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Climate Change News You May Have Missed

By S. T., on February 13th, 2010

Photo: Omar Sobhani

Afghans arrive to search for bodies in the snow after avalanches killed at least 157 people in Salang tunnel in Parwan province, February 10, 2010. Afghan rescue workers searched for survivors for the third day on Wednesday in the avalanche-stricken mountain pass, fearing that dozens of people were still buried under snow.-World Environment News

Most of the world is fed up with winter, despite the fact that the Winter Olympics just started. The Olympics are even being put in jeopardy by lack of snow and events are being pushed up due to rain. However, winter weather here and there does not in any way disprove climate change, despite what the denialists would have you believe. Check out the latest Climate Files podcast for more on that. More news:

Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapse Possibly Triggered by Ocean Waves

(Feb. 12, 2010) — Depicting a cause-and-effect scenario that spans thousands of miles, a scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and his collaborators discovered that ocean waves originating along the Pacific coasts of North and South America impact Antarctic ice shelves and could play a role in their catastrophic collapse.

Meteorologists See Future of Increasingly Extreme Weather Events

February 1, 2006 — Harder Rain, More Snow–While raising average global temperatures, climate change could also bring more snow, harder rain, or heat waves, meteorologists say. Computer models based on climate data from nine countries indicate every place on the planet will be hit with extreme weather events, including coastal storms and floods.

The Right’s Inability to Grasp Climate Change May Be Funny, But It’s Also Very Dangerous

The so-called Snowpocalypse has brought out the funny bone in the right-wing media, but their inability to correctly draw causal connections is very dangerous. Climate change conspiracies are hardly new, but the so-called Snowpocalypse in Washington D.C. has returned them front-and-center to every single right-wing media outlet. A Fox News anchor smugly claimed that the record snow had not only buried people’s cars — it was also “burying” global warming theories.

Continue Reading → Climate Change News You May Have Missed

Activist Action

Climate Scientist James Hansen–New Presentation and Activism

By S. T., on November 9th, 2009

In the latest communication from NASA scientist James Hansen to his subscribers, he said he has given a recent talk at the Club of Rome in Amsterdam, Netherlands, titled “Global Warming Time Bomb“. His presentation begins, “Global warming IS a time bomb.

“There may still be time to defuse it, but that requires policy-makers to take the actions that are needed, not the ineffectual actions they are discussing.” He means the climate/jobs/energy legislation in Congress, for which he has obvious disdain due to its inability to slow down climate change quickly enough. Dr. Hansen wrote in his presentation:

He also revealed that he will be involved in some activism soon in Massachusetts, that you can get involved in too. (See the bottom of this post). In his presentation he wrote:

“Despite the publicity that global warming has received, there is a large gap between what is understood by the relevant scientific community, and what is known by the people who need to know, the public and policymakers Global warming is small compared to day-to-day weather fluctuations, so it is hard for people to recognize that we have a crisis – but we do.

The climate system has great inertia, caused, e.g., by the 4-kilometer-deep ocean and the thick ice sheets on Antarctica and Greenland – they have only partly responded to the humanmade changes of atmospheric composition. But that inertia is not our friend – it is a Trojan horse – by the time the public notices that change is underway the momentum of the climate system may be sufficient to guarantee much larger changes. The climate system can pass tipping points, such that large change continues out of our control. The bad news is that we have already passed into a dangerous range of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The good news is that if we act smart and promptly it is still feasible to achieve a safe level of atmospheric gases, and the actions needed to achieve that would have multiple benefits in addition to climate stability.”

He also explains ice sheet melting and the process. He also discusses more of how the current legislation will not be enough, fast enough.

Continue Reading → Climate Scientist James Hansen–New Presentation and Activism