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warming (11)

Polar Bears are Protected. But are they Safe?

Posted by Marcia Divack on May 11, 2009 at 4:39pm
Polar bears have become the universal symbol of global warming, not so much because they're cute or cuddly (they're actually ferocious and not opposed to cannibalism), but because it is eminently clear that climate change is killing them. Polar bears depend on solid sea ice for survival; it's where they do their hunting. But when the ice begins to melt — as it has in recent years, thanks largely to warming — the bears can starve and die.A 2007 study by the U.S. Geological Survey found that two-thirds of the polar bears on the planet could disappear by mid-century if Arctic ice keeps melting. So when the Bush Administration bowed to pressure from environmental groups last year and finally listed the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) — admitting that melting sea ice was the reason — it was considered a rare green coup. Since the ESA mandates the government protect endangered species from hazards, listing the polar bear as threatened by global warming would appear to require Washington to control carbon emissions. Some green groups even thought the ESA could be used to fight new coal plants and other big emitters of greenhouse gases, on the grounds that they would accelerate warming and harm the polar bear. (See Germany's latest polar bear celebrity.)But there was a catch. While declaring the polar bear threatened by global warming, the Bush Interior Department added a rule that limited the use of the ESA to curb greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, even though science says that global warming is directly hurting polar bears and man-made carbon emissions are the chief cause of global warming, Washington wouldn't be allowed to use the ESA to do anything about it.President Barack Obama had promised to review those last-minute Bush Administration changes to the ESA. And green groups were hopeful that the new Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, would restore full protections for the polar bear. But they came away disappointed on May 8, when Salazar announced that he would keep the Bush rule in place, claiming that the ESA wasn't meant to be used to cap carbon emissions. "When the ESA was passed, it was not contemplated it would be a tool to address the issue of climate change," he said. "It seems to me that using the Endangered Species Act as a way to get to that global warming framework is not the right way to go." (See pictures of the effects of global warming.)Though he coupled his announcement with a call for comprehensive climate legislation, Salazar essentially made the same argument that his predecessors had: that the ESA was meant to deal with local threats to species, not global ones. It would be impossible, for example, to directly link the increase in carbon emissions caused by a new coal plant to the polar bears' melting habitat. But environmental groups, several of which had fought in the courts for years to force the Bush Administration to list the polar bear, found Salazar's logic faulty. "From a scientific standpoint they're wrong," says John Kostyack, senior counsel at the National Wildlife Federation. "By doing this, the Obama Administration is missing a chance to tell the American people what global warming is doing their wildlife."Environmental groups were already less than enthusiastic about Salazar heading the Interior Department. A Democratic senator from Colorado, Salazar was a rancher more attuned to the idea of using nature rather than protecting it, and he angered greens early by removing the Western gray wolf from the endangered species list. As the head of Interior, he'll be making decisions on whether to open up new land to oil and gas development, and the polar bear ruling has some environmentalists worried. "This does raise a red flag," says Noah Greenwald, program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, which is fighting the polar bear ruling in court. "You worry this means he is not going to be a friend of the environment and the Endangered Species Act."It's a little early to judge Salazar's tenure at the Interior Department, and the Secretary may have a point — the ESA wasn't designed to counter a threat as global as global warming. The best way to deal with carbon emissions is to pass national legislation that would create a cap-and-trade program, rather than trying to stretch the ESA to fit a purpose its drafters couldn't have foreseen. But the ongoing battle over the polar bear is a reminder that wildlife will be the first victims of global warming — and that saving them won't be easy.
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Climate Change Will Be Irreversible

Posted by Marcia Divack on March 17, 2009 at 7:40pm
The world is facing an increasing risk of "irreversible" climate shifts because worst-case scenarios warned of two years ago are being realized, an international panel of scientists has warned.Drought, flooding, storms and mass extinction in the future will have a heavy social cost as well.Temperatures, sea levels, acid levels in oceans and ice sheets were already moving "beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived," scientists said in a report released Thursday.The findings came at the end of a three-day conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, where nearly 2,000 researchers gathered to discuss climate change.The group called on policy-makers to use all tools available to reduce dangerous emissions of greenhouse gases.The current climate situation on the planet may be as severe as the worst-case scenarios predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which issued warnings in 2007 of a future beset by flooding, drought, storms and mass extinction of species.In its report, the researchers also warned of potential social costs across the planet because of climate change.Temperature rises above 2 degrees Celsius would lead to climate disruption for the rest of the century and disproportionately affect poor nations, the researchers warned."Recent observations show that societies are highly vulnerable to even modest levels of climate change, with poor nations and communities particularly at risk," the report said.The conclusions of the conference will be presented to politicians when they meet in Copenhagen in December. It is then that leaders will discuss a new global agreement on greenhouse gas emission levels to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
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Earth Hour a Success

Posted by Marcia Divack on March 30, 2009 at 4:55pm
For environmental activists, the message was clear: Earth Hour was a huge success.Now they say nations have a mandate to tackle climate change."The world said yes to climate action, now governments must follow," the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said Sunday, a day after hundreds of millions of people worldwide followed its call to turn off lights for a full hour.From an Antarctic research base and the Great Pyramids of Egypt, from the Colosseum in Rome to the Empire State building in New York, illuminated patches of the globe went dark Saturday night to highlight the threat of climate change. Time zone by time zone, nearly 4,000 cities and towns in 88 countries dimmed nonessential lights from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.WWF called the event, which began in Australia in 2007 and grew last year to 400 cities worldwide, "the world's first-ever global vote about the future of our planet."The United Nations' top climate official, Yvo de Boer, called the event a clear sign that the world wants negotiators seeking a climate change agreement to set an ambitious course to fight global warming.Talks in Bonn this week are the latest round in an effort to craft a deal to control emissions of the heat-trapping gases responsible for global warming. They are due to culminate in Copenhagen this December."Earth Hour was probably the largest public demonstration on climate change ever," de Boer told delegates from 175 nations. "Its aim was to tell every government representative to seal a deal in Copenhagen. The world's concerned citizens have given the negotiations an additional and very clear mandate."Earth Hour officially began when the Chatham Islands, 500 miles (800 kilometers) east of New Zealand, switched off its diesel generators. It moved on through Asia, Europe and then crossed the Atlantic to North and South America."Earth Hour has always been a positive campaign," said Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley. "It's always around street parties, not street protests, it's the idea of hope, not despair. And I think that's something that's been incredibly important this year because there is so much despair around."
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Lights Out for Earth

Posted by Marcia Divack on March 24, 2009 at 2:30pm
Please join the City of Atlanta and 200 other cities around the world in this year's "Lights Out" event on March 28, 2009. The event is intended to send a message to world leaders about the need to reduce emissions and curb global warming. If you live on the U.S. eastern seaboard, please turn off your lights and all other electronics from 8:30 to 9:30 PM EST. This year's event is predicted to be the largest planned power outage in history. Atlanta will go dark from it's power stations, but if your city is not cutting power, please support this event and turn off your lights and electronics on your own.The event will begin at 8 p.m. local time in Christchurch, New Zealand, and flow through 14 time zones, concluding in San Francisco, where the lights on the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges will turn off along with all other non-essential lighting.Skylines will go dark in Suva, Fiji, and Calgary as well as Atlanta. Major league sports arenas will dim their lights in Phoenix. And in New York City, it will be lights out for Coca-Cola's Times Square billboard for the first time in its history.To check out the countdown visit: http://www.worldwildlife.org/
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Markham Ice Shelf Breaks Away

Posted by Marcia Divack on September 4, 2008 at 2:30pm
TORONTO, Ontario (AP) -- A chunk of ice shelf nearly the size of Manhattan has broken away from Ellesmere Island in Canada's northern Arctic, another dramatic indication of how warmer temperatures are changing the polar frontier, scientists said Wednesday.Large pieces of ice are seen drifting off the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf in this July file photo.Derek Mueller, an Arctic ice shelf specialist at Trent University in Ontario, told The Associated Press that the 4,500-year-old Markham Ice Shelf separated in early August and the 19-square-mile shelf is now adrift in the Arctic Ocean."The Markham Ice Shelf was a big surprise because it suddenly disappeared. We went under cloud for a bit during our research and when the weather cleared up, all of a sudden there was no more ice shelf. It was a shocking event that underscores the rapidity of changes taking place in the Arctic," said Muller.Muller also said that two large sections of ice detached from the Serson Ice Shelf, shrinking that ice feature by 47 square miles -- or 60 percent -- and that the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf has also continued to break up, losing an additional eight square miles.Muller reported last month that seven square miles of the 170-square-mile and 130-feet-thick Ward Hunt shelf had broken off.This comes on the heels of unusual cracks in a northern Greenland glacier, rapid melting of a southern Greenland glacier, and a near record loss for Arctic sea ice this summer. And earlier this year a 160-square mile chunk of an Antarctic ice shelf disintegrated."Reduced sea ice conditions and unusually high air temperatures have facilitated the ice shelf losses this summer," said Luke Copland, director of the Laboratory for Cryospheric Research at the University of Ottawa. "And extensive new cracks across remaining parts of the largest remaining ice shelf, the Ward Hunt, mean that it will continue to disintegrate in the coming years."Ellesmere Island was once entirely ringed by a single enormous ice shelf that broke up in the early 1900s. All that is left today are the four much smaller shelves that together cover little more than 299 square miles.Martin Jeffries of the U.S. National Science Foundation and University of Alaska Fairbanks said in a statement Tuesday that the summer's ice shelf loss is equivalent to over three times the area of Manhattan, totaling 82 square miles -- losses that have reduced Arctic Ocean ice cover to its second-biggest retreat since satellite measurements began 30 years ago."These changes are irreversible under the present climate and indicate that the environmental conditions that have kept these ice shelves in balance for thousands of years are no longer present," said Muller.During the last century, when ice shelves would break off, thick sea ice would eventually reform in their place."But today, warmer temperatures and a changing climate means there's no hope for regrowth. A scary scenario," said Muller.The loss of these ice shelves means that rare ecosystems that depend on them are on the brink of extinction, said Warwick Vincent, director of Laval University's Centre for Northern Studies and a researcher in the program ArcticNet."The Markham Ice Shelf had half the biomass for the entire Canadian Arctic Ice Shelf ecosystem as a habitat for cold, tolerant microbial life; algae that sit on top of the ice shelf and photosynthesis like plants would. Now that it's disappeared, we're looking at ecosystems on the verge of distinction,' said Muller.Along with decimating ecosystems, drifting ice shelves and warmer temperatures that will cause further melting ice pose a hazard to populated shipping routes in the Arctic region -- a phenomenon that Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems to welcome.Harper announced last week that he plans to expand exploration of the region's known oil and mineral deposits, a possibility that has become more evident as a result of melting sea ice. It is the burning of oil and other fossil fuels that scientists say is the chief cause of manmade warming and melting ice.Harper also said Canada would toughen reporting requirements for ships entering its waters in the Far North, where some of those territorial claims are disputed by the United States and other countries.Ok, so since the ice is melting anyway, we might as well drill for oil? Such ignorance!
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Six Degrees..

Posted by Carol on July 23, 2008 at 12:31pm
So maybe I'm supposed to be sucked into this Carbon Footprint thing. I keep being drawn to this information! Last night I watched Six Degrees Could Change the World on the National Geographic Channel. Six DegreesJesus - we only have ten years. I know..... they've been telling us about it forever (Thom and co.). Good thing I'm biking to the post office now!I definitely think that the world will change because we have to. I do think that those of us in the West need to overcompensate for the developing countries (like China) who are too busy growing to care. And also that the US has a lot of changing to do and a great responsibility to be a leader in this effort.As long as idiots like Rush Limbaugh and all the other right-wing talk-show hosts keep talking out their asses and the pick-up-truck-driving-rebel-flag-flying-hicks keep buying it.. we need guys like Pickens to get the concept across the TV -- which is the only thing they listen to.Sorry, can you tell I've seen a few of those? -- After my daughter's prom "grand march" this year... several of the students got into their pick-up trucks in a parade of sorts.. flying their HUGE rebel flags.. as they left the school to go to prom. Though it's their right to do what they wish, and I would not impose a restriction on that right.. it does reflect the mentality of those who live around here and it's sad that they've taught their children to glorify a tradition that is not even theirs (um.. we're in Rural New York not Texas or Georgia..) for the sake of expressing their hatred of diversity -- or their ignorance at what traditions they are glorifying. To me it says: "Look at me, I'm an ignorant hick!"Sorry off on a tangent there... Hopefully American's will look past the fear mongering going on with the coming election and we can move to a new future with a democratic white house.
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