Global Warming News n Views

Believe it or not, global warming is being cited as one of the reasons a US Airways flight landed in New York’s Hudson River on Friday.

Media were considering blaming the incident on the Bush administration until it became apparent that as a result of pilot Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger’s heroic efforts, as well as those of his flight crew, there were no fatalities.

Wildlife mitigation is the official term for avoiding accidents like these, and according to the government’s latest report on the topic, it’s becoming an increasing concern. The report, which was released in June by the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Department of Transportation and Fish and Wildlife Service, found that since 1990, the number of bird strikes has quadrupled, from 1,759 in 1990 to a record 7,666 in 2007. Officials cite a number of possible causes for the increase:

Global warming is defined as the warming of the earth’s temperature.  This rise in temperature is attributed to greenhouse gases.  Unfortunately, global warming involves a lot more than just a slight rise in the earth’s temperature.  For that reason, global warming is an issue that should cause you concern.

As previously stated, global warming involves a lot more than a slight rise in temperature.  Although the affects of global warming are widely debated, as many of these changes can also be attributed to other causes, our planet is changing.  In many aspects, it is changing relatively quickly.

When it comes to global warming, many individuals wonder why they should be concerned.  If you are one of those individuals, you will want to take a close look at the changes in which we are already seeing.  Many of these changes have been attributed to global warming.  For starters, we will focus on the temperatures.

Here’s a new study for your “Boy, Are We In Trouble” file.   We’ve written a lot here about likely climate change effects like wildfires, rising seas, and water shortages, but one Pandora’s box we haven’t opened yet is the potential for a food crisis.  As it turns out, we may be in for a big one.

A Stanford study published in the January 9th issue of Science finds that rising temperatures are likely to have a major effect on crop yields in the the tropics and subtropics by 2100.  In some areas, the study predicts that primary food crops like maize and rice will be reduced by 20-to-40%.  Considering that half of the world’s population lives in these regions — three billion and rapidly growing — and that a large percentage are subsistence farmers, crop shortages could be devastating–and reverberate well beyond those regions, generating waves of “hunger refugees.”

Sound science put to rest numerous unsubstantiated global warming scares in 2008. Sensationalist predictions that the North Pole would melt, polar bear numbers would decline, hurricanes would run amok, devastating droughts would occur, and Antarctic ice sheets would flood the southern seas never materialized.

Unfortunately, this will not stop the purveyors of gloom and doom from creating similar false global warming scares and sensationalist predictions for 2009.

Keeping in mind the following 10 global warming truths will help us avoid falling prey to global warming scams in the upcoming New Year.

Global temperatures are not rising. The warmest year in the past century occurred a full decade ago, in 1998. Temperatures have been gradually and steadily falling for most of the past decade. Temperatures in 2008 were no warmer than temperatures in 1980.

Both the new president and both sides of the aisle in the new Congress have been politically convinced, or see an opportunity for a government power play, that man’s carbon-dioxide emissions are the cause of global warming. But is man really responsible? More than 30,000 American scientists and engineers do not think man is the cause. More and more leaders in England and other parts of the English-speaking world are beginning to think not. The new head of the European Union is in doubt.

2. – Global WarmingPrimer.pdf
This paper originates at the National Center for Policy Analysis.
- The levels and composition of greenhouse gases;
- Historical levels of atmospheric CO2 and Earth temperature and current CO2 emissions;
- CO2 emissions;
- Various modeled predictions of temperature;
- Consequences of the most recent warming;
- Results and costs for the options we have for responding to the current CO2 levels.

The Cold War shaped world politics for half a century. But global
warming may shape the patterns of global conflict for much longer than
that — and help spark clashes that will be, in every sense of the word,
hot wars.

“There is every reason to believe that as the 21st century unfolds, the
security story will be bound together with climate change,” warns John
Ashton, a veteran diplomat who is now the United Kingdom’s first
special envoy on climate change.

What events, actions, and findings had the most positive or negative impact on the likelihood that the nation and the world will act in time to avoid catastrophic warming?

Since the #1 story is way too obvious to generate any drama, I will start there and then go back and count down from 10 to 2.

1. Team Without Rivals. A year ago, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, desperately warned, “If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future.

I believe they call it “the tyranny of the present.” This is the season of solidarity for climate change contrarians and global warming skeptics.

Take my brother, Chuck, who’s been digging out of his driveway in upstate New York non-stop since Halloween. After powering down the snow blower, Chuck recently explained to me that all this global warming hoopla is a conspiracy to redistribute American wealth to developing nations, under the auspices of the U.N. (which just happens to put out all those horrifying projections about climate change run amok–coincidence? You decide).