UN Global Warming report is out

[vmax]

We're in deep shit.

 

 

 

YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) — If the world doesn't cut pollution of heat-trapping gases, the already noticeable harms of global warming could spiral "out of control," the head of a United Nations scientific panel warned Monday.

And he's not alone. The Obama White House says it is taking this new report as a call for action, with Secretary of State John Kerry saying "the costs of inaction are catastrophic."

"We're now in an era where climate change isn't some kind of future hypothetical," said the overall lead author of the report, Chris Field of the Carnegie Institution for Science in California. "We live in an area where impacts from climate change are already widespread and consequential."

Nobody is immune, Pachauri and other scientists said.

"We're all sitting ducks," Princeton University professor Michael Oppenheimer, one of the main authors of the report, said in an interview.

After several days of late-night wrangling, more than 100 governments unanimously approved the scientist-written 49-page summary — which is aimed at world political leaders. The summary mentions the word "risk" an average of about 5 1/2 times per page.

"Changes are occurring rapidly and they are sort of building up that risk," Field said.

These risks are both big and small, according to the report. They are now and in the future. They hit farmers and big cities. Some places will have too much water, some not enough, including drinking water. Other risks mentioned in the report involve the price and availability of food, and to a lesser and more qualified extent some diseases, financial costs and even world peace.

"Things are worse than we had predicted" in 2007, when the group of scientists last issued this type of report, said report co-author Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development at the Independent University in Bangladesh. "We are going to see more and more impacts, faster and sooner than we had anticipated."

The report is based on more than 12,000 peer reviewed scientific studies. Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, a co-sponsor of the climate panel, said this report was "the most solid evidence you can get in any scientific discipline."

Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University who wasn't part of this report, said he found the report "very conservative" because it is based on only peer reviewed studies and has to be approved unanimously.

http://news.msn.com/world/global-warming-dials-up-our-risks-un-report-says

 

On HOB I saw their show "Vice". I think in the first show... they had a scientist who measures the ice melt in Greenland. He said the thickness of the ice is dropping 28' per year! That is a huge amount of water...and it's dirty snow from pollution that is melting which adsorbs more sunlight and heat. Clean snow reflects the heat back. It a chain of events that is being set off and each one adds too or accelerates the overall problem. He basically said all the coastal cities on the planet will be under water this century.

What's going to take for the nations of this earth to mobilize? Maybe a couple more good storm surges that put Wall Street under water and out of business will get the wheels of constructive action under way.

[papasmurfbell]

Also as the ice melts and you get rocks they will absorb heat.

[Robjr83]

They cant even predict snowfall amounts when its coming down on their heads. I'm supposed to trust their doomsday predictions now.

[papasmurfbell]

You do realize weather and climate are not the same thing?

[Spen]

Supposedly the latest numbers have 99.7% of world scientists agreeing that man is a big cause of climate change. Yet in this country at least it will be politicized and argued among party lines. Because we have allowed that to happen, we deserve what ever fate we get.

[papasmurfbell]

It is argued this way here because our govt is for sale to the highest bidder. The Koch's have their think tanks put out what a couple of scientists think and then that report is shown. The Purchased reps hold it up as proof that it is not man made. Then you have CNN and other like then saying one side says this the other that like they have equal validity. So the lay person doesn't know what to believe.

 

http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/04/16/study-climate-coverage-plummets-on-broadcast-ne/184103

 

 

STUDY: Climate Coverage Plummets On Broadcast Networks

Despite Ongoing Climate News, Broadcast Coverage Has Dropped Significantly. Since 2009, when the U.S. House of Representatives passed a climate bill and a major climate conference took place in Copenhagen, the amount of climate coverage on both the Sunday shows (Fox News Sunday, NBC's Meet the Press, CBS'Face the Nation, and ABC's This Week) and the nightly news (NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News, andABC World News) has declined tremendously. This drop comes despite a series of newsworthy stories related to climate change in 2010 and 2011, including a debate over comprehensive climate and energy legislation in the U.S. Senate, a series of record-breaking extreme weather events, notable developments in climate science, the rise of so-called "climate skeptics" in the House of Representatives, and a deal struck at the most recent UN climate summit in Durban, South Africa.

Sunday Show Coverage Of Climate Change Fell 90% Between 2009 And 2011. Since 2009, climate coverage on the Sunday shows has dropped every year across all networks. The Sunday shows spent over an hour on climate change in 2009, compared to 21 minutes in 2010 and only 9 minutes in 2011.

• Fox News Sunday covered climate change the most, for just under an hour, but much of Fox's coverage promoted the "Climategate" controversy and downplayed the threat of climate change. In fact, at no point did Fox News Sunday explicitly affirm the scientific consensus that human activity is changing the climate.
• CBS' Face the Nation covered climate change the least, for a total of just 4 minutes in 3 years.

Nightly News Coverage Decreased 72% Between 2009 And 2011. Coverage of climate change on the nightly news programs dropped from over 2 hours in 2009 to just 27 minutes in 2010 and 38 minutes in 2011.

• NBC Nightly News covered climate change the most - for more than an hour and a half in 3 years.
• CBS Evening News covered climate change the least, for a total of 40 minutes in 3 years.Each Network Covered Donald Trump More Than Climate Change In 2011. Every program included in our analysis devoted more airtime to Donald Trump's flirtation with a presidential run and birther antics than to climate change in 2011, with the exception of ABC World News, which gave equal time to the two topics. Together, the broadcast networks spent more than twice as much time covering Donald Trump. The discrepancy was most glaring on NBC's Meet the Press, which devoted 23 minutes to Trump but did not cover climate change at all in 2011.

[papasmurfbell]

 

 

Sunday Shows Featured More Republicans Than Democrats On Climate Change. In total, 68% of the political figures interviewed or quoted by the Sunday shows were Republicans, and 32% were Democrats. In 2011, the only people interviewed or quoted about climate change on the Sunday shows were Republican politicians. Fox News Sunday was the most skewed, featuring eight Republicans and only two Democrats over the three years.

Scientists Were Shut Out Of Climate Change Discussions On Sunday Shows. Our study finds that the Sunday shows consulted political and media figures on climate change, but left scientists out of the discussion. Of those hosted or interviewed on climate change, 50% were political figures -- including elected officials, strategists and advisers -- 45% were media figures, and none were scientists. By comparison, 32% of those interviewed or quoted on the nightly news programs were political figures, and 20% were scientists.

Almost Every Mention Of Climate Change Was About Politics. Our results show that on the Sunday shows, 97% of stories mentioning climate change in the past three years were about politics in Washington, DC or on the campaign trail. One story -- on Fox News Sunday -- was driven by extreme weather, and none were driven by scientific findings.

Pew: Network Evening News "Remains An Extraordinarily Popular News Source For Americans."From the Pew Research Center's 2012 State of the News Media report:

For all the losses, however, the network evening news remains an extraordinarily popular news source for Americans. More than four times as many people watched the three network evening newscasts on ABC, CBS and NBC during the dinner hour than watched the highest-rated shows on the three cable news channels (CNN, Fox News and MSNBC) during

prime time

.

And more than twice as many people watch the lowest-rated broadcast evening news program (CBS Evening News) than watch the highest-rated cable news program (The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News). [Pew Research Center, accessed

4/12/12

]

Sunday Shows Help Set Scope Of Official Debate In Washington.

The Sunday shows occupy a singular place in the American media landscape. Their audience of a combined 9 million or so viewers includes virtually the entire journo-political establishment. The discussions held on the shows frequently determine the scope of official debate in Washington, legitimizing some views and -- by nature of their absence -- marginalizing others. [

Media Matters,

March 2007]

Methodology

This report analyzes coverage of "climate change" or "global warming" between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2011, on four Sunday morning talk shows (ABC's

This Week

, CBS'

Face the Nation

, NBC's

Meet the Press

, and Fox Broadcasting Co.'s

Fox News Sunday

) and three nightly news programs (

ABC World News

,

CBS Evening News

, and

NBC Nightly News

). Fox Broadcasting Co. airs

Fox News Sunday

, but does not air a nightly news equivalent; Fox News is a separate cable channel. Our analysis includes any segment devoted to climate change, as well as any substantial mention (more than one paragraph of a news transcript and/or or a definitive statement about climate change). Timestamps were acquired from

Media Matters'

internal video archive and were applied generously. For instance, if a segment about an extreme weather event mentioned climate change briefly, the entire segment was counted as climate coverage. For those segments not available in our archive, we estimated the length of the segment based on its word count.

The following chart displays the coverage included in our study:

How can a show really talk about climate change when they don't have it with scientists? Would you have a debate about heart surgery with politicians and celebrities? One issue is that there are so few scientists that don't believe in it that they really can't have a debate do they will look like they are taking a side and they don't want to be accused of that.

[cravnravn]

It's all bullshit

[papasmurfbell]

So will you refuse to move no matter what?

[thundercleetz]

I believe global warming is true. I really shouldn't even have to state that since the evidence is so overwhelmingly in favor of it, we take for granted other things on a lot less. The question is simply: how much are you willing to personally sacrifice yourself to fix this problem. We are cash strapped as a country so any of these changes are going to come down directly on the consumers. Are you willing to pay $10/gallon for gas? Pay $30K for a new car? I'm not.

 

Personally, I'm really hoping for a technological innovation. Whether that comes in energy or someone coming up with a scrubber for the atmosphere.

 

On the flip side, there is a Nobel Prize waiting to be won for whoever can significantly implement environmental change without the cost coming down on consumers.

[Robjr83]

I 100% agree cleetz, until its economical for people to be greener they wont do it. I can put solar panels on my roof that can power my water heater and smaller appliances.... but why would I spend several thousand dollars just to maybe save %50 on my electric bill? It would take me several years to even get close to recouping my money.

 

John Q Public is also been bombarded with constant doomsday talk. Y2k, the swine flu, Africanized bees, West Nile Virus, Mayan doomsday prophesys, stray asteroids, and now Al Gore tells me to buy a Prius or else I'm personally responsible for the extinction of the polar bears. One tends to get cynical.

[papasmurfbell]

I believe global warming is true. I really shouldn't even have to state that since the evidence is so overwhelmingly in favor of it, we take for granted other things on a lot less. The question is simply: how much are you willing to personally sacrifice yourself to fix this problem. We are cash strapped as a country so any of these changes are going to come down directly on the consumers. Are you willing to pay $10/gallon for gas? Pay $30K for a new car? I'm not.

 

Personally, I'm really hoping for a technological innovation. Whether that comes in energy or someone coming up with a scrubber for the atmosphere.

 

On the flip side, there is a Nobel Prize waiting to be won for whoever can significantly implement environmental change without the cost coming down on consumers.

Imagine if we didn't start wars for no reason. How much money would we have to fix our problems?

[Robjr83]

The Ukraine gave up its nukes in exchange for protection from the West. Looks like that pact is paying off, they should have used the money they saved to install some speed bumps for the Russian tanks. Just because we spend on our defense industry (which employees millions of Americans) doesn't me all our problems would be gone if that money went elsewhere.

[papasmurfbell]

I was looking more at Iraq and Afghanistan. If we had not wasted the trillions we have there we would have good roads schools and so much more.

[thundercleetz]

Imagine if we didn't start wars for no reason. How much money would we have to fix our problems?

Absolutely agree. Cutting wars and foreign aid is a great place to start. Practically speaking, our politicians are so balls deep in coporate interests that make money on war I don't see this happening.

[papasmurfbell]

Actually foriegn aid accounts for basically nothing. Not saying I agree with paying it but it would be like finding a quarter on the ground during the day.

[Spen]

I believe global warming is true. I really shouldn't even have to state that since the evidence is so overwhelmingly in favor of it, we take for granted other things on a lot less. The question is simply: how much are you willing to personally sacrifice yourself to fix this problem. We are cash strapped as a country so any of these changes are going to come down directly on the consumers. Are you willing to pay $10/gallon for gas? Pay $30K for a new car? I'm not.

 

Personally, I'm really hoping for a technological innovation. Whether that comes in energy or someone coming up with a scrubber for the atmosphere.

 

On the flip side, there is a Nobel Prize waiting to be won for whoever can significantly implement environmental change without the cost coming down on consumers.

 

I dont disagree, and I do think that personal sacrifices will have to be made at some point, but if the government would all get on the same page and work together instead of arguing about whether its real or not - some helpful things might even get done.

[papasmurfbell]

But many parts of teh govt are being paid by the Koch's and other patro-chemical people to say it isn't real. You can't have alegit discussion when you have some that refuse to agree that the sky is blue and water is wet.

[thundercleetz]

Actually foriegn aid accounts for basically nothing. Not saying I agree with paying it but it would be like finding a quarter on the ground during the day.

% of GDP it's less than a percent so you're right. But I'd argue $12B is $12B. That could pay for the the new Health Care infrastructure over and over and over again. Heck even put that &12B toward cancer research. It's hardly a small amount of money to dismiss.

 

Edit: try closer to $37B in aid this past year.

[Spen]

But many parts of teh govt are being paid by the Koch's and other patro-chemical people to say it isn't real. You can't have alegit discussion when you have some that refuse to agree that the sky is blue and water is wet.

 

 

yeah I know. Just depressing.

[papasmurfbell]

% of GDP it's less than a percent so you're right. But I'd argue $12B is $12B. That could pay for the the new Health Care infrastructure over and over and over again. Heck even put that &12B toward cancer research. It's hardly a small amount of money to dismiss.

I totally agree. There are people who are under the impression that if we cut forign aid we will close the budget shortfall not understanding what the real number are.

[cravnravn]

So will you refuse to move no matter what?

Absolutely

[papasmurfbell]

[vmax]

I'm willing to be broke for the rest of my life if my children and their children can have a life.

Money is a bullshit argument. We can't afford not to make great sacrifices now. There will be no economy is this isn't halted soon and the planet is left in some kind of balance that will sustain life.

I don't care if solar energy costs more money. The way I look at it I'd be buying life. You can't put a price tag on it.

 

If the finance plans for solar energy for my home get within reach of what I can pay, then I'm going for it. Right now I'm like many people who want to take action but financially can't. For example: I can pay double my monthly BG&E bill if it meant going solar. That's not a great sacrifice. Get the money in that range and I'm all in.

The cost is getting close to what I can do...

http://solarpowerauthority.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-install-solar-on-an-average-us-house/

 

I think investing in the solution will ultimately bring about a strong economy and solve the planets energy and climate problems.

There will be a "too late" point. That's my understanding from all of these reports.

[papasmurfbell]

Yeah I am sure nobody made financial sacrifices during WW2.