(crossposted at Program to Relocate and Assist Environmental Refugees)
After news this week that the Arctic is Warmer than it has ever been in the past 2000 years, and that quote
How much energy we're getting from the Sun is no longer the most important thing governing the temperature of the Arctic.
I was glad to hear about the following below:
From the President of Maldives, at the sneak preview of the movie "Age of Stupid" staring Pete Postlewaite, which provides a bleak view of our future should we not act to stop Climate Change.
From the President Nahseed:
and a clip from the movie:
I hope this movie will help motivate more action at the Copenhagen summit.
More from the BBC on the warming arctic and a statement Secretary General Ban Ki Moon:
Much debate on climate change has centred on the Mediaeval Warm Period, or Mediaeval Climate Anomaly - a period about 1,000 years ago when, historical records suggest, Vikings colonised Greenland and may have grown grapes in Newfoundland.
The new analysis shows that temperatures were indeed warmer in this region 1,000 years ago than they were 100 years ago - but not as warm as they are now, or 1,000 years previously.
"It shows that the Mediaeval Warm Period is real, and is... an exception from the general trend of cooling," commented Eystein Jansen from Bergen University in Norway, who was not involved in the research.
"It also shows there's lots of variability on the 100-year timescale, and that's probably more so in the Arctic than elsewhere."
Professor Jansen was a co-ordinating lead author on the palaeoclimate (ancient climate) chapter of the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment
This is the excuse I have heard from Climate Change Deniers: that these cooling and heating trends are the Earth's natural patterns - often citing the warming period where the Vikings settled Greenland 1000 years ago.
It seems like these Climate Scientists finally decided to focus on the Denier's claims and research that issue.
There is no doubt this refutes that claim.
As the Science study emerged, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was telling the World Climate Conference in Geneva that many of the "more distant scenarios" forecast by climate scientists were "happening now".
Earlier this week, Mr Ban visited the Arctic in an attempt to gain first-hand experience of how the region is changing.
"Scientists have been accused for years of scaremongering. But the real scaremongers are those who say we cannot afford climate action," he said in his Geneva speech, calling for world leaders to make bigger pledges of action in the run-up to December's UN climate summit in Copenhagen.
Bravo Secretary General - let's hope our leaders hear this loud and clear.