of that lovely,
living saltwater soup. There's plenty of water in the universe without life, but nowhere is there life
without water. The living ocean drives planetary chemistry, governs climate and weather, and otherwise
provides the cornerstone of the life-support system for all creatures on our planet, from deep-sea starfish to desert
sagebrush. That's why the ocean matters. If the sea is sick, we'll feel it. If it dies, we die. Our future and the state of
the oceans are one."
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The Value of Biodiversity: The value of biodiversity is that it provides us with a more robust biosphere
more likely to sustain humanity long into the evolutionary future. Our long-term survival prospects
are intimately connected to the richness of biodiversity. The more we reduce it to a fragile skeleton the
greater the danger we will ourselves expire as a species through even a mild disruption to the earthly
environment. The better integrated our food plants remain with their natural sources of biodiversity the
more likely we will continue to have them to depend on in future evolutionary time scales. The more
diverse the more adaptable to unforeseen stress.
Although the UN and the Security Council cannot solve all African problems, the AIDS challenge is a
fundamental one in that it threatens to wipe out man. The challenge is not one of a single continent alone
because Africa cannot be quarantined. The trouble is that AIDS has no cure -- and thus even the West has
stakes in the AIDS challenge. Once sub-Saharan Africa is wiped out, it shall not be long before another
continent is on the brink of extinction. Sure as death, Africa's time has run out, signaling the beginning of
the end of the black race and maybe the human race.
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The first and most obvious way in which climate change will affect the economy is by the
predicted sea-level rises. These . . . can increase from a mere 20 centimetres to several metres, depending on the effect
of global warming on the Arctic and Antarctic ice-sheets. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
economic damages and losses arising from climatic destabilisation could cost the global
(OECD),
economy up to $970 billion—on the basis of the present models which . . . tend to be optimistic.
What if the global economy stagnates-or even shrinks? In the case, we will face a new period of
international conflict: South against North, rich against poor, Russia, China, India-these countries with
their billions of people and their nuclear weapons will pose a much greater danger to world order than
Germany and Japan did in the '30s.
More ominous tipping points loom. West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are vulnerable to
even small additional warming. These two-mile-thick behemoths respond slowly at first, but if
disintegration gets well underway it will become unstoppable. Debate among scientists is only
about how much sea level would rise by a given date. In my opinion, if emissions follow a
business-as-usual scenario, sea level rise of at least two meters is likely this century. Hundreds of
millions of people would become refugees. No stable shoreline would be reestablished in any
time frame that humanity can conceive.
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Animal and plant species are already stressed by climate change. Polar and alpine species will be pushed
off the planet, if warming continues. Other species attempt to migrate, but as some are extinguished their interdependencies can
cause ecosystem collapse. Mass extinctions, of more than half the species on the planet, have occurred several
times when the Earth warmed as much as expected if greenhouse gases continue to increase. Biodiversity
recovered, but it required hundreds of thousands of years.
For example, a recent study by a respected scientist predicts that global warming
will eliminate 15-37% of the species now on the planet, 17 and many studies predict
that global warming will displace scores of millions of impoverished residents of the
coastal areas of Bangladesh and Indonesia. 18
A QUARTER of known land animals and plants, more than a million species, will eventually die out because of
the global warming that will take place over the next 50 years, the most important study of its kind has concluded.
International scientists from eight countries have warned that, based even on the most conservative estimates, rising
temperatures will trigger a global mass extinction of unprecedented proportions. They said global warming will
set in train a far bigger threat to terrestrial species than previously realised, at least on a par with the already well-
documented destruction of natural habitats around the world. It is the first time such a powerful assessment has
been made and its conclusions will shock even those environmentalists accustomed to "worst- case" scenarios.
To put all this in perspective, Lynas ends his book with an epilogue recalling the mass extinctions at the
end of the Permian era 251 million years ago. It was the worst crisis to strike life on Earth, killing 95% of
the world's species. It was caused not by an asteroid strike like that which wiped out the dinosaurs, but by
global warming. Siberian volcanoes discharged enormous clouds of carbon dioxide in colossal eruptions, thus
warming the climate enough to trigger vast methane "burps" out of the oceans and releasing a runaway greenhouse
effect. What increase in temperature produced this catastrophic, near-total extinction of life? The oxygen
isotopes in the end-Permian rocks indicate it was 6C.
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The Value of Biodiversity: The value of biodiversity is that it provides us with a more robust biosphere
more likely to sustain humanity long into the evolutionary future. Our long-term survival prospects
are intimately connected to the richness of biodiversity. The more we reduce it to a fragile skeleton the
greater the danger we will ourselves expire as a species through even a mild disruption to the earthly
environment. The better integrated our food plants remain with their natural sources of biodiversity the
more likely we will continue to have them to depend on in future evolutionary time scales. The more
diverse the more adaptable to unforeseen stress.
Biodiversity provides not only food and income but also raw materials for clothing, shelter, medicines,
breeding new varieties, and performs other services such as maintenance of soil fertility and biota, and soil and
water conservation, all of which are essential to human survival. Nearly one third of the world's land area is
used for food production. The following dimensions of agricultural biodiversity can be identified: Plant genetic
resources for food and agriculture, including: pasture and rangeland species and forest genetic resources of trees that
are an integral part of farming systems; Animal genetic resources for food and agriculture, including fishery genetic
resources, in cases where fish production is part of the farming system, and insect genetic resources; Microbial and
fungal genetic resources. The importance of agrobiodiversity encompasses socio-cultural, economic and
environmental elements. All domesticated crops and animals result from human management of
biological diversity, which is constantly responding to new challenges to maintain and increase productivity.
Don’t know the invisible threshold of species—must try to save all we can:
Schlesinger, dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University,
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER May 21, 2003, Lexis
Species have more than aesthetic value to enhance our weekend walk in a local forest. We depend on a rich diversity of plants and animals for the
food, fuel and fiber in our daily lives. This newspaper was once a tree. Roughly one-third of the medicines now in use are derived from natural
sources. To understand the consequences of eliminating a species, we need only look at the lost civilization of Easter Island. Scientists theorize
that deforestation by its inhabitants brought down an entire culture. Drive any species to extinction and its role or function in
nature is gone forever. White-tailed deer overgraze our local forests, so that no young trees can survive. At one time, wolves fed on white-
tailed deer, keeping their numbers in check. With wolves now gone from the ecosystem, their role as predators of deer has been lost, and forests
are slowly dying because deer feed on saplings. When the Taliban destroyed the massive Buddhist statues in Afghanistan, many Americans were
With the disappearance of each native
outraged at the loss of such treasures. Yet the extinction of a living creature is even more serious.
species, we lose its role in nature. A simple analogy makes the point. Aeronautical engineers can calculate how many
rivets an aircraft wing can lose before the plane will crash. Ecologists, unfortunately, don't know exactly how many
species are essential for nature to function properly. Prudence says that we must try to save all we can.
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Myth Four: The warming observed is gradual and slight. The dire projections of climate change
There's no cause for alarm.
impacts are vastly exaggerated. Response: The scientific community projects a 1.8-6.3°F temperature increase
over the next century. Although this may seem like a small increase, it is enough to change the incidence
of extreme high and low tem-peratures (which affects plant and insect life cycles), alter the timing of
seasons, raise sea level, and modify precipitation patterns. Remember that average surface Ice Age
temperatures were only 9°F colder than at present. A few degrees can make a huge difference. A shift in
global average temperature of several degrees over a century is not gradual—indeed it is very fast. The change into and out of Ice Ages has
Because of the swiftness of contemporary warming, many ecosystems will
typically occurred far more slowly.16
be unable to adapt and will perish or be severely stressed. In addition, whereas global average temperature may change
1.8-6.3°F, regional changes may be larger. The higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere will warm very substantially more than the global
average. So, too, will the interior of continents.
Let me begin by emphasizing that all species depend on a suitable climate for their survival. When
climate changes, species will have to move to find their preferred climate. In our study, we used computer
models to estimate how far species would have to move and whether their ranges would get larger or
smaller as climate changes. In general, we found that most species will have smaller ranges in a warmer
climate and this makes them more vulnerable to extinction.
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Laurel, Md.: There are a lot more species at the equator than at the poles. If the climate gets warmer,
won't NEW species develop that find the new climate more hospitable? Lee Hannah, Ph.D.: Scientists
believe that it takes about a million years on average for one species to evolve. Given that sort of pace,
only a few species are expected to evolve naturally this century. Many species near the equator may be
adapted to survive in warm temperatures, so it's not like they'll be clearing out and leaving a lot of space
for new species to occupy. The big issue is that the rate of extinctions that are being projected due to
climate change is so much faster than the natural rate at which species evolve.
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John Briscoe, senior water adviser at the World Bank, recently warned of a global water shortage. "Unless people
learn to use water more efficiently, there won't be enough freshwater to sustain the Earth's population," he said. His
fears are shared by Klaus Toepfer, head of the United Nations Environment Progamme, who recently said, "My fear
is that we're headed for a period of water wars between nations."
In a statment Tuesday from UNEP headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, Toepfer said, "Over 20 per cent of the world's
population faces water shortages. Furthermore, the constant search for freshwater for cities is a potential source of
international conflict and water wars."
Water has long been more crucial to Middle Eastern politics than oil. Gen. Moshe Dyan, the architect of
Israel's victory in the 1967 war with Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, once told me that Israel mobilized for that
war in part because President Gamal Abdel Nasser wanted to close off Israel's access to the Red Sea, and
in larger part because Syria and Jordan wanted to sequester some of the River Jordan's flow away from
Israel. Since 1967, the Israelis, with their thirsty agriculture and industry, have exploited a greater share of
the West Bank's aquifers than the Palestinians, and the aquifers are proving inadequate for today's
demands, let alone tomorrow's. As a result, water has been a central element of peace negotiations for
decades.
The Middle East is not the only region where water is a source of conflict. According to Sandra Postel,
director of the Massachusetts-based Global Water Policy Project: "As demands for water hit the limits of
a finite supply, conflicts are spreading within nations. More than 50 countries on five continents might
soon be spiraling toward water disputes unless they move quickly to strike agreements on how to share
the rivers that flow across international boundaries." Included on the list of places where water is a
potential source of conflict are traditional rivals such as India and Pakistan, Brazil and Argentina, and
Turkey and Syria.
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Water scarcity exacerbates pre-existing tensions and invites new ones. Tensions over water permeate
every region of the world, ranging from clashes between urban and agricultural water users in the western
United States to outright warfare in the Middle East. Not all disputes over water resources [*317] lead to
violence; many are resolved through peaceful negotiations. But as populations grow and standards of
living rise, raising demand for clean freshwater with them, the intensity of competition over the world's
finite and increasingly degraded water resources is likely to escalate, raising the probability of violent
conflict. In the past, water has been used both as a target and a cause of war. It was used as a target during
the Persian Gulf War when Saddam Hussein ordered his troops to dismantle the desalination plants of Kuwait just as his opponents
targeted Baghdad's water and sanitation systems. Similarly, the United States bombed North Vietnamese irrigation systems in the late 1960s. 57
International water law and institutions exist for resolving tensions over shared water resources. But none
is yet adequate to resolve all current and future struggles over this critical resource.
Tensions over the control and use of water resources are mounting around the globe. France,
the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany continue to argue over pollution of the Rhine.
India and Pakistan struggle for [*318] access to the waters of the Parana, Sutlej, and Ravi
rivers. Chile and Bolivia vie for use of the Lauca. After heavy flooding killed more than 3,000
people in South Asia in the summer of 1993, 61 the government of Bangladesh renewed
demands that India and Nepal build dams to control the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers
upstream from Bangladesh. In arid Central Asia, shared waters could quickly become the
catalyst for conflicts between the newly independent nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. 62 It is in the Middle East, however, that
freshwater scarcity has been the most significant source of tension, with relations between
most of the countries in the Jordan River Basin marked by military conflict over its waters.
Rising tensions over water resources contributed to the hostility that led to the 1967 June
War, after Israelis blocked efforts by Jordan to construct a dam to divert the headwaters of
the Jordan into the Yarmouk River by initiating a series of military strikes on a construction
site. 63 In June and August of 1969, Israel attacked the East Ghor Canal to protest activities
of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. 64 In 1975, Syria and Iraq came close to war after
Syria drew down the level of the Euphrates River to fill a reservoir behind its Al Thawra Dam.
Iraq, claiming that millions of its farmers were adversely affected, threatened to bomb the
dam and gathered troops along the border in protest. 65
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Whatever dangers global warming may pose, they will be most pronounced in the
developing world. It is much easier for rich countries to adapt to any long-term shift in weather
than it is for poor countries, which tend to be much more dependent on agriculture. Poor
countries lack the resources to aid their flora and fauna in adapting, and many of their farmers
earn too little to survive a shift to new conditions.
The scientific evidence also indicates that climate change will, in many parts of the world,
adversely affect human health, ecological systems (particularly forests and coral reefs), and
important socioeconomic sectors, including agriculture, forestry, fisheries, water resources and
human settlements. Developing countries are the most vulnerable, primarily because a
larger share of their economies are in climate-sensitive sectors, and they do not have the
institutional and financial infrastructures to adapt to climate change.
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So where in nature can we look for salvation? Until recently climate scientists hoped it would come from farther
south. In temperate and tropical vegetation, they thought, a negative feedback effect called carbon fertilization might
rein in the carbon dioxide rise. Plants need carbon dioxide to grow, and scientists have found that in
laboratory chambers well-nourished plants bathed in high-carbon dioxide air show a surge of growth. So
out in the real world, it seemed, plants would grow faster and faster as carbon dioxide built up in the
atmosphere, stashing more carbon in their stems, trunks, and roots and helping to slow the atmospheric buildup.
Such a growth boost could, for example, turn mature tropical forests--which normally don't soak up any more
carbon than they give off--into carbon dioxide sponges. Alas, it appears not to work. At Duke University's
forest in North Carolina, William Schlesinger and his colleagues have been giving hundred-foot-wide
plots of pines a sniff of the future. Over each plot a ring of towers emits carbon dioxide at just the right rate to
keep the concentration in the trees at 565 parts per million, the level the real atmosphere might reach by mid-
century. When the experiment started seven years ago, the trees showed an initial pulse of growth. "These
trees woke up to high carbon dioxide and were able to make good with it for a couple of years," says
Schlesinger. But then the growth spurt petered out, and the trees' growth has slipped most of the way
back to normal. That's not to say that high carbon dioxide didn't have some long-term effects. Poison ivy,
for some reason, "is one of the winners," says Schlesinger, with a sustained growth rate 70 percent faster
than normal. And allergy sufferers will not be pleased to learn that the carbon dioxide-fertilized pines
produced extravagant amounts of pollen.
Malnutrition risks, and the diseases that accompany malnutrition, would rise as agricultural practices
adapt to new patterns of temperature, rainfall and soil-moisture conditions. Improved farm production
in some regions, including northern Europe, might balance losses elsewhere. "But the risk of reduced
food yields is greatest in developing countries—where 790 million people are estimated to be
undernourished at present," the IPCC report says.
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The climate changes envisaged in the next century are mostly attributed to the increasing concentration of
CO2 and other "greenhouse gases". Since CO2 is an essential reactant in photosynthesis to produce
organic matter, it was postulated that farmers could look forward to better harvests (Wittwer, 1986). Often
these postulates were based on short-term experiments in controlled environments or glasshouses with
adequate supplies of water and plant protection measures. Rosenberg (1987) made an analysis of gas
exchange and concluded that climate change, at least as far as CO2 concentration effects are concerned,
may prove advantageous. However, Gifford (1987) made a more cautious assessment of CO2 effects by
including temperature change as an additional component. The following observations are relevant for
assessing the effects of climate change, including CO2 concentration, on crop yields: The highest yields
in C3 crops are obtained around a mean daily temperature of 15deg.C and in C4 crops around 30deg.C.
The temperature optima for vegetative growth and the reproductive phases are often different. An
increase of temperature beyond a mean of 22deg.C causes sterility in rice resulting in reduced grain
yield, though it has no effect on photosynthesis (Figure 1). In wheat, an increase in mean temperature
above 16deg.C results in a decrease in grain weight and a poor yield (Figure 2). A higher temperature
significantly reduces tillering, which is essential to building shoot population. The crops having a high
growth rate in the preflowering phase usually deplete soil moisture, which is necessary to normally
complete the grain development phase. Consequently, high initial growth, in the absence of irrigation,
results in a poor grain yield despite high dry matter accumulation. Gifford (1987) estimated the rise in
temperature that would cancel out the advantageous effects of CO2 fertilization (Table 8). At locations
ranging from 50deg.N in Canada to 37deg.S in Australia a rise of 1.5deg. to 2.4deg.C is required to cancel
the advantageous effects of CO2 on grain yield, presumably under irrigated conditions. In the absence of
irrigation, crop yields may in fact be reduced.
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Myth Six: Global warming is a blessing in disguise. In fact, it is good for us.
Response: This is the ultimate contrarian argument. It goes like this. Plants will benefit from increased
carbon dioxide levels—after all, carbon dioxide is a nutrient—and with fewer frosts and a longer growing
season, agriculture as a whole will benefit. Fish will grow faster and bigger in a warmer world. And people will
benefit as there will be fewer cold winters and fewer deaths from hypothermia. Transportation and
communication costs will fall.17 These are very simplistic arguments that do not stand up to scrutiny.
Climate change will have some positive impacts for some people. In northern latitudes, growing seasons will
lengthen, new areas will be suitable for cropping, home heating bills may fall, and people may have to spend less
for snow removal. The ice-free shipping season will lengthen in the Arctic and on waterways such as the Great
Lakes and the Saint Lawrence seaway. On balance, however, these modest benefits do not begin to
compensate for the far more devastating socioeconomic and environmental impacts that climate
change will have. Soil instability from melting permafrost in the north will counterbalance some of the
northern-latitude benefits just mentioned. As for agriculture, hoped-for increases in crop yields in
northern latitudes will be tempered by the unknown impacts of warmer temperatures on pests,
pathogens, and weeds, and by agricultural losses elsewhere.
Burning fossil fuels is also the major cause of acid rain, urban smog, soot particles (which cause
respiratory illnesses) and other environmental problems. The US, according to the Sierra Club, is the
world's worst global warming polluter, accounting for 23 percent of emissions worldwide, while
comprising only 4 percent of the world's population.
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Both natural vegetation and crops are affected by acid rain. The roots are damaged by acidic
rainfall, causing the growth of the plant to be stunted, or even in its death. Nutrients present
in the soil, are destroyed by the acidity. Useful micro organisms which release nutrients from
decaying organic matter, into the soil are killed off, resulting in less nutrients being available
for the plants. The acid rain, falling on the plants damages the waxy layer on the leaves and
makes the plant vulnerable to diseases. The cumulative effect means that even if the plant
survives it will be very weak and unable to survive climatic conditions like strong winds,
heavy rainfall, or a short dry period. Plant germination and reproduction is also inhibited by
the effects of acid rain.
• Air pollution in urban areas would likely rise as air temperatures warm—particularly the
concentration of ground-level ozone, which is damaging to respiratory health and is a main
component of urban smog. At the same time, if current scientific understanding is correct,
warming of the atmosphere at low levels would actually cool the stratosphere, accelerating the
destruction of the stratospheric ozone that protects the planet from damaging ultraviolet
radiation. Shifts in local weather also could alter regional pollution patterns and the spread of
airborne allergens such as pollens and mould spores.
The chemicals are a prime source of ozone depletion which damage ecosystems, triggering the potential
collapse of the marine food chain as well as destroying crops and forests. Loss of the ozone layer also
increases exposure to harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun which can cause skin cancers and eye
cataracts. The dumping has taken place regardless of dangers from leaking CFCs and oil.