Climate change
Gas serra oltre ogni record
Secondo un nuovo report dell’Organizzazione Metereologica Mondiale sono confermate le concentrazioni record di gas serra nell’atmosfera. Intanto il mare si sta acidificando ad una velocità mai avvenuta in 300 milioni di anni. La prognosi è grave. Ancora più acuta di quanto già gli scienziati prevedevano. Secondo un nuovo report ottenuto in anteprima da La Stampa del World Meteorological Organization, l’Organizzazione Metereologica Mondiale è stato confermato il record di concentrazione di gas serra, negli oceani e nell’atmosfera, in particolare di biossido di carbonio, la CO2, il più impattante dei gas climateranti. Apparentemente il Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, questo il titolo del documento, potrebbe essere bollato come “l’ennesimo report sull’andamento del clima”. (altro…)
U.N. Draft Report Lists Unchecked Emissions’ Risks
Runaway growth in the emission of greenhouse gases is swamping all political efforts to deal with the problem, raising the risk of “severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts” over the coming decades, according to a draft of a major new United Nations report.
Global warming is already cutting grain production by several percentage points, the report found, and that could grow much worse if emissions continue unchecked. Higher seas, devastating heat waves, torrential rain and other climate extremes are also being felt around the world as a result of human-produced emissions, the draft report said, and those problems are likely to intensify unless the gases are brought under control. (altro…)
Eight ways climate change is making the world more dangerous
Forget the future. The world already is nearly five times as dangerous and disaster prone as it was in the 1970s, because of the increasing risks brought by climate change, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organisation. The first decade of the 21st century saw 3,496 natural disasters from floods, storms, droughts and heat waves. That was nearly five times as many disasters as the 743 catastrophes reported during the 1970s – and all of those weather events are influenced by climate change. (altro…)
8 Summer Miseries Made Worse by Global Warming
With average global temperatures expected to rise more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) over the coming decades, a new report from a leading U.S. environmental group warns that future summers are likely to be filled with more misery, from more prolific poison ivy and biting insects to worsened air and water quality and impacts on tourism. “Summer has always been a time many people look forward to, but climate change is causing more and more threats that we need to be mindful of,” says Kim Knowlton, a co-author of the new report and senior scientist with the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). (altro…)
Extreme weather official advice rewritten to remove climate change link
The government has been accused of significantly watering down its official advice on extreme weather after removing mention of links between climate change and events such as bushfires and heatwaves. A document on the Department of Environment’s website, aimed at informing the public on how climate change is influencing dangerous weather, has removed an explicit reference linking the two. A previous version of the document opened with the statement: “There is a growing and robust body of evidence that climate change will increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. (altro…)
La finanza per il clima
di Carlo Carraro
Il tema dei cambiamenti climatici non è solo un tema ambientale. E’ piuttosto una questione di rilevanza economica che riguarda le prospettive di crescita in tutte le regioni del mondo, l’uscita dalla poverta’ nei paesi in via di sviluppo, un attento utilizzo delle risorse per evitare di penalizzare le future generazioni, il tutto all’interno delle relazioni internazionali tra gli Stati. Ovviamente in questo complesso insieme di interdipendenze economiche, il mondo della finanza gioca un ruolo decisivo.
The Big Green Test
On Sunday Henry Paulson, the former Treasury secretary and a lifelong Republican, had an Op-Ed article about climate policy in The New York Times. In the article, he declared that man-made climate change is “the challenge of our time,” and called for a national tax on carbon emissions to encourage conservation and the adoption of green technologies. Considering the prevalence of climate denial within today’s G.O.P., and the absolute opposition to any kind of tax increase, this was a brave stand to take. (altro…)
Americans care deeply about ‘global warming’ – but not ‘climate change’
Barack Obama, scientists and campaigners have all looked at how to engage Americans more powerfully on the environment. Now researchers have come up with one critical piece of advice: do say “global warming”, don’t say “climate change”. New research released on Tuesday found Americans care more deeply when the term “global warming” is used to describe the major environmental challenge. “Climate change”, in contrast, leaves them relatively cold. (altro…)
Climate Change Deemed Growing Security Threat by Military Researchers
The accelerating rate of climate change poses a severe risk to national security and acts as a catalyst for global political conflict, a report published Tuesday by a leading government-funded military research organization concluded. The Center for Naval Analyses Military Advisory Board found that climate change-induced drought in the Middle East and Africa is leading to conflicts over food and water and escalating longstanding regional and ethnic tensions into violent clashes. (altro…)
Wide Impact of Climate Change Already Seen in U.S., Study Says
The effects of human-induced climate change are being felt in every corner of the United States, scientists reported Tuesday, with water growing scarcer in dry regions, torrential rains increasing in wet regions, heat waves becoming more likely and more severe, wildfires growing worse, and forests dying under assault from heat-loving insects. Such sweeping changes have been caused by an average warming of less than 2 degrees Fahrenheit over most land areas of the country in the past century, the scientists found. If greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane continue to escalate at a rapid pace, they said, the warming could conceivably exceed 10 degrees by the end of this century. (altro…)