I only gave them +1.
Whereas we have -50.
Oh hey, we got 1st place for the fossil of the day award again. Hurray for us!!!
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Durban Climate Change Conference 2011
- Thread starter mentalfloss
- Start date
I only gave them +1.
Whereas we have -50.
Oh hey, we got 1st place for the fossil of the day award again. Hurray for us!!!
No sh!t Sherlock! Climate has been in change for billions of years and will continue to change for billions of years. Humans are but a mere blink in time. Get used to it.
Well, yea, I mean.. I can understand that you really meant to type something more than poop, but...
There's no such thing as development without consequences...is it better to flood a river, or to acidify an ocean and expand the world's tropics and deserts? Climate change mitigation will be a case of cost/benefits and many scenarios.
Check out this speech by Jeffrey Sachs at U of M when you get a chance. It's almost 2 hours, but he does a really good job of framing our economic and environmental transition over the next 50 or so years. He also goes over the legitimacy of AGW, but because he's an economist, it comes with a heavy dose of pragmatism about how policy changes should be implemented.
Canada's incoherent approach in Durban
I am deeply concerned that Canada's minister of the environment is living in an alternative reality. His messaging around the Durban climate negotiations is neither factual nor coherent.
Peter Kent says that the Kyoto protocol has failed. In reality, Canada is the only country to ignore its legally binding emissions reductions targets. He also says that climate action is bad for the economy. Employment would grow faster with better climate policy and investment in renewable energy. By not acting, Canada is losing out on jobs to Europe and Asia.
He says that Canada is not obstructing the negotiations. In reality, Canada is negotiating on behalf of the fossil fuel industry, while lobbying against climate legislation in other countries.
My future has been sold to the highest bidder: the fossil fuel industry. I am a member of the Canadian Youth Delegation to COP 17. We are in Durban to demand that Canada put people ahead of polluters by ending subsidies to the fossil fuel industry and investing in green jobs.
Peter Kent needs to come back to reality. My future is at stake.
I am deeply concerned that Canada's minister of the environment is living in an alternative reality. His messaging around the Durban climate negotiations is neither factual nor coherent.
Peter Kent says that the Kyoto protocol has failed. In reality, Canada is the only country to ignore its legally binding emissions reductions targets. He also says that climate action is bad for the economy. Employment would grow faster with better climate policy and investment in renewable energy. By not acting, Canada is losing out on jobs to Europe and Asia.
He says that Canada is not obstructing the negotiations. In reality, Canada is negotiating on behalf of the fossil fuel industry, while lobbying against climate legislation in other countries.
My future has been sold to the highest bidder: the fossil fuel industry. I am a member of the Canadian Youth Delegation to COP 17. We are in Durban to demand that Canada put people ahead of polluters by ending subsidies to the fossil fuel industry and investing in green jobs.
Peter Kent needs to come back to reality. My future is at stake.
The Big Lie in the Durban U.N. Climate Talks
The problem with the U.N. climate talks in Durban, now into their third day, is not just that the big polluters like China and the U.S. refuse to make any meaningful commitments to cut carbon pollution. It’s also the fact that the entire negotiation is based on a big lie. Or, to be more charitable about it, on a mass delusion.
Jonathan Pershing, the lead U.S. climate negotiator, spelled it out yesterday when he said, according to one media report, "there [are] an infinite number of pathways to stay below 2 degrees Centigrade."
If you are interested enough in the climate crisis to read this post, you probably know that 2 degrees Centigrade of warming (or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is the widely acknowledged threshold for "dangerous" climate change. To meet the 2 C limit, most climate scientists agree that we have to hold levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million. Right now, we’re at 390 ppm, with a growth rate of about 2 ppm per year.
The entire objective of the U.N. climate talks is to negotiate an agreement under which all the nations of the world agree to work together to prevent, in U.N.-speak, "dangerous anthropogenic interference of the climate system." In other words, to limit CO2 levels to 450 ppm.
But here’s the problem: There are not, as Pershing put it, "an infinite number of pathways" to this goal. There is, at best, one pathway – and that is a massive, World War II-scale effort to, as climate blogger Joe Romm puts it, "deploy every conceivable energy-efficient and low carbon technology that we have today as fast as we can." (You can read Romm’s full analysis of what it would take to stabilize CO2 levels at 450 ppm here.)
So yes, if a Winston Churchill of the climate crisis suddenly emerges and we begin bulldozing coal plants all over the world, we may be able to save ourselves from dangerous climate change. But let’s not be naive. Despite all the progress climate scientists have made in understanding the risks we run by loading the atmosphere with CO2, the world is still as addicted to fossil fuels as ever. I wish it weren’t true, but it is. In fact, rather than decreasing, global warming pollution is on the rise. Last year saw a six percent increase in CO2 emissions – the biggest jump ever. As two noted climate scientists wrote in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society:
Even within the Obama administration, the fact that these U.N. targets are unattainable is an open secret. Back in 2009, while I was working on a Rolling Stone profile (PDF) of U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, I asked him about the chances of limiting atmospheric CO2 concentrations to 450 ppm.
His reply: “The fact is, we’re not going to level out at 450 ppm …. I hope we hit 550 ppm. Who knows?"
In other words, the U.N. climate talks failed long ago, and what’s going on now in Durban is just a ghost dance. This doesn’t mean we should give up trying to cut emissions. That's still hugely important; in fact, you could say that the fate of civilization depends on it. But happy talk about "infinite pathways" is just bull****. Nothing short of an all-out social or technological revolution (I hear engineers at Lawrence Livermore National Lab are making great progress on nuclear fusion …) is going to save us from crossing over into the realm of "dangerous" climate change in the near future. The sooner we admit that – and the sooner we prepare for it with honest talk about the challenges of living on a hotter planet – the better.
Jonathan Pershing, the lead U.S. climate negotiator, spelled it out yesterday when he said, according to one media report, "there [are] an infinite number of pathways to stay below 2 degrees Centigrade."
If you are interested enough in the climate crisis to read this post, you probably know that 2 degrees Centigrade of warming (or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is the widely acknowledged threshold for "dangerous" climate change. To meet the 2 C limit, most climate scientists agree that we have to hold levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million. Right now, we’re at 390 ppm, with a growth rate of about 2 ppm per year.
The entire objective of the U.N. climate talks is to negotiate an agreement under which all the nations of the world agree to work together to prevent, in U.N.-speak, "dangerous anthropogenic interference of the climate system." In other words, to limit CO2 levels to 450 ppm.
But here’s the problem: There are not, as Pershing put it, "an infinite number of pathways" to this goal. There is, at best, one pathway – and that is a massive, World War II-scale effort to, as climate blogger Joe Romm puts it, "deploy every conceivable energy-efficient and low carbon technology that we have today as fast as we can." (You can read Romm’s full analysis of what it would take to stabilize CO2 levels at 450 ppm here.)
So yes, if a Winston Churchill of the climate crisis suddenly emerges and we begin bulldozing coal plants all over the world, we may be able to save ourselves from dangerous climate change. But let’s not be naive. Despite all the progress climate scientists have made in understanding the risks we run by loading the atmosphere with CO2, the world is still as addicted to fossil fuels as ever. I wish it weren’t true, but it is. In fact, rather than decreasing, global warming pollution is on the rise. Last year saw a six percent increase in CO2 emissions – the biggest jump ever. As two noted climate scientists wrote in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society:
There is now little to no chance of maintaining the rise in global mean surface temperature at below 2°C, despite repeated high-level statements to the contrary. Moreover, the impacts associated with 2°C have been revised upwards, sufficiently so that 2°C now more appropriately represents the threshold between dangerous and extremely dangerous climate change.
A recent report by International Energy Administration put the challenge of hitting the 450 ppm target into stark relief, pointing out that within five years, the infrastructure – power plants, factories, cars, etc. – will be in place to drive CO2 levels beyond 450 ppm.Even within the Obama administration, the fact that these U.N. targets are unattainable is an open secret. Back in 2009, while I was working on a Rolling Stone profile (PDF) of U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, I asked him about the chances of limiting atmospheric CO2 concentrations to 450 ppm.
His reply: “The fact is, we’re not going to level out at 450 ppm …. I hope we hit 550 ppm. Who knows?"
In other words, the U.N. climate talks failed long ago, and what’s going on now in Durban is just a ghost dance. This doesn’t mean we should give up trying to cut emissions. That's still hugely important; in fact, you could say that the fate of civilization depends on it. But happy talk about "infinite pathways" is just bull****. Nothing short of an all-out social or technological revolution (I hear engineers at Lawrence Livermore National Lab are making great progress on nuclear fusion …) is going to save us from crossing over into the realm of "dangerous" climate change in the near future. The sooner we admit that – and the sooner we prepare for it with honest talk about the challenges of living on a hotter planet – the better.
Buy a Coke and buy a polar bear a life jacket.
WWF - Partnerships - WWF and The Coca-Cola Company Team Up to Protect Polar Bears
WWF - Partnerships - WWF and The Coca-Cola Company Team Up to Protect Polar Bears
Aren't there any other fake movements people can get behind on this forum? This one's tired and played out. so, a bunch of nincumpoops go to South Africa to try to figure out how to screw the Western world even worse than it is with a bogus tax and people actually follow this like it's important. we need to start lynching, I figure. Let's just get rid of the green nazis already. They have no purpose, no soul, no brain. f*** 'em
Durban climate conference sees shifting geopolitics
DURBAN - New tensions and alignments are emerging at the UN talks here, reflecting subtle but far-reaching changes in the geopolitics of climate change.
The bedrock for the 194-nation talks is the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
But since that agreement was adopted in 1992 the world has changed dramatically, and some of those changes clash head-on with the document's defining architecture. Under the terms of the UNFCCC, developed countries acknowledge historical responsibility for global warming and pledge to shoulder most of the burden for fixing it and to help developing countries cope with its impacts.
When the UNFCCC was crafted, developed countries accounted for two-thirds of greenhouse-gas emissions.Today, that proportion is fast being reversed.
Developing nations - led by China, India and Brazil - emit half, and by 2030 the figure will be 65 percent, according to several estimates.
Indeed, several countries that are still categorized as "developing" economies are now richer per-capita than "developed" nations in eastern and central Europe.
China acknowledges its new status as the world's top carbon polluter, but insists that the current rules should continue to apply, at least until 2020. But the growing emissions and prosperity of the so-called BASIC nations - Brazil, South Africa, India and China - have caused cracks to appear within a once-solid bloc of 132 nations known as the Group of 77 and China.
Poorer countries already struggling to cope with intense droughts, floods and rising seas have gingerly begun to appeal to their developing big brothers to beef up their commitment on climate.
Their concern fanned into alarm when in the opening days of the 12-day parlay in Durban, emerging giants clearly preferred to put off any new pledges on emissions for at least a decade.
"This is extremely worrying for us," said a lead negotiator from one of these most vulnerable nations. "The science is clear - if there is no action for another decade, then it means that many of the vulnerable developing countries are doomed."
There has long been simmering tension within the G77 bloc on this issue, he continued, but now it is bubbling to the surface.
At the Durban talks, the European Union (EU) is trying to convince both the United States and BASIC nations to sign on to a "roadmap" leading to a global climate pact in 2015.
So far, the EU proposal has been rejected by both.
For Brice Lalonde, a former French environment minister and co-chair of next year's Rio +20 summit, emerging giants are still on a learning curve. "They are used to being the spokesman of the poor of the planet. They have not yet had time to make the transition to co-managing the planet," he said before the conference.
DURBAN - New tensions and alignments are emerging at the UN talks here, reflecting subtle but far-reaching changes in the geopolitics of climate change.
The bedrock for the 194-nation talks is the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
But since that agreement was adopted in 1992 the world has changed dramatically, and some of those changes clash head-on with the document's defining architecture. Under the terms of the UNFCCC, developed countries acknowledge historical responsibility for global warming and pledge to shoulder most of the burden for fixing it and to help developing countries cope with its impacts.
When the UNFCCC was crafted, developed countries accounted for two-thirds of greenhouse-gas emissions.Today, that proportion is fast being reversed.
Developing nations - led by China, India and Brazil - emit half, and by 2030 the figure will be 65 percent, according to several estimates.
Indeed, several countries that are still categorized as "developing" economies are now richer per-capita than "developed" nations in eastern and central Europe.
China acknowledges its new status as the world's top carbon polluter, but insists that the current rules should continue to apply, at least until 2020. But the growing emissions and prosperity of the so-called BASIC nations - Brazil, South Africa, India and China - have caused cracks to appear within a once-solid bloc of 132 nations known as the Group of 77 and China.
Poorer countries already struggling to cope with intense droughts, floods and rising seas have gingerly begun to appeal to their developing big brothers to beef up their commitment on climate.
Their concern fanned into alarm when in the opening days of the 12-day parlay in Durban, emerging giants clearly preferred to put off any new pledges on emissions for at least a decade.
"This is extremely worrying for us," said a lead negotiator from one of these most vulnerable nations. "The science is clear - if there is no action for another decade, then it means that many of the vulnerable developing countries are doomed."
There has long been simmering tension within the G77 bloc on this issue, he continued, but now it is bubbling to the surface.
At the Durban talks, the European Union (EU) is trying to convince both the United States and BASIC nations to sign on to a "roadmap" leading to a global climate pact in 2015.
So far, the EU proposal has been rejected by both.
For Brice Lalonde, a former French environment minister and co-chair of next year's Rio +20 summit, emerging giants are still on a learning curve. "They are used to being the spokesman of the poor of the planet. They have not yet had time to make the transition to co-managing the planet," he said before the conference.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal officials say the Arctic region has changed dramatically in the past five years — for the worse.
It's melting at a near record pace, and it's darkening and absorbing too much of the sun's heat.
A new report card from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration rates the polar region with blazing red stop lights on three of five categories and yellow cautions for the other two. Overall, these are not good grades, but it doesn't mean the Arctic is doomed and it still will freeze in the winter, said report co-editor Jackie Richter-Menge.
The Arctic acts as Earth's refrigerator, cooling the planet. What's happening, scientists said, is like someone pushing the fridge's thermostat much too high.
"It's not cooling as well as it used to," Richter-Menge said.
http://news.yahoo.com/federal-report-arctic-much-worse-since-2006-182055700.html
It's melting at a near record pace, and it's darkening and absorbing too much of the sun's heat.
A new report card from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration rates the polar region with blazing red stop lights on three of five categories and yellow cautions for the other two. Overall, these are not good grades, but it doesn't mean the Arctic is doomed and it still will freeze in the winter, said report co-editor Jackie Richter-Menge.
The Arctic acts as Earth's refrigerator, cooling the planet. What's happening, scientists said, is like someone pushing the fridge's thermostat much too high.
"It's not cooling as well as it used to," Richter-Menge said.
http://news.yahoo.com/federal-report-arctic-much-worse-since-2006-182055700.html
Right...it's the greens who are the nazis... I hope you don't own anything remotely analogous to a gas chamber, you sociopath.
Why does Coke want to get it's polar bear paws on a big chunk of fresh water? For polar bears or for Coke?
Silly Rabbit. It's for Canadians!
Support for climate action still strong in Canada
Canadians want Ottawa to be part of an international treaty to combat climate change, and would even support carbon taxes as a means of meeting the country’s emission reduction targets, a new poll suggests.
Environment Minister Peter Kent travels this weekend to the United Nations climate conference in South Africa, and has already sparked concern among developing countries and political opponents at home that Canada is preparing to walk away from the Kyoto Protocol.
Mr. Kent insists Ottawa would support a new treaty that includes commitments from the United States and large emerging countries such as China and India to reduce emissions. However, negotiators have failed to make much progress on a new deal. And emerging economies and poorer ones want Kyoto principles to form the basis of any successor treaty.
“It is not clear to Canadians what the right treaty is or what the right approach is, but they want something done,” he said in an interview.
In the 2011 version of the annual environmental survey, more Canadians named climate change and other environmental issues as the most serious problem facing the world than any other issue, even as their fear about global recession has climbed in the past year. Consistent with that view, a clear majority – 56 per cent – said they want Canada to sign on to a new international climate agreement, even it means job losses in some domestic industries and higher prices for some goods and services.
Nearly three quarters of respondents said they would support governments setting limits on carbon dioxide emissions, even if that meant higher energy prices.
The most direct and broad-based climate policy is the carbon tax the B.C. Liberal government imposed two years ago.
British Columbians appear to support the carbon levy even though it has increased gasoline prices by six cents a litre. Some 57 per cent of B.C. respondents said they support the carbon tax, including 24 per cent who said they strongly support it.
The majority of respondents outside British Columbia said they would support such a levy, which has also gained support from several major business organizations. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has ruled out a carbon tax.
The poll surveyed 2,000 people between Nov. 15 and 27. It has a margin of error of 2.1 per cent.
Support for climate action still strong in Canada, poll finds - The Globe and Mail
People do not want to pay more taxes or lose their job. Its ok if Fred down the street loses his job and pays more taxes. When asked about climate change, people give the nice safe answer but if unemployment rose to 10% because of green laws, people would be screaming and occupying a park or something. I don't for a minute believe that if asked the question 'Would you support climate change accord even if it meant you would lose your job and have to pay more in carbon taxes?' that the answer would be favourable.
That's because people peddle bullcrap like "unemployment rising to 10% because of green laws."