Students Tackle Global Warming Through Game

Four groups of students finished the college’s National Symposium on Global Warming with the Climate Change Game, working as corporations, governments and individuals to affect climate change and reduce carbon emission from their respective organizations.

"It puts people in charge of the global climate,” said Medard Gabel, a consultant with Big Picture, Small World, which designed the climate game and helps educate students and corporate offices on the subject matter. “It’s about changes we need to make as a society to deal with the climate change. There are things we can do as governments, corporations, organizations and as individuals.”

Each group was given a set of strategies released by international scientists on what people could do to help alleviate the problem in their respective areas, such as raising fuel efficiency standards. From all 17 corporations, governments and organizations listed, the groups chose to represent, the Chinese government, U.S. government, Chinese individuals and Wal-Mart.

With students within the groups working against each other as “change-makers” and “keepers of the status quo,” the game wasn’t entirely easy, especially when the goal was a 200 billion ton reduction of carbon. Students also tried to outdo each other, funding certain programs and making deals or merely bribing two students representing the media outlets for preferential treatment.

Rise In CO2 Emissions Predicted

Definitive figures for the UK's 2006 carbon dioxide emissions published on Thursday are expected to show further rises in the climate change gas, CO2. Provisional statistics for 2006, published last March, showed UK emissions were around 1.2% higher than 2005.

And despite the Government's commitment to taking action on global warming - shown most recently in the Climate Change Bill - figures look set to show a 2.7% increase since Labour came to power in 1997. While the UK is set to meet and exceed its Kyoto target of 12.5% cuts on 1990 levels by the period 2008 to 2012, it has become clear the Government will not meet its 20% cuts by 2010 manifesto target.

College to host 2-day global warming teach-in

North Shore Community College already has started making its campus environmentally friendly, but with the two-day National Global Warming Teach-in starting Thursday, the college hopes to shift the focus to the entire community. US Senator John Kerry will be among legislators who will participate in a 'Dialogue with Decision Makers' on Friday.

The school's Lynn campus on Thursday and Friday will join other colleges and universities across the nation in hosting the event as part of Focus the Nation, an effort to educate citizens about the effects of global warming and climate change. The event will host local lawmakers, environmental specialists, and members of local environmental councils, and will feature speeches, demonstrations, and displays.

Taming Climate Change Threat

Britain's National parks - enjoyed by 100 million visitors a year - must undergo a conservation revolution if they are to meet the challenges of climate change and the introduction of new farming practices.

This is the stark warning of leading environmentalist Adrian Phillips, who has warned the National Parks Societies that our most precious landscapes will have to adapt in the near future. Phillips wants planners to encourage small renewable energy projects, such as wind turbines, hydroelectric schemes and solar water heaters. He warned that new planning laws will have to be introduced to make new buildings carbon-neutral and the parks entirely so.

Poor Nations Must Help Stop Climate Change

Both rich and poor nations must commit to slashing greenhouse gas emissions if the world wants to solve global warming, Australia's trade minister said Saturday at a landmark climate change summit.

As the first week of the conference trying to lay the groundwork for a new climate change pact drew to a close, delegates in Indonesia's Bali appeared divided on the way forward to curb carbon dioxide emissions.

Japan and Canada are reported to be pushing for booming developing nations such as India and China -- set to become the world's major polluters -- to commit to binding cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, which contribute to global warming. |Read on|

Why Do We Need A New Pact On Climate Change?

With the Kyoto protocol due to expire in 2012, a new international climate change deal must be put in place in time to ensure that necessary action is undertaken immediately.

The UN says that this year's scientific report from the its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has "made clear beyond doubt that climate change is a reality", which poses a serious threat to the future development of the world's economies, societies and ecosystems.

According to the IPCC, if no action is taken on greenhouse gases, the earth's temperature could rise by 4.5C or more.

The effects of climate change are being felt already, the panel says. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the global average and adverse effects on human activities are documented. Impacts of warming have also been observed in other regions and sectors, in particular on ecosystems.

As glaciers retreat, water supplies are being put at risk. And for populations living in dry lands, especially those in Africa, changing weather patterns threaten to exacerbate desertification, drought and food insecurity. Other regions are expected to suffer from floods, sea level rise and extreme weather events.

"We cannot go on this way for long," the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has said. "We cannot continue with business as usual. The time has come for decisive action on a global scale."

Climate Change Conference To Begin

The UN climate change conference begins in Bali on Monday with officials and ministers from around the world set to start negotiations on a new international climate change deal.

Thousands of delegates are gathering on the Indonesian island with the hope a "roadmap" can be laid out for talks on a new agreement, which will come into force when the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

The conference comes amid increasingly strong warnings from scientists and environmentalists that "catastrophic" climate change would result from inaction and concerns from aid agencies that the world's poor will be hardest and first hit.

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn, who will be participating in the talks, said climate change was the "greatest challenge the world faces".

Climate Change Threatens Indonesia's Coral Reefs

Jakarta is a country with some of the world's richest coral reefs. But scientists fear many of Indonesia's psychedelic reefs, already significantly damaged by blast fishing and pollution, now face an even graver threat: global warming.

Over the years, rising sea temperatures have led to severe coral bleaching in some of the most spectacular reefs off the palm-fringed islands of Sulawesi and Bali that are home to exotic fish like the brightly colored clown fish and scorpion fish.

And environmentalists say if quick steps are not taken to stop the destruction, many reefs across the sprawling archipelago of about 17,000 islands could disappear in the next few decades.

The state of coral around the world will be part of the discussions at next month's UN climate talks on the Indonesian resort island Bali where about 190 countries will gather to try to hammer out a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, a global pact aimed at fighting global warming.

China Says Other Nations Should Do More About Climate Change

Rich countries responsible for most of the world's greenhouse gas emissions should take the lead on climate change, a commentary in China's state media said on Tuesday, a week before the opening of global talks on the issue.

China is set to surpass the United States as the world's top emitter of carbon dioxide, the main gas that traps heat in the atmosphere, but has resisted pressure to agree to caps or specific targets on its emissions.

The commentary said that from the Industrial Revolution until the 1950s, the developed world was responsible for 95 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions and accounted 77 percent of the world's total from 1950 to 2000.

UN Climate Panel Reports Risk of Global Warming

The UN climate panel issued a landmark report on Saturday warning of severe consequences of global warming and urging governments to act to rein in greenhouse gas emissions.

The 26-page report, released in the Spanish city of Valencia by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Climate Change, said of the climate system is "unequivocal" and governments must take action to avoid warming catastrophic consequences.

Climate change is "evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level," the report noted.

The report, which will be the first point of reference for political negotiators meeting next month for talks aimed at finding out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, attributed global warming mainly to greenhouse gas concentrations caused by human activities.

Signed in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol requires 36 industrial countries to significantly reduce their carbon emissions. It expires in 2012.

"Global total annual greenhouse gas emissions from human activities have risen by 70 percent since 1970," the report said.

It also said governments have a wide range of tools including higher taxes on emissions, regulations, tradeable permits and more investment in research.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the report, saying the potential impact of global warming is "so severe and so sweeping that only urgent, global action will do."

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita added to Global Greenhouse Gas Buildup

New satellite imaging has revealed that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita produced the largest single forestry disaster on record in the nation -- an essentially unreported ecological catastrophe that killed or severely damaged about 320 million trees in Mississippi and Louisiana.

The die-off, caused initially by wind and later by weeks-long pooling of stagnant water, was so massive that researchers say it will add significantly to the global greenhouse gas buildup -- ultimately putting as much carbon from dying vegetation into the air as the rest of the nation's forests take out in a year of photosynthesis.

In addition, the downing of so many trees has opened vast and sometimes fragile tracts to several aggressive and fast-growing exotic species that are already squeezing out more environmentally productive native species.

Efforts to limit the damage have been handicapped by the ineffectiveness of a $504 million federal program to help Gulf Coast landowners replant and fight the invasive species. Congress appropriated the money in 2005 -- the year the hurricanes hit -- and added to it in 2007. But officials acknowledge that the program got off to a slow start and only about $70 million has been promised or dispensed so far. Local advocates said onerous bureaucratic hurdles and low compensation rates are major reasons why.

Gore, Schwarzenegger to push Climate Forum

Former Vice President Al Gore and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will take part in a bipartisan presidential forum on energy and climate change next month in New Hampshire, shortly ahead of the state's first-in-the-nation primary.

Gore, who has been the target of several Democratic grass-roots efforts to persuade him to run for president, has said he has no plans to become a candidate, but hasn't firmly shut the door to a bid. Schwarzenegger, a Republican and native of Austria who is prohibited by the Constitution from becoming president, had previously signaled his intention to play a role in the 2008 contest by drawing attention to issues of special interest, including global warming.

A spokesman for Schwarzenegger confirmed the forum after Arizona Sen. John McCain, a GOP presidential candidate, mentioned it Thursday during a news conference in Sacramento, Calif.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Adam Mendelsohn says the forum is still being planned, but candidates from both major parties are expected to attend. Gore — who won the popular vote for president in 2000, but lost the electoral vote count through a Supreme Court decision — will handle the Democratic candidates at the forum, while Schwarzenegger will handle the Republicans.

Scientists trying to pinpoint Global Warming forecasts

Moving on from the risk of global warming, scientists are now looking for ways to pinpoint the areas set to be affected by climate change, to help countries plan everything from new crops to hydropower dams.

Billion-dollar investments, ranging from irrigation and flood defences to the site of wind farms or ski resorts, could hinge on assessments about how much drier, wetter, windier or warmer a particular area will become.

But scientists warn precision may never be possible. Climate is so chaotic and the variables so difficult to compute that even the best model will be far from perfect in estimating what the future holds.

Thousands of Australians rally on Climate Change

Tens of thousands of people rallied in protests around Australia on Sunday, calling on political parties to take stronger action over global warming.

The Walk Against Warming rallies, held in capital cities and about 50 country towns, aimed to draw attention to the issue of climate change in the final weeks of campaigning for the Nov. 24 general election.

Nature Conservation Council executive director Cate Faehrmann said early estimates were that up to 150,000 people had marched in protests around Australia.

She told reporters that protesters wanted the parties to show a stronger commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and said a near-term target of cutting emissions by 30 percent by 2020 was needed. The Labor opposition has set a 2050 emissions target.

Experts Warn Florida About 'Climate Change'

Scientists and economists Tuesday warned lawmakers of consequences Florida faces from climate change, including more destructive hurricanes and a rising sea level, but they also said the state could be a leader in reducing global warming.

Three panels of experts spoke at a symposium held by the House Environmental Resources Council and three related committees.

Climate change will figure into comprehensive energy and environmental policy legislation the lawmakers will be considering during the 2008 legislative session, said Council Chairman Stan Mayfield, R-Vero Beach.

Some legislators, though, questioned whether Florida could do much to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses, spewed mostly from power plants and vehicle exhausts, that contribute to global warming. That's because Florida emits only 1 percent of those gasses worldwide.

"If Florida is the only group in the world doing anything you're not going to make a dent in this," acknowledged Judy Curry, a professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "But some of the things that Florida is doing really could lead the way."

Gov. Charlie Crist has attempted to put Florida in the lead by ordering that greenhouse gas emissions be reduced to 2000 levels by the year 2017, to 1990 levels by 2025 and 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

Climate Change Affects Security

Climate change could be one of the greatest national security challenges ever faced by U.S. policy makers, according to a new joint study by two U.S. think tanks.

The report, to be released Monday, raises the threat of dramatic population migrations, wars over water and resources, and a realignment of power among nations.

During the last two decades, climate scientists have underestimated how quickly the Earth is changing — perhaps to avoid being branded as "alarmists," the study said. But policy planners should count on climate-induced instability in critical parts of the world within 30 years.

The report was compiled by a panel of security and climate specialists, sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center for a New American Security. The Associated Press received an advance copy.

Climate change is likely to breed new conflicts, but it already is magnifying existing problems, from the desertification of Darfur and competition for water in the Middle East to the disruptive monsoons in Asia which increase the pressure for land, the report said.

It examined three scenarios, ranging from the consequences of an expected temperature increase of 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2040, to the catastrophic implications of a 10-degree rise by the end of the century.

Uncertainty and Climate Change go hand in hand

Despite decades of ever more-exacting science projecting Earth's warming climate, there remains large uncertainty about just how much warming will actually occur.


Two University of Washington scientists believe the uncertainty remains so high because the climate system itself is very sensitive to a variety of factors, such as increased greenhouse gases or a higher concentration of atmospheric particles that reflect sunlight back into space.

In essence, the scientists found that the more likely it is that conditions will cause climate to warm, the more uncertainty exists about how much warming there will be.

Cotton Crop management to become more complicated

Climate change through global warming may increase photosynthesis, leading to increased vegetative growth in cotton but not necessarily resulting in greater production of lint. Global warming may increase salt concentrations in soils, thus changing nutrient availability. Insects may spread to more areas, diseases may become more common and crop management will become more complicated.

The cost of production may continue to rise, and the development of new technologies may be crucial. Environmental regulations may become stricter, possibly resulting in higher costs to produce cotton. Agricultural policies, domestic and international, may tend to be complicated and far-reaching. Cotton growers may have to make many strategic business decisions because of climate change.

Climate expert says drought ,., flooding threatens Texas

A top climate scientist warned Wednesday that Texas faces a dual threat from floods and drought if global warming is left unchecked.

James Hansen, in Houston to speak before the Progressive Forum on Wednesday night, said predictions made two decades ago about the effects of a warming world are now beginning to come true.

"Texas is in the line of fire for double-barreled climate impacts," said Hansen, who heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "What we said in the 1980s, and is beginning to come true now, is that both ends of the hydrological cycle get intensified by global warming."

A warmer climate increases evaporation, he said. It both sucks moisture from the ground, intensifying drought, and increases atmospheric humidity, which causes more rain to fall during extreme events.

Hansen gained attention in the 1980s by testifying to congressional committees about the perils of global warming and again in 2005 and 2006 by claiming that NASA administrators sought to influence his public statements about the causes of climate change. Because of this, he is arguably the world's most well-known climate researcher.

On Wednesday, Hansen again spoke out on a political issue. He expressed concerns about an Associated Press report that the White House had significantly edited a draft of testimony prepared for a Senate hearing on the impact of climate change.

The White House denied that it had "watered down" the congressional testimony that Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, had given Tuesday to the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

"The whole idea of democracy that our Founding Fathers had was that the public is educated, and that they are informed honestly," Hansen said.

Carbon Dioxide Levels Rising Faster Than Predicted, Study Says

Carbon dioxide is collecting in the atmosphere faster than forecast as the use of dirtier fuels increases worldwide, an Australian-led team of scientists said.

Rising levels of the main gas blamed for climate change threatens to accelerate global warming, the researchers said. The study builds on previous findings and may lead to a change in the way scientists predict climate change.

The growth rate of carbon dioxide, or CO2, emissions has averaged 3.3 percent a year since 2000, compared with 1.1 percent in the 1990s, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The rate rose 35 percent more than scientists had anticipated based on economic growth, said Corinne Le Quere, one of the authors of the paper.