Climate Change - It's Happening!

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Climate Change is becoming a big topic for many people, politicians, and government authorities. In truth, it is a big concern for the future of our planet, and the empirical data is undeniable from researchers around the world. And yet, it is becoming such a buzz word, that it's meaning and impending urge for human change is losing it's significance... Climate change is a complex issue, and like it or not, humans are contributing to to it.

The United Nations (UN) formed an international treaty in 1992, "to consider what they could do to limit global temperature increases and the resulting climate change, and to cope with its impacts". In 1995, many of the participating countries realized that emission reductions enforced from the 1992 treaty were inadequate. Two years later, in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted with the intent to legally bind participating countries to emission reduction targets. The first commitment period started eleven years later in 2008, and the second is to start in 2013.

The UN Climate Summit was created to oversee the world's climate negotiations, to prevent climate breakdown by limiting the amount of greenhouse gases that are released. The first offender of climate breakdown is the use of fossil fuels, and the idea was to constrain the use or consumption of these resources. While their efforts are appreciated, what change has really happened since 1992 to decrease emissions that degrade our greenhouse gases?

In the 2014 UN Climate Summit in Lima, there was much talk about utilizing the remaining resources for economic profit. And, last month the UK instated the Infrastructure Act that maximizes the economic recovery of petroleum products, legally binding our future business to squeeze every drop out of the land. Unfortunately, this will become a battle of resources in the future, pushing the largest price on consumers for the gain or benefit of the those in control and in power of the petroleum industry... Is this really leading us towards the mission statement of the UN Climate Summit?

As stated by George Monbiot in his article "Applauding Themselves to Death":

Obama explained that “I don’t always lead with the climate change issue because if you right now are worried about whether you’ve got a job or if you can pay the bills, the first thing you want to hear is how do I meet the immediate problem?”(17)
Money is certainly a problem, but not necessarily for the reasons Obama suggested. The bigger issue is the bankrolling of politics by big oil and big coal(18), and the tremendous lobbying power they purchase. These companies have, in the past, financed wars to protect their position(19); they will not surrender the bulk of their reserves without a monumental fight. This fight would test the very limits of state power; I wonder whether our nominal democracies would survive it. Fossil fuel companies have become glutted on silence: their power has grown as a result of numberless failures to challenge and expose them. It’s no wonder that the manicured negotiators at the UN conferences, so careful never to break a nail, have spent so long avoiding the issue.

And yet, back on 19 March 2015, USA President Obama signed executive orders to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of US agencies. While the US Federal Agencies have decreased their contribution by 17%, most of these changes cost money.

 “For federal agencies who are looking at how to cover their energy needs, this is a very pragmatic dollars-and-cents issue,” said Brian Deese, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama. “If they can consume less energy or they can consume renewable energy that is cheaper, more reliable or more sustainable, then they can achieve their environmental goals while they are saving money.” Further information can be read from the New York Times Article: Obama Orders Cuts in Federal Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Video provided by: Newsy Science on YouTube 

From a perspective of food resources, published by Reuters:

ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Global warming could cause an 18 percent drop in world food production by 2050, but investments in irrigation and infrastructure, and moving food output to different regions, could reduce the loss, a study published on Thursday said.

Globally, irrigation systems should be expanded by more than 25 percent to cope with changing rainfall patterns, the study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters said.

Where they should be expanded is difficult to model because of competing scenarios on how rainfall will change, so the majority of irrigation investments should be made after 2030, the study said.

"If you don't carefully plan (where to spend resources), you will get adaptation wrong," David Leclere, one of the study's authors, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Infrastructure and processing chains will need to be built in areas where there was little agriculture before in order to expand production, he said.

International food markets will require closer integration to respond to global warming, as production will become more difficult in some southern regions, but new land further north will become available for growing crops.

Based on the study's models, Leclere expects production to increase in Europe, while much of Africa will remain dependent on imports.

If climate change is managed correctly, food production could even rise 3 percent by 2050, the study said, as a higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has a fertilizing effect on plants.

Managing water resources is expected to be the biggest challenge for farmers steming from climate change.

Water "may become dramatically scarcer much earlier than previously thought," Michael Obersteiner, another study co-author, said in a statement. (Reporting By Chris Arsenault; Editing by Tim Pearce)

 Yes, climate change go beyond a nebulous thought of 'someday' - the effects are here, measurable, and impacting our daily lives - and, we have yet to see the change that is truly necessary to make a difference. Let us open our eyes, review our daily habits, and see where we are contributing to the economic mechanism driving this madness.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results." ~ Albert Einstein

Climate Talks in Lima, Peru: Closing Results

Source: http://blogs.dickinson.edu/cop20/

From 1 to 12 December, 195 countries met to discuss and negotiate the aims of an agreement by climate change... In the wee hours of the night, agreements were made but many of the major decisions were left to be decided until next year. However, this could impact the ability to meet the currently agreed-upon decrease of emissions. But many countries are concerned about the financial aspects of this agreement. While this is perhaps more understandable for the less wealthy countries, the fact that China has declined a drafted decision made by the United States and European Union is astounding. In fact, it's down right flabbergasting.

"Around lunchtime on Saturday, a draft of a decision that the U.S., the European Union and other wealthy states wanted adopted was rejected by representatives of China, African nations, and other poor and developing nations, angry that issues important to them had been omitted." Source: Discovery News

However, some progress was made:

"The Lima Accord, a four-page document, was adopted by climate negotiators a little after 1 a.m. ET Sunday. It was unanimously agreed upon following talks that were at times acrimonious and concluded more than 30 hours behind schedule.
While member countries tacitly agreed to curb their rates of greenhouse gas emissions, a raft of things weren’t decided, adding hurdles to securing a truly global climate agreement in Paris next December.
A large schism separated wealthy states and developing nations before negotiations ever began in Lima, and on many fronts, those divides remain. Rich and poor countries could not agree on language to resolve issues like financing for climate adaptation or compensation for damage inflicted by climate change. Nor could they agree on the groundrules to determine each country’s commitment to cut carbon pollution or whether to make those commitments legally binding under international law." Source: Environmental News Network

While it's great that these talks are happening, it's frustrating that what is holding countries back from cutting emissions is a fictitious creation made by man, called the economy... what will it take for humans to realize we need to change what we're doing - and not by a little bit - if we expect to see changes in our climate??



Other Related Articles:
Discovery News - Global Warming: Why only 95 Percent Certainty? 
NASA - A Year in the Life of Earth's CO2
NASA - A Closer Look at Carbon Dioxide 

Agricultural and Biofuel News: The critical role crops play in the Earth's CO2 cycle

Source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg70aTBQaVhuE53Dfs0XXWmx6PSzA14-VRWt02JPoFi-zRhJRgTal0AOHdqqz7aOwLbHZNhRUbdhrSsZ9-IbOMWejkB0MpJyJm3ZtPmgUmBtZ3uJtRdwAkllqdaJFJvqA65ZD1XJagwq4JY/s1600/IMG_2339.JPG

Agricultural and Biofuel News: The critical role crops play in the Earth's CO2 cycle

"Each year, the planet balances its budget. The carbon dioxide
absorbed by plants in the spring and summer as they convert solar energy
into food is released back to the atmosphere in autumn and winter.
Levels of the greenhouse gas fall, only to rise again.

But the budget has gotten bigger. Over the last five decades, the magnitude of
this rise and fall has grown nearly 50 percent in the Northern
Hemisphere, as the amount of the greenhouse gas taken in and released
has increased. Now, new research shows that humans and their crops have a
lot to do with it, highlighting the profound impact people have on the
Earth’s atmosphere.

In a study published Wednesday, Nov. 19, in Nature, scientists at Boston University, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, the
University of Wisconsin-Madison and McGill University show that a steep
rise in the productivity of crops grown for food accounts for as much as
25 percent of the increase in this carbon dioxide (CO2) seasonality.

It’s not that crops are adding more CO2 to the atmosphere; rather, if crops
are like a sponge for CO2, the sponge has simply gotten bigger and can
hold and release more of the gas.

With global food productivity expected to double over the next 50 years, the researchers say the findings should be used to improve climate models and better understand
the atmospheric CO2 buffering capacity of ecosystems, particularly as
climate change may continue to perturb the greenhouse gas budget."

Global Warming Trends, 2014

A few days back I read an article about global warming.  The thesis was an interesting read, but full of scientific jargon that could turn even the most determined person cross-eyed.  So, rather than give you a link to such a daunting read, for your viewing pleasure, here is a link to the ScienceDaily report:


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140921145005.htm

However, the bottom line is this: 

Human activites contribute to an increased rate of global warming, and will continue to do so with the status quo. 

"The IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report collated from the peer-reviewed literature almost 1200 scenarios of future emissions, each scenario having a different 'story' of how the future might unfold. The scenarios can be grouped according to which of the four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) they are most similar to, based on peak concentration of greenhouse gases.

Credit: Image courtesy of CICERO"

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140921145005.htm

Due to emissions created by humans through the burning of fossil fuels, our planet will warm faster than it would on its own.  What burns fossil fuels, you may ask?  Fossil fuels are formed by a natural process using organic materials (dead organisms) that have taken Earth hundreds of thousands, to millions of years to make.  We burn them for things like electricity via coal, petrol for your car, natural gas for your hob/stove, fuel for the airplane, train, or ship that carries you or the goods you buy.  Unfortunately, there's a limited amount available and we're burning it faster than Earth can replace it, and in the process, we are increasing the emission of carbon and other hardy chemicals that deplete Earth's Ozone layer, and thus the greenhouse that keeps us safe.

Sure, it's true that Earth goes through normal cycles of ice ages, as has been shown through fossil records, sediment cores, and geologic studies.  But, a question I cannot help but ask is this: Why would such an intelligent species, the Homo sapiens, continue a behaviour that is ultimately going to bring it harm?  The only answer I can think of, leads down a path of negativity and labeling - that we are greedy, gluttonous, money-driven, and/or selfish - but perhaps there is more to it than that?  Biologically speaking, animals (including humans) are designed to make decisions for survival.  Considering the conditions of the world, from third to first, is it any wonder that most people are doing whatever necessary to survive, in the best (or perhaps only) way they know how?

No matter where you live or what your occupation, we all need food, shelter, and a sense of connection (usually to one another and/or the environment) to survive.  But with the system created as it has been - by humans - it is rarely possible to survive without money, because that is what has been deemed valuable.  In first-world countries, humans are fortunate to have the pleasures of fossil-fuel consuming sources that provide entertainment, vehicles, industry, and synthetics.  In fact, according to the the article:

"The top-four emitters of CO₂ have a critical role in global emissions growth:

• Chinese emissions grew at 4.2%, due to slower economic growth and faster improvements in carbon intensity of the economy compared to the previous decade
• USA emissions increased 2.9%, due to a rebound in coal consumption potentially reversing the downward trend since the start of the shale-gas boom in 2007
• Indian emissions grew at 5.1%, due to robust economic growth and a continued increase in the carbon intensity of the economy
• EU28 emissions decreased 1.8%, due to a weak economy and emission decreases in some countries offsetting a return to coal led by Poland, Germany, Finland"

Apparently, China is producing more emissions than the US and EU combined.  Frankly, these numbers are terrifying.  But, what is the answer??  Is someone, or a group of people, really going to make the kind of life-style changes necessary to make a difference?  And, just what would that difference be - if Earth is going to increase in temperature on it's own, anyways?  These are all questions I've asked and have heard my peers ask.  Do we give up, say that the snowball is already rolling?  Or do we start making changes in our lifestyles and how we run the economy?  The United Nations (UN) has tried to engage leading countries to address this problem, but as with many things, it's a choice.  In this case, it's a choice of our leaders and the leaders of other countries to enforce law and regulation.  In October, the UN is holding their sixth of it's second conference in Bonn, Germany, to talk about Climate Change Impacts.  It will be interesting to see what their session will lead to, and you can follow at:

http://unfccc.int/2860.php

As for what we, as individuals and communities can do, it's as far reaching as your imagination can hold.  But, it's a matter of personal judgement, morals, and ethics.  Honestly, I cannot say what that looks like for any individual, because this is when it becomes personal. It is a matter of how much you care and how much you're willing to change.  For me, this is a moral battle I struggle with.  Obviously, I like to travel; I have a vehicle, a laptop, an iPod, and plenty of clothes; and I too, contribute to the emissions system...  Perhaps this is an opportunity to start thinking about my energy consumption and use more seriously.  Perhaps this is an opportunity for all of us to think about it.

There are many things we can do, but not all of it is honest - "green" labeling doesn't necessarily mean green - many of the products sold to promote energy savings doesn't actually help the environment.  Just as a few examples:

-  Those twisty energy "saving" lightbulbs?  Yeah, those contain mercury and are exceedingly difficult to dispose of, let alone recycle.

-  "Electronic" copies of information or paper?  Yeah, the servers utilized to store the data need to stay cool, and require temperature controlled rooms, frequently using A/C.  Oh, and the materials the servers are made of?  It's not cost effective to recycle most of it.

-  "Energy saving" vehicles?  *HAHA* I find that succession of words such an oxymoron...  those batteries can be more damaging to Earth than the exhaust from a normal vehicle.

But, back on track - this article was a wake-up, a reminder - the choices we make today form the future of tomorrow.

May we all stop to think about our choices and how it effects the future of our children, seven generations in time. 

"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem" - Proverb