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NYT: “One day in 1991, high in the thin, crystalline air of the Peruvian Andes, Lonnie G. Thompson saw that the world’s largest tropical ice cap was starting to melt. It was the moment he realized that his life’s work had suddenly become a race.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/science/earth/lonnie-thompson-climate-scientist-battles-time.html?pagewanted=all

Seen at ABC News Australia - A lobby group of climate skeptics is to send every British school a copy of the film The Great Global Warming Swindle, a controversial film that claims climate change is a myth.

The film caused a storm when it was screened in both Britain and Australia because it swims against the scientific consensus espoused by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Last week some British sceptics failed in a legal bid to stop every school being sent a copy of Al Gore’s Oscar-winning climate change film An Inconvenient Truth.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Government had decided every high school student should see it.

British climate skeptics target schools in Britain

Related:

Oil firms fund climate change denial

Greenhouse gas climate change the greatest swindle?

Lloyd’s of London’s 360 Reports on Climate Change and Risk Reports. Lloyd’s reports that the insurance industry should start planning and modeling now for a higher level of losses across the world by the middle of the century as both the severity and frequency of weather events increase. The alternative - waiting until definitive scientific pronouncements on impact at a regional level or likelihood of catastrophic change are available – seems like an increasingly risky strategy.

Excerpt from the Lloyd’s 360 Rapid Climate Change Report:

“Until now, we have tended to think of climate change as a gradual phenomenon which will take place slowly over a long period of hundreds – or perhaps thousands – of years. In turn, this thinking is likely to influence how we forecast and prepare for climate related loss, with the impact expected to be felt evenly over time, and any increase in loss taking place incrementally. In fact, the latest science presented in this report suggests that climate change is likely to bring increasingly dramatic, and possibly rapid, effects at a local level, which differ in their intensity and even in their outcome. In addition, a growing number of potential feedback mechanisms within the climate have the capacity to cause tipping points in the system and speed change further. While we cannot yet determine what the exact impact of climate change will be, the evidence is increasing to suggest we will see tangible change within our lifetime, and insurers and business should begin to consider and prepare for the range of outcomes now.”

With a wealth of new research becoming available recently, the global insurance sector and the wider business community should factor the latest science into its business planning.

• Global warming is not only changing the average climate, but will also make it more erratic which should be of particular concern to the insurance industry.
• As climate change takes hold, insurers and businesses should therefore keep a close watch on future developments, and be prepared to revise their longer term strategies regularly.
• While not all of the increased risks may result in huge losses which significantly damage the capital of the insurance industry, increased unexpected attritional losses could certainly impact financial performance on a regular basis.

Lloyd’s of London’s 360 Rapid Climate Change Report

Lloyd’s of London’s FINAL 360 Climate Change Report

Oct 4 2007 - Shrinking ice ‘locked into spiral of decline’ by Darren Devine, Western Mail

DRAMATIC new evidence showing that ice cover on the Arctic Ocean has fallen to its lowest level recorded proves the area is “locked into a spiral of decline”, a Welsh scientist said last night.

Bangor University Oceanographer Dr Tom Rippeth, who has a team doing research in Arctic, says the polar ice cap has shrunk by almost a third compared with its size this time last year.

Research from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) reveals that at 4.2m sq km the cap has shrunk by an area about seven times larger than the UK.

When compared to the typical September ice coverage for the 1960s and 70s the change is even greater, as the cap has shrunk to about half the size it was then.

Over the past 10 years the polar ice cap has never been observed to shrink by more than 0.2m square km, but this year has fallen by more than 1m square km.

Dr Rippeth insists the magnitude of the fall is clear evidence of how global warming is changing the planet.

He said, “The magnitude of the decline in arctic ice cover has taken everyone by surprise. It’s far too big to be a result of natural variability and tends to suggest that we are actually locked into a spiral of decline.”

link

WASHINGTON - Friday 28th 2007

US President Bush Friday called for the creation of a global fund to promote clean technology that would be led by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and for a “strong and transparent” way for nations to measure progress on fighting climate change but said that each country should set its own approach.

Bush’s speech to a U.S.-sponsored conference of major emitting countries indicated that a long-term goal for reducing global warming was needed but that “each nation will design its own separate strategies for making progress toward achieving this.”

Bush has been under pressure from the world’s major economies to accept binding limits on emissions of greenhouse gases and to end his six years of isolation from the global task force for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. In his speech, he continued to emphasize voluntary approaches to tackling climate change and called the meeting as a precursor to United Nations talks in Bali in December, which will aim to launch a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that set limits on industrial nations’ emissions.

More articles:

• Washington Post - Bush Seeks new image on Global Warming
• Canada National - Climate Change Progress must be measurable
• Guardian Unlimited - Europeans angry after Bush climate speech ‘charade’

Meanwhile, the Guardian Unlimited reported that:

“George Bush was castigated by European diplomats and found himself isolated yesterday after a special conference on climate change ended without any progress.

European ministers, diplomats and officials attending the Washington conference were scathing, particularly in private, over Mr Bush’s failure once again to commit to binding action on climate change.

Although the US and Britain have been at odds over the environment since the early days of the Bush administration, the gap has never been as wide as yesterday.

Britain and almost all other European countries, including Germany and France, want mandatory targets for reducing greenhouse emissions. Mr Bush, while talking yesterday about a “new approach” and “a historic undertaking”, remains totally opposed.

The conference, attended by more than 20 countries, including China, India, Britain, France and Germany, broke up with the US isolated, according to non-Americans attending. One of those present said even China and India, two of the biggest polluters, accepted that the voluntary approach proposed by the US was untenable and favoured binding measures, even though they disagreed with the Europeans over how this would be achieved.

A senior European diplomat attending the conference, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the meeting confirmed European suspicions that it had been intended by Mr Bush as a spoiler for a major UN conference on climate change in Bali in December.

“It was a total charade and has been exposed as a charade,” the diplomat said. “I have never heard a more humiliating speech by a major leader. He [Mr Bush] was trying to present himself as a leader while showing no sign of leadership. It was a total failure.”

Germany’s environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, said after Bush’s speech at the State Department before representatives of the nations that are the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases:

“This here was a great step for the Americans and a small step for mankind, … In substance, we are still far apart.”

In his speech, Bush acknowledged that climate change is real and that human activity is a factor. He stated:

“By setting this goal, we acknowledge there is a problem, and by setting this goal, we commit ourselves to doing something about it, …. We share a common responsibility: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while keeping our economies growing.”

European diplomats welcomed Bush’s speech as the long-awaited attempt to build a bridge by the world’s No. 1 carbon polluter. Friends of the Earth US President stated:

“Instead of getting serious about reducing emissions, he proposes a voluntary approach that will lead to global warming catastrophe … Rather than joining the rest of the world and doing all he can to support the United Nations framework, he proposes separate meetings to sidetrack the UN process.”

The Guardian Unlimited reported that many US states have already embarked on their own programmes, with California leading the way. California’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has signed into law, a 25% cut in greenhouse gas emissions requirements by 2020, with penalties for industries that do not comply. The state’s three biggest utilities must produce at least 20% of their electricity using renewable sources by 2010.

Reported by David Adam, BBC science correspondent - Thursday January 27, 2005

The Guardian Lobby groups funded by the US oil industry are targeting Britain in a bid to play down the threat of climate change and derail action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, leading scientists have warned.

Bob May, president of the Royal Society, says that “a lobby of professional sceptics who opposed action to tackle climate change” is turning its attention to Britain because of its high profile in the debate.

Writing in the Life section of today’s Guardian, Professor May says the government’s decision to make global warming a focus of its G8 presidency has made it a target. So has the high profile of its chief scientific adviser, David King, who described climate change as a bigger threat than terrorism.

Prof May’s warning coincides with a meeting of climate change sceptics today at the Royal Institution in London organised by a British group, the Scientific Alliance, which has links to US oil company ExxonMobil through a collaboration with a US institute.

Read the full BBC article HERE

We have been seeing a few comments and articles online referring to the theory that global warming and climate change caused by emission of greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide content as being one of the greatest political lies ever. According to one commentator:

“Doom and gloom. Let’s hear it for computer projections based on assumptions and surmises. Don’t let the truth stand in the way of a good story; and let’s all queue up for grants from assorted governments and government bodies, to keep us wealthy in our old age. Junk science to support junk scientists (though most of them in the IPCC are not even scientists). Junk science to assist the government in stealing even more taxes from us.

Check out the URL given by Scott in #4.”

Dry Climate 16×12 Fine Art Print Buy From Art.com

There are apparently a lot of prominent scientists who are of the opinion that the complete theory of climate change due to man’s activities on earth is a deliberate political move initiated by the UN and promoted by the media to an amazing tomfoolery and swindle of the common man.

One very interesting British documentary film illustrating the opposing views can be accessed at Google videos, here is the link: link

According to Conspiracy Archive, the term ‘Sustainable Development’ is in fact a global agenda structured on population control and further, that this a movement of vital proportion, ignored by the major media, kept off-limits from the general public, and has been on the United Nations (UN) drawing board for well over ten years. To quote:

“This movement would nullify our Constitutional structure with its freedoms and prerogatives enshrined in the Bill of Rights, including our unhampered right to religious freedom. It masquerades behind the facade of “sustainable development.”

In December 1983, Javier Perez de Cuellar, UN Secretary-General, asked Mrs. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norway, to chair a World Commission on Environment and Development (UNCED) focusing on “long-term environmental strategies for achieving sustainable development by the year 2000 and beyond.” Mrs. Brundtland had previously been Prime Minister of Norway and had served on other UN Commissions - the Brandt Commission on North-South Issues and the Palme Commission on security and disarmament. Now she was asked “to help formulate a third and compelling call for political action” on environment and development.”

Here, says Conspiracy Archive, a one-world pattern begins to emerge:

the Brandt Commission bore the title “Program for Survival and Common Crisis”; the Palme Commission “Common Security”; and the Brundtland Commission, “Common Future”3 There is also a political cord common to the chairmen: Willy Brandt, former Prime Minister of Germany, was until his death president of the Socialist International. Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden, was a socialist leader and Chairman of the Social Democratic Party who was assassinated in Stockholm. Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway was also a “member of the Socialist International.” These chairmen shared the bond of socialism, a bond at variance with both the U.S. Constitution and the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church.

The Resolution adopted at the UN General Assembly in 1983 directed the chair and vice-chair of the new UNCED to “jointly appoint the remaining members of the Commission, half of whom were to be selected from the developing world.”4 Members of the Brundtland Commission came from 21 “very different nations” and included Jim McNeill and Maurice Strong from Canada and the American, William D. Ruckelshaus, the first head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (ERA). He is also a member of the Business Council for Sustainable Development launched in 1990 by Maurice Strong. The Business Council called for “new forms of cooperation between government, business and society to achieve sustainable development.”

What Is Meant By Sustainable Development?

The Brundtland Commission describes Sustainable Development as “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” It is further defined: “. . . Sustainable Development can only be pursued if demographic developments are in harmony with the changing productive potential of the ecosystem.” And again, . . . “at a minimum Sustainable Development must not endanger the natural systems that support life on Earth - the waters, the soils, and the living beings” The pattern that begins to surface here becomes more pronounced in the body of the Commission’s report which was presented to the UN General Assembly in 1987.

The thrust of the “unanimous report” after three years of hearings held on five continents appears in the Chairman’s Foreword in comments such as “the rights of people to adequate food, sound housing, safe water, to access to means of choosing the size of their families” (xi); “. . . survival issues relating to uneven development, poverty and population growth” (xii); “the need for ‘major changes’ . . . in attitudes and in the way our societies are organized” (xiii).

Following the Chairman’s Foreword, an “Overview By The Commission Members” becomes more specific: “. . . Sustainable Development is not a fixed state of harmony, but rather a process of change. . . . We do not pretend that the process is easy or straightforward. Painful choices have to be made. Thus in the final analysis, sustainable development must rest on political will.” “Governments that need to do so should develop long-term multifaceted population policies and a campaign to pursue broad demographic goals to strengthen social, cultural and economic motivations for family planning, and to provide to all who want them the education, contraceptives and services required.” Dispersed throughout the 400 pages of Our Common Future are so many references to population: “Population and Human Resources,” “The Population Perspective,” “Managing Population Growth,” as to suggest a pre-conceived agenda. At the conclusion of its final meeting held in Tokyo in 1987, the Commission recommended “principles to guide their policy actions” including Principle #4 to “Ensure a Sustainable Level of Population” “Population policies should be formulated and integrated with other economic and social development programmes. . . . Increased access to family planning services is itself a form of social development that allows couples, and women in particular, the right to self-determination.”

The reader should continue to read the rest of Conspiracy Archive’s notes, LINK HERE. Honestly, either I am blind but I cannot see anything wrong with population control and we all knew that this was on the drawing borad since some 20 years if I am not mistaken.

One reader at ‘The Scotsman’ online news commented:

“I see Martin Livermore, Director of “The Scientific Alliance”, described as “a group of scientists and non-scientists” is quoted in the above article pouring doubt onto climate models.

This is what George Marshall (www.climatedenial.org) says about Martin Livermore, in his review of the Channel 4 Climate Swindle programme in March:

“There was only one scientific advisor on the [Channel 4 Climate Swindle] programme, Martin Livermore, whose sole scientific qualification is that he is the Director of a web-based think tank, The Scientific Alliance. The Alliance was set up by in 2001 by Robert Durward, the fiercely anti-green director of the British Aggregates Association, and Foresight Communications, a Westminster public relations and lobbying company, to “counter scare-mongering by the so-called green lobby”.

The Scientific Alliance has no affiliation with any recognised scientific body but, like most of the contributors to the programme, it does have very strong links with the US public relations and lobbying organizations that have been so effective in setting the Bush agenda on climate change.”

The Great Barrier Reef could be dead in 20 years unless there is a drastic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, a marine biology expert in Australia said in early April.

Rising sea temperatures were bleaching the coral and causing it to die, said Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of the Australian Research Council Centre for Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

At the same time, increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were turning the world’s oceans more acidic and preventing corals from forming their limestone skeletons, he said. Prof Hoegh-Guldberg and Professor Terry Hughes provided expert advice to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report was delayed due to objections from China, the US and Saudi Arabia.

Read other reports:

• Barrier Reef ‘Dead in 20 Years’ by Perth Now
• Cyber Diver New Network: Great Barrier Reef or Great Diminishing Reef?
• Reef ‘Gone in 20 Years’ by Earth Dive

THE Great Barrier Reef could be dead in 20 years unless there is a drastic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, a marine biology expert in Australia said in early April.

Rising sea temperatures were bleaching the coral and causing it to die, said Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of the Australian Research Council Centre for Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

At the same time, increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were turning the world’s oceans more acidic and preventing corals from forming their limestone skeletons, he said.

Prof Hoegh-Guldberg and Professor Terry Hughes provided expert advice to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report has now been released and was been delayed due to objections from China, the US and Saudi Arabia.

For the rest of this story..

How Many Light Bulbs dies it Take to Change the Climate?

Points for Governments to Consider:

1. The initial cost of replacing incandescent light bulbs with energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs will be offset by longer-term savings
2. Standard incandescent light bulbs can be phased out within a couple of years to avoid negative impact - the Australian government is using 3 years in a bid to reduce energy consumption; after which time they will no longer be for sale.
3. Compact fluorescent or low-wattage bulbs cost about $5 Aussie dollars more, but are more energy-efficient and save an average of $30 Aussie Dollars per year; they will be initially costlier but over time they will become less expensive as is typical through high public demand and will last four to 10 times longer.
4. The standard incandescent light bulb, developed for the mass market more than 125 years ago, consists of a metal filament glowing white-hot in a vacuum which wastes up to 95 per cent of the energy it uses - so most of us just waste money not making that change.
5. Compact fluorescent lights use about a fifth of the electricity to produce the same illumination. Each bulb also lasts between four and 10 times longer.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has stated that “We need to take practical measures in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” It is felt the change to fluorescent lighting could cut greenhouse gas emissions by the order of 800,000 tonnes a year by 2012.

We hope that this simple idea - the ‘light bulb’ ; can have a huge impact on climate change and if any government can do so, this pending ban should be sweeping as many countries as possible.