Dear friends,
I’ve just come from the Moving Planet celebration here in San Francisco, California — it was great fun watching people converge on skateboard and bike and kayak from around this beautiful city. It’s even more fun back here at the crowded, noisy 350 office, hunched over my laptop and watching pictures stream in from absolutely everywhere.
The crowds around the world are enormous, and the energy is infectious. To give you a sense of what’s been happening around the world, here are a few images that have already arrived:

www.moving-planet.org

Our 350.org team is pulling together a global mosaic of images and videos to deliver to world leaders and share with our network, and we want to make sure everyone can see what you’ve been up.

Climate Change Threatens Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness.

www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2011/2011-09-09-02.html

THIMPU, Bhutan, September 9, 2011 (ENS) – Hydropower, the biggest economic driver in the Himalayan country of Bhutan, is threatened by serious water shortages as the country’s glaciers melt due to climate warming, finds Bhutan’s latest National Human Development Report.

Many of Bhutan’s glaciers are melting at a higher rate than those in other mountain ranges, according to the new report, “Sustaining Progress: Rising to the Climate Challenge.”

“Alternative development pathways, such as Gross National Happiness that we are promulgating, will influence the capacity of communities … to adapt to climate change,” said Pema Gyamtsho, minister of agriculture and forests, at the report’s launch last week.

Gross National Happiness is the official development philosophy of Bhutan, a kingdom led by King Jigme Singye Wangchuk. It has been approved by parliament, making Bhutan the world’s only country to measure its wellbeing by Gross National Happiness instead of Gross National Product.

To realize its Gross National Happiness philosophy of life, Bhutan has prioritized conservation of the environment, and made a commitment to remain carbon neutral by keeping absorption of the greenhouse gases higher than emissions.

More than 70 percent of Bhutan is covered with forests. With an export ban on unprocessed timber, Bhutan has been able to keep its carbon absorption from the agriculture, energy and industry sectors at levels that maintain its status as a net sink for greenhouse gases.

Yet as the climate continues to warm, melting Himalayan glaciers are theatening not only the happiness but also the lives of Bhutan residents. Depleted glaciers will leave little water for Bhutanese hydropower, but as they melt, catastrophic amounts of water will be released.

As glaciers move across the landscape, they pile up rocky debris, forming moraines that act as natural dams for lakes filled with melt water. When they fail, they can create devastating glacial outburst floods.

On October 7, 1994, in the Bhutan Himalaya, the partial collapse of a moraine along the edge of the Luggye Lake released a glacial outburst flood that killed 21 people and swept away livestock, crops, and homes.

 www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-enviro…

CCMP Fellowships to UNFCCC’s COP17 climate change conference in South Africa.

Submitted by Mike Shanahan from IIED on Friday, 10/06/2011.

The Climate Change Media Partnership (CCMP) is proud to announce the launch of a Fellowship program that will send journalists to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban (COP17) in late 2011.

The Fellowships are open predominantly to journalists from developing countries, but journalists from the US and Russia are also welcome to apply.

Formed in 2007 by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN), Panos London and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the CCMP has brought developing country journalists to the annual UN climate summits over the past four years.

This has enabled them to cover the summit for their home media organizations, work with experienced and knowledgeable journalists from around the world, and gain a multifaceted understanding of climate change’s global impact. Numerous regional organizations also play a supporting role in the partnership.

As part of the fellowships, the CCMP will cover travel, lodging and daily subsistence expenses, arrange press accreditation at COP17, and provide other support services. The Fellows will benefit from a series of specially designed activities, including an orientation session, breakfast briefings, a field trip and a media clinic.

The CCMP fully respects the editorial independence of all journalists. Throughout the conference, Fellows are free to report as they see fit. We do require that Fellows attend the entire summit, provide copies or summaries of all the stories they file during COP17 for posting on our websites and that they show collegial attitude towards other Fellows. One of the main benefits of this program will be the opportunity for Fellows to exchange views and information with their journalistic peers from around the world.

Fellowship applications open June 6, 2011 and close June 30, 2011 at midnight EDT. All journalists working for media in a developing country, the US or Russia are eligible to apply.

Traditionally, we have only welcomed journalists from developing countries, but due to the challenges of reporting on climate change in the US and Russia, and the availability of funding for Fellows from these countries, we are opening this year’s Fellowships to US and Russian journalists, as well.

Criteria for evaluating applicants will include the prospective Fellow’s demonstrated interest in climate change issues; their audience; and the ability of the Fellowship to provide an opportunity for those journalists who might not otherwise have a chance to cover such events.

At the moment, we only have sufficient funding to bring a small number of Fellows, but are actively working to increase our support in order to increase those numbers. In addition to selecting Fellows whom we hope to announce in September, therefore, we’ll also create a waitlist from which we can select additional journalists as more funding becomes available.

Although we expect there will be a diverse range of experience and regions represented among the Fellows, one goal of this program is to reach audiences – particularly marginalized communities – who are currently underserved when it comes to climate information.

Any queries may be submitted to ccmp@internews.org. Initial funding for this program is provided by private US foundations, including the Kendeda Fund and the Smart Family Foundation.

Applicants will be required to:
• Complete and submit an online application form before the 30 June 2011 deadline.
• Provide a support letter from their editor, producer, or supervisor

[Note: Freelance journalists are welcome to apply, but must provide a letter of support indicating that their stories will be published or broadcast]

• Provide two samples of their work, published within the last 12 months
• Have a valid passport that will not expire before June, 2012

Internews Network and Internews Europe developed the Earth Journalism Network to empower and enable journalists from developing countries to cover the environment more effectively. EJN establishes networks of environmental journalists in countries where they don’t exist, and builds their capacity where they do, through training workshops and fellowship programs, the development of briefing materials and online tools, support for production and distribution, and the provision of small grants.

The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) is an independent, non-profit research institute and registered charity. Set up in 1971 and based in London, IIED provides expertise and leadership in researching and achieving sustainable development.

Panos London promotes the participation of poor and marginalised people in national and international development debates through media and communication projects. It has been supporting journalists, editors and media organisations in the developing world for 25 years.

Contact

This is something we do very seldom – take a comment that was originally intended to be added to a previous article and actually post it as well as an individual posting – this because of its actual informative value.

Comment from Robert del Rosso on June 5, 2011

 
Mountain Stories – Stories from the Himalayan Heights
Saturday February 12th 9 AM – 7PM
 
Mountain Stories will bring to life the high Himalayan experience at this one-day-only Explorers Club event, on Saturday 12 February 2011. Featuring a host of internationally renowned, award-winning authors, film-makers and 8,000-meter climbers, it will be a rare chance to talk with, listen to, and live the stories from those who have made–and are making–Himalayan history.
 
Our speakers for the day are:
 
Robert Anderson
Graham Bowley / Chris Klinke
Jim Clash / Larry Huntington
Broughton Coburn
Jennifer Jordan
Phil Powers
Click Here for Information on each speaker.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reservation Notes:
Members: $55
Guests: $55
 
For reservations please call (212) 628-8383
or email reservations@explorers.org
 
Click Here for More Information
 
Lorie Karnath
Explorers Club President

Subject: Kids say the darndest things.

We just received the following from a friend in the US — and rushed to post it — saying to ourselves all the way – HOW TRUE!

———–

              A Congressman was seated next to a little girl on an airplane.  He turned to her and said, “Do you want to talk? Flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger.”

          The little girl, who had just started to read her book, replied to the total
     stranger, “What would you want to talk about?”

            “Oh, I don’t know,” said the congressman.
     “How about global warming, universal health care, or stimulus packages?” as he smiled smugly.

           “OK,” she said. “Those could be interesting topics but let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff – grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow
 turns out a flat patty, but a horse produces clumps. Why do you suppose that is?”

          The legislator, visibly surprised by the little girl’s intelligence, thinks about it and says, “Hmmm,
     I have no idea.”

           To which the little girl replies, “Do you really feel qualified to discuss global warming, universal health care, or the economy, when you don’t know shit?”
 
             She then went back to reading her book.

August 19, 2010, before the UN started its meetings, the Asia Society in New York opened the discussion on the Pakistan Flood response by diving right to the bottom truth – the latest mega-disasters have one common cause – human induced climate change. It was Financier George Soros who injected the topic and the media was allowed by Ambassador Holbrooke to follow up. See what you can do when you go outside the UN!

Ambassador Dr. Richard C. Holbrooke, former Chairman of the Board of the Asia Society, and now US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan,  chaired the 8:30 am event at his New York home – the Asia Society – on the day when for 3:00 pm the UN General Assembly scheduled a pledging event for funding Pakistan relief. At the UN, for the US, spoke Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton, and I saw on TV  the complete  Asia Society American team sitting in the hall. The team included also Judith A. McHale, US Department of State Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Dr. George Erik Rupp, a theologian, President of the International Rescue Committee and former President of Rice University and Columbia University, and Raymond Offenheiser, President of Oxfam America.

The opening speaker after Ambassador Holbrooke was Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, and the panel included also USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah. Then there was a list of guests that made their comments, followed by questions from the floor and answers from Administrator Dr. Shah and Ambassador Qureshi.

enlarge image
L to R: USAID’s Dr. Rajiv Shah, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, and Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke. (Else Ruiz/Asia Society)

–

Judith A. McHale, a former media head herself ( President and Chief Executive Officer of Discovery Communications – 1987 to 2006), and now with the US Government, said that information is critical. “We work with the government of Pakistan to provide the critical information on the ground. It is posted on www.State.gov

Among the guests were Financier George Soros, whose Open Society Institute and Soros Foundations work on the ground in Pakistan – he announced that he adds another $5 million to the funds that his foundation will work with in helping directly civil society in Pakistan,  Christopher MacCormac of the Asian Development Bank, which is leading the effort to assess the flood damage, said much of the economic infrastructure of the area has been destroyed. 2 million ha. of crops were lost and livestock have been devastated, which has taken a large toll on Pakistan farmers. ADB has said that after the immediate contribution of $3 million from the ASia-Pacific Disaster Fund, it would loan Pakistan $2 billion to help the country rebuild, and Pakistan’s rock star turned political activist Salman Ahmad, known as Pakistan’s Bono, or as Holbrooke pointed out, “Bono is the Irish Salman Ahmad,” pointed out a very important topic:

“This is a defining moment in Pakistan,” Ahmad said. “This flood has set back Pakistan in a huge way. Out of 175 million people, 100 million are under 25. Those young people are skeptical, and they feel abandoned by the world. The international community has to win hearts and minds of those 100 million youth in Pakistan.” “If there is a sluggish response the terrorists/extremists win.” He also said that last year he had a concert at the UN to show to the young people in Pakistan that there was hope – he said that he is sure the international community will react positively.

Ambassador Holbrooke said that in the catastrophe there is also an opportunity, that we should not miss -  the people in Pakistan should see that the world is ready to help. He found that these elements of hope in opportunity were missing in the day’s article in The New York Times.

For the US the strategic implications are clear. The US pulled out helicopters from the military effort in order to help in the rescue effort. Will the Taliban take advantage of this? A US transport ship with materials arrived to Karachi, and Japan will now also send helicopters to help in the rescue effort.

The meeting was summarized by The Asia Society and there is also the full tape at -

 asiasociety.org/policy-politics/e…

Further, Ms. Nafis Sadik from the UN, now a Trustee Emeritus of the Asia Society and Chair of the Pakistan Foundation at the Asia Society called for Ramadan giving to the Foundation. Other Pakistan-Americans spoke and told of their own efforts to raise funds for the Pakistan relief program as the State’s capacity to meet the challenge has been overstretched. Today Pakistan , one fifth of its territory submerged, 68 million of its people affected, and 1,600 people dead, crops, animal stock, and infrastructure devastated – Pakistan is calling – humanity is calling they said. We saw a video proving every point. The Pakistan-American Foundation was inspired by Hilary Clinton’s “Pakistani Peacebuilders.”

Oxfam America was joined by “Save the Chidren” NGO  representative Gorel Bogarde said the obvious – what children most need is food, clean drinking water and shelter. She is most concerned for the moment about the outbreak of water-bourne diseases, such as cholera.

We will not repeat here further figures of loss and the size of the calamity. We assume that these are known by our readers by now – we want rather to point out the blunt comments that resulted from the statement by Mr. Soros who linked what happens to our lack of readiness to do something about the human-made climate change. Pakistan is the biggest of the recent disasters he said and we must deal with the root causes he continued. CLIMATE CHANGE IS THE ROOT CAUSE FOR ALL THESE RECENT DISASTERS. Mr. Soros spoke of the coincidence of the Himalaya glaciers melting and the monsoons getting stronger at the same time.

He also said “there is a certain amount of fatigue in responding to these disasters… [but] we have to come to terms with the fact that they are in fact connected, that there is climate change.”

At the Q & A part of the program, I asked the last question that was intended to bring the attention back to what Mr. Soros said.
My question was something like – I am with Sustainable Development Media and I wonder what Pakistan thinks about Mr. Soros’ statement about climate change – the reason being that the present calamity will repeat itself, so how does one do reconstruction work that makes sense?

Ambassador Holbrooke said Thank You and addressed the question first to Mr. Rajiv Shah.

When asked if there was a connection between the floods and climate change, USAID’s Shah said “while it’s very hard to attribute any single event to what we’re doing to our global environment it is very clear that that trend is leading to a greater number of large hurricanes, a greater number of floods, hotter and dryer conditions in places that are dependent on weather and rainfall for agriculture, and it’s making it very difficult for the least resilient, the most lower income communities of the world to survive.”

We heard from Mr. Christopher MacCormac that after the Earth Quake of 2005 the rebuilding of houses was done according to higher standards – so what we need here in the response to the present calamity is also to build better – but he did not specify, neither did Mr. Holbrooke. This, with the understanding that the increased monsoon floods,  joined with the melting of the Himalaya Glaciers, is indeed not a one time shot – but the beginning of a trend – leaves us with very bad premonitions about the future of Pakistan and other low lying lands of the region. This  has  clearly left me thinking about what means building better? Are we going to take into account these new phenomena resulting from global use of fossil fuels when going from the immediate reaction to the suffering from the floods to the longer range rebuilding stage? This is clearly an area that will be written up much more in the foreseeable future.

Ambassador Qurashi was asked by Mr. Holbrooke to react to the climate change implications. Are there additional run-off from the Himalayas?

The answer included: The Glaciers melt and what we have in Pakistan are Monsoon water plus glacier melts combined. We have above normal moisture.

He also said that “There are local NGOs in Pakistan that help push back the extremists and you have shown the world that you are a helping Nation.”

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Posted in Afghanistan, Arab Asia, Archives, Asia & Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Copenhagen COP15, European Union, Futurism, Geneva, Global Warming issues, India, Islands & SIDS, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar/Burma, Nairobi, Nepal, Pakistan, Real World's News, Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York, Reporting from Washington DC, Tajikistan, The New Climate, Three Poles Melting, Tibet, UN Commission on Sustainable Development, United Kingdom

Discuss this article

from:

K N Vajpai (Climate Himalaya Initiative) <knvajpai@gmail.com>

August 19, 2010

For your information, the Climate Himalaya Initiative www.climatehimalaya.net has a dedicated news portal chimalaya.org/ , that updates the Climate Change related news on regular basis from Himalayan Mountains.

Those interested in Climate Change related issues and Mountains, can get regular updates by subscribing or becoming member.

The ongoing issues includes; Pakistan Floods, Leh Cloud Burst, Climate Change Modeling, Domestic Actions by countries, Actions by Asian countries, Cancun Climate Summit, Criticism of IPCC, etc…..!

There are options for subscription, membership, tweeting, facebook, among others….!

You can visit and explore at www.climatehimalaya.net

from – K N Vajpai
Convener and Theme Leader

Climate Himalaya Initiative
www.climatehimalaya.net
chimalaya.org
C/O Prakriti a mountain environment group
P.O. Silli, Agastyamuni, Rudraprayag
Uttarakhand, India PIN 246421
info@climatehimalaya.net
knvajpai@prakriti-india.org

The ordeal in Pakistan reminded us of the -

June 2, 2010

Himalayan countries must set aside their differences and  collaborate on science in order to avoid a common water crisis, says a report.

Environmental pressures, including those from climate change, could have unprecedented effects on the livelihoods of millions of people in the Hindu-Kush Himalaya region, according to the study, published by the UK-based Humanitarian Futures Programme, the Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre, and China Dialogue. Yet scientific research is either non-existent or, where it exists, is not shared beyond a country’s borders, said the report, ‘The Waters of the Third Pole: Sources of Threat, Sources of Survival’. And scientists are failing to communicate what they do know to the public and policymakers, it added.

The Hindu-Kush Himalaya region provides water for one fifth of the world’s population including countries stretching from Pakistan to Myanmar. “This region is a black hole for data,” said Isabelle Hilton, editor of China Dialogue and a contributor to the report.

“Managing this water requires knowledge and cooperation,” she said at the launch of the report last week (19 May) in the United Kingdom. But the region “lacks the institutions and in some cases the political will to address issues cooperatively”. History, diverse languages and cultures, and military conflicts are behind the lack of a concerted effort to study the waters, she said, and now “a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach is needed” to catch up. But this is not high on the public agenda, she said.

Stephen Edwards, an earth scientist and research manager at the Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre, called for more high-quality, peer-reviewed data. “We need to understand problems before we know how to manage them,” he said. But science itself is not enough, he added, “scientists have to interact with economists and policymakers — we need proper dialogue”.

Andreas Schild, director general of the Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, agreed with the report’s conclusions.”Water is one of the most important resources,” he said. “Traditionally there has been no free exchange of information on water discharge and this is practically still the case today. “It is not just a concern between countries, but even within countries, as between the individual states of India.

“Researchers in all concerned countries are very interested in having cross-border collaboration and exchange of information,” he told  SciDev.Net. “But when it comes to cooperation on concrete issues at the level of government institutions, we face a completely different situation, where agreements with various other partners in the country are required.”If you want to close the knowledge gap here in the Himalayas then you have to strengthen the institutions [there].”

Otherwise, short-term foreign development funds mean there is no consistent long-term data and continuity in research by the institutions based in the region, said Schild. But he added that European organisations, with “Europe-centric” research methods, must share the blame.

“A lot of research conducted on this region by European universities and other institutions is often not shared. Sometimes we even get the impression that they are only looking for a partner in the South to use as Sherpas.”

Link to full ‘The Waters of the Third Pole: Sources of Threat, Sources of Survival’ report
[2MB]

 www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/scienc…

In Weather Chaos, a Case for Global Warming.

In Pakistan, Russia, The US …

• 
• 
• 
  Arif Ali/Agence France-Presse-Getty Images

  IN PAKISTAN – The worst flooding in at least 80 years has killed at least 1,384 people and affected 20 million in a continuing crisis.

By JUSTIN GILLIS

Published: August 14, 2010

• Times Topic: Global Warming

A blog about energy and the environment.

Go to Blog

The summer’s heat waves baked the eastern United States, parts of Africa and eastern Asia, and above all Russia, which lost millions of acres of wheat and thousands of lives in a drought worse than any other in the historical record.

Seemingly disconnected, these far-flung disasters are reviving the question of whether global warming is causing more weather extremes.

The collective answer of the scientific community can be boiled down to a single word: probably.

“The climate is changing,” said Jay Lawrimore, chief of climate analysis at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. “Extreme events are occurring with greater frequency, and in many cases with greater intensity.”

He described excessive heat, in particular, as “consistent with our understanding of how the climate responds to increasing greenhouse gases.”

Theory suggests that a world warming up because of those gases will feature heavier rainstorms in summer, bigger snowstorms in winter, more intense droughts in at least some places and more record-breaking heat waves. Scientists and government reports say the statistical evidence shows that much of this is starting to happen.

But the averages do not necessarily make it easier to link specific weather events, like a given flood or hurricane or heat wave, to climate change. Most climate scientists are reluctant to go that far, noting that weather was characterized by remarkable variability long before humans began burning fossil fuels and releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

“If you ask me as a person, do I think the Russian heat wave has to do with climate change, the answer is yes,” said Gavin Schmidt, a climate researcher with NASA in New York. “If you ask me as a scientist whether I have proved it, the answer is no — at least not yet.”

In Russia, that kind of scientific caution might once have been embraced. Russia has long played a reluctant, and sometimes obstructionist, role in global negotiations over limiting climate change, perhaps in part because it expected economic benefits from the warming of its vast Siberian hinterland.

But the extreme heat wave, and accompanying drought and wildfires, in normally cool central Russia seems to be prompting a shift in thinking.

“Everyone is talking about climate change now,” President Dmitri A. Medvedev told the Russian Security Council this month. “Unfortunately, what is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change, because we have never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past.”

Thermometer measurements show that the earth has warmed by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since the Industrial Revolution, when humans began pumping enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. For this January through July, average temperatures were the warmest on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Friday.

The warming has moved in fits and starts, and the cumulative increase may sound modest. But it is an average over the entire planet, representing an immense amount of added heat, and is only the beginning of a trend that most experts believe will worsen substantially.

If the earth were not warming, random variations in the weather should cause about the same number of record-breaking high temperatures and record-breaking low temperatures over a given period. But climatologists have long theorized that in a warming world, the added heat would cause more record highs and fewer record lows.

The statistics suggest that is exactly what is happening. In the United States these days, about two record highs are being set for every record low, telltale evidence that amid all the random variation of weather, the trend is toward a warmer climate.

Climate-change skeptics dispute such statistical arguments, contending that climatologists do not know enough about long-range patterns to draw definitive links between global warming and weather extremes. They cite events like the heat and drought of the 1930s as evidence that extreme weather is nothing new. Those were indeed dire heat waves, contributing to the Dust Bowl, which dislocated millions of Americans and changed the population structure of the United States.

But most researchers trained in climate analysis, while acknowledging that weather data in parts of the world are not as good as they would like, offer evidence to show that weather extremes are getting worse.

A United States government report published in 2008 noted that “in recent decades, most of North America has been experiencing more unusually hot days and nights, fewer unusually cold days and nights, and fewer frost days. Heavy downpours have become more frequent and intense.”

The statistics suggest that the Eastern United States may be getting wetter as the arid West dries out further. Places that depend on the runoff from spring snow melt appear particularly vulnerable to climate change, because higher temperatures are making the snow melt earlier, leaving the ground parched by midsummer. That can worsen any drought that develops.

“Global warming, ironically, can actually increase the amount of snow you get,” said Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. “But it also means the snow season is shorter.”

In general, the research suggests that global warming will worsen climate extremes across much of the planet. As in the United States, wet areas will get wetter, the scientists say, while dry areas get drier.

But the patterns are not uniform; changes in wind and ocean circulation could cause unexpected effects, with some areas even cooling down in a warmer world. And long-established weather patterns, like the periodic variations in the Pacific Ocean known as El Niño, will still contribute to unusual events, like heavy rains and cool temperatures in normally arid parts of California.

Scientists say they expect stronger storms, in winter and summer, largely because of the physical principle that warmer air can hold more water vapor.

Typically, a storm of the sort that inundated parts of Tennessee in May, dumping as much as 19 inches of rain over two days, draws moisture from an area much larger than the storm itself. With temperatures rising and more water vapor in the air, such storms can pull in more moisture and thus rain or snow more heavily than storms of old.

It will be a year or two before climate scientists publish definitive analyses of the Russian heat wave and the Pakistani floods, which might shed light on the role of climate change, if any. Some scientists suspect that they were caused or worsened by an unusual kink in the jet stream, the high-altitude flow of air that helps determine weather patterns, though that itself might be linked to climate change. Certain recent weather events were so extreme that a few scientists are shedding their traditional reluctance to ascribe specific disasters to global warming.

After a heat wave in Europe in 2003 that killed an estimated 50,000 people, the worst such catastrophe for that region in the historical record, scientists published detailed analyses suggesting that it would not have been as severe in a climate uninfluenced by greenhouse gases.

And Dr. Trenberth has published work suggesting that Hurricane Katrina dumped at least somewhat more rain on the Gulf Coast because the storm was intensified by global warming.

“It’s not the right question to ask if this storm or that storm is due to global warming, or is it natural variability,” Dr. Trenberth said. “Nowadays, there’s always an element of both.”

From the Desk of Dr. James E. Hansen

to:		pj@sustainabilitank.com
date:		Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 2:52 PM

What Global Warming Looks Like…So Far

What Global Warming Looks Like discusses current global temperature anomalies in July 2010; see also summary and full paper accepted for publication in Reviews of Geophysics.

Open letter from Dr. James Hansen, published in Aftenposten, May 19, 2010

Dear Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg

As you know, I am fond of Norway, and have great respect for your country and its citizens, as well as for your personal ambitions to protect global climate. Your recent rainforest initiative is a splendid example of leadership the world desperately needs. And your commitment at the Copenhagen climate talks to reduce Norway’s emissions 40 per cent by 2020 was exemplary.

However, and especially in light of that, I am disappointed to learn that Statoil, Norway’s state-owned oil company, has taken such backward strides through its strategic decision to invest in Canada’s destructive tar sands industry. As the most energy-intensive source of oil, this project represents the worst of what humans are doing to the planet in a quest to prolong our global addiction to fossil fuels.

It is still feasible to stabilize the climate, but only if we leave the tar sands in the ground. The massive greenhouse gas amounts from the tar sands surely would cause the climate system to pass tipping points, while also trampling on the human rights of Canada’s First Nation communities and greatly damaging the Canadian boreal forest.

Prime Minister Stoltenberg, the world has reached a critical juncture in the climate debate. We can either move into the production of the most damaging fossil fuel, or we can begin to address our destructive addiction. We desperately need leadership at this time. I am confident that you could provide that leadership. Please do not prove me wrong.

In your capacity as owner or more than two-thirds of the shares in Statoil, I urge you to end Norway’s involvement in this dangerous, dirty and destructive project. I ask that you support the resolution at Statoil’s upcoming AGM on May 19th, that Statoil show environmental leadership and pull out of the Canadian tar sands. Statoil may pride itself on being a more responsible company than others, but that will not be enough in the tar sands. If we extract and use the tar sands, there can be no sustainable future for young people.

I look forward to my visit to Norway in June. I hope that it can be a time to celebrate Norwegian leadership in responsible environmental policies

Dr. James Hansen
James E. Hansen is member of the National Academy of Sciences, an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and at Columbia’s Earth Institute, grandfather and winner of the Sophie Prize 2010.
James E. Hansen will visit Norway June 22 and 23 2010 to receive the Sophie Prize.

—————-

The answer from the Government:

Dear Mr. Hansen,

Thank you very much for your e-mail to the Prime Minister, which was forwarded to the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy as the governmental body responsible for Statoil ownership issues. Let me first take this opportunity to congratulate you on being awarded the Sophie-prize for 2010. I know a lot of people are looking forward to your visit to Norway, and I hope you will enjoy your stay here.

On behalf of the Government, I am pleased to say that we hold your work on climate change in high esteem, and further, that we appreciate your engagement and your views on Norway’s efforts to find good sustainable solutions to the global climate challenges.

As you now know from the results of the Statoil Annual General Meeting, we see Statoil’s oils sands investment as a commercial decision which is within the Statoil board’s area of responsibility. We are of the opinion that such decisions should not be overturned by the AGM. It is our opinion that this is in line with good corporate governance, a view that is also shared by a vast majority in the Norwegian Parliament. I can however assure you that we will continue our offensive stance on climate change issues both at home and abroad, and we look forward to your continued engagement.

Yours faithfully
Robin Martin Kåss
Statssekretær, Olje- og Energidepartementet
Deputy Minister, Ministry of Petroleum and Energy
Postboks 8148 Dep, 0033 Oslo, Norway

Fra: Jim Hansen
Sendt: 24. mai 2010 14:08
Til: Postmottak SMK
Kopi: Jim Hansen
Emne: Climate Change and the Tar Sands Development Vedlegg: Hansen text for ad and letter in both languages.doc

Dear Prime Minister Stoltenberg,

I understand that you may have missed my open letter to you published in Aftenposten, so for your convenience I have attached it here.

My wife Anniek and I are looking forward to visiting your beautiful country in June.
With kind regards,
James E. Hansen

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AND THE – Message from Sophie Prize Winner.

I am grateful to Jostein Gaarder and the Sophie Foundation for the opportunity to discuss the state of Earth’s climate, the implications for people and nature, and action that is needed.

Our planet today is close to climate tipping points. Ice is melting in the Arctic, on Greenland and Antarctica, and on mountain glaciers worldwide. Many species are stressed by environmental destruction and climate change. Continuing fossil fuel emissions, if unabated, will cause sea level rise and species extinction accelerating out of humanity’s control. Increasing atmospheric water vapor is already magnifying climate extremes, increasing overall precipitation, causing greater floods and stronger storms.

Stabilizing climate requires restoring our planet’s energy balance. The physics is straightforward. The effect of increasing carbon dioxide on Earth’s energy imbalance is confirmed by precise measurements of ocean heat gain. The principal implication is defined by the geophysics, by the size of fossil fuel reservoirs. Simply put, there is a limit on how much carbon dioxide we can pour into the atmosphere. We cannot burn all fossil fuels. Specifically, we must (1) phase out coal use rapidly, (2) leave tar sands in the ground, and (3) not go after the last drops of oil.

Actions needed so that the world can move on to the clean energies of the future are possible and practical. The actions would restore clean air and water globally, assuring intergenerational equity by preserving creation – the natural world — thus also helping achieve north-south justice. But the needed actions will happen only if the public becomes forcefully involved.
Citizens can help by blocking coal plants, tar sands, and mining the last drops of fossil fuels from public and pristine lands and the deep ocean. However, fossil fuel addiction can be solved only when we recognize an economic law as certain as the law of gravity: as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy they will be used.

Solution therefore requires a rising fee on oil, gas and coal – a carbon fee collected from fossil fuel companies at the domestic mine or port of entry. All funds collected should be distributed to the public on a per capita basis to allow lifestyle adjustments and spur clean energy innovations. As the fee rises, fossil fuels will be phased out, replaced by carbon-free energy and efficiency.
Governments today, instead, talk of “cap-and-trade-with-offsets”, a system rigged by big banks and fossil fuel interests. Cap-and-trade invites corruption. Worse, it is ineffectual, assuring continued fossil fuel addiction to the last drop and environmental catastrophe.

We need a simple honest flat rising carbon fee across the board. It should be revenue neutral – all funds distributed to the public – “100 percent or fight”. It is the only realistic path to global action. China and India will not accept caps, but they need a carbon fee to spur clean energy and avoid fossil fuel addiction.

But our governments have no intention of solving the fossil fuel and climate problem, as is easy to prove: the United States, Canadian and Norwegian governments are going right ahead developing the tar sands, which, if it is not halted, will make it impossible to stabilize climate.

Our governments knowingly abdicate responsibility for young people and future generations. I have been disappointed in interactions with more than half a dozen nations. In the end, they offer only soothing words, “goals” for emission reductions at far off dates, while their actual deeds prevent stabilization of climate.

The Sophie Prize provides a new opportunity to draw attention to the actions that are needed to stabilize climate. Norway may be the best place, with its history of environmentalism. I can imagine Norway standing tall among nations, taking real action to address climate change, drawing attention to the hypocrisy in the words and pseudo-actions of other nations.

So I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister suggesting that the government, as the majority owner of Statoil, should intervene in planned tar sands development. I appreciate the polite response, by letter, from the Deputy Minister of Petroleum and Energy. The government position is that the tar sands investment is “a commercial decision”, that the government should not interfere, and that a “vast majority in the Norwegian parliament” agree that this constitutes “good corporate governance”. The Deputy Minister concluded his letter “I can however assure you that we will continue our offensive stance on climate change issues both at home and abroad”.

A Norwegian grandfather, upon reading the Deputy Minister’s letter, quoted Saint Augustine: “Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.”

The Norwegian government’s position is a staggering reaffirmation of the global situation: even the greenest governments find it too inconvenient to address the implication of scientific facts. Perhaps our governments are in the hip pocket of the fossil fuel industry – but that is not for science to say.

What I can say from the science is this: the plans that governments, including Norway, are adopting spell disaster for young people and future generations. And we are running out of time.

Stabilizing climate is a moral issue, a matter of intergenerational justice. Young people, and older people who support the young and the other species on the planet, must unite in demanding an effective approach that preserves our planet.

Because the executive and legislative branches of our governments are turning a deaf ear to the science, the judicial branch may provide the best opportunity for redressing the situation. Our governments have a fiduciary responsibility to protect the rights of young people and future generations. I look forward to working with young people and their supporters in developing the legal case for young people and the planet.

To the young people I say: Stand up for your rights, for your future. Demand that the government be honest, admit and face the consequences for you from their policies.

To the old people I say: we are not too old to fight. Let us gird up our loins and prepare to fight on the side of young people for protection of the world they will inherit.

I look forward to standing with the youth of the world as they demand their proper due and fight for nature and their future.

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Other Recent Publications by Dr. James Hansen:

2010. Obama’s Second Chance on the Predominant Moral Issue of this Century. Op-ed on Huffington Post, Apr. 5.

2010. Only a carbon tax and nuclear power can save us. Op-ed in The Australian, Mar. 11.

WORLD NEWS – JULY 29, 2010
 online.wsj.com/article/SB40001424…

Climate report shows Earth has heated up over 50 years.

Which in the printed Wall Street version was rechristened – “CLIMATE STUDY CITES 2000 as WARMEST DECADE.” This appropriate to the US inward look of New York, while the above title is clear better positioned for the world at large -

By GAUTAM NAIK

A new assessment concludes that the Earth has been getting warmer over the past 50 years and the past decade was the warmest on record.

The State of the Climate 2009 report, published Wednesday as a special supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, was compiled by 300 scientists from 48 countries and drew on measures of 10 crucial climate indicators.

Seven of the indicators were rising, including air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, sea level, ocean heat and humidity. Three indicators were declining, including Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere.

“Each indicator is changing as we’d expect in a warming world,” said Peter Thorne, senior researcher at the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, a research consortium based in College Park, Md., who was involved in compiling the report.

The report’s conclusions broadly match those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body, which published its last set of findings in 2007. The IPCC report contained some errors, which further stoked the debate about the existence, causes and effects of global warming.

The new report incorporates data from the past few years that weren’t included in the last IPCC assessment. While the IPCC report concluded that evidence for human-caused global warming was “unequivocal” and was linked to emissions of greenhouse gases, the latest report didn’t seek to address the issue.

The report “doesn’t try to make the link” between climate change and what might be causing it, said Tom Karl, an official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration involved in the new assessment.

The report said, “Global average surface and lower-troposphere temperatures during the last three decades have been progressively warmer than all earlier decades, and the 2000s (2000-09) was the warmest decade in the instrumental record.” The troposphere is the lowest layer of the atmosphere.

The scientists reported that they were surprised to find Greenland’s glaciers were losing ice at an accelerating rate. They also concluded that 90% of planetary warming over the past 50 years has gone into the oceans. Most of it had accumulated in near-surface layers, home to phytoplankton, tiny plants crucial to virtually all life in the sea.

A new study has found that rising sea temperature may have had a harmful effect on global concentrations of phytoplankton over the past century.

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BUT THE WALL STREET JOURNAL IS VERY ANEMIC ON CONTENT OF ABOVE NEWS – IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED, AS MOSTLY ALMOST – GO TO THE FINANCIAL TIMES. HERE YOU FIND FIONA HARVEY’S FULL ARTICLE – SHE  CONTRIBUTES TO THE EDITORIAL SECTION AS WELL. YOU WILL BE IN THE CLEAR ABOUT THE MACHINATIONS IN WASHINGTON AS WELL.

You will also see there the Washington rot as in the following: “Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in the US, formerly in charge of energy with the powerful CSIS, said the new report would not change people’s minds. “It’s clear that the scientific case for global warming alarmism is weak. The scientific case for [many of the claims] is unsound and we are finding out all the time how unsound it is.”

You will find that there was no doubt about the implication that it is humans who did it except in the words of that outspoken minority of industry lobbyists that hold power over Washington.

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 blogs.ft.com/energy-source/author…

NOAA finds “human fingerprints” on climate

July 28th, 2010  by Fiona Harvey

 www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6d1fd25c-9a69-…

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 planetark.org/wen/58965

Developing Nations See Cancun Climate Deal Tough.

 www.globalwarmingisreal.com/blog/…

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Yvo de Boer officially steps down today from his post as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), making way for incoming UNFCCC chief Christiana Figueres.

Mr. de Boer took over the position in September of 2006, shepherding the unwieldy international climate negotiating process through several landmark sessions, including Bali in 2007 and Copenhagen last year. Everyone, including de Boer, was disappointed by the outcome of COP15, yet he defends the work of his UNFCCC colleagues in the face of near insurmountable odds and relentless international acrimony throughout COP15.

And it was at the feet of the international community that de Boer laid some of his harshest criticism before stepping down from the UNFCCC.

The one thing that has appalled me most is to witness the degree to which the international community is cutting off its nose to spite its face,” de Boer said at a Hong Kong business conference last week.

“(The world) is behaving as though climate change is somebody else’s problem… This is in the collective interest and it’s a collective challenge” he said, adding that ”Unless we deal with that challenge … we really are in big trouble.”

Yvo de Boer’s final round of international negotiations ended last month with the conclusion of two weeks of talks in Bonn, Germany in preparation for CO16 in Cancun, Mexico. Despite  de Boer’s cautious optimism for progress as the outcome of the Bonn talks, few hold out the kind of expectations for a “fair and binding” climate deal at COP16 that haunted COP15.

Upon handing the reigns to Figueres, who shocked some last month with her assessment that a “final, all-ecompassing” international climate treaty would likely take decades to achieve, de Boer will take up a climate advisory job at consulting firm KPMG.

Yellow Sub Finds Clues To Antarctic Glacier’s Thaw

Countries divvied out their climate officials across four negotiating arenas, the most prominent of which was the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA), the group working towards a new global deal for climate change. However, progress in that arena was slowed by the question and discussion format of the meetings that perpetuated an ad nauseum repetition of countries’ long-held positions. The result was that in most topics there was a lack of progress on the more controversial issues such as how to increase mitigation by developed countries, how to support upscaled mitigation in developing countries, how to manage new financing and get more technology on the ground. The issue of increased support for adaptation also proved controversial as developing countries differences seem to increase rather than find common ground. Negotiators seem almost unwilling to tackle their substantive differences, especially those generated by the particular positions of the United States.

The AWG-LCA had launched this session with a new text prepared by their chair – a promising start according to many delegates and observers. The chair then led negotiation sessions by posing a series of questions to the parties for each section of the text, an approach that some observers have said does not dig far enough into the heart of the most critical outstanding issues.

The chair then asked parties to “speak out of the box” in order to work on whittling down their differences rather than restating positions and ideas. However, little progress was made in the discussions and many of the more controversial issues remain unresolved.

Countries engage on response measures

An intense yet lively debate took place on the question of “economic and social consequences of response measures” under the LCA Thursday afternoon. The debate centred around whether to establish a new institution or mechanism to capture and address such impacts (supported principally by Saudi Arabia), whether to initiate studies or other forms of information gathering and reporting on this issue, or whether simply to use the existing national communications that parties present annually to report on arising areas of concern.

Many developed countries opposed the establishment of new institutions favouring the “do-it-yourself” approach. Notably, many developing countries lack the financial, institutional, and human resources to carry out extensive studies in this area, putting them at major disadvantage if support is not forthcoming under the UN climate system. Most of those countries are particularly concerned about the impact on trade of measures taken at the border or otherwise by developed  countries as they develop and implement new policies to address emissions at home coupled with policies to safeguard their national industries’ competitiveness.

Prank delays progress on final day

The closing plenaries of the AWG-KP and AWG-LCA were delayed as a special session was called to address an anonymous prank against Saudi Arabia. Many countries expressed their condemnation of the act and called for a thorough investigation by the Secretariat of the UNFCCC.

Some observers have suggested the action may have been a response to the previous day’s discussions where Saudi Arabia and a number of other Arab states opposed a proposal by the Alliance of Small Island Developing States (AOSIS) who requested a study on the impacts of a 1.5 degree versus a 2 degree temperature rise. Nonetheless, there is currently no reliable information as to who perpetrated the act or their motives.

As sessions resumed, the LCA group reacted to a revised version of the negotiation text that they have spent the week discussing. The response for the most part was severely negative with the Group of 77 and China expressing “dismay” that the new text is imbalanced and no longer contains their proposals. The group emphasised that these proposals reflect a broadly representative position, carefully hewn among over one hundred countries.

US positions hinder progress

Sources say the United States has taken an increasingly conservative position on most topics up for discussion in Bonn. In many cases – including the discussions on technology and developed country mitigation commitments – the US position has held back progress. The European Union expressed their discontent with the inability of the negotiations during the past two weeks to tackle the issue of mitigation in a serious fashion. They particularly disapproved of the inability of the Secretariat to translate the levels of mitigation action communicated by parties after Copenhagen into a more detailed discussion on commitments and actions of all countries.

Throughout the meeting, Washington has reportedly blocked the establishment of a financing system by insisting that there be no decision-making board directing any climate-related fund. In many cases, the US continues to promote the elements of the Copenhagen Accord, despite the document’s non-consensual status.

Washington also pushed to simply make use of the instruments and institutions already existing under the Convention, rather than establishing new ones to scale up the global response. This approach is consistent with the US insistence on nationally led climate action, rather than a more robust “top down” international approach to address climate change – despite the widespread opinion that the current tools have proven to be slow, inadequate, and limited.

Mexico, Figueres push for Cancun deal:

It remains an open question as to whether negotiators will be able to secure a comprehensive, legally binding agreement at this December’s COP 16 in Cancun, Mexico. The question of the “legal form” of the eventual agreement is still a subject of debate.

Mexico is lobbying hard to get parties focused on a strong outcome and positive pace at this mid-year meeting in Bonn. Fresh optimism was also injected into the Bonn meeting with the presence of Christiana Figueres, the former Costa Rican climate negotiator who will replace Yvo de Boer as head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“Governments will meet this challenge, for the simple reason that humanity must meet this challenge,” Figueres said in an interview with The Associated Press on the sidelines of the Bonn meeting. “We just don’t have another option.”

But whether there is enough optimism to sway key parties such as the EU and China – which have recently stated publicly that they do not expect a deal until the following year – remains to be seen.

ICTSD Reporting; “New climate chief: ‘no option’ but to take action,” THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 9 June 2010.

Probe at UN climate talks after Saudi sign smashed

Saturday, 12 June 2010 10:06
author:Reuters
POLITICS & ECONOMICS / NEWS
by Reuters, Saturday, 12 June 2010

SAUDI STANCE: Saudi angered many by blocking study of global warming. (Getty Images)

UN climate negotiators agreed to an investigation on Friday after protesters smashed a sign emblazoned “Saudi Arabia” and dropped it in toilet after Riyadh blocked a study of deeper cuts in greenhouse gases.

Many countries condemned the protest, after Saudi Arabia blocked a request by small island states at the May 31-June 11 talks for a study of tougher cuts in greenhouse gases to help slow a rise in world sea levels.

Mexico’s delegate Luis Alfonso de Alba, whose country will host the main climate talks in late 2010, said he was initiating an investigation by the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat.

Study concludes – Melting Mountains Put Millions At Risk in Asia.