Dec '00 / Jan 2001
A
Gift Given, A Gift Received: Water
to Iraq
By Edilith Eckart
Election Analysis Progressive
Directions?
By Bill Thomson
Modernizing Our Electoral Rules
&
Practices
By Rob Richie
Democracy 101
By Blair Bobier
Clean Money: Campaign Finance
Reform
By John Moyers
Book Review: The Cultural Creatives
Paul H. Ray & Sherry Ruth
Anderson Reviewed by
Peter Montague
Remembrance: Robert Theobald
By Bob Stilger
Transforming Our Dreaming
By José Stevens
Democracy and the Airwaves
By Suzi Aufderheide
StarLink: More Bad News for Biotech
by Ronnie Cummins
The US Is Warned "Wake Up
To Global Warming Threat"
By Environmental News Service
U.S. Position Threatens to
Derail Climate Change Negotiations
By Cat Lazaroff
Martin Luther King, Jr: Global and
Social Shaman
By Royal E. Alsup, Ph.D.
Sexual Union, Inside and Out
By Peter Moore
A Pagan Speak to Jesus
By John Darling
Cosmic Calendar
By Salina Rain
"The
US is Warned "Wake Up to Global Warming Threat"
Despite the warning of the "Climate Change and Our Nation" report,
corporate interests in the US managed to undermine the climate negotiations
in the Netherlands last November.
Global warming could end cold winters in the Northeast and wipe out the alpine
meadows of the Rockies and Florida's coral reefs, says a coalition of US government
agencies in a report released on June 12, 2000.
The report, called "Climate Change and Our Nation," is the first
national assessment of the potential consequences of climate change over the
next 100 years. The National Assessment Synthesis Team, a group of 14 climate
change impacts experts who authored the report, hope it will awaken Americans
to the threat of climate change and spur efforts to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions.
Among the team's findings are:
- Assuming continued
growth in world greenhouse gas emissions, temperatures in the US will rise
5-10 degrees Fahrenheit (3-6 degrees Celsius) on average in the next 100
years.
- Climate change
will vary widely across the US Temperature increases will vary regionally.
Heavy and extreme precipitation is likely to become more frequent, but some
regions will get drier. The potential impacts of climate change will also
vary widely across the nation. Ecosystems are highly vulnerable to the projected
rate and magnitude of climate change. Alpine meadows in the Rocky Mountains
and some barrier islands, are likely to disappear entirely. Other ecosystems,
such as forests of the Southeast, are likely to experience major species
shifts or breakup. The goods and services lost through the disappearance
or fragmentation of certain ecosystems are likely to be costly or impossible
to replace.
- Climate change
and the resulting rise in sea levels are likely to worsen threats to buildings,
roads, power lines and other infrastructures along the coast. Sea level
rise is likely to cause the loss of some barrier beaches, islands, and wetlands,
and worsen storm surges and flooding during storms.
- Overall, US crop productivity is likely to increase over the next few decades, but the gains will not be uniform across the nation. Falling prices and competition are likely to stress some farmers. Pests, droughts and floods could reduce some of the benefits from higher temperatures, precipitation and carbon dioxide, the report predicts.
"America's
alarm bells should go off today," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the
World Wildlife Fund's Climate Change Campaign. "The National Assessment
shows that now more than ever the US must act to protect its national treasures."
Morgan was joined by a host of science and environmental groups who praised
the report as a balanced assessment of the potential impacts of climate variability
and change.
"This report brings the meaning of global climate change home to every
American," said Dr. Susanne Moser of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"Even if the impacts ultimately manifest differently from what the report
projects, everyone will experience some changes, and everyone should know
that climate change is not science fiction. In some regions, like Alaska,
the impacts of warming are here, now."
"Climate change is already happening," said Dr. Janine Bloomfield,
senior scientist at Environmental Defense. "Because greenhouse gases
stay in the earth's atmosphere for decades, the time for action is now. Reducing
emissions is the most important action we can take now to minimize damage
to people, ecosystems, and economies."
"The assessment shows that many of the country's distinct natural features
could deteriorate as a result of changing climate," said Dr. Susan Subak,
a senior research associate at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Whether
we're talking about fisheries and recreational areas on the coasts, or the
habitats of America's mountains and deserts, rising temperatures will put
further stress on our natural areas."
The report makes clear that ecosystems altered by climate change affect all
Americans because the nation's economy depends on the sustained bounty of
land, water, native plant and animal communities.
It warns that warming over the 20th century, which saw the average annual
US temperature rise by almost one degree F. (0.6 degrees C.) and precipitation
increase by five to 10 percent, is set to accelerate rapidly in the 21st century.
"No matter how aggressively emissions are reduced, the world will still
experience some climate change," the report states. "This is because
elevated concentrations of greenhouse gases will remain in the atmosphere
for decades as the climate system responds only slowly to changes in human
inputs."
The National Assessment Synthesis Team was convened by the President's Council
of Advisors on Science and Technology. More than 300 scientific and technical
experts, overseen by a team of 14 senior scientists, helped produce the multistage
peer reviewed process that preceded the report, unveiled by the Global Change
Research Program (USGCRP). The USGCRP was created as a Presidential Initiative
in 1989 by then President George Bush and formalized by the Global Change
Research Act of 1990.
Working with research institutions in the U.S. and other countries, the USGCRP
provides the scientific foundation for increasing the accuracy of understand
climate fluctuations and long term climate change. "This report is yet
another blow to the global warming nay-sayers. It confirms the validity of
the science and the seriousness of the impacts on human health, our economy
and our environment," said Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental
Trust.
The Climate Change negotiations at The Hague last November on details of how
to implement the Kyoto Protocol (which sets limits on the emission of six
gases linked to global warming by the five year period 2008 to 2012) were
supposed to determine how acceptable the limits on greenhouse gases will be
to the 39 industrial nations that must ratify this treaty.
The protocol
has been signed by 84 nations, but no nation governed by the agreement, including
the United States, has ratified it. Before it takes effect, 55 percent of
the nations that signed the protocol representing 55 percent of the actual
greenhouse gases emitted in the world, must ratify the treaty. The November
negotiations were considered critical to ratification.
Climate Change Could Bankrupt Us by 2065
The sixth largest insurance company has warned that damage to property due
to global warming could bankrupt the world by 2065.
Dr. Andrew Dlugolecki, director of general insurance development at CGNU,
a top five European life insurer and the United Kingdom's largest insurance
group, told delegates attending the international climate change summit in
The Hague that the rate of damage caused by changing weather will exceed the
world's wealth.
"Property damage is rising very rapidly, at something like 10 percent
a year," he told a briefing at the 6th Conference of Parties (COP 6)
to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change last November.
"We've still not yet really begun to see the effects of climate change
in the West. What we are seeing so far is largely the result of more people
living in areas which are becoming more dangerous.
"But once this thing begins to happen, it will accelerate extremely rapidly,
as the IPCC report makes clear."
Dlugolecki contributed
to a Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report due out next
year. The IPCC consists of more than 2,500 scientists from around the world,
and its first assessment report in 1990 was used as the basis for negotiating
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Dlugolecki said that the current rate of growth of damage of 10 percent a
year will exceed Gross Domestic Product by 2065. He added that the insurance
industry was in danger of "running out of money," to deal with the
disasters. Some scientists believe extreme weather events will become more
frequent as the world warms.
Dlugolecki proposes a more radical approach to climate change than is being
discussed at COP 6. The concept, known as contraction and convergence, has
long been promoted by the London based group the Global Commons Institute
(GCI) which describes itself as an independent group of people whose aim is
the protection of the "Global Commons." It fears the world may be
driven beyond the threshold of ecological stability by the relentless pursuit
of economic growth.
Provided by the Environment News Service (ENS) http://ens-news.com
