La Légion étrangère-C&P at your own risk !!

[phil]

Here's a site where you'll find links that respond
to a bunch of attacks on Global Warming science ...

HOW TO TALK TO GLOBAL WARMING SCEPTIC

See the list that follow and knock yourself out !!

illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/02/how-to-talk-to-global-warming-sceptic.html


- There is no real evidence of warming, just model predictions.

- Global Warming is nothing but an environmentalist hoax.

- One warmest year on record is not global warming.

- The surface temperature record is so full of assumptions
and corrections that it only says what the scientists want.

- In the 1970's they said a new ice age was coming.

- Global temperatures over just one hundred years doesn't mean anything.

- Glaciers have always grown and receded.
A few glaciers receeding today is not proof of Global Warming.

- Climate scientist are trying to hide the dominant role
of water vapor in Global Warming.

- H2O is the only significant greenhouse gas.

- There is no proof that CO2 is what is causing the temperature to go up.

- The current warming is just a part of natural variations,
humans have nothing to do with it.

- It was even warmer during the Holocene Climatic Optimum

- The Medieval Warm Period was just as warm as it is today.

- All in all, a warmer climate sounds like a good thing.

- Reducing fossil fuel usage is mass suicide.

- Even if we fully implemented the Kyoto protocol it would have virtually
no effect on the temperature even by mid 21st century.

- Why do India and China get a free pass? That's not fair,
no wonder the US did not join.

- But there is Global Warming on Mars, without any SUV's or human influence at all.

- It was very cold in Wagga Wagga today, this proves there is no Global Warming.

- The ice core records show clearly that CO2 rising
is an effect of rising temperatures, not a cause.

- There is no consensus yet on the cause or even the reality of Global Warming.

- Ice sheets in the Antarctic are growing which proves Global Warming isn't real.

- Volcanoes emit way more CO2 than people, so emissions controls would be useless.

- Global Warming is an illusion caused by the Urban Heat Island Effect.

- We can't even predict the weather next week, forget about 100 years from now!

- Greenland used to be nice and warm and the vikings
lived there happily until the Little Ice Age.

- Climate is a chaotic system and just like the stock market, forget about predicting where it will go.

- The models are unproven and therefore unreliable.

- Satellites are more reliable and they show cooling.

- But the temperature dropped all through the 40's and 50's
while CO2 rose, there must be something else going on.

- The Null Hypotheis says the warming is natural.

- Geological history is full of periods where CO2 was high
and temperatures were low and vice versa.

- The climate is always changing, no reason to think it is our fault.

- Natural emissions of carbon are 30 times bigger than human emissions,
so any reductions are useless.

- CO2 is measured on Mauna Loa, which is an active volcano.
That is why the levels are so high

- Global Warming began about 20,000 years ago, humans have nothing to do with it.

- Even if the ice caps melt, the water will go into the ground underneath.

- CO2 has risen on its own before, no reason to assume it is our fault.

- The Hockey Stick is broken, global warming theory falls apart.

- No one knows how confident the models really are.

- There is no historical precedent for CO2 causing warming, it is the opposite.

- James Hansen is being an alarmist, just like before.

- Position statements hide legitimate scientific debate.

- Climate Models don't even take cloud effects into consideration.

- Global Warming stopped eight years ago!

- Global warming is caused by the sun, of course.

- The United States actually absorbs more CO2 than it emits.

- Most of the glaciers are growing, just a few are shrinking.

- If we don't understand the past, how can we understand the present?

- Global Dimming is stronger in the north, so how come
it is not warming more in the south?

- "Probaby", "likely", "evidence suggests". Even the scientist aren't sure AGW is real!

- Sea ice in the Antarctic is growing.

- This alledged consensus is just because scientists are afraid to speak out.

- Some locations are actually cooling, which shouldn't happen if there is global warming.

- The small observed warming shows that the climate models
are overestimating CO2's importance.

- Sea level measurments in the Arctic Ocean show that it is falling, not rising!

- Today's warming is just a natural rebound from the Little Ice Age.

- AGW theory is not even scientific because you can not do experiments and make predictions.

[Dr. Drum]

Hey Phil, nice spot you have here!

Sweet Jesus, though, Terence Corcoran. You don't mean to tell me there's still someone around who takes him seriously, do you?

[Thorngrub]

Love this board.

~

This global warming issue.: Cracks me up (kinda). Hey - don't get me wrong. I think nothing is more important than making sure we respect & maintain the proper integrity of the entire ecological superstructure (& every little effort helps).

Keeping our environment healthy = Keeping us healthy (for we ARE our environment)

However, I just wanted to say: There seems to be something, I don't know. . . ineffable. . . or . . . perhaps, unchangeable, about this progression towards global warming . . . it just seems to me (sometimes) that arguing about Global Warming is nigh tantamount to arguing about Death, ya know? It's like, hell, we're all - including the Universe presumably - going to die, eventually.

So it's like, global warming, so what?

Don't mistake this post as a declaration of me "not caring", not at all. I care very much - about the environment & ourselves - I suspect, that I simply care too much, in fact.

Which sorta explains where I'm comin' from w/this post.

"Eat, drink, and be merry today; for tomorrow, the universe will collapse in on itself"


Morning thoughts.

[limitdeditionlayla]

ooh, a place where we get to drink, talk smack about pink flamingoes & be foreign. Nice work, Phil.

V. interesting global warming discussion started back there...

[strat-0]

From the blog cited by Phil in #720:

At April 09, 2006 5:18 PM, Mikel Mariñelarena said…

Hi Coby,

In fact, the IPCC-TAR has 2 pages dedicated to atmospheric water vapour measurements. The results are, as usual, far from conclusive:
www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/079.htm
www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/080.htm

I think that you are a bit too enthusiastic when nominating “victors” and “losers” in the MSU data correction conundrum. Still MSU data show smaller warming in the troposphere than on the surface and you need to resort to an “overlapping” of a completely disparate range of model results with the available satellite-radiosonde observations in order to make both “non-inconsistent”.

In any case, there’s no denying that you have gathered a very comprehensive collection of explanations, generally backed by pertinent links, for most arguments AGW-sceptics may come up with. If the idea is to defend what currently appears to be the position of most (but not all) experts and relevant scientific institutions against ignorant criticism, I don’t have anything against it. That’s what I would do myself in most any scientific debate.

However, when I’m asked to BELIEVE that the world is headed to a catastrophic warming due to the wrong-doings of us industrialized societies and that we need to do something now to stop the disasters, I’m faced with several problems:

- More often than not, when I’ve tried to analyse the concrete evidence to support such claims I have found logical inconsistencies or severe uncertainties that you don’t need to be an expert to perceive. We have discussed a couple of them.

- As an economist, I’m all too familiar with seemingly well-founded predictions that eventually never materialize. I think that this is a feature common to sciences where chaotic, difficult to model variables (in our case nothing less than human behaviour) play a leading role.

- As an economist again, I do not buy the idea of scientific efforts conducted independently of politics and ideology. This global warming scare we’re now under comes in a row with many other disaster predictions promoted since the 60s-70s by environmentalists and certain political groups. I cannot forget the gloomy scenarios painted by the Rome Club, the Zero-Growth advocates or the very global-cooling scare of the 70s (have you actually read in-depth Connolley’s work on the subject? I find it ironic that this article is often cited to refute sceptic criticism, it actually illustrates very well how deep-rooted that scare got to be at the time). Speaking of which, my attempt to participate in the RC forum with critical opinions has done nothing but reinforce my suspicion of leading climate scientists being ideologically biased. I encountered gratuitous hostility and got my posts censored or truncated while those of certain ideological tint were given free pass even though they violated most posting guidelines.

Keep up the good work but be open-minded. Scepticism is in general a sound attitude in science and one I find very lacking here in Europe as regards any politically correct agenda.

Thanks for letting me express my ideas.

[strat-0]

THE ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING DOCTRINE
By Dr Gerrit J. van der Lingen
Published in Newsletter of the Geological Society of New Zealand, N0 138, November 2005: 60-64.
www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=14429&cid=18&cname=Opinion

Independent scientists

The major part of "Paleo Potpourri" in July's Newsletter was a diatribe against Michael Crichton and Bjørn Lomborg, two people who dared to criticise certain beliefs of environmentalists, especially the doctrine of AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming). No scientific arguments mind you, just gratuitous name-calling and insults. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon in the debate on global warming.

I have been collecting some of the insults levelled at AGW sceptics: Cash-amplified flat-earth pseudo-scientists; the carbon cartel; villains; refuseniks lobby; polluters; a powerful and devious enemy; deniers; profligates; crank scientists. The list is endless. I remember the reaction of a Canadian scientist who dared to ask critical questions at a meeting on global warming. He was totally taken aback by the virulent reaction, "it was as if I was back in the Middle Ages and had denied the Virgin Birth". A common slur is also that all sceptics are in the pockets of the oil industry.

The global warming debate has left the realm of science a long time ago. It has become totally politicised. Any scientific criticism is not met with a scientific response, but with name-calling and a stepping up of the scare tactics. Some sceptics have even lost their jobs or are told to shut up or else. Many of the global-warming doomsayers seem to be obsessed with a longing for Apocalypse. A good New Zealand example was the acceptance speech of Peter Barrett, when he received the (well-earned) Marsden Medal. He predicted the extinction of the human race by the end of this century due to AGW. Sir David King, the science advisor to the British Government, has said that the threat of global warming is more serious that the threat of terrorism. I wonder if he would dare to repeat that in public after the recent London terrorist bomb attacks.

A favourite ploy by AGW alarmists is to repeat ad infinitum that the science about AGW has been settled and that there is consensus among scientists that it is happening and that it will have cataclysmic consequences for our planet. People using these consensus arguments forget that scientific truth is not determined by consensus. But apart from being unscientific, the consensus argument is also a myth. There are thousands of independent scientists who do not accept that the science behind Kyoto has been settled. "Independent" means not being dependent for one's livelihood on research funding from the public purse controlled by politicians for whom the AGW scare is a godsend. As Bob Carter recently told a Rotary group in Melbourne, each year between 3 and 4 billion dollars is being spent on climate research. Phil Maxwell makes the snide comment that "most of the Global-Warming Deniers are elder members of the scientific community desperately carrying on a rearguard action". It is indeed true that a large proportion of these independent scientists are retired people. They can afford to be independent.

Of those thousands of independent scientists, hundreds are active in giving lectures, writing books, articles and letters to the newspapers, debating the science and discovering many flaws in it. I know of many New Zealand scientists who are AGW sceptics. I won't mention the names of those who have not spoken out publicly, but I can mention those who have been active in public: Bob Carter, professor of geology in Townsville, Australia (originally from Otago University); Chris de Freitas, Associate Professor environmental sciences at Auckland University; Vincent Gray, retired chemist living in Wellington (who wrote a booklet "The Greenhouse Delusion", published in the UK); Augie Auer, the well-known meteorologist; and myself. Unfortunately, none of us is "in the pockets of the oil industry". Unfortunately, because I could do with some extra pocket money.

Scientific audits

In recent time, several people have started to carry out scientific audits of the science behind Kyoto. A good example is the audit of the "Hockey Stick" graph that forms one of the two major pillars for the conclusions in the "Summary for policy makers" in the 2001 Third Scientific Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It can be found five times in that publication and has been used extensively by politicians and GLOWDISC (GLObal Warming DIsaster SCenario) promoters. On this graph was based the conclusion that the climate has been stable over the last Millennium and that the 1990s was the warmest decade in a 1000 (later extended to 2000) years and that 1998 was the warmest year in that decade.

The Hockey Stick graph was first published by Mann, Bradley and Hughes in 1998 in Nature (vol. 392: 779-787). It is now generally referred to as "MBH98". Two Canadian statistical experts, McIntyre and McKitrick, set out to audit the Hockey Stick. They had great trouble getting the necessary information from Michael Mann. He put many obstacles in their path and even refused to release his computer code, saying that "giving them the algorithm would be giving in to the intimidation tactics that these people are engaged in" and that "if we allowed that sort of thing to stop us from progressing in science, that would be a very frightening world". He apparently was not willing to accept that one of the litmus tests of a scientific theory is its reproducibility. Anyhow, McIntyre and McKitrick found serious flaws and deliberate manipulation of data in the methods used by MBH98 to obtain their Hockey Stick. They even found that that the statistical methods used by MBH98 always produces a hockeystick-shaped graph, even when random numbers are used.

For those who want to acquaint themselves with this audit, details can be found here (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=521). The MBH98 statistical methods have also been criticised by the German Professor Hans von Storch, co-author of the book "Statistical analysis in climate research" (Cambridge University Press). But Mann still refused to release his computer code. The story of the Hockeystick saga was then published in the Wall Street Journal (14th Feb 05). As a result of this, on 23d of June a committee of the US House of Representatives ordered Mann to release his code and to account for his activities in relation to the Hockeystick. The same requests were made to the Chairman of the IPCC (not surprisingly, the IPCC is in total denial), the Director of the National Science Foundation, and to the two co-authors of the Hockeystick paper, Bradley and Hughes. We now wait with baited breath for their answers.

The reason why the Hockey Stick is so important is the fact that it tries to do away with the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age (and further back with the Dark Ages Cold Period and the Roman Warm Period). Those natural climate fluctuations are an embarrassment to the hypothesis that mankind is mainly to blame for the present warming. In its first Scientific Assessment Report (1990), the IPCC still had a temperature graph showing the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. It is now clear from the 2001 report that the IPCC has deliberately eliminated these natural climate fluctuations with sleight of hand.

The second pillar of the IPCC scientific assessment report is the analysis of world temperatures, mainly from land-based stations. On these analyses is based the statement that the global temperature has risen by 0.6 centigrade since the middle of the nineteenth century and that mankind is to blame. The main author of these analyses is Phil Jones (e.g. Jones and Briffa, 1992, The Holocene, vol 2: 165-179). These analyses have been strongly criticised, based mainly on the quality of some of the data, especially from third-world countries, and on the influence of the so-called "Urban Heat Island effect." The temperature of large cities with lots of tar seal and concrete can be as much as 5 deg-centigrades above normal. I remember a good anecdote about this. Some time ago, Paul Holmes ran a TV program about the temperature in Wellington. He interviewed the then-Mayor of Wellington, Mark Blumsky, who was concerned that the temperature, measured at Kelburn, showed Wellington in a bad light and was bad for tourism. He had noticed that it was generally much warmer in the inner city. He therefore had ordered the thermometer moved from Kelburn to the inner city.

Like in the MBH98 case, some independent scientists asked Jones for his basic data. He first said that "the data was on one of many diskettes at his office and he could not locate it without going to a lot of trouble." When Warwick Hughes (pers.com. Warwick is a geology graduate from Auckland working in Australia. His website is worth a visit) also asked for those data he got the reply: "We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it." No comment is necessary here.

I was recently invited to join a group of independent scientists in the Netherlands under the leadership of Professor Arthur Rörsch of Leiden University, which is preparing a submission to the Dutch Parliament asking for an independent scientific audit of the advice given to the government that made them decide to sign the Kyoto Protocol. It is high time that a similar request is made to the New Zealand government. I doubt if the Royal Society could fulfill that role, as it seems to have accepted the scientific validity of the AGW doctrine. It has become clear in recent weeks that the government's Kyoto sales pitch that it could make hundreds of millions of dollars from carbon credits has been phony and that the New Zealand public will now have to spend more than a billion dollars in buying credits. An audit is sorely needed but don't hold your breath that this will happen.

"Adolf" Lomborg

Phil Maxwell calls Bjørn Lomborg (author of the book "The Skeptical Environmentalist - measuring the real state of the world" - Cambridge University Press) "the darling of anti-environmentalists everywhere." The vilification of Lomborg is a long and sad saga. Lomborg is a statistician and an environmentalist. He was even a member of Greenpeace. However, when he started to collect material to counter arguments by the American economist Julian Simon, who had criticised many of the exaggerated claims by environmentalists, he found that Simon was right on many points. This led to his much-maligned book. The irony is that he based much of his book on official reports and statistics by international organisations such as the World Bank, Food and Agricultural Organisation, World Health Organisation, and many other United Nations organisations. It is also ironic that he accepts that man-made greenhouse gases contribute to global warming.

But his main criticism is that the Kyoto Protocol will have negligible effects on climate change and that the estimated cost of implementing Kyoto, 150 billion dollars per year(!), would be much better spent in providing clean water and sanitation to the third world. But by analysing many of the exaggerated claims of environmentalists and finding them to be often incorrect, he upset their profitable eco apple carts. Environmental extremists attacked him with all the weapons at their disposal, no holds barred. He has even been called the "Antichrist" and Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the IPCC, compared him with Adolf Hitler.

CO2 not a pollutant

Talking about "polluting industries," Phil Maxwell is also perpetuating the myth that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. It does not matter how often independent scientists point out that CO2 is not a pollutant but a plant fertilizer and an essential ingredient for life on earth, they keep repeating this mantra. Hundreds of experiments with plants growing in an atmosphere with double the present level of CO2 have shown an increase in productivity of between 20 and 50 percent (references to these studies can be found on the excellent co2science website). Increased plant growth due to increased CO2 levels have been noted already in many areas.

2005 - the Year of the Great Awakening

I have been writing the occasional email newsletter, titled "Global Warming and Cooling." In Newsletter No 7 (June 2003) I wrote that the year 2005 would be "The Year of the Great Awakening." This was based on the Kyoto Protocol itself. In Article 3, paragraph 2, it states: "Each party included in Annex I [these are the developed countries who ratified the Protocol and who together account for 55% of all greenhouse emissions. Developing countries are exempt] shall, by 2005, have made demonstrable progress in achieving its commitments under this protocol" Well, we know by now that New Zealand will default. Emissions have risen more than 22 percent since 1990 (The Press, 12 July 2005). But other signatories to the Kyoto Protocol are not doing much better. The European Union has been one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the Kyoto Protocol and has been very scathing of the US for not signing Kyoto. However, emissions in Europe have risen by 16.4 per cent since 1990, while the US increase was 16.7 percent. Canada increased its emissions by 23.6 percent, and Japan 18.9 percent. Sobering figures.

Article 3, paragraph 9 states that subsequent Kyoto commitments (after 2012) have to be considered "at least seven years before the end of the first commitment period." That will be 2005 as well. As we know from last December's COP10 meeting [2004] in Buenos Aires, participating countries could not agree on any emission reductions after 2012. Future Kyoto targets will have to include developing countries. But countries like China and India, who are quickly developing into major greenhouse-gas emitters, made it clear that they would not jeopardise their growing economies by any restrictive Kyoto agreements. But the biggest blow came from Italy, which declared that it would not sign up to any new agreements after 2012.

The big irony is the fact that economic growth and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions are incompatible. This was also the big contradiction of the recent G8 conference in Gleneagles. Tony Blair had set two major items on its agenda: reducing poverty in Africa and tackling global warming. But as we can see from China and India, reducing poverty has to be accompanied by an increase in energy generation and thus an increase in emissions, unless all generation comes from nuclear power. And that would be anathema to environmentalists. New Zealand's economy is growing and the demand for electricity is growing by about 3 percent per year. Whatever the hype, wind power will only be able to make a small dent in that demand. The Green Party is against new hydro power, against coal-fired power stations, and against nuclear power. Implementing their agenda will inevitably result in brown-outs and black-outs.

It is obvious that full implementation of the Kyoto Protocol would require a stop to any economic growth and the draconian plans for further drastic reductions in emissions (up to 60 to 80 percent for CO2) would require a substantial contraction of economies.

Even some politicians are waking up. Just before the G8 conference, on July 6, the Select Committee on Economics of the House of Lords in Britain released a report titled "The Economics of Climate Change." The report is highly critical of the British Government for not having carried out a proper costing of the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. It is also highly critical of the policies and actions of the IPCC. It urges the government to take a different approach to climate change in the future than the one followed for the Kyoto Protocol and to emphasise adaptation to climate change rather than dubious emission controls. The full 86-page report can be found here

Geologists as independent scientists

It is clear that the politicising of climate science has resulted in an abandoning of good scientific practice and ethics. Any critical scientific discussion of the science behind the AGW doctrine is shouted down, ridiculed or ostracised. But fortunately there are sufficient independent scientists who keep the flame of good scientific practice burning, although not much of this is reaching the general public. As explained above, there are groups who are now carrying out proper scientific audits and are looking into alternative theories to the one-eyed IPCC hypothesis. More studies are coming out about the role of the sun in climate change and several groups are revisiting the theory of greenhouse gases, especially the role of carbon dioxide, which was first formulated by the Swedish scientist Arrhenius in the nineteenth century.

Geologist can play an important role in these independent assessments. Geologic history tells us how climate has changed naturally at all time scales, from the two "snow-ball earth" periods in the Precambrian, through the ice ages in the Ordovician and Carboniferous-Permian, to the Cretaceous warm period, to the ice-age period we are living in now, and from the 1500-year climate fluctuations in the Holocene through the century-scale fluctuations in the past millennia (of which the present "Modern Warm Period" is one), to the climate effects of the 11-year sunspot cycles. Glaciologists can tell the AGW alarmists that the retreat of some glaciers is not due to AGW. They can point out that many glaciers have been retreating since the Little Ice Age, while others have been static or are advancing. They can point out that many glaciers started to retreat already in the eighteenth century, long before any increase in man-made greenhouse gases. For instance, the Franz Josef Glacier [South Island, New Zealand] started to retreat in 1750 and has had several advances since then as well, the last one starting in 1996. Another example is the large Gangotri Glacier in the Himalayas, which has been retreating since 1780.

Sea-level rise caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions is another favourite scare topic of AGW alarmists. But geologists know that sea level has risen by 120 metres since the last ice age. They also know that there have been fluctuations in the Holocene. About 6000 years ago the sea level in this part of the world was about two metres higher than it is now. It went down after that and has been rising again for quite some time. It is also known that the rate of sea level change has not been accelerating since the middle of the nineteenth century, notwithstanding an increase in atmospheric CO2. A real nail in the coffin of alarmism was the report on sea-level change in the Maldives by a group of INQUA scientists under the leadership of the INQUA president Professor Nils-Axel Mörner (Global and Planetary Change, vol 40: 177-182, 2004). The Maldives in the Indian Ocean has been a favourite scare subject of AGW alarmists. They tell us that this island group is about to disappear under the ocean waves due to our profligate energy lifestyle. But Mörner et al. found that sea level in the Maldives had been falling in the last 30 years.

We geologists can help to steer climate science away from the ideological hype and straight-jacket and return it to its proper functioning.

[limitdeditionlayla]

Much has been made of the assertion, repeated regularly in the media, that "the science is settled," based upon a supposed "scientific consensus." Yet, some years ago in the "Oregon Petition" between 17,000 and 18,000 signatories, almost all scientists, made manifest that the science was not settled, declaring:

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."

The 'Oregon Petition' being something of a non-event aside...we shouldn't take something as the absolute based simply on a number of scientists being in consensus, but we can disregard it based simply on a number of scientists disgreeing with it?


Get the feeling maybe 200 years from now our descendants will be mocking our lack of foresight & cohesion on this topic as we do the 'world is flat v the world is round' debacle?
"I can't believe they used to think global warming was a myth! idiots"...

[rockysigman]

Also, what kind of scientists signed that thing? Sorry, but I don't care what a bunch of computer engineers think about it. They haven't studied it. What do the biologists think?

[limitdeditionlayla]

I've never met an academic or researcher who actually refers to themselves as a "scientist".

Troy: Gettin hungry Jimmy?
Jimmy: Uhh, Mr. McClure? I have a crazy friend who says its wrong
to eat meat. Is he crazy?
Troy: No, just ignorant. You see your crazy friend never heard
of "The Food Chain". Just ask this scientician!

[phil]

African nomads to be first people wiped out by climate change


Kenya's herdsmen are facing extinction as global warming destroys their lands

Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday November 12, 2006
The Observer


They are dubbed the 'climate canaries' - the people destined to become the first victims of world climate change. And as government ministers sit down in Nairobi at this weekend's UN Climate Conference, the people most likely to be wiped out by devastating global warming will be only a few hundred miles away from their deliberations.

Those people, according to research commissioned by the charity Christian Aid, will be the three million pastoralists of northern Kenya, whose way of life has sustained them for thousands of years but who now face eradication. Hundreds of thousands of these seasonal herders have already been forced to forsake their traditional culture and settle in Kenya's north eastern province following consecutive droughts that have decimated their livestock in recent years.

Earlier this year the charity commissioned livestock specialist Dr David Kimenye to examine how the herders are coping with the recent drought, uncovering a disastrous story. Over two months, Dr Kimenye talked to pastoralists in five areas across the Mandera district, home to 1.5 million people.

The study discovered that:

· Incidence of drought has increased fourfold in the Mandera region in the past 25 years.

· One-third of herders living there - around half a million people - have already been forced to abandon their pastoral way of life because of adverse climatic conditions.

· During the last drought, so many cattle, camels and goats were lost that 60 per cent of the families who remain as herders need outside assistance to recover. Their surviving herds are too small to support them.

The new findings follow recent warnings from the UK Met Office that if current trends continue one-third of the planet will be desert by the end of 2100. The scientists modelled how drought is likely to increase globally during the coming century because of predicted changes in rainfall and temperature around the world.

At present, according to their calculations, 25 per cent of the Earth's surface is susceptible to moderate drought, rising to 50 per cent by 2100. In addition, the areas susceptible to severe drought - 8 per cent - are expected to rise to 40 per cent. And the figure for extreme drought, currently 3 per cent, will rise to 30 per cent.

And what is doubly worrying about Kimenye's research is that it has revealed that a system of nomadic pastoralism that has, over the centuries, been able to cope with unpredictable weather patterns and regular drought has been brought by climate change to the point of utter extinction.

It is a fact not lost on those who have been forced out of their historic lifestyle to settle at the Quimbiso settlement. Nearby is a stinking pit where the bones of the last of once thriving herds were dumped and burned - victims of the worst drought in living memory.

The families who until a few months ago herded these animals across northern Kenya and beyond now huddle in this riverside settlement, their children prone to malaria and other illnesses, but at least close to a reliable source of water. Now they are completely dependent on aid handouts for most of their food.

'Our whole life has been spent moving, but we are desperate people. People who have lost our livelihood,' says Mukhtar Aden, one of the elders at the Quimbiso settlement. 'We didn't settle here by choice, it was forced upon us.'

Everywhere are tales of huge livestock losses. In one roadside settlement, which now depends on selling milk from its few remaining animals to passing trucks, a man produces a book recording the dark days of the drought. One entry, for 15 February, shows that the community lost more than 500 sheep and goats and 250 cattle in a single day.

And while rain did came to the region for the first time in more than a year last month, it was too late for the makeshift roadside communities who no longer have animals to put out to pasture.

Wargadud is another sizeable community running along either side of the region's main road. The chairman of Wargadud's water users' association is Abdullahi Abdi Hussein, who describes how the periods of rain have got shorter and the dry spells longer - changing the pattern of four seasons on which the pastoral communities depended.

And while there were always droughts, he says: 'Decade after decade it has been getting more severe. It has only been getting harder and harder and more and more serious.'

[phil]

I can't wait for chinese and indian people
to start buying cars by the millions ...

It's gonna be great for the World economy ...

[JACkory]

Throughout the world, the prevalence of some diseases and other threats to human health depend largely on local climate. Extreme temperatures can directly lead to loss of life, while climate-related disturbances in ecological systems, such as changes in the range of infective parasites, can indirectly impact the incidence of serious infectious diseases. In addition, warm temperatures can increase air and water pollution, which in turn harm human health.

Human health is strongly affected by social, political, economic, environmental and technological factors, including urbanization, affluence, scientific developments, individual behavior and individual vulnerability (e.g., genetic makeup, nutritional status, emotional well-being, age, gender and economic status). The extent and nature of climate change impacts on human health vary by region, by relative vulnerability of population groups, by the extent and duration of exposure to climate change itself and by society’s ability to adapt to or cope with the change.

The National Research Council (NRC, 2001) concluded:

Health outcomes in response to climate change are the subject of intense debate. Climate change has the potential to influence the frequency and transmission of infectious disease, alter heat- and cold-related mortality and morbidity, and influence air and water quality. Climate change is just one of the factors that influence the frequency and transmission of infectious disease, and hence the assessments view such changes as highly uncertain. This said, changes in the agents that transport infectious diseases (e.g., mosquitoes, ticks, rodents) are likely to occur with any significant change in precipitation and temperature. Increases in mean temperatures are expected to result in new record high temperatures and warm nights and an increase in the number of warm days compared to the present. Cold-related stress is likely to decline whereas heat stress in major urban areas is projected to increase if no adaptation occurs. The National Assessment ties increases in adverse air quality to higher temperatures and other air mass characteristics. However, much of the United States appears to be protected against many different adverse health outcomes related to climate change by a strong public health system, relatively high levels of public awareness, and a high standard of living. Children, the elderly, and the poor are considered to be the most vulnerable to adverse health outcomes. The understanding of the relationships between weather/climate and human health is in its infancy and therefore the health consequences of climate change are poorly understood. The costs, benefits, and availability of resources for adaptation are also uncertain.

The Climate Change Science Program Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.63 is examining the effects of climate change on human health in the United States. This product is scheduled to be completed at the end of 2007. The U.S. EPA, in collaboration with other government agencies, is leading this assessment. The key questions being addressed by this assessment are the following:

What are the potential human health effects of global environmental change, and what climate, socioeconomic, and environmental information is needed to assess the cumulative risk to health in the United States from these effects and to inform adaptations in the provision of public health and health care interventions?


Given the complexity of the factors that influence human health, assessing health impacts related to climate change poses a difficult challenge. Furthermore, data sets that allow for the study of health effects due to observed longer term trends in climate remain sparse. Nonetheless, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that, overall, negative climate-related health impacts10 4 are expected to outweigh positive health impacts during this century (IPCC, 2001). At the same time, the quality of medical care and public health systems in the United States may lessen climate impacts on human health within the U.S.

Direct Temperature Effects
Climate change may directly affect human health through increases in average temperature. Such increases may lead to more extreme heat waves during the summer while producing less extreme cold spells during the winter. Increases in average temperatures are expected to result in new record-high temperatures11 4 and warm nights (NRC, 2001). Particular segments of the population such as those with heart problems, asthma, the elderly, the very young and the homeless can be especially vulnerable to extreme heat.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has produced the Excessive Heat Events Guidebook12 with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Municipal officials in both the U.S. and Canada provided useful information that can be used to help the public cope with excessive heat.

Designed to help community officials, emergency managers, meteorologists, and others plan for and respond to excessive heat events, the guidebook highlights best practices that have been employed to save lives during excessive heat events in different urban areas and provides a menu of options that officials can use to respond to these events in their communities.


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Extreme Events
Extreme weather events13 can be destructive to human health and well-being. The extent to which climate change may affect the frequency and severity of these events, such as hurricanes and extreme heat and floods, is being investigated by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program14. An increase in the frequency of extreme events may result in more event-related deaths, injuries, infectious diseases, and stress-related disorders.

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Climate-Sensitive Diseases
Climate change may increase the risk of some infectious diseases, particularly those diseases that appear in warm areas and are spread by mosquitoes and other insects. These "vector-borne" diseases include malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, and encephalitis. Also, algal blooms could occur more frequently as temperatures warm — particularly in areas with polluted waters — in which case diseases (such as cholera) that tend to accompany algal blooms could become more frequent.

Higher temperatures, in combination with favorable rainfall patterns, could prolong disease transmission seasons in some locations where certain diseases already exist. In other locations, climate change will decrease transmission via reductions in rainfall or temperatures that are too high for transmission. For example, temperature and humidity levels must be sufficient for certain disease-carrying vectors, such as ticks that carry Lyme disease, to thrive. And climate change could push temperature and humidity levels either towards or away from optimum conditions for the survival rate of ticks.

Though average U.S. and global temperatures are expected to continue to rise, the potential for an increase in the spread of diseases9 4 will depend not only on climatic but also on non-climatic factors, primarily the effectiveness of the public health system (WHO, 2003).

The IPCC has noted that “Various large-scale environmental changes now impinge on human population health simultaneously, and often interactively. An obvious example is vector-borne infectious diseases, which are affected by climatic conditions, population movement, forest clearance and land-use patterns, freshwater surface configurations, human population density, and the population density of insectivorous predators (IPCC, 2001). For North America10 4, the IPCC concluded that vector-borne diseases, including malaria and dengue fever, may expand their ranges in the United States and may develop in Canada (IPCC, 2001).

Tick-borne Lyme disease also may also expand its range in Canada. However, socioeconomic factors such as public health measures will play a large role in determining the existence or extent of such infections. Water-borne diseases may increase where warmer air and water temperatures combine with heavy runoff from agricultural and urban surfaces, but may be largely contained by standard water-treatment practices.

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Air Quality
Climate change is expected to contribute to air quality problems15 4 (IPCC, 2001). Respiratory disorders may be exacerbated by warming-induced increases in the frequency of smog (ground-level ozone16) events and particulate air pollution16.

Ground-level ozone can damage lung tissue, and is especially harmful for those with asthma and other chronic lung diseases. Sunlight and high temperatures, combined with other pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, can cause ground-level ozone to increase. Climate change may increase the concentration of ground-level ozone, but the magnitude of the effect is uncertain. For other pollutants17 4, the effects of climate change and/or weather are less well studied (IPCC, 2001).

Another pollutant of concern is "particulate matter," also known as particle pollution or PM. Particulate matter is a complex mixture of extremely small particles and liquid droplets. When breathed in, these particles can reach the deepest regions of the lungs. Exposure to particle pollution is linked to a variety of significant health problems. Particle pollution also is the main cause of visibility impairment in the nation’s cities and national parks. Climate change may indirectly affect the concentration of PM pollution in the air by affecting natural or “biogenic” sources of PM such as wildfires and dust from dry soils.

The EPA Office of Research and Development's Global Change Research Program2 has been investigating and supporting research on the effects of climate change on U.S. air quality.

Many individual research projects examining the effects of global change on U.S. air quality have been funded through Office of Research and Development’s STAR grant program. Summary information and progress reports from these and other STAR grants can be found at EPA's National Center for Environmental Research 18.


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Other Health Linkages
Other, less direct linkages exist between climate change and human health. For example, regional climate change impacts on agricultural yields and production19 are likely to grow over time, with the most negative effects expected in developing countries. If temperatures increase beyond optimum thresholds in the tropics, for example, the number of undernourished people in the developing world could increase20 4 (IPCC, 2001).

Climate change may also contribute to social disruption, economic decline, and displacement of populations in certain regions21 4 (PDF, 915 KB, 22 pp., About PDF22), due to effects on agricultural production, already-scarce water resources, and extreme weather events (e.g., Schwartz and Randall, 2003). These issues are likely to be more severe in developing countries20 4, and may worsen human health and well-being in affected regions (IPCC, 2001)

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Agriculture is highly sensitive to climate variability and weather extremes, such as droughts, floods and severe storms. The forces that shape our climate are also critical to farm productivity. Human activity has already changed atmospheric characteristics such as temperature, rainfall, levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and ground level ozone. The scientific community expects such trends to continue. While food production may benefit from a warmer climate, the increased potential for droughts, floods and heat waves will pose challenges for farmers. Additionally, the enduring changes in climate, water supply and soil moisture could make it less feasible to continue crop production in certain regions.

The National Research Council (NRC, 2001) concluded:

In the near term, agriculture and forestry are likely to benefit from CO2 fertilization effects and the increased water efficiency of many plants at higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Many crop distributions will change, thus requiring significant regional adaptations. Given their resource base, the Assessment concludes that such changes will be costlier for small farmers than for large corporate farms. However, the combination of the geographic and climatic breadth of the United States, possibly augmented by advances in genetics, increases the nation's robustness to climate change. These conclusions depend on the climate scenario, with hotter and drier conditions increasing the potential for declines in both agriculture and forestry. In addition, the response of insects and plant diseases to warming is poorly understood. On the regional scale and in the longer term, there is much more uncertainty.

Climate Factors
Several factors directly connect climate change and agricultural productivity:

Average temperature increase
Change in rainfall amount and patterns
Rising atmospheric concentrations of CO2
Pollution levels such as tropospheric ozone
Change in climatic variability and extreme events
Most agricultural impact studies have considered the effects of one or two aspects of climate change on a particular farming activity. Few, however, have considered the full set of anticipated shifts and their impact on agricultural production across the country.

Temperature: An increase in average temperature can 1) lengthen the growing season in regions with a relatively cool spring and fall; 2) adversely affect crops in regions where summer heat already limits production; 3) increase soil evaporation rates, and 4) increase the chances of severe droughts.

Rainfall: Changes in rainfall can affect soil erosion rates and soil moisture, both of which are important for crop yields. Predicting future changes in rainfall, especially at regional scales, remains a challenge. However, the most widely used global climate models tend to forecast not only changes in the amount of precipitation, but increased intensity of rainfall events (IPCC, 2001).

CO2 fertilization: Increasing atmospheric CO2 levels, driven by emissions from human activities, can act as a fertilizer and enhance the growth of some crops such as wheat, rice and soybeans. CO2 can be one of a number of limiting factors that, when increased, can enhance crop growth. Other limiting factors include water and nutrient availability. The strength of a CO2 fertilization effect, therefore, can either be strengthened or weakened depending on temperature effects, nutrient availability and the harmful effects of tropospheric ozone (IPCC, 2001).

Tropospheric ozone: Higher levels of ground level ozone limit the growth of crops. Since ozone levels in the lower atmosphere are shaped by both emissions and temperature, climate change will most likely increase ozone concentrations. Such changes may offset any beneficial yield effects that result from elevated CO2 levels.

Climatic variability and extreme events: Changes in the frequency and severity of heat waves, drought, floods and hurricanes, remain a key uncertainty about future climate change. Such changes are anticipated by global climate models, but regional changes and the potential affects on agriculture are more difficult to forecast.

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Implications for North America
The National Research Council10 4 concluded that there may be significant regional transitions associated with shifts in agriculture as a result of climate change (NRC, 2001). Similarly, the IPCC concluded11 4 that, for North America as a whole (IPCC, 2001):

Food production is projected to benefit from a warmer climate, but there probably will be strong regional effects, with some areas in North America suffering significant loss of comparative advantage to other regions.
There is potential for increased drought in the U.S. Great Plains/Canadian Prairies and opportunities for a limited northward shift of production areas in Canada.
Modeled yield results that include the effects of increased CO2 are substantially different from those that do not account for such effects. However, such studies generally also assume sufficient water and nutrients to support the additional plant growth, which may be more heavily constrained by climatic changes.
Economic studies that include farm and agricultural market-level adjustments (e.g., behavioral, economic, and institutional) indicate that the negative effects of climate change on agriculture have probably been overestimated by studies that do not account for these adjustments.
Agriculture in the U.S. and other industrialized countries is expected to be less vulnerable to climate change than agriculture in developing nations, especially in the tropics, where farmers may have a limited ability to adapt. In addition, the effects of climate change on U.S. and world agriculture will depend not only on changing climatic conditions but also on changes in agriculture's ability to be productive and adapt through future changes in technology, demand for food, and environmental conditions, such as water availability and soil quality. Management practices, the opportunity to switch management and crop selection from season to season, and technology can help the agricultural sector cope with and adapt to climatic variability and change.

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) has commissioned a federal study on the potential effects of climate change on agriculture. The CCSP Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.312 will address the following questions:

What factors influencing agriculture, land resources, water resources, and biodiversity in the United States are sensitive to climate and climate change?
How could changes in climate exacerbate or ameliorate stresses on agriculture, land resources, water resources, and biodiversity?
What are the indicators of these stresses?
What current and potential observation systems could be used to monitor these indicators?
Can observation systems detect changes in agriculture, land resources, water resources, and biodiversity that are caused by climate change, as opposed to being driven by other causal activities?

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The National Research Council (2001) concluded that there may be significant regional transitions associated with shifts in forest location and composition in the U.S. due to climate change. Climate change is likely to alter the geographic distribution of North American forests, including regionally important tree species, such as New England sugar maples and boreal forests in Alaska.

The effects of climate change on forests in the U.S. and other parts of the world will depend not only on climatic factors but also on stresses from pollution (e.g., acid rain); future trends in forest management practices, including fire control and demand for timber; and land-use change. It is difficult to separate the influence of climate change from these other pressures.

Climate change effects on forests are likely to include changes in forest health and productivity and changes in the geographic range of certain tree species. These effects can in turn alter timber production, outdoor recreational activities, water quality, wildlife and rates of carbon storage.

Climate Factors
In general, forests are sensitive to climatic variability and change. Climatic factors that influence forest health-temperature, rainfall, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases and extreme weather and fire events—are changing and are expected to continue changing due to human activities.

The following climate factors are likely to play an important role in determining future forest conditions:

Air temperature
Precipitation amount and seasonal distribution
Atmospheric CO2 concentrations
Frequency and severity of wildfire events
Climatic variability and the frequency and severity of extreme events
Indirect effects on pollution levels such as tropospheric ozone
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Temperature and Precipitation
Changes in temperature and precipitation11 are expected to change forest location, composition, and productivity. Climate change is likely to drive the migration of tree species12 7, resulting in changes in the geographic distribution of forest types and new combinations of species within forests. In North America, many tree species may shift northward or to higher elevations. (IPCC, 2001)

The IPCC13 noted, "Some species do occupy sites that are on the limits of their physiological tolerance, and if climate change takes local climate beyond that threshold, clearly they will not be able to persist at that site. However, there is mounting paleoecological evidence of vegetation types persisting through significant climate changes."

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Tree Growth and CO2 sequestration
Free-Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE14 7) experiments suggest that tree growth rates may increase with increasing levels of atmospheric CO2, but these effects are expected to saturate over time as tree communities adjust to increased CO2 levels.

Climate change effects that influence tree growth will also alter rates of carbon storage (or sequestration)2 in trees and soils. Increased carbon sequestration would remove more CO2 from the atmosphere (a negative feedback that lessens climate change), whereas carbon losses through forest disturbances would result in more CO2 entering the atmosphere (a positive feedback that strengthens climate change).

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Fire and Disease
Changes in forest disturbance regimes, such as fire or disease, could also affect the future of U.S. forests and the market for forest products, such as timber. Increased temperatures could increase fire risk15 7 in areas that become drier due to climate change. These changes could compound existing fire risks (IPCC, 2001). Climate change could also promote the rapid increase of diseases and pests that attack tree species. Such disturbances may be detrimental to forests themselves, but may have a lesser impact at the market level due to salvage operations that harvest timber from dying forests (Shugart, et al., 2003).

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Implications for North America
The IPCC concluded 167 that, for North America as a whole (IPCC, 2001):

Climate change is expected to increase the geographic range and productivity of forests over the next 50-100 years. However, extreme and/or long-term climate change scenarios also create the potential for widespread forest decline.
Climate change is likely to cause changes in the nature and extent of several disturbance factors, such as fire and insect outbreaks. Of particular interest in North America are changes in fire regimes, including an earlier start to the fire season, and significant increases in the area experiencing high to extreme fire danger.
The long-term effects of fire will depend heavily on changes in human fire management activities.

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Many animals already may be responding to local climatic changes. The types of changes already observed include poleward and elevational movement of ranges, changes in animal abundance, changes in body size, and shifts in the timing of events, such as earlier breeding in spring. Possible climatically associated shifts in animal ranges and densities have been noted on many continents and within each major taxonomic group of animals. (IPCC, 2001)

An ecosystem is an interdependent, functioning system of plants, animals and microorganisms. An ecosystem can be as large as the Mojave Desert, or as small as a local pond. Without the support of the other organisms within their own ecosystem, life forms would not survive, much less thrive. Such support requires that predators and prey, fire and water, food and shelter, clean air and open space remain in balance with each other and with the environment around them.

Climate is an integral part of ecosystems and organisms have adapted to their regional climate over time. Climate change is a factor that has the potential to alter ecosystems and the many resources and services they provide to each other and to society. Human societies depend on ecosystems for the natural, cultural, spiritual, recreational and aesthetic resources they provide.

In various regions across the world, some high-altitude and high-latitude ecosystems have already been affected by changes in climate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2001) appraised relevant published studies of biological systems. Of a total of 59 plants, 47 invertebrates, 29 amphibians and reptiles, 388 birds, and 10 mammal species, approximately 80 percent showed changes in the biological parameters measured (e.g., start and end of breeding season, shifts in migration patterns, shifts in animal and plant distributions to higher elevations and towards the poles, and changes in body size and population numbers) consistent with global warming predictions, while 20 percent showed changes in the opposite direction.

These changes can cause adverse or beneficial effects on species. For example, climate change could benefit certain plant or insect species by increasing their ranges. The resulting impacts, however, could be positive or negative depending on whether these species were invasive (e.g., weeds or mosquitoes) or if they were valuable to humans (e.g., food crops or pollinating insects).

The observations that the IPCC has described are difficult to use in future projections because of the complexities involved in human/nature interactions. Nevertheless, the observed changes are compelling examples of how rising temperatures can affect the natural world and raise questions of how vulnerable populations will adapt to further increases in temperatures and other climatic changes. The risk of extinction could increase for many species, especially those that are already endangered or at risk due to isolation by geography or human development, low population numbers, or a narrow temperature tolerance range.

But, as the IPCC15 11 has noted

Overall, biodiversity is forecast to decrease in the future as a result of a multitude of pressures, particularly increased land-use intensity and associated destruction of natural or semi-natural habitats. The most significant processes are habitat loss and fragmentation (or reconnection, in the case of freshwater bodies); introduction of exotic species (invasives); and direct effects on reproduction, dominance, and survival through chemical and mechanical treatments. In a few cases, there might be an increase in local biodiversity, but this usually is a result of species introductions, and the longer term consequences of these changes are hard to foresee. These pressures on biodiversity are occurring independent of climate change, so the critical question is: How much might climate change enhance or inhibit these losses in biodiversity? There is little evidence to suggest that processes associated with climate change will slow species losses. Palaeoecology data suggest that the global biota should produce an average of three new species per year, with large variation about that mean between geological ears. Pulses of speciation sometimes appear to be associated with climate change, although moderate oscillations of climate do not necessarily promote speciation despite forcing changes in species' geographical ranges.