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The Independent reports Here it is: the future of the world, in 23 pages.
This is the key document on climate change, and from now on you can forget any others you may have read or seen or heard about. This is the one that matters. It is the tightly distilled, peer-reviewed research of several thousand scientists, fully endorsed, without qualification, by all the world’s major governments. Its official name is a mouthful: the Policymakers’ Summary of the Synthesis Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment. So let’s just call it The Synthesis.
It is so important because it provides one concise, easily-readable but comprehensive text of facts, figures and diagrams – in short all the information you need to understand and act on the threat of global warming, be you a politician, a businessman, an activist or a citizen (or for that matter, a doubter)…
For all but the most perverse of sceptics, it ends the basic argument. And it also urgently warns that the risks are greater, and possibly closer in time, than was appreciated even six years ago, when the third assessment was published.
Because all governments adopted The Synthesis by consensus (after a week’s negotiations in Valencia), it means they cannot disavow the underlying science and its conclusions (although it does not commit them to specific courses of action).
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One such impact of our changing climate, reports the Washington Post is the Threat to farming and food supply. Higher temperatures from climate change ” — along with salt seepage into groundwater as sea levels rise and anticipated increases in flooding and droughts — will disproportionately affect agriculture in the planet’s lower latitudes, where most of the world’s poor live.” India with a possible 40 percent decline, Africa with a possible 30 to 50 percent decline, and even Latin America is likely to suffer a 20 percent decline in agricultural production. “The United States will experience significant regional shifts in growing seasons, forcing new and sometimes disruptive changes in crop choices… A recent study… concluded that wheat growers in North America will have to give up some of their southernmost fields in the next few decades… That means amber waves of grain will be growing less than 2 degrees south of the Arctic Circle, and Siberia will become a major notch in the wheat belt.”
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Trying to reduce the source of climate change is causing dilemmas for many communities. For example, The Oregonian reports in Oregon and Washington state Emissions goals set; now comes hard part. The states “set aggressive goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but actually meeting those goals could prove much tougher — and more costly — than leaders expect.” The area is booming and coal-fired power plants provide 20 percent of the Pacific Northwest’s electrical supply. “The challenge will be even greater if salmon protections further limit operations of hydroelectric dams… That sets up a troubling Catch-22, in which salmon suffer as global warming raises river temperatures, forcing extra protections that reduce the amount of electricity from dams. If the lost power is made up by coal- or natural gas-fired power plants, they’d release more greenhouse gases that add to global warming.”
Another pair of tough choices is confronting Fort Collins, Colorado. The New York Times reports that A deeply green city confronts its energy needs and nuclear worries. Two proposed energy projects could help the city meets its goal “to produce zero-carbon energy… one involves crowd-pleasing, feel-good solar power, and the other is a uranium mine… Environmentalism and local politics have collided with a broader ethical and moral debate about the good of the planet, and whether some places could or should be called upon to sacrifice for their high-minded goals.” But, “the solar project… plans to use a new manufacturing process [that] will use cadmium – a hazardous metal linked to cancer – as part of the industrial process.” and the uranium mine would “drill down through part of an aquifer”.
While The New York Times reports that Chinese dam projects are criticized for their human costs. “Chinese officials have admitted that the dam was spawning environmental problems like water pollution and landslides that could become severe… The rising controversy makes it easy to overlook [that] the Three Gorges Dam is the world’s biggest man-made producer of electricity from renewable energy… The Three Gorges Dam, then, lies at the uncomfortable center of China’s energy conundrum: The nation’s roaring economy is addicted to dirty, coal-fired power plants that pollute the air and belch greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. Dams are much cleaner producers of electricity, but they have displaced millions of people in China and carved a stark environmental legacy on the landscape.”
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Lastly, despite the realty of our changing climate, don’t expect corporations to willingly change their polluting ways. The Guardian reports We’ll fight you all the way, airlines warn EU over carbon-trading plans. “British and other European governments face a long diplomatic battle if they push ahead with plans to include airlines in a European emissions trading scheme, the global aviation body has warned. The International Air Transport Association (Iata) said 170 countries opposed a proposal… to make all airlines flying in and out of the European Union subscribe to the EU emissions trading scheme. Non-EU airlines are lobbying their governments to reject the move, arguing that it will impose billions in extra costs on an industry that makes a global profit of just $5.6bn (£2.7bn)… Carriers have until 2011 to join power stations, refineries and heavy industry in the trading scheme, an integral part of the EU’s plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions from its 27 nations by 20% by 2020.”
This is the afternoon’s open thread.
