Western Antarctic Glacier Passes Tipping Point

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Wednesday January 13, 2010 · 6:13 PM PST

2010/01/13 · 18:13

The game changer that many feared is now unfolding in Antarctica. The Pine Island Glacier (PIG) is poised to suffer catastrophic collapse according to a new study by Richard Katz of the University of Oxford. The largest of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), PIG has long been the focus of worried scientific attention. Joe Romm gave an exhaustive summary in August 2009 of the importance and tenuousness of PIG here.

But now with this study, it seems Mr. Katz has identified PIG's tipping point, and unfortunately, it seems, we've past it.

bklynarch

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Thursday January 07, 2010 · 7:28 PM PST

2010/01/07 · 19:28

While President Obama sets about attempting to fix our national counter terrorism analytic machinery - we learned this week via William J. Broad and The New York Times that the CIA is playing a very important assist in top climate change scientific analysis. In C.I.A. Is Sharing Data With Climate Scientists, Broad reports:

The nation’s top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government’s intelligence assets — including spy satellites and other classified sensors — to assess the hidden complexities of environmental change. They seek insights from natural phenomena like clouds and glaciers, deserts and tropical forests.

bklynarch

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Friday January 01, 2010 · 6:57 AM PST

2010/01/01 · 06:57

To the Editor of The New York Times:

I want to report a mugging. I thought I was enjoying a quiet and safe New Years at home.
Re "It's Always the End of the World as We Know It" (opinion article, Jan 1).

Mr. Dutton, provided an entertaining and benign exposition on human fascination with Apocalypse and it's counterproductive nature, speaking of Y2K, religion, UFO cults and "Frankenstein" - noting:

"Such end-time fantasies must have a profound, persistent appeal in order to keep drawing wide-eyed crowds into movie theaters, as historically they have drawn crowds into churches, year after year."

Mr. Dutton's theme is clear. And having read 90% of his 1,332 word article, never once encountering climate change, Mr. Dutton decides to pivot, and magically concludes in 77 words:

bklynarch

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Saturday December 05, 2009 · 6:36 PM PST

2009/12/05 · 18:36

Mongaby.com in Highest rate of CO2 emissions growth since 1990 reports:

Between 1990 and 2005 Vietnam had the highest rate of emissions growth among countries that emitted more than 100 million tons of CO2 in any year during the past three decades, according to mongabay.com's analysis of emissions data from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC).

Vietnam's emissions from fossil fuel use, cement manufacturing, and gas flaring increased 376 percent from 5.8 million metric tons of carbon to 27.8 million tons between 1990 and 2005. Malaysia ranked second with a 224 percent increase.

bklynarch

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Thursday December 03, 2009 · 6:40 PM PST

2009/12/03 · 18:40

Until now I believed that the nation that has done most to sabotage a new climate change agreement was the United States. I was wrong. The real villain is Canada. Unless we can stop it, the harm done by Canada in December 2009 will outweigh a century of good works.

That's one of many scathing passages in George Monbiot's recent article Canada's image lies in tatters. It is now to climate what Japan is to whaling. Ouch!

bklynarch

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Wednesday December 02, 2009 · 4:13 AM PST

2009/12/02 · 04:13

Jim Hansen, the preeminent climate scientist and now political activist has recently emailed out a new note, Never-Give-Up Fighting Spirit: Lessons From a Grandchild. The note was adapted to an article in Sunday's Observer, and is in part publicity for his new book Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity and part a call-to-arms in the run-up to Copenhagen.

bklynarch

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Wednesday November 18, 2009 · 6:39 PM PST

2009/11/18 · 18:39

Carbon offsets are an alluring commodity to compensate for our consumption. But as Paying More for Flights Eases Guilt, Not Emissions by Elisabeth Rosenthal on the cover of today's NY Times illustrates, carbon offsets may cause as many problems as they claim to offset.

As the article notes, offsets have the counterproductive byproduct of allowing us to feel we can emit CO2 and pay our way out of the problem. Like ubiquitous weight-loss programs carbon offset companies are selling false hope.

bklynarch

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Monday October 26, 2009 · 7:31 PM PDT

2009/10/26 · 19:31

“If you ask a scientist how much more CO2 do you think we should add to the atmosphere, the answer is going to be none.”

- Gavin A. Schmidt, climate scientist quoted by Andy Revkin in Sunday's NY Times.

bklynarch

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Sunday August 09, 2009 · 3:06 PM PDT

2009/08/09 · 15:06

It turns out we haven't been playing with fire in regards to climate change, or even atom bombs...we're playing with a hydrogen bomb stockpile. Because as we're about to get serious about climate change, Earth is set to be still far less forgiving:

The vast amount of carbon stored in the arctic and boreal regions of the world is more than double that previously estimated...

bklynarch

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Tuesday August 04, 2009 · 7:53 PM PDT

2009/08/04 · 19:53

While we dither in driving down our carbon emissions there was always some comfort in the fact that while India's and China's emissions are rapidly growing, on a per capita basis they were still low. And they are low. Yet an ominous milestone seems certain to be reached quite soon.

bklynarch

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Monday August 25, 2008 · 10:19 AM PDT

2008/08/25 · 10:19

Or 7 in 10 at least say they are trying to reduce their carbon footprint. That's according to a new ABC News/Planet Green/Stanford University Poll released August 9th.

Yes, this headline appears very much a result of higher gasoline prices, and so:

59 percent say they're using less gasoline -- driving less, using smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, carpooling, taking mass transit and the like.

Yet it goes beyond just gasoline:

60 percent, also say they're cutting their consumption of power (and water), and 33 percent are recycling

Poll

39 votes Show Results

Are you working to reduce your carbon footprint?

39 votes Vote Now!

Are you working to reduce your carbon footprint?

What's a carbon footprint?

0 votes

Thinking about it - but I haven't acted yet.

0 votes

Now taking steps to reduce in parts of my life but not yet all.

18 votes

I'm reducing across the board: work/school, travel, leisure, home, food, family & health

21 votes

The Importance Of Being Pristine - Another IPCC Shortcoming

bklynarch

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Wednesday August 20, 2008 · 5:25 AM PDT

2008/08/20 · 05:25

As deforestation accelerates and grows ever more concentrated the consequences on climate change are even greater than previously thought. As reported in New Scientist:

Pristine temperate forest stores three times more carbon than currently estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and 60% more than plantation forests, according to research in Australia.

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Western Antarctic Glacier Passes Tipping Point

This Is Analysis We Can Believe In

I want to report a mugging

Vietnam Puts the Pedal to the Metal - Germany Pumps the Brakes

Oh Canada, say it ain't so!

Storms of my Grandchildren

The Problem with Offsets

The number is ZERO.

Amplifying Feedbacks - A Climate Change Arms Race

Another Climate Rubicon

"7 in 10 Americans Reducing Carbon Footprint" - with Poll

The Importance Of Being Pristine - Another IPCC Shortcoming