Arianna Column 2/25/2004 & Follow-up

[foot_soldier]

The Pentagon Sounds The Alarm On Global Warming; Why Isn't President Bush Listening?

February 25, 2004

If he's smart enough to use it, the Democratic nominee may have just been handed the perfect cudgel with which to pummel President Bush -- and cripple Karl Rove's attempts to position his man as America's go-to guy on national security.

The weapon in question is a new report on the grave and gathering threat posed by global climate change -- and the potentially cataclysmic consequences of the Bush administration's obstinately ignorant approach to global warming.

And the thing that makes the report so frightening -- and the prospective bludgeon so crushing -- is that it wasn't authored by some crunchy granola think tank or a band of tree-hugging EarthFirsters, but by the U.S. Department of Defense.

That's right, the Pentagon -- Rummy's playpen. In fact, the report, which was slipped to the press earlier this month after being kept under wraps by the White House for four months, was commissioned by Andrew Marshall, a legendary DOD figure, nicknamed "Yoda" for his sagacity. As head of the Pentagon's secretive Office of Net Assessment, Marshall has offered national security assessments to every president since Richard Nixon.

And this latest assessment pegs climate change as a far greater danger than even the scourge of international terrorism.

Dryly entitled "An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security," the report reads like the plot summary of the upcoming Dennis Quaid doomsday flick, "The Day After Tomorrow," in which global warming pushes the planet to the edge of anarchy and annihilation.

But this scenario is not science fiction. According to the Pentagon study, the question is not if abrupt climate change will happen, but when. It could be, according to the report's authors, as soon as the next three years, with the most devastating fallout potentially occurring between 2010 and 2020.

At that point, we could find ourselves in the midst of a new ice age in which mega-droughts devastate the world's food supply, drinkable water becomes a luxury worth going nuclear over, 400 million people are forced to migrate from uninhabitable areas, and riots and wars for survival become commonplace.

I believe that would qualify as a Red Alert in Tom Ridge's color-coded book.

But the Bush White House remains unwilling to address -- or even acknowledge -- this looming peril. Instead, the oiligarchs in the administration continue to fiddle while the atmosphere starts to burn, routinely ignoring scientific evidence and international consensus, and casting a questioning eye on the very idea, let alone the fact, of global warming. It's a stance that has warmed the hearts -- globally, no doubt -- of the Bush Pioneers and Rangers in the oil and energy industry, making them feel very generous indeed.

As last week's release of a scathing letter signed by 60 prominent scientists -- including 20 Nobel laureates and former science advisers to both Republican and Democratic administrations -- makes clear, the Bush administration has made an art out of ignoring science. Particularly when it comes to the issue of global warming.

Who can forget the president's famous CO2 flip-flop, or the way the White House tried to force so many changes to a section of an EPA report dealing with climate change that Christie Todd Whitman finally threw up her hands and decided to eliminate the section on global warming altogether?

But blinding the voters with pseudo-science may no longer be an option now that the Pentagon report threatens to put the issue front and center -- and reframe it as a key component of our national security debate.

This is particularly good news for John Kerry, should he prevail, given his long history of leading the charge in the Senate to cut down on greenhouse gases by raising fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks. The president, of course, has done just the opposite, giving Kyoto the kiss-off, and pushing through unconscionable loopholes that reward gas-guzzling monster SUVs and allow carmakers to effectively reduce fuel economy for millions of the vehicles they sell.

One of the defining traits of leadership is the ability to see not just the crisis right in front of you, but the one lurking around the next corner. Bush's steadfast refusal to act upon the potential desolation that awaits us if we do nothing to confront global warming makes him a major national security liability.

Everyone in the Bush administration acted shocked and surprised when 9/11 happened -- even though there had been red flags aplenty warning of al-Qaida's evil intentions. Well, let there be no surprise this time. We have all been warned.

While the Pentagon is sounding the alarm on an environmental Armageddon, the president is covering his eyes, crossing his fingers, and whistling about the "national importance" of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

The Democratic nominee needs to remind the White House -- and the American people: It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature.

-Arianna Huffington

[foot_soldier]

Imagining the unthinkable: Abrupt climate change

August 4, 2004

Critics who have dismissed the recent report commissioned by the Pentagon, An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security, should instead view it as a clarion call. Small risks which can result in catastrophic consequences - even if they cannot be precisely quantified - should not be ignored. Neither should the government use it as excuse to postpone effective action.

Peter Schwartz, one of the authors of the provocative report, encouraged the Department of Defense to "imagine the unthinkable" by exploring the consequences of abrupt climate change for US National security. As he told us at a symposium at the World Resources Institute, his report has largely been buried in the Pentagon bureaucracy.

Schwartz reminded us that climatologists and the international policy community have mainly focused on gradual climate change scenarios. These scenarios rest on mathematical models that fail to capture the discontinuous and extreme events that characterize the earth's climate history. By investigating planetary history recorded in tree rings, ice cores, and sediments, scientists have discovered several instances of significant abrupt climate changes over the last 100,000 years. Temperature changes in some regions of up to 16 degrees Celsius (28 degrees Fahrenheit) have been observed, sometimes in the span of a decade. Altered climate patterns could last for many decades, as they did when the heat conveyor of the ocean (like the Gulf Stream) collapsed about 8,200 years ago.

The report provides an alternative to the commonly accepted scenarios of gradual climate change. In one scenario, patterned after the event that occurred 8,200 years ago, polar glaciers continue to melt, the waters of the North Atlantic lose their salinity, and the flow of the Gulf Stream ceases. Average annual temperatures drop by up to 5 degrees F over Asia and North America, and 6 degrees F in Northern Europe. The Southern Hemisphere experiences an increase of up to 4 degrees F, all in a single decade. The report explores the destabilization of the geo-political environment brought about in such a scenario. It points out that wars could break out among old and new adversaries over access to water, food sources, and energy supplies, and millions of refugees would cross national borders.

The National Academy of Sciences has examined the earth's climate archives to provide the scientific evidence for abrupt climate change. Many scientists see the need for a new generation of mathematical models that accurately represent the behavior of complex, non-linear systems like the earth's climate. With such systems, smooth, predictable behavior is the exception rather than the norm. Even if current models cannot reproduce past discontinuities or predict the future, climate science points to an uncertain but non-zero risk of sudden and cataclysmic change.

The ratification of the Kyoto Protocol is a first step toward reducing the risk of climate instability by cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the developed world. After conflicting statements by his bureaucrats, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently signaled that Russia will ratify the Protocol, thus ensuring that it will come into force. That leaves the US, the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, isolated from the rest of the world.

While the US Administration is in denial on the science, and blocks effective action, Hollywood has taken artistic liberties with the science, and latched on to abrupt climate change in this summer's blockbuster, The Day After Tomorrow. Moviegoers should realize that the world will not end in a weekend, and should not confuse cinematic special effects with the science and mathematics of complex, non-linear systems. However, the movie's underlying message is clear: the world's nations, led by the US, cannot play dice with the climate of our planet.

-Dr. David Jhirad, vice president for science and research at the World Resources Institute.

http://www.enn.com/direct/display-release.asp?objid=D1D1366D000000FD7C5A4D17A454F584

=========================

Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict
Michael T. Klare
http://www.alternet.org/story/10797/

[foot_soldier]

Global Warming: Consensus is growing among scientists, governments, and business

August 7, 2004

The idea that the human species could alter something as huge and complex as the earth's climate was once the subject of an esoteric scientific debate. But now even attorneys general more used to battling corporate malfeasance are taking up the cause. On July 21, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and lawyers from seven other states sued the nation's largest utility companies, demanding that they reduce emissions of the gases thought to be warming the earth. Warns Spitzer: "Global warming threatens our health, our economy, our natural resources, and our children's future. It is clear we must act."

The maneuvers of eight mostly Democratic AGs could be seen as a political attack. But their suit is only one tiny trumpet note in a growing bipartisan call to arms. "The facts are there," says Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.). "We have to educate our fellow citizens about climate change and the danger it poses to the world." In January, the European Union will impose mandatory caps on carbon dioxide and other gases that act like a greenhouse over the earth, and will begin a market-based system for buying and selling the right to emit carbon. By the end of the year, Russia may ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which makes CO2 reductions mandatory among the 124 countries that have already accepted the accord. Some countries are leaping even further ahead. Britain has vowed to slash emissions by 60% by 2050. Climate change is a greater threat to the world than terrorism, argues Sir David King, chief science adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair: "Delaying action for a decade, or even just years, is not a serious option."

There are naysayers. The Bush Administration flatly rejects Kyoto and mandatory curbs, arguing that such steps will cripple the economy. Better to develop new low-carbon technologies to solve problems if and when they appear, says Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. And a small group of scientists still argues there is no danger. "We know how much the planet is going to warm," says the Cato Institute's Patrick J. Michaels. "It is a small amount, and we can't do anything about it."

But the growing consensus among scientists and governments is that we can -- and must -- do something. Researchers under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have pondered the evidence and concluded that the earth is warming, that humans are probably the cause, and that the threat is real enough to warrant an immediate response. "There is no dispute that the temperature will rise. It will," says Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science. "The disagreement is how much." Indeed, "there is a real potential for sudden and perhaps catastrophic change," says Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change: "The fact that we are uncertain may actually be a reason to act sooner rather than later."

Plus, taking action brings a host of ancillary benefits. The main way to cut greenhouse-gas emissions is simply to burn less fossil fuel. Making cars and factories more energy-efficient and using alternative sources would make America less dependent on the Persian Gulf and sources of other imported oil. It would mean less pollution. And many companies that have cut emissions have discovered, often to their surprise, that it saves money and spurs development of innovative technologies. "It's impossible to find a company that has acted and has not found benefits," says Michael Northrop, co-creator of the Climate Group, a coalition of companies and governments set up to share such success stories.

That's why there has been a rush to fill the leadership vacuum left by Washington. "States have stepped up to fill this policy void, as much out of economic self-interest as fear of devastating climate changes," says Kenneth A. Colburn, executive director of Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management. Warning of flooded coasts and crippled industries, Massachusetts unveiled a plan in May to cut emissions by 10% by 2020. In June, California proposed 30% cuts in car emissions by 2015. Many other states are weighing similar actions.

Curbing Carbon
Remarkably, business is far ahead of Congress and the White House. Some CEOs are already calling for once-unthinkable steps. "We accept that the science on global warming is overwhelming," says John W. Rowe, chairman and CEO of Exelon Corp. (EXC ) "There should be mandatory carbon constraints."

Exelon, of course, would likely benefit as the nation's largest operator of commercial nuclear power plants. But many other companies also are planning for that future. American Electric Power Co. (AEP ) once fought the idea of combating climate change. But in the late 1990s, then-CEO E. Linn Draper Jr. pushed for a strategy shift at the No. 1 coal-burning utility -- preparing for limits instead of denying that global warming existed. It was a tough sell to management. Limits on carbon emissions threaten the whole idea of burning coal. But Draper prevailed. Why? "We felt it was inevitable that we were going to live in a carbon-constrained world," says Dale E. Heydlauff, AEP's senior vice-president for environmental affairs.

Now, AEP is trying to accumulate credits for cutting CO2. It's investing in renewable energy projects in Chile, retrofitting school buildings in Bulgaria for greater efficiency, and exploring ways to burn coal more cleanly. Scores of other companies are also taking action -- and seeing big benefits. DuPont (DD ) has cut its greenhouse-gas emissions by 65% since 1990, saving hundreds of millions of dollars in the process. Alcoa Inc. (AA ) is aiming at a 25% cut by 2010. General Electric Co. (GE ) is anticipating growing markets for its wind power division and for more energy-efficient appliances. And General Motors Corp. (GM ) is spending millions to develop hydrogen-powered cars that don't emit CO2. A low-carbon economy "could really change our industry," says Fred Sciance, manager of GM's global climate issues team. As Exelon knows, the need for carbon-free power could even mean a boost for advanced nuclear reactors, which produce electricity without any greenhouse-gas emissions.

Global warming could change other industries, too. Even if the world manages to make big cuts in emissions soon, the earth will still warm several more degrees in coming decades, most climate scientists believe. That could slash agricultural yields, raise sea levels, and bring more extreme weather.

For businesses, this presents threats -- and opportunities. Insurers may face more floods, storms, and other disasters. Farmers must adjust crops to changing climates. Companies that pioneer low-emission cars, clean coal-burning technology, and hardier crop plants -- or find cheap ways to slash emissions -- will take over from those that can't move as fast. "There is no silver bullet," says Chris Mottershead, distinguished adviser at BP PLC (BP ): "There is a suite of technologies that are required, and we need to unleash the talent inside business" to develop them.

Are we ready for this carbon-constrained, warming world? In some ways, yes. "There is a case to be made for cautious optimism, that we are making small steps," says BP's Mottershead..... (continued)

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_33/b3896001_mz001.htm

[gaiacomm]

Very imformative. Come on over JR and Watne the water is fine!

[foot_soldier]

August 11, 2004

World Bank undermines efforts on global warming
By George M. Woodwell and Kilaparti Ramakrishna
Woods Hole Oceanography Institution, Woods Hole, MA
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/08/11/world_bank_undermines_efforts

WHILE WE are all preoccupied with an unnecessary war costing billions of dollars and eating up time that might far better be spent on the alleviation of poverty and disease, global climatic disruption gains momentum and moves toward irreversible climatic chaos.

The World Bank recently met to consider continued support for development of new sources of fossil fuels, the primary cause of the climatic disruption. It decided to continue support in the interest of offering succor to those less developed nations that might sell oil or coal or gas into the world markets. The action calls attention once again to the growing discrepancy between what the scientific community is saying about the state of the world and what the political and economic communities are willing to hear. The fact is that the environment is being changed in ways that destroy its life-supporting capacities. Immediate effective steps must be taken to stop the erosion.

First, the world must move away from a reliance on fossil fuels -- coal, oil, and gas -- as the energy source for industrialization. There is, of course, enormous resistance to this change. The political and economic interests of the fossil fuel industry and its allies are overwhelming. They argue, in a now stereotypical pattern, that the scientists are wrong, then that the scientists may be right but change is very expensive and the expense is not justified, and, finally, that it is too late to try because we cannot stop the changes.

The World Bank, on the other hand, has an international legal personality and a position of leadership. Its job is to improve the world, to aid in economic development.

While one might question the organization's methods, its mission is certainly not to drive the world into impoverishment. Yet the human undertaking that the World Bank wishes to advance is dependent upon a functioning environment that is being destroyed daily by current use of fossil fuels.

The best way to eliminate a pest, defeat an enemy, or cause the erosion of society is to change the environment out from under it. History is rich in examples as climate or soil or other environmental resources have collapsed and caused the demise of one civilization after another.

The difference now is that the changes are global and the global industrial civilization with all of its successes and all of its promise is at hazard.

The atmospheric burden of human-produced heat-trapping gases, especially carbon dioxide, is more than 30 percent 0above what it was a century ago and far higher than it has been at any time in the last 460,000 years. And it will soar under current policies to levels that are in fact unpredictable as the warming feeds on itself by stimulating further releases of heat trapping gases from forests and soils and as the seas warm and absorb less of the excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The full effects of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, without continued additions, will extend far beyond current predictions.

The failure of the United States and others to take international leadership in correcting this trend is inexcusable, but this failure in no way justifies the action of the World Bank in leading the world into even greater reliance on fossil fuels.

If the bank requires justification in international action, it has it in the Framework Convention on Climate Change, a treaty that has been ratified by all the nations, including the United States, and provides for "stabilizing" the heat trapping gas content of the atmosphere at levels that will protect human interests and nature. It is time for the public to hold the World Bank and other international development agencies to a far higher set of environmental standards than has been set by most of the governments that delegates to the governing board represent.

Failure to do so assures the ultimate and final failure of the central mission of government at all levels, but most conspicuously in the international realm that the international development banks serve.

George M. Woodwell and Kilaparti Ramakrishna are the director and deputy director of the Woods Hole Research Center.

[foot_soldier]

'Boiling Point'
By ROSS GELBSPAN

Published: August 15, 2004

By late 2003, the signals were undeniable: Global climate change is threatening to spiral out of control.

The six-month period from June to December 2003 brought a succession of scientific findings, climate impacts, political and diplomatic developments, and responses from the financial world that vividly underscored the urgency and magnitude of the climate crisis.

The events of that year surprised even many seasoned climate scientists-and brought home to many others the fact that, given all its ramifications, the climate crisis is far more than just an environmental issue. It is a civilizational issue.

Nevertheless, by the end of 2003, most Americans were still in denial.

The evidence is not subtle. It is apparent in the trickling meltwater from the glaciers in the Andes Mountains that will soon leave many people on Bolivia's mountainside villages with no water to irrigate their crops and, after that, not even enough to drink. It is visible in the rising waters of the Pacific Ocean that recently prompted the prime minister of New Zealand to offer a haven to the residents of the island nation of Tuvalu as it slowly goes under. It is evident in the floods that, in 2002, inundated whole cities in Germany, Russia, and the Czech Republic. It is underscored in the United States by the spread of West Nile virus to forty-two states-and to 230 species of birds, insects, and animals-and in the record-setting 412 tornadoes that leveled whole towns during a ten-day span in May 2003. Its reality is visible from outer space-where satellites have detected an increase in the radiation from greenhouse gases-to our own backyards.

Seen in its full dimensions, the challenge of global climate change seems truly overwhelming. In the absence of a compelling and obvious solution, the most natural human tendency is simply not to want to know about it.

When a crisis becomes so apparent that denial is no longer tenable, the typical response is to minimize the scope of the problem and embrace partial, inadequate solutions. Witness the voluntary approach of the Bush administration as well as the low goals of the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for industrial countries to cut their aggregate emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels, by 2012. (The goal for the United States under the treaty was reductions of 7 percent below 1990 levels.)

By contrast, the science is unambiguous: To pacify our increasingly unstable climate requires humanity to cut its use of coal and oil by 70 percent in a very short time. The grudging response in the United States, and to a lesser extent, abroad, reflects more than a profound underestimation of the scope and urgency of the problem. It betrays an equivalent underestimation of the truly transformative potential of an appropriate solution. Given the scope of the challenge, a real solution to the climate crisis seems to offer a historically unique opportunity to begin to mend a profoundly fractured world.

But it all begins with the climate-and the stunningly rapid atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide emissions from our fossil fuels. This is trapping growing amounts of heat inside our atmosphere, heat that has historically radiated back into space..... (cont.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/15/books/chapters/0815-1st-gelbspan.html

[differentdawn]

Of all the horrific things this current administration is doing while in office, this blatant ignorance and disregard towards the facts of global warming ... towards science... makes me angry beyond belief. They make it abundantly clear that they couldn't care less about our children's future.
What are they thinking? That money can buy back what they destroy? Or do they seriously not get it? How did we let such selfish, greedy people like this obtain so much power?
I'm doing everything I can to encourage people to vote so that we can get our country back and start working globally with everyone once again.
God help us if our votes do not count again.

[gaiacomm]

So what have you done lately to stop global warming?

[differentdawn]

So what have you done lately to stop global warming? Hello gaia. What the little guy is doing you mean?
Beyond spreading the word of the polluting causes contributing to it, we are doing our best to eliminate indirectly contributing to companies responsible as best we can.
We're transitioning away from certain credit card companies and buying products from these types of corporations.
Unfortunately, we are still having to use fossil fuels for energy despite the fact that it is not necessary here in the 21st century with all the wonderful renewable energies available.
The cost is high for our income, but we are doing a lot of research with converting to solar power for our little home.
We've been learning about biodeisel and have plans for conversion with our vehicles as well.
We have finally gotten to the point where we recycle virtually everything possible that we use. It's taking a bit, but we are getting there with every step.
We pay close attention to where everything we buy comes from now and how it was produced.
As we've learned, unfortunately, the root of most of the causes contributing to global warming have made it to the White House.
I'm not into politics ... I'm just a young environmentalist with still much to learn.
However, I've found myself having to participate, geo politically, once the environment became a political issue and under such terrible attack.
In looking at the big picture, the best thing possible to do now for our environment would be to work towards getting someone into office who will not ignore the effects of global warming.
And sadly, the current administration is not only ignoring, but lending a very helpful hand to the highest contributing causes of global warming.
So what I am doing on that front is to share everything I learn with all of my friends and family, and then, most importantly, encouraging them to vote.
Thanks gaiacomm, it was sweet of you to ask and I hope I answered your question. :)

[gaiacomm]

Differentdawn,Yes you answered my question. I understand the global warming issue and will do what I can to divert its results. Its a small part but it is a part.

[differentdawn]

:D
What's the quote again? something like ... "One small step from man, one giant leap for mankind" ?
Hey, every little bit, right?

[gaiacomm]

:D
What's the quote again? something like ... "One small step from man, one giant leap for mankind" ?
Hey, every little bit, right?


Yes, you are coorect!