Climate Change and Global Prosperity

A new report from the United Nations Development Program warns that if drastic measures are not taken to prepare nations for the impacts of climate change, the economic progress of the world's developing countries could stall or even be reversed by 2050.

This year's annual report, approaches the issue of climate change and environmental degradation from the standpoint of economic development and the eradication of poverty.Environment Clean Generations "Even if someone's a climate skeptic, this report says, 'Put that aside for a second,' " said William Orme, a spokesman for the United Nations agency. "If you believe in something like a moral commitment to the global community and in getting people out of poverty, we must address these environmental problems."

Each region of the world faces unique challenges between now and 2050, the report warns, but most are linked to environmental complications arising from climate change.

Sub-Saharan Africa could suffer the gravest inequities if the worst-case scenarios come to pass, it adds. Many Africans rely solely on natural resources for their livelihoods and lack a means of coping with environmental hazards like air and water pollution and poor sanitation, the report notes.

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With Population Growth and Climate Change Making US Water Worse

Climate change and population growth in the United States will make having enough fresh water more challenging in the coming years, an expert on water shortages said on Wednesday.

"In 1985-1986 there were historical (water level) highs and now in less than 25 years we are at historical lows. Those sorts of swings are very scary," said Robert Glennon, speaking at the State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference in Erie, Pennsylvania. Environment Clean Generations

Glennon, a professor at Arizona State University and the author of "Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What To Do About It," said that that according to climate experts, shorter, warmer winters mean less ice and greater exposure to the air, leading eventually to more water evaporation.

"We think about water like the air -- infinite and inexhaustible but it is very finite and very exhaustible," Glennon said.

"When you have a shorter ice season you have great exposure to the air and more evaporation. As temperatures go up it is very troubling," Glennon said. "The cycles are going to become more acute which is very troubling."

This past summer, Ohio Governor John Kasich vetoed a bill that would have allowed unrestricted removal of five million gallons of water from Ohio's lakes and rivers every 90 days.Environment Clean Generations

Kasich, a Republican who has criticized government regulations, surprised some political observers by following the advice of organizations that felt the bill would allow lake levels to become dangerously low.

Glennon agrees the bill would have set the stage for diversion in other lakes. "It would have been open season on the Great Lakes."Environment Clean Generations

Glennon doesn't believe that water diversion whether by pipeline, desalinization or more drilling are long-term answers. He thinks conservation, water reuse, and better agriculture practices bolstered by higher, seasonally-adjusted water costs will bring things in line.Environment Clean Generations

"We pay less for water than we pay for cell phone service or cable television," he said. "All of our incentives are wrong."

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Posted in: climate change,environment,environment clean generations.,population,water

Climate Warming, Animals and Plants Shrinking

Contradicting a century-old hypothesis, increased global carbon dioxide levels seem to be shrinking plants instead of fostering their growth. Animals from polar bears to marine iguanas are being stunted too.

In 1896, Svante Arrhenius published calculations predicting that doubling CO2 levels would trigger a global temperatures increase of about 5-6 degrees C.

"We would then have some right to indulge in the pleasant belief that our descendants, albeit after many generations, might live under a milder sky and in less barren surroundings than is our lot at present," Arrhenius said during a lecture that same year.

But it seems reality hasn't lived up to Arrhenius' verdant dreams of vigorous vegetation.

"Plants were expected to get larger with increased atmospheric carbon dioxide," but changes in temperature, humidity and nutrient availability seem to have trumped the benefits of increased CO2, said researchers from the National University of Singapore in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Forty-five percent of the species studied now reach smaller adult sizes than they did in the recent past. The researchers, led by Jennifer Sheridan and David Bickford, point to climate change induced warmer temperatures and changing habitats are possible culprits in the case of the shrinking creatures.

"We do not yet know the exact mechanisms involved, or why some organisms are getting smaller while others are unaffected". "Until we understand more, we could be risking negative consequences that we can't yet quantify."

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The change was dramatic in cold-blooded animals. Only two decades of warmer temperatures were enough to make reptile runts.

An increase of only one degree Celsius caused nearly a 10 percent increase in metabolism. Greater use of energy resulted in tiny tortoises and little lizards.

Fish are smaller now too. Though overfishing has played a part in reducing piscine proportions, the researchers also point to experimental results showing that warmer temperatures also stunt fish growth.

Warm-blooded animals weren't immune from the climate change caused size change.

Many birds are now less bulky, including passerines (the order that includes cardinals, blue jays, and crows) as well as goshawks and gulls.

Mammals have been miniaturized too. Soay sheep are scrawny. Red dear are runts. And polar bears are puny, compared to historical records.

This isn't the first time this has happened in Earth's history.

Fifty-five million years ago, a warming event similar to the current climate change correlated to beetles, bees, spiders, wasps and ants shrinking by 50 to 75 percent over several thousand years.

Woodrats and squirrels also shrunk by about 40 percent.

That event, the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, happened over a longer time than the current global warming.

The speed of modern climate change could mean, "organisms may not respond or adapt quickly enough", especially those with long generation times.

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Posted in: animals,Animals and Plants Shrinking,climate change,Climate Warming,CO2,environment. polar bears

Irrigation Might Raise Sea Level

Ocean levels have risen several inches over the last century, and that's only likely to increase going forward. Most of that is related to climate change — but now scientists may have discovered a hidden factor in all this: irrigation. 

At first glance, that might seem surprising. After all, irrigation is just moving water from one area to another, to allow people to live in naturally dry or arid areas. The problem is that not all irrigation comes from water already on the surface - a lot of it is now extracted from deep underground, introducing tons of extra water that would not otherwise be a part of the planet's water cycle.

Researchers from the US Geological Survey calculated that the last century saw over a thousand cubic miles worth of water extracted from underground and used for irrigation purposes. 

That was enough water to boost ocean levels by about half an inch, accounting for 12.6% of the total sea level rise in the 20th century.

And all this isn't likely to stop anytime soon. Ground water extraction has skyrocketed in the last decade, with some estimates say we're now bringing up about 34 cubic miles each year. That's enough to increase sea levels by .016 inches each year, which is 13% of the current rise. 

While melting ice and other climate-related factors remain responsible for the vast majority of the sea level increase, this adds a new wrinkle to how we use irrigation and ground water going forward.

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Posted in: climate,climate change,environment,irrigation,Irrigation Might Raise Sea Level,water

Why Scientists Say End Is Near?

In a purely symbolic but still unsettling move, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has moved the minute hand on its Doomsday Clock two minutes closer to midnight. On the 60-year-old Doomsday Clock, midnight is nuclear destruction, the end of life as we know itManhattan Project physicists, who developed the atomic bomb for the United States, instituted the clock in 1947 after their bombs wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.

Since then, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS), which boasts 18 Nobel Prize winners among its leaders, has moved the hand on the clock 18 times. Each move symbolizes the group's current analysis of the world's chances of survival in the face of political, environmental and technological developments.

The most notable factor to the keepers of the clock is the state of nuclear affairs -- whether the world is in a proliferation trend or a disarmament trend. The latest move puts us at 11:55 p.m. In an announcement on Wednesday, the BAS cited several reasons for its dark prediction regarding humankind's proximity to obliteration.

The BAS believes the world has entered a "second nuclear age," the first nuclear age having ended with the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in 1991 by the United States and Russia. Since then, the tide has slowly turned away from a global decision to limit nuclear-weapons technology and toward the creation of new nuclear states.

The United States and Russia currently have more than 26,000 nuclear weapons ready to launch at a moment's notice, and the United States recently established a policy that makes small nuclear bombs viable weapons against certain security threats. In the meantime, says the BAS, the world's nuclear watch dogs have done little but loudly protest, and as a result, the world faces the most dangerous nuclear climate since the Cold War.

In the last five years alone, Pakistan and India were locked in a nuclear standoff; North Korea has declared itself a new member of the club by detonating a nuclear bomb; Iran is widely believed to be on the path to a nuclear weapon; and the growing presence not only of nuclear arsenals but also nuclear-power-plant technology has made the sale and possession of nuclear materials nearly impossible to fully track and regulate. The idea that a small group could get its hands on enriched plutonium or uranium is far more realistic today than it has ever been.

Nuclear concerns have always comprised the bulk of factors moving the hand on the clock. But in 2007, actual climate for the first time rivaled nuclear climate for greatest threat. In moving the clock to 11:55, the BAS made a hard case for the destructive power of climate change.


The organization now considers global warming to be only slightly less threatening to the future of life on Earth than nuclear holocaust. Citing the melting of ice in Greenland, desertization of once-fertile areas, pollution of the air and oceans and other ecological nightmares, the BAS believes that climate change will ultimately lead to widespread nuclear wars over habitable land that will end up destroying whatever is left of the Earth.

The predictions are dire, to say the least. In addition to nuclear and climate concerns, the scientists of the BAS also point to emerging technologies in the area of bioscience and nanoscience as contributing to the symbolic "five minutes to the end." The ultimate uses of recent, giant advances in both genetics and nanotechnology have yet to be determined.

Genetic engineering may cure cancer; it may also create a super-human weapon. Nanotechnology may build an elevator to space or perform more precise surgery than ever thought possible; it may also result in a bomb the size of a gnat.

But all is not lost. See The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Web site to read about some of the BAS-recommended changes the world can make in order to move the Doomsday Clock back.
The closest the clock has ever been to midnight is 11:58 p.m., which was in 1953, the year both the United States and Russia tested hydrogen bombs. Hydrogen bombs are more powerful than the atomic bombs developed by the Manhattan Project physicists.

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Posted in: atomic bomb,climate change,nuclear power plant,nuclear weapon,physics,plutonium,Why Scientists Say End Is Near

The Future of Green Architecture

Physalia A museum, nightclub and filtration system, Physalia uses its hull and rooftop plants to scrub away pollution. Physalia is half-boat, half-building, and all green. This mammoth aluminum concept by Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut is meant to travel Europe’s rivers, making filthy water drinkable. At the same time, the ship generates more energy than it uses. 

A coat of titanium dioxide paint brushed onto the silvery shell will neutralize pollution by absorbing ultraviolet rays, enabling a chemical reaction that decomposes organic and inorganic toxins. (It’s the same technology used in certain high-tech concrete that breaks down airborne particulates.)

As the vessel whips along, purifying waterways, it can draw on both solar and hydro power. Turbines under the hull transform water movement into electricity, and rooftop photovoltaic cells harness energy from the sun. The roof doubles as a nursery, whose carefully selected plants help filter river gunk, whether from the Thames, Rhine or Euphrates. 

But Physalia isn’t just designed to be a working ship. The vessel will also be a floating museum of sorts. Scientists who study aquatic ecosystems can hole up in the dedicated “Earth garden” lab, and tourists can visit temporary exhibits in a “water garden” or settle into a submerged lounge that could easily pass for a London nightclub.

Callebaut, 33, dreamed up the idea after last year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen shone a long-overdue spotlight on global water issues. He has some lofty terms for his project: It’s a “nomadic hydrodynamic laboratory,” a “fragment of living earth,” and a “floating agora” on a “geopolitical scale.” Others might just call it a cool idea.

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Posted in: architecture,boat,building,climate change,future,green,hydro power,water

Climate Change to Continue to Year 3000

 Scientists have made dire predictions about the effects of climate change. They say the effects will continue until the year 3000 and will cause oceans to rise 13 feet. The calculations are based on a computer model derived from records for more than 300 glaciers.

Global warming may wipe out three-quarters of Europe's alpine glaciers by 2100 and hike sea levels by four meters (13 feet) by the year 3000 through melting the West Antarctic ice sheet, two studies published on Sunday said.

The research places the spotlight on two of the least understood aspects of climate change: how, when and where warming will affect glaciers on which many millions depend for their water, and the problems faced by generations in the far distant future.

The glacier study predicts that mountain glaciers and ice caps will shrink by 15-27 percent in volume terms on average by 2100.

"Ice loss on such a scale may have substantial impacts on regional hydrology and water availability," it warns.
Some regions will be far worse hit than others because of the altitude of their glaciers, the nature of the terrain and their susceptibility to localized warming.

New Zealand could lose 72 percent (between 65 and 79 percent) of its glaciers, and Europe's Alps 75 percent, meaning a range of between 60 and 90 percent. At the other end of the scale, glacial loss in Greenland is predicted at around eight percent and at some 10 percent in high-mountain Asia.
Meltwater will drive up world sea levels by an average of 12 centimeters (five inches) by 2100, says the study.

 This figure -- which does not include expansion by the oceans as they warm -- largely tallies with an estimate in the landmark Fourth Assessment Report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007.

Geophysicists Valentina Radic and Regine Hock of the University of Alaska base these calculations on a computer model derived from records for more than 300 glaciers between 1961 and 2004.

The model factors in the middle-of-the-road "A1B" scenario for greenhouse-gas emissions, by which Earth's mean surface temperature would rise by 2.8 degrees Celsius (5.04 degrees Fahrenheit) during the 21st century.
The tool was then applied to 19 regions that contain all the world's glaciers and icecaps.

 But -- importantly -- it does not include the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, where 99 percent of Earth's fresh water is locked up.
If either of these ice sheets were to melt significantly, sea levels could rise by an order of meters (many feet), drowning coastal cities.

That very scenario emerges in the second study, which focuses on the inertial effect of greenhouse gases. Carbon molecules emitted by fossil fuels and deforestation linger for many centuries in the atmosphere before breaking apart.

Even if all these emissions were stopped by 2100, the warming machine would continue to function for centuries to come, says the investigation.
It largely bases its forecast on the "A2" emissions scenario, which sees greater carbon pollution by 2100, stoking Earth's temperature by an average 3.4 C (6.1 F) by century's end.

 Warming of the middle depths of the Southern Ocean could unleash the "widespread collapse" of the West Antarctic ice sheet by the year 3000, it says.

"The inertia in intermediate and deep ocean currents driving into the southern Atlantic means those oceans are only now beginning to warm as a result of CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions from the last century," said Shawn Marshall, a professor the University of Calgary in Canada.

"The simulation showed that warming will continue, rather than stop or reverse, on the thousand-year timescale." The two studies are published online by the journal Nature Geoscience.

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Posted in: air. global warming,carbon dioxide,climate change,earth,glaciers,years

Floods

         

There are few places on Earth where people need not be concerned about flooding. Any place where rain falls is vulnerable, although rain is not the only impetus for flood. A flood occurs when water overflows or inundates land that's normally dry. This can happen in a multitude of ways.

                Most common is when rivers or streams overflow their banks. Excessive rain, a ruptured dam or levee, rapid ice melting in the mountains, or even an unfortunately placed beaver dam can overwhelm a river and send it spreading over the adjacent land, called a floodplain. Coastal flooding occurs when a large storm or tsunami causes the sea to surge inland.

                Most floods take hours or even days to develop, giving residents ample time to prepare or evacuate. Others generate quickly and with little warning. These flash floods can be extremely dangerous, instantly turning a babbling brook into a thundering wall of water and sweeping everything in its path downstream.
         
                Disaster experts classify floods according to their likelihood of occurring in a given time period. A hundred-year flood, for example, is an extremely large, destructive event that would theoretically be expected to happen only once every century. But this is a theoretical number. In reality, this classification means there is a one-percent chance that such a flood could happen in any given year.
               Over recent decades, possibly due to global climate change, hundred-year floods have been occurring worldwide with frightening regularity.

                Moving water has awesome destructive power. When a river overflows its banks or the sea drives inland, structures poorly equipped to withstand the water's strength are no match. Bridges, houses, trees, and cars can be picked up and carried off. The erosive force of moving water can drag dirt from under a building's foundation, causing it to crack and tumble.

                 In the United States, where flood mitigation and prediction is advanced, floods do about $6 billion worth of damage and kill about 140 people every year. A 2007 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that coastal flooding alone does some $3 trillion in damage worldwide. In China's Yellow River valley, where some of the world's worst floods have occurred, millions of people have perished in floods during the last century.

                 When floodwaters recede, affected areas are often blanketed in silt and mud. The water and landscape can be contaminated with hazardous materials, such as sharp debris, pesticides, fuel, and untreated sewage. Potentially dangerous mold blooms can quickly overwhelm water-soaked structures. Residents of flooded areas can be left without power and clean drinking water, leading to outbreaks of deadly waterborne diseases like typhoid, hepatitis A, and cholera.

                   But flooding, particularly in river floodplains, is as natural as rain and has been occurring for millions of years. Famously fertile floodplains like the Mississippi Valley in the American Midwest, the Nile River valley in Egypt, and the Tigris-Euphrates in the Middle East have supported agriculture for millennia because annual flooding has left millions of tons of nutrient-rich silt deposits behind.

                  Most flood destruction is attributable to humans' desire to live near picturesque coastlines and in river valleys. Aggravating the problem is a tendency for developers to backfill and build on wetlands that would otherwise act as natural flood buffers.

                 Many governments mandate that residents of flood-prone areas purchase flood insurance and build flood-resistant structures. Massive efforts to mitigate and redirect inevitable floods have resulted in some of the most ambitious engineering efforts ever seen, including New Orleans's extensive levee system and massive dikes and dams in the Netherlands. And highly advanced computer modeling now lets disaster authorities predict with amazing accuracy where floods will occur and how severe they're likely to be.

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