8.28.2007 | In the Earth's shadow

1.26.2006 | About time

California has decided that secondhand smoke is a pollutant, no different from diesel exhaust or Benzene, for example. I say it's about time. While the panel that made the unanimous decision cited a "seminal" study linking secondhand smoke to breast cancer, this New Scientist article from 2004 reported that cigarettes are more polluting than diesel exhaust. Considering, too, all the toxic chemicals found in cigarette smoke, as well as studies linking secondhand smoke to all sorts of other health problems, it should have taken more than just a breast cancer study for a decision like this to be made. Next will have to come all the public smoking bans that people will no doubt gripe about, saying it's their own right to kill themselves (euthanasia aside, of course). But what people don't think about it the smoke that isn't filtered that people around them have to breathe. Smoking isn't just unhealthy, it's downright dangerous – to yourself and to others.

12.18.2005 | Wake up! Global warming is real

 

The atmosphere now holds more than one-third more carbon dioxide than it did before the Industrial Revolution. In fact, European scientists reported last month that analysis of ice cores from Antarctica shows that today's level is 27 percent higher than any previous peak looking back 650,000 years.

As temperatures rise and global warming talks stall, it seems global warming is increasingly becoming an inescapble fact. Inescapable that is, for all but the U.S., who staunchly refuses to participate in any forced reduction of carbon emissions. China and India, rising giants whose economies still hover somewhere between developing and industrialized, sit on the sidelines as well.

The problem with modern environmental regulation is that countries that have already polluted to build up their economies (or in our case, still want to pollute) have to contend with developing economies that want to be able to waste their environment just as much as the industrialized nations have. Between these two factions we could find a balance if we had a leader willing to work out the compromises. But the U.S. under the Bush administration, as it does on other matters, continues to hold its head in the sand.

Bush once escaped the problem by saying "we need more study." But the facts are in, even in a report released by his own administration last year. Global warming is real, and between tons of emissions on a daily basis and rampant deforestation (trees, if you recall, convert carbon dioxide into oxygen), we are at least partially to blame.

12.07.2005 | Record lows

I wonder... does this recent spate of record cold weather have anything to do with the 30 percent drop in the Gulf stream current reported last week? May be coincidence, maybe not.

12.06.2005 | Global warming: U.S. snubs Canada, senators ask, mayors act

As global warming talks continue in Canada and the first Pacific islanders move to escape the effects of global warming, the United States has taken a specifically stubborn approach to the talks: no compromise. It's a wonder we're even there at all, considering we refuse to recognize the 1998 Kyoto agreement that led to the world's first measures to reduce carbon emissions. Canada tried to make a compromise and have talks with the U.S., China and India under a 1992 agreement, but no dice. We remain the world's number one source of carbon dioxide, providing a full 25 percent of the world's total emissions.

Meanwhile, a group of 24 U.S. Senators has asked Bush to participate in the discussions in a constructive way, arctic and tropical indigenous peoples are uniting in the fight against climate change, and 192 U.S. cities, along with a few states, are moving ahead with their own measures. It seems the only people being left behind in all of this is the Bush administration and their stubborn insistence that we do nothing to solve the problem.

Bush's complaint about Kyoto was a good point: exempting India, China and other developing nations from any final agreement on global warming is not an option. But Bush doesn't understand the patience and time needed to work out diplomatic agreements (hence our virtual silence at the global warming talks, and our overly single-minded attempts to bring in more allies in the Iraq invasion). Rather than put pressure on China, India and others to join the agreement and cut emissions, Bush has used the exemptions, along with his continued (and possibly feigned) doubt that global warming exists, to excuse the U.S. from any action entirely. It's like a child throwing up his hands when he doesn't get his way. I wish it weren't possible to make a comparison like that to our own president, but I don't know how else to describe it.

12.02.2005 | Global warming 'worst-case scenario' realized

This NASA photo shows the minimum extent of the arctic ice cap in September 2005. The yellow line shows the cap's normal size.

As Tropical Storm Epsilon, the season's record 26th named storm, reached hurricane strength today (a hurricane in December?), another effect of global warming is being realized further to the North. Meet Canada's arctic waters, which are steadily being melted by rising arctic temperatures that are rising twice as fast as the average in the rest of the world. Together with the New Scientist report that the Gulf Stream current is slowing due to melting glacial waters, it's clear that the effects of global warming are upon us.

Arctic temperatures are expected to rise significantly by the end of the century, according to experts, which will melt even more glaciers.

"What we are seeing in the Arctic, and what we are seeing further south with the hurricanes, are the most pessimistic models of global warming," said Louis Fortier, an oceanographer who has just returned from an expedition to the region on the Canadian research vessel Amundsen.

Lasserre predicted that within 30 years it would probably be possible for ships not normally equipped for the Arctic to tackle the Northwest passage.

About 20-30 ships currently take it each summer now.

Melting in the Arctic is getting so bad that, according to this same article, the U.S. and Canada may be about to enter into a territorial dispute. Canada wants, and has claimed since 1986, jurisdiction over its northern waters to be able to enforce shipping regulations like environmental protections and safety training. The U.S., on the other hand, argues that any waters between two oceans are international waters.

Ironically, the melting of ice in the arctic will make it easer to access oil reserves in the Arctic Ocean, so we'll be able to burn even more oil to raise global temepratures even further to be able to melt more ice and find... more oil. There's also one reserve in the Arctic that is split by the Yukon-Alaska border between the U.S. and Canada, setting up the scene for yet another territorial dispute. Canada had better get its hands on a decent military, and fast.

Update (12/5/05): Arctic feels the heat from climate change – Reuters article on roughly the same subject, with a Canadian biologist pointing out a sharper than expected decrease in the extent and thickness of the Arctic ice cap.

11.30.2005 | The real-life 'Day After Tomorrow'

For those of you who didn't see the 2004 movie, The Day After Tomorrow is a dramatic fictional account of what might happen if global warming causes the Gulf Stream current, which carries warm water from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Atlantic, ever to fail. In such a scenario, the world enters a second ice age because the warm water that had kept the North Atlantic climate moderate gives way to the cold arctic. Some have dismissed the notion as science fiction, and it may be, but scientists have now found that the waters of the Gulf Stream current have slowed by about 30 percent, leading us down a path of unknown consequences. (And yes, this is due to global warming that is happening, but the Bush administration continues to refuse to do anything about.)

Critics have said that average temperatures in Europe have gone up, but the increase can be attributed to overall global warming due to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Meanwhile, the UK, whose climate is most directly affected by the Gulf Stream, has just had an unseasonably cold winter. The misnomer of "global warming" makes people forget that climate change can cause not just warmer average temperatures, but greater extremes between the temperatures. As the average temperature increases, the extremes will increase as well.

11.29.2005 | Tropical Storm Epsilon

Katrina, Rita, Wilma, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta... Epsilon. We are now up to the 26th named storm on record this season, still the busiest ever since the naming conventions had to switch to Greek letters for the pure reason we ran out of names. That, and it's 70 degrees outside right now a couple of days before December. If this isn't global warming I'd like to know what is.

11.23.2005 | I'm allergic to Global Warming

We all could be in the next few decades if current trends continue – this Space.com/LiveScience article explains why.

8.21.2005 | More global warming evidence

Climate warning as Siberia melts
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18725124.500

Global warming brings earlier spring thaw to Great Lakes
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7876

Senators Attest to Alaska Climate Change
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050818/ap_on_go_co/climate_change_alaska

Dramatic collapse of Antarctic ice shelf linked to global warming
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050803/sc_afp/climateantarctica

Melting of Siberian peat bog could speed global warming: report
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050811/sc_afp/russiaenvironmentclimatebritain

Study links hurricanes' intensity since 1970s to global warming
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-globalwarming31,0,3379605.story?track=mostemailedlink

In U.S., Climate Change May Hit Southeast Hardest
http://rl.channel.aol.com/natgeo?id=20050816155309990001

Update (9/30/05)

More strong Katrina-like hurricanes reported
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050915/us_nm/katrina_hurricanes_dc

Warming causes record Arctic ice melt: U.S. report
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050928/wl_canada_nm/canada_environment_arctic_col_1

8.13.2005 | Global warming clearer than ever

For the record: Kyoto is only the first step. It doesn't eliminate carbon emissions, and the ones we've already put in the air still haven't taken full effect. Carbon dioxide increases the earth's ability to trap heat, just as the super-heated surface of Venus doesn't come just from its close proximity to the sun, but because of its thick CO2 atmosphere. It takes time for the Earth to absorb that heat and trap it -- more of it will be trapped with each successive season as temperatures become warner every year.

Still not convinced? This informative article from Wired magazine shows how discrepancies in measurements from the 1970s have been resolved: the earth's temperature is rising even faster than previously thought. Think about it: the only people out there trying to disprove the existence of global warming are those who have the most to lose if we switch away from oil as our primary source of energy (cough cough, ExxonMobil) -- and with higher than ever oil prices, maybe swtiching away wouldn't be the worst idea anyway.