Al Gore, former Vice-President of the United States, has resorted to the example of Winston Churchill in his latest word of warning about global warming.  Al Gore, environmental campaigner and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, also won an Oscar for his film titled An Inconvenient Truth – a film that helped bring the grave question of global climate change to a worldwide audience.

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The agreement reached at the recent summit of the Group of Eight industrial nations (the G8) held in Italy to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) could help a post-Kyoto Protocol treaty materialize in December 2009.

According to Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission (EC), an agreement on the global temperature target, especially by the developing economies like the United States, could form the global benchmark and catalyst for the crucial negotiations on climate change to be held in Copenhagen in Denmark in December 2009.

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So far, it was the climatologists and environmentalist who were mainly warning the world about the hazards of climate change. Now, medical doctors have joined them.

A study by the University College London, published in the medical journal Lancet, has warned that the problems caused by climate change such as food shortages, heat waves and increased threat of tropical diseases like malaria, will kill billions of people worldwide.

This is the first authentic medical assessment of the dangers of global warming.

And, what it would mean is that climate change is now the biggest threat to humanity.

The authors of the study – which included doctors, climatologists and economists – concluded that climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.

The effects of climate change will affect most populations in the next decades and put the lives of and well-being of billions of people at increased risk.”

The study, which took a year to complete, predicted that temperatures are likely to rise in the next century by over 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), resulting in “catastrophic consequences”. It also stresses that the health of people in poorer countries would be hit the hardest since they do not have the money to respond to floods, crop failures or to an increase in insect-borne diseases.

But developed countries will be hit, too. Extreme weather conditions will become more frequent across the world and rises in temperature will particularly affect the elderly and vulnerable.

The result of all these could be mass migration, health problems like starvation and the threat of disease, and even war caused by shortages of food and water. Doctors also warn that even “the fear of climate change” will have a psychosocial effect on health, with patients requiring counseling.

Meanwhile, doctors around the world themselves are being asked to become “advocates for encouraging a low-carbon lifestyle” – for example, by cycling rather than using a car.

Source – Image by pagedooley

I listened to Jay Richards, PhD, give a Christian Perspective on the Environment.

Besides some interesting questions that he posed such as “Is a warmer Earth bad?” he through out some numbers. Yeah, I know the warming trend is bad for some, now, but when considering the big picture over the course of many years, is a warmer Earth bad? This question is far from answered.

Still, Dr. Richards also threw out some numbers.

If all the countries in the world were to seriously make every attempt to meet the Kyoto Protocol, it could costs $10-50 trillion. That’s a ‘T’ and the range is big because nobody really knows. And even if all the goals were met and the if the climate models are correct, two big IFs, temps MIGHT be lowered by .0.07C overall, an insignificant amount to say the least.

Now…to give the entire world sanitary water, the cost is estimated to be $200 billion – 1/50 the cost of the lower end of the global temperature fighting costs.

How might we spend our money more wisely?

What say you?

Apparently Daimaru department store is all for global warming. The hotter it is the more they sell … swimming suits that is.

I suppose, in a pitch FOR global warming, Daimaru is selling swim suits in Japan 6 weeks EARLIER this year than normal. What’s up with that?

It seems to me that for good or for bad, everyone is trying to capitalize on the global warming trend hype in one way or another. Or, am I just being over sensitive?

Maybe there is nothing wrong with department stores putting their wares out earlier and earlier each year. Maybe that’s it. I mean, who could object to seeing Japanese girls in bathing suits more and more throughout the year, right?

But, seriously. Are companies taking advantage of the global warming trend news? What do you think?

Image by idua_Japan

The Australian reports that – “THREE senior Japanese scientists separately engaged in climate-change research have strongly questioned the validity of the man-made global-warming model that underpins the drive by the UN and most developed-nation governments to curb greenhouse gas emissions.”

Image by brandnewbrain

One says -”I believe the anthropogenic (man-made) effect for climate change is still only one of the hypotheses to explain the variability of climate,” Kanya Kusano told The Weekend Australian.

It could take 10 to 20 years more research to prove or disprove the theory of anthropogenic climate change.”

Another says - “Before anyone noticed, this hypothesis has been substituted for truth.”

The IPCC assertion that atmospheric temperatures are likely to increase continuously and steadily “should be perceived as an unprovable hypothesis”.

There is widespread skepticism that “most of the observed global temperature increase since the mid-20th century ‘is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.’”

At a Japan Geoscience Union symposium last year, one of the scientists said, “the result showed 90 per cent of the participants do not believe the IPCC report”.

“Our nation must pay huge amounts of money to buy carbon discharge rights,” another scientist said. “This is not reasonable, but meaningless if global cooling will come soon — scientists will lose trust.”

A JSER representative said, “This paper (written by the scientists) represents the views of the individuals and not of the society.”

So, it really doesn’t matter what the scientists think, it matters what the society thinks, which at this point is neutral.

Yet another scientist said “many scientists were doubtful about man-made climate-change theory, but did not want to risk their funding from the government or bad publicity from the mass media, which he said was leading society in the wrong direction.”

My question – who stands to make out if the global warming scare continues? Those who are for the global warming hype or those who think it’s, well, um, just hype?  There’s the answer.

The conflict between the environmentalists and the political activists about global warming causes and the impact of human activity on rising global temperatures, seems to have been rekindled once again by a controversial report by the Japan Society of Energy and Resources (JSER).

Three of the five researchers who conducted the extensive study concluded that global warming was majorly a cause of the natural heating and cooling cycle. And that we humans, had little or no impact on that matter.

While the report didn’t cause any major uproar in the west, it seems only a matter of time before theories start flying again.

In what is a very harsh reply to the accepted global warming theory, the report focuses on what it claims to be the immaturity of simulation work cited in support of the theory of anthropogenic climate change.

Giving a detailed account of temperature change and its causes, the current cycle of the global temperature rise, is attributed to the last small ice age that has reportedly ended by 2000. While three of the five scientists seem to claim that the hot and uneven weather patterns in the last decade are not a result of CO2 emissions by human activity, it also fails to explain why the temperatures seem to still be on the rise after the predicted natural cycle has ended.

Irrespective of the validity of the theory (Bill is waving for it being true), such notions and conclusions may be bad for environment because they could stop encouraging people to go green.

Image by softpixtechie

A glaciologist (who knew there were such people) says sea levels will rise at varying rates around the world because of a quirk of the earth’s gravity linked to global warming.” I am not too sure how gravity is linked to global warming, but….

“Everyone thinks sea level rises the same around the world,” David Vaughan, a leading glaciologist, said at the Rothera Base on the Antarctic Peninsula. “But it doesn’t”.

The, um, ‘expert’ days sea rises could vary by tens of centimeters from region to region, provided seas gain by an average of one meter by 2100 along with temperature rises. Translation – temps must rise AND seas must rise on average one meter by 2100, THEN, there MIGHT be a variation. In other words, he doesn’t know, he is just guessing.

Vaughn says that big ice sheets on Antarctica and on Greenland have a gravitational pull that lifts the seas around them. This means that water levels around Antarctica are higher than if the frozen continent were an open ocean. Huh?!

When the ice thaws Antarctica gets smaller and its gravitational tug diminishes. In some places around the continent Vaughn says the level of the Southern Ocean might even drop even though there is a flood of fresh water into the oceans.

The paradox is seas will rise least where thawing ice pours into them and most further away from where the ice is melting.

Vaughan said, “Ice lost from Antarctica has a bigger impact on European sea level rise than ice lost from the European Alps.”

Try this – put some ice cubes into a glass of water and mark the level of the water. Then wait for a few hours for the ice to melt and go back and check the water level. Come back and tell me the difference.

Japan’s space agency will send a global warming monitoring satellite into space this week.

The satellite will monitor greenhouse gases and help in the fight against climate change. There’s a chance of success for the first half of the mission; the second half is a non starter.

The satellite will orbit the Earth every two hours and collect new climate data every three days.

The greenhouse satellite is called the Go-Sat and JAXA says it will be able to detect infrared signals absorbed by greenhouse gases.

The satellite also has sensors that can observe carbon dioxide and methane distribution.

The satellite will orbit for five years. First data is expected for scientists by April or May.

The satellite is expected to provide info for UN climate officials who hope to have a new emission treaty by December 2009.

China’s police in Liaoning province (look it up – map of China) are fighting bad guys AND fighting global warming at the same time.

Talk about dudes! Instead of patrolling the streets in gas guzzlers, the good guys will be found making the rounds on self propelled two wheelers … en masse, en force … on bicycles, that is.

So, is China going back to being the land of the bicycle? It’s not a bad idea considering how much of the world’s resources China is using up right now. Now, if we could just get the bad guys to ride bikes, too, we’d be in business.

Seriously, GP salutes China and her police if they are able to keep law and order and not use up any more of the world’s resources than absolutely necessary.

So, NYC, SFO, Paris! Are you guys reading this?

Image sources by SINA