Global warming fell off the public radar in 2008, but climate change continues and emissions increased

Date:   12/31/2008 4:52:02 PM ( 16 y ago)

2008 was "the year of forgetting about global warming and climate change"... with distractions such as the American election, where the global warming issue was merely a footnote, and the economic crisis, and those radical swings in the price of gasoline, we just did not get much news, or action, on global warming. There certainly was severe weather, but it was not connected to climate change in the mainstream media in the way it could have, and should have, been. Al Gore seems to have fallen off the radar, and there seems to be less alarm about this issue than in previous years.

Human activity, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, has put over 3 quadrillion pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere since 1750 [of which one-third ends up in the oceans where it acidifies and is killing coral reefs]. In 1990, those emissions were accepted as being a major factor in the phenomenon of global warming, and yet we are still increasing the CO2 emissions by at least 3.1% per year, and the rate of increase is in itself still increasing. In other words, carbon emissions are going up faster than ever. The first step, to my way of thinking, is to simply stabilise our emissions, and then work on reducing them.

For 2009, I am predicting President B. Obama will be "The Great Disappointment" on many issues, including being ineffective in reducing carbon emissions. Wars are a huge source of carbon emissions, and there will be more wars in 2009. Our vehicles account for about 30% [or more?] of emissions, but the electric vehicle will not make it's long overdue debut in 2009 despite the huge demand for them. So, once again, emissions will be greater than the previous year.

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Looking back at 2008, here are some of the signs of global warming and climate change highlights from 2008 -

Worldwide:
* Ice sheets in the Arctic and Greenland alone are losing 48 cubic miles per year now, pushing up sea level worldwide;

* The global land surface temperature was the warmest on record for March, 3.3°F above the 20th century mean of 40.8°F.

* The global surface (land and ocean surface) temperature was the second warmest on record for March in the 129-year record, 1.28°F above the 20th century mean of 54.9°F. {The warmest March on record occurred in 2002} (1.33°F above average).


Weather Events in the USA in 2008:

* Chicago seems to be one area that is getting hit by climate change weather extremes a lot. It had it's warmest temperature for Dec27th of 63oF this year, which was followed by a severe snowstorm with a record-breaking sudden temperature DROP.
- Chicago also broke the record for the MOST PRECIPITATION for the month of December 2008 even before that snowstorm.
- Chicago had flooding in January 2008 due to snow and then sudden melting

* Record HEAT Last May, in San Francisco - eg. - "It was a full 11 degrees hotter in Oakland than it has ever been on any May 15 in recorded history there.

* Several Record Low temps in Oct. 2008 in the USA.

* Record amounts of snow for Houston Texas, and the earliest snow since 1941. ; Nevada had the most snow since 1941 this December 2008 "

- and several other weather extremes hit the USA last year, including hurricanes and tornados which are almost certainly made more severe by the added energy and humidity that global warming brings.


Check out what happened in Asia last spring -
Two months after the greatest January snow cover extent on record on the Eurasian continent, the unusually warm temperatures led to rapid snow melt, and March snow cover extent was the lowest on record for the Eurasian continent.
Temperatures more than 8°F above average covered much of the Asian continent.

**
Finally, I will remind you that POLAR BEARS HAVE TO SWIM 200 MILES out to sea now to find food, due to the early melting of polar ice... whereas just a few years ago they were finding seals on the ice just offshore from their winter dens. Their cubs are now starving before they get their first meal of real meat.


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That is just a very few of the examples from 2008 that I found in a short Google search. Somebody has likely compiled a more comprehensive, and better organised, list of them but it is odd how it is not made readily available.

That "lack of list", and lack of climate change news generally, underscores the fact that there is still a noticeable downplaying of global warming news in the major media and by the primary scientific bodies, and in governments. Such interferance is to be expected when the worlds wealthiest and most politically powerfull industry is the oil industry, since they are at the centre of the debate because the emissions driving climate change comes from their products - fossil fuels.

They, the oil industry, have made huge profits in recent years, eclipsing all previous profit sums of any industry in all of history, and the political power that goes with that kind of money is enormous too. Governments are only too happy to do as the oil industry asks them to do. That profits and politics go together, just notice how little political capital the US automakers seem to have now that they are losing money!!

In fact, I have talked to some of the CEO's from energy corporations, and it is obvious that they simply do not believe that global warming is occuring. They are otherwise astute and intelligent people, perhaps even conscientious beyond corporate concerns, but they get all their information from sources that they have allways trusted and therefore they have not even heard the alarm bells from the environmentalists. It is not so much that the oil people are willing to let global warming happen, or that the solution is too costly, but simply that they do not believe it is happening, and that they have a very very very low opinion of environmentalists.

And so it will be that 2009 will follow 2008 as being another year of increasing emissions, and no solid plans to slow it down. We CAN try to change that though... I am going to watch Al Gore's movie "An Inconvientient Truth" again tonight, because it is going to be on CBC TV channels all across Canada tonight, New Years Eve. That is one thing I can do, at the very least... and then , who knows, maybe you can prove me wrong and we can get some serious action going to reduce our carbon emissions!!


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Some links:
Rapid Emissions Increase:
http://www.earthpolicy.org/Indicators/CO2/2008.htm


Carbon Clock:
http://zfacts.com/p/44.html


Movies:
An Arctic Tale [Queen Latifah narrates!]
An Inconvenient Truth [Al Gore narrates]
Happy Feet [why not?]





 

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