Greenland and Antarctica 'have lost 4tn tonnes of ice' in 20 years
• Landmark study by global team of scientists published • Finds melting polar ice has led to 11mm rise in sea level • Greenland losing ice mass at 5x rate of early 1990s
Damian Carrington - The Guardian, Thursday 29 November 2012 19.04 GMT
The study found that while eastern Antarctic was gaining some ice, other areas were losing twice as much. Photograph: Mike Powell/Corbis
The research involved dozens of scientists and 10 satellite missions and presents a disturbing picture of the impact of recent warming at the poles.
The scientists claim the study, published in the journal Science .. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1228102 , ends a long-running debate over whether the vast ice sheet covering the Antarctic continent is losing or gaining mass. East Antarctica is gaining some ice, the satellite data shows, but west Antarctica and the Antarctic peninsula is losing twice as much, meaning overall the sheet is melting.
"The estimates are the most reliable to date, and end 20 years of uncertainty of ice mass changes in Antarctica and Greenland," said study leader, Andrew Shepherd, of Leeds University. "There have been 30 different estimates of the sea level .. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/sea-level .. rise contribution of Greenland and Antarctica, ranging from an annual 2mm rise to a 0.4mm fall.
"We can state definitively that both Greenland and Antarctica are losing mass, and as [the] temperature goes up we are going to lose more ice."
The study shows the melting of the two giant ice sheets has caused the seas to rise by more than 11mm in 20 years. It also found Greenland is losing ice mass at five times the rate of the early 1990s.
The uncertainties over ice cap melting have made it difficult for scientists to predict sea level rise. But Prof Richard Alley, of Penn State University, US, who was not involved in the study, said: "This project is a spectacular achievement. The data will support essential testing of predictive models, and will lead to a better understanding of how sea level change may depend on the human decisions that influence global temperatures." Rising sea level is one of the greatest long-term threats .. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/28/us-coastal-cities-sea-level-rise .. posed by climate change, threatening low-lying cities and increasing the damage wrought by hurricanes and typhoons.
The study combined satellite measurements of the ice caps' heights from laser and radar instruments with measurements of the small changes in gravity caused by ice loss. The data was analysed ensuring the same regions and time periods were compared, as well as using the consistent estimates of the rebound that land experiences when heavy ice sheets start to melt.
The 11mm sea level rise caused by melting in Greenland and Antarctica makes up about a fifth of the total rise in the oceans since 1992, but the increasing rate of melting means the ice caps' contribution today is about two-fifths. The other contributions to rising seas are the expansion of water as it warms and a smaller contribution from the melting of ice caps and glaciers outside the poles. A study in February .. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/08/glaciers-mountains .. found that, over the past decade at least, the Himalayas had on average lost no ice.
Ian Joughin, another member of the team, of Washington University, Seattle, said: "Climate change is likely to accelerate ice loss greatly." He added significant challenges remained in predicting ice melting, due to the complexity of the interactions between the warming air and oceans and the great ice sheets and glaciers. "In Greenland, we are seeing really dramatic losses in ice, but it is still uncertain if it will slow, stay the same or accelerate further."
Southern Australia has been hit with a sweltering heatwave, with parts of Victoria experiencing record November temperatures.
Both Victoria and South Australia have declared their first total fire bans for the season, with temperatures in many areas exceeding 40 degrees Celsius.
Adelaide has hit 38 degrees, while Melbourne temperatures rose above 39 degrees.
Ouyen, in Victoria's north-west, reached a top of 45.8 degrees this afternoon, the hottest November day ever in Victoria.
Temperatures also rose above 45 degrees in Mildura and Swan Hill.
The extremely hot conditions surpass the previous record of 45.0 degrees set in the early 1900s, also in the state's north-west.
Senior forecaster Dean Stewart says it is unusual the November record has stood for more than a century.
"In these days when we seem to have an increased number of hot days, I guess for a record to last that long is a little surprising, but it had to be passed at some stage and today's the day," he said.
Mr Stewart says a cooler change should reach Melbourne in the afternoon.
"There is a weak change pushing up towards Airey's Inlet," he said late this afternoon.
"It will be coming through, reaching the city area a bit after 9pm, so between 9pm and about 11pm, through the city.
"But it is pretty weak so there is not going to be too much relief by the time you get into the outer suburbs."
Earlier today the Country Fire Authority (CFA) placed extra aircraft in the north-west of the state as a precaution.
CFA spokesman Brett Boatman is asking farmers in the west and the north-west to delay harvesting until the danger passes.
"We're saying to harvesters and contractors if they can delay their works until the fire danger passes, that reduces the ignition and the chance of fires," he said.
The hot weather is also expected to cause delays on V/Line train services. Speed restrictions will be introduced between noon and 8:00pm (AEDT).
V/line says services this afternoon could be up to 30 minutes slower and may be replaced by buses.
'Pulling out all stops'
In South Australia, it is the first time in two years there are bans in force for every district, including metropolitan Adelaide.
Temperatures reaching the mid-40s were expected in some areas and strong winds had been forecast.
Authorities were also worried about possible lightning strikes later in the day and SA Power Networks is warning people need to be prepared for their electricity to be turned off if there is a danger as the conditions worsen.
Brenton Eden from the Country Fire Service (CFS) is expecting a challenging day.
"We will rely heavily on the public doing the right thing, reporting any fires that do start and behaving themselves according to the restrictions of a total fire ban," he said.
The worst of the weather passed through this morning, with a change in the weather bringing some relief this afternoon.
"The wind change is about three hours ahead of where it was predicted yesterday, so our major fire weather will be this morning," he said.
"But the concern then is if we get any fire starting, as we have seen in South Australia in the last two weeks, some of these fires can burn for weeks. The risk is if we get an ignition."
Assistant Police Commissioner Bryan Fahy says police will be alert for arsonists.
"We will be pulling out all stops to ensure that people who breach the fire laws will be prosecuted to the fullest extent," he said.
Firefighters are creating a break around at blaze which has burnt about 20 hectares in the state's Murray Mallee near Pinnaroo.
Topics: weather, australia, melbourne-3000, vic, adelaide-5000, sa, mildura-3500
Frozen landslide threatens to devour Dalton Highway
The debris flow is visible from the Dalton Highway. The lobe (middle of the frame) is moving toward the highway, picking up debris and toppling trees. Photo by Guido Grosse 2012
This image is taken from the top of the debris flow that is closest to the Highway, about 75 yards. It is moving downslope at about 3 yards per year, and is accelerating. The bending trees are being overrun by the advancing debris. Photo by Guido Grosse 2012
By KYLE HOPKINS — khopkins@adn.com Published: December 1, 2012
A mysterious blob of frozen soil, rocks and trees is creeping toward the Dalton Highway, threatening to block the haul road that serves as a lifeline for Alaska's oil and gas industry. It could happen as soon as end of the decade.
University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers who have been studying the slow-moving landslide just south of the Brooks Range since 2008 say it is crawling closer to the highway every day. The scientists suspect climate change may have caused the 300-foot-wide finger of debris -- once thought to be motionless -- to gain speed as it slides toward the road.
"It's this giant moving mass and it's going to destroy anything in its way," said Rob Harper, a spokesman for the Alaska University Transportation Center.
The wave of frozen mud, snow and plants slowly spilled from the mountains within the past 5,000 years, researchers said. It is now within about 150 feet of the highway. Moving at a average rate of more than a centimeter a day, it could swamp the Dalton within five to 10 years, said Institute of Northern Engineering hydrologist Ronald Daanen.
"The sooner we come up with a viable solution, the better it is. There isn't a lot of time left," said Daanen, who will present information about the hazard at a worldwide meeting on geophysical sciences next week in San Francisco.
Transportation planners across the country are grappling with extreme weather such as floods, storms and unusual snowfall due to changing weather patterns. In the Alaska Arctic, the frozen debris encroaching on the Dalton Highway presents a new kind of puzzle.
As permafrost shrinks and summers grow longer in the southcentral Brooks Range, researchers wonder: How do you stop an accelerating, landslide-like ocean of mud and splintered trees from destroying one of the state economy's most important roadways?
The blob in question is at Mile 219 of the Dalton Highway, about 40 miles north of Coldfoot as the highway enters the Brooks Range. It is massive. More than 60 feet tall and as long as 10 football fields.
When it reaches the road, it will dump 22,000 tons of soil and rocks on the highway every year, the researchers wrote in a study proposal made earlier this year to the Department of Transportation.
That's akin to piling about 440 dump trucks full of frozen, earthy slop on the only road that connects North Slope oil and gas fields to the rest of Alaska. Another 700 feet beyond the roadway, also in the path of the debris field, is the buried trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
MYSTERY CLUMP
A now-retired U.S. Geological Survey geologist, Thomas Hamilton, mapped the debris fields in the late 1970s or early '80s, according to the university researchers. Hamilton called the mounds "flow slides" at the time, but did not study them in depth.
In 2006, Daanen was working at the university's Geophysical Institute Permafrost Lab when he made a trip with his wife up the Dalton Highway. He noticed what geologists call "drunken trees" in the southern Brooks Range.
The spruce trees, jutting at odd angles, were a clue that the ground might be moving as permafrost thawed below. Daanen drove slower. He saw the lopsided trees were collected together in clumps.
"It struck me that these are all on some sort of a land form that I hadn't seen before," he said.
Visiting scientists have assumed the formations were rock glaciers, collections of rock debris frozen in ice that can form as glaciers recede or under other conditions.
Daanen and geological engineer Margaret Darrow, who is leading the university research, writes that they appear to be something else entirely.
With the help of Hamilton, the researchers gave the blobs a name: "Frozen debris lobes." They described the little-understood phenomenon in an article published earlier this year in the journal of Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences.
"Our results indicate that frozen debris-lobes have responded to climate change by becoming increasingly active during the last decades, resulting in rapid downslope movements," the researchers wrote.
The debris lobe menacing the Dalton absorbs trees and vegetation as it marches forward, Darrow said. Standing along the highway, a five- or six-hour drive from Fairbanks, the heap assumes a monster-movie quality. All that's missing is the ominous music.
"You stand there, you look up at this huge hill and it's looming over you. And you know it's coming," she said.
What makes the formation unique from traditional landslides is that parts of it are frozen and parts of it are thawed as it moves downhill, Darrow said.
Based on historical aerial photos, the formation appears to have seeped from a hollow in the mountain slopes toward the highway. Set in motion by gravity, it's been moving for at least 10 years but wasn't close enough to the road to draw any great concern from the Transportation Department, said Billy Connor, a former DOT research manager and head of the university's Alaska University Transportation Center.
"It's like a big mud flow that's slowly moving down the hill toward the roadway. And it appears at this point in time it's the result of permafrost thawing up on the hillside," Connor said.
EXPENSIVE SOLUTIONS
Over the summer, the Transportation Department drilled holes in the "frozen debris lobe" closest to the highway to perform preliminary research. Daanen, Darrow and other university researchers plan to report their latest findings to the state by the end of the year.
After that, the department will begin considering options for saving the highway from the creeping debris, said Jeff Currey, a materials engineer for the Department's northern region.
Whatever the answer, it won't be cheap.
"Any solutions will probably cost millions of dollars and certainly some of them would cost tens of millions," Currey said.
Building a bridge over the lobe might work, though it would have to be almost 100 feet high and is among the most expensive options. It also wouldn't stop the debris from creeping onward toward the trans-Alaska oil pipeline buried west of the highway.
Currey estimates that the debris could take another 20 years or more to reach the pipeline after it arrives at the road, making the highway the more immediate concern.
Engineers could try freezing the debris back in place by super cooling the ground or building a barrier to hold it back. Simply hauling the mud, rocks and trees away might not work.
Digging away the face of the lobe might cause it to move even more quickly toward the highway -- a problem common to efforts to combat landslides, Darrow said.
"If you take out the toe, you remove the part that's holding it back and it just makes it go even faster," she said.
The scientists said they are just beginning to learn how the debris lobe was formed and why it's moving, questions they must answer before planners decide how to stop the blob from overtaking the highway.
"We are just scratching the surface. ... We're looking at data. But in terms of really understanding what is going on? No. We are not there yet," Daanen said.
At stake is a roadway that transportation planners sometimes jokingly call "the road to the bank."
The Dalton was built in 1974 as construction began on the oil pipeline. It remains partially unpaved today, a 414-mile lifeline that begins north of Fairbanks at the Elliott Highway, climbs through the Brooks Range and ends at Deadhorse near Prudhoe Bay.
Most Alaskans will never drive the highway. Daily traffic on the road averaged just 200 vehicles in 2011, and two-thirds of those were heavy trucks, according to the Transportation Department. But the road is a vital supply link to industry, funneling truckloads of pipe for drilling wells, fuel and even small buildings to the North Slope oil fields that fund state government.
The debris field at Mile 219 of the highway is the closest to the road, but Daanen has identified more than 150 such formations across the southern Brooks Range. A few of those also may threaten the highway in the future, researchers said.
"In the short run, the first thing we want to do is understand what the mechanism of movement is and try to come up with some idea for dealing with it," said Currey, the DOT materials engineer.
"We realized we better figure out what's going on here and get with it," he said.
Read The Village, the ADN's blog about rural Alaska, at adn.com/thevillage [ http://adn.com/thevillage ].
Decreasing snow amounts may be pushing Arctic fox populations in Europe toward extinction NOAA
Posted by Richard Monastersky 06 Dec 2012 | 01:39 GMT
Conditions in the Arctic are slipping rapidly from bad to worse as the pace of climate change accelerates in that region. That’s the message from an annual environmental assessment of the far North [ http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/ ], released on Wednesday.
“Conditions in the Arctic are changing in both expected and sometimes surprising ways,” said Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The changes are having an impact far beyond the far North, she added. “What happens in the Arctic doesn’t always stay in the Arctic. We’re seeing Arctic changes that affect weather patterns in the US,” Lubchenco said at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, where the Arctic Report Card was previewed. The online report was written by 114 scientists from 15 countries.
According to the report, the Arctic broke a string of environmental records this past year. The summertime sea ice pack was the smallest ever seen [ http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/08/arctic-sea-ice-declines-to-record-low.html ]. The amount of Northern Hemisphere snow in June hit the lowest mark on record. Virtually the entire Greenland Ice Cap showed some evidence of surface melting for the first time in observations going back to 1979. And permafrost temperatures on the North Slope of Alaska topped previous highs, said Martin O. Jeffries, a co-editor of the Arctic report and the Arctic science advisor at the Office of Naval Research. “If we’re not there already, we’re surely on the verge of seeing a new Arctic,” he said.
The widespread reduction in snow and ice cover in summertime has darkened the ocean surface and land in the Arctic, allowing it to absorb more sunlight, which leads to enhanced warming. “The Arctic is one of Earth’s mirrors and that mirror is breaking,” said Donald Perovich, an Arctic researcher at Dartmouth College, who participated in the report.
The darkening of the surface creates a positive feedback that explains why the Arctic is warming twice as quickly as lower latitudes [ http://www.nature.com/news/specials/arcticfrontier/index.html ], said Jeffries. “This is what we call the Arctic amplification of global warming, a phenomenon that was predicted 30 years ago, which we’re now seeing happening in a significant way.”
The changes are putting stress on some creatures, including Arctic foxes in Scandinavia and nearby regions. The European population has crashed in recent years; and with only 200 individuals left, it is in danger of extinction, according to the report, which blames disruptions in the population of rodents. Lemming numbers have dropped in some regions, and scientists have suggested that reduced snow cover may be implicated, said Jeffries.
New records set for snow extent, sea ice extent and ice sheet surface melting [ http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/exec_summary.html ], despite air temperatures — a key cause of melting — being unremarkable relative to the last decade.
Multiple observations provide strong evidence of widespread, sustained change driving Arctic environmental system into new state.
“In 2012 Greenland crossed a threshold where for the first time we saw complete surface melting at the highest elevations in what we used to call the dry snow zone,” he told reporters at the AGU. “As Greenland crosses the threshold and starts really melting in the upper elevations it really won’t recover from that unless the climate cools significantly for an extended period of time which doesn’t seem very likely.”
• In 2012, new record high temperatures at 20 [meters, 65 feet] depth were measured at most permafrost observatories on the North Slope of Alaska and in the Brooks Range, where measurements began in the late 1970s. Only two coastal sites show exactly the same temperatures as in 2011.
• A common feature at Alaskan, Canadian and Russian sites is greater warming in relatively cold permafrost than in warm permafrost in the same geographical area.
• During the last fifteen years, active-layer thickness [ALT] has increased in the Russian European North, the region north of East Siberia, Chukotka, Svalbard and Greenland.
The “ALT is the top layer of soil and/or rock that thaws during the summer and freez[es] again during the fall, i.e., it is not permafrost.”
Large changes in multiple indicators are affecting climate and ecosystems, and, combined, these changes provide strong evidence of the momentum that has developed in the Arctic environmental system due to the impacts of a persistent warming trend that began over 30 years ago. A major source of this momentum is the fact that changes in the sea ice cover, snow cover, glaciers and Greenland ice sheet all conspire to reduce the overall surface reflectivity of the region in the summer, when the sun is ever-present. In other words, bright, white surfaces that reflect summer sunlight are being replaced by darker surfaces, e.g., ocean and land, which absorb sunlight. These conditions increase the capacity to store heat within the Arctic system, which enables more melting – a positive feedback. Thus, we arrive at the conclusion that it is very likely that major changes will continue to occur in the Arctic in years to come, particularly in the face of projections that indicate continued global warming.
Anyone who thinks we can delay aggressive deployment of carbon-free technology simply has shut their eyes and ears to the growing scientific evidence.
Fossil-Fuel Subsidies of Rich Nations Five Times Climate Aid
The HollyFrontier Corp. refinery stands in Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S., on Monday, Nov. 7, 2011. HollyFrontier Corp. reported a profit $523.1 million in its third-quarter earnings statement today, compared with a profit of $51.2 a year earlier. Paul Taggart/Bloomberg
By Alex Morales - Dec 3, 2012 10:36 AM CT
Rich countries spend five times more on fossil-fuel subsidies than on aid to help developing nations cut their emissions and protect against the effects of climate change, the Oil Change International campaign group said.
In 2011, 22 industrialized nations paid $58.7 billion in subsidies to the oil, coal and gas industries and to consumers of the fuels, compared with climate-aid flows of $11.2 billion, according to calculations by the Washington-based group.
The data underline the steps developed nations may be able to take to cut their emissions as ministers from 190 nations meet in Doha to discuss measures to curb global warming. Eliminating the subsidies would reduce incentives to pollute and help rich nations meet their pledge to provide $100 billion a year in climate aid by 2020, said Stephen Kretzmann, the founder of Oil Change International.
“Measures that encourage inefficient use of energy, such as fossil fuel subsidies, must be eliminated,” Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the International Energy Agency, said in a statement released by her office in Paris today. “Carbon emissions must be dramatically reduced, and the energy sector must play a key role in this.
The subsidies enable consumers to fuel cars and heat their homes more cheaply. The International Energy Agency estimates they totaled $523 billion last year, mainly from support paid out in developing countries. Production subsidies make it cheaper for oil and gas companies to extract the fuels. Leaders of the Group of 20 nations agreed at a meeting in Pittsburgh in 2009 to phase out fossil-fuel subsidies in the ‘‘medium term.’’
U.S. Reaction
U.S. and European Union envoys in Doha agreed that fossil fuel subsidies should be phased out. The U.S. is pushing the issue meetings of the Group of 20 nations.
‘‘It’s an important issue,’’ said Todd Stern, the lead U.S. State Department official at the talks in Doha. ‘‘There are a lot of entrenched interests. There are different kinds of interests.’’
European Union Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard told reporters in Doha she didn’t mind what forum subsidies were discussed ‘‘as long as we start phasing out’’ their use.
Aid is a keystone of climate agreements, and developing nations from Barbados to China have complained in Doha about the lack of transparency surrounding $30 billion of so-called fast- start finance that industrialized nations pledged to pay for the three-year period ending in 2012. They’re also calling for a ‘‘roadmap’’ setting out how the $100 billion goal will be met.
Funding the Problem
‘‘You can’t say you’re serious about fighting climate change until you stop funding the problem,” Kretzmann said in an interview in Doha, where envoys at United Nations climate talks are entering a second week of talks. “It should be possible to phase out producer subsidies and use part of that money for climate finance to help cushion the blow of removing consumption subsidies in developing countries.”
Of the 22 nations examined, Slovenia and Finland paid out more than 50 times in subsidies what they gave in climate aid, the data show. U.S. subsides were the highest at about $13.1 billion, or five times its $2.5 billion of climate aid in 2011.
A U.S. official said by e-mail today that while the current administration has been seeking to eliminate about $4 billion in annual fossil fuel subsidies, Congress has yet to act.
U.S. Financing
While Congress has approved almost $7.5 billion in fast- start finance over the three years, at an average of about $2.5 billion, its actual contribution in 2011 was $3.2 billion, according to a document from the U.S. delegation in Doha.
Oil Change International, set up in 2005, used fast-start finance data from the World Resources Institute, taking annual averages to produce 2011 figures. It analyzed figures on fossil fuel subsidies from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s website.
Items included in the OECD data for the U.S. include tax exemptions and reductions for producers and for consumers, including farmers and low-income households. It includes federal measures, as well as some state-level programs.
OECD’s Caution
“Caution is required in interpreting the support amounts and in aggregating them,” the OECD says on its website. That’s because, among other reasons, different countries use different tax rates for fossil fuels, so the subsidy resulting from a tax exemption could appear relatively higher in a high-tax nation, Jehan Sauvage, an OECD analyst, said in an e-mail response.
Australia paid $8.4 billion in subsidies, while Germany and the U.K. paid $6.6 billion each. A U.K. government spokesman said in an e-mail that, in the absence of a common G20 definition for what constitutes a fossil-fuel subsidy, Britain doesn’t have any inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption.
Japan had the best record, with aid of $5 billion exceeding fossil fuel subsidies of $439 million, according to the campaign group.
Kretzmann said progress since nations made the pledge at the G20 meeting in 2009 has been “minor.” While reporting of subsidies has improved, “everyone in the G20 gets to pick their own definition of a fossil-fuel subsidy,” he said.
“As far as we can tell, there has been no single subsidy in the G20 that’s been phased out as a result,” Kretzmann said. “Overall, we think there’s roughly $1 trillion spent on fossil fuel subsidies globally, and that’s before you get into health costs, climate-change adaptation costs and military costs for protecting oil supplies.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net
To Stop Climate Change, Students Aim at College Portfolios
Students in Minneapolis, seeking steps to cut atmospheric carbon levels to 350 parts per million, known as the safe level. Stephen Maturen for The New York Times
Bill McKibben, a writer turned advocate for carbon reduction, is on a national tour to build support for the divestment campaign. Stephen Maturen for The New York Times
Demonstrators in 1978, protesting Harvard's refusal to divest itself of stocks owned in companies operating in South Africa. Associated Press
“We’ve reached this point of intense urgency that we need to act on climate change now, but the situation is bleaker than it’s ever been from a political perspective,” said William Lawrence, a Swarthmore senior from East Lansing, Mich.
Students who have signed on see it as a conscious imitation of the successful effort in the 1980s to pressure colleges and other institutions to divest themselves of the stocks of companies doing business in South Africa under apartheid.
But at colleges with large endowments, many administrators are viewing the demand skeptically, saying it would undermine their goal of maximum returns in support of education. Fossil fuel companies represent a significant portion of the stock market, comprising nearly 10 percent of the value of the Russell 3000, a broad index of 3,000 American companies.
No school with an endowment exceeding $1 billion has agreed to divest itself of fossil fuel stocks. At Harvard, which holds the largest endowment in the country at $31 billion, the student body recently voted [ http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/greenblog/2012/11/harvard_students_vote_to_suppo.html ] to ask the school to do so. With roughly half the undergraduates voting, 72 percent of them supported the demand.
“We always appreciate hearing from students about their viewpoints, but Harvard is not considering divesting from companies related to fossil fuels,” Kevin Galvin, a university spokesman, said by e-mail.
Several organizations have been working on some version of a divestment campaign, initially focusing on coal, for more than a year. But the recent escalation has largely been the handiwork of a grass-roots organization, 350.org [ http://350.org/ ], that focuses on climate change, and its leader, Bill McKibben [ http://350.org/en/node/5600#bio ], a writer turned advocate. The group’s name is a reference to what some scientists see as a maximum safe level [ http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf ] of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, 350 parts per million. The level is now about 390, an increase of 41 percent since before the Industrial Revolution.
Speaking recently to an audience at the University of Vermont [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_vermont/index.html ], Mr. McKibben painted the fossil fuel industry as an enemy that must be defeated, arguing that it had used money and political influence to block climate action in Washington. “This is no different than the tobacco industry — for years, they lied about the dangers of their industry,” Mr. McKibben said.
Eric Wohlschlegel, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute [ http://www.api.org/ ], said that continued use of fossil fuels was essential for the country’s economy, but that energy companies were investing heavily in ways to emit less carbon dioxide.
In an interview, Mr. McKibben said he recognized that a rapid transition away from fossil fuels would be exceedingly difficult. But he said strong government policies to limit emissions were long overdue, and were being blocked in part by the political power of the incumbent industry.
Mr. McKibben’s goal is to make owning the stocks of these companies disreputable, in the way that owning tobacco stocks has become disreputable in many quarters. Many colleges will not buy them, for instance.
Mr. McKibben has laid out a series of demands that would get the fuel companies off 350.org’s blacklist. He wants them to stop exploring for new fossil fuels, given that they have already booked reserves about five times as large as scientists say society can afford to burn. He wants them to stop lobbying against emission policies in Washington. And he wants them to help devise a transition plan that will leave most of their reserves in the ground while encouraging lower-carbon energy sources.
“They need more incentive to make the transition that they must know they need to make, from fossil fuel companies to energy companies,” Mr. McKibben said.
Most college administrations, at the urging of their students, have been taking global warming seriously for years, spending money on steps like cutting energy consumption and installing solar panels.
The divestment demand is so new that most administrators are just beginning to grapple with it. Several of them, in interviews, said that even though they tended to agree with students on the seriousness of the problem, they feared divisive boardroom debates on divestment.
That was certainly the case in the 1980s, when the South African divestment campaign caused bitter arguments across the nation.
The issue then was whether divestment, potentially costly, would have much real effect on companies doing business in South Africa. Even today, historians differ on whether it did. But the campaign required prominent people to grapple with the morality of apartheid, altering the politics of the issue. Economic pressure from many countries ultimately helped to force the whites-only South African government to the bargaining table.
Mr. Lawrence, the Swarthmore senior, said that many of today’s students found that campaign inspirational because it “transformed what was seemingly an intractable problem.”
Swarthmore, a liberal arts college southwest of Philadelphia, is a small school with a substantial endowment, about $1.5 billion. The trustees acceded to divestment demands during that campaign, in 1986, but only after a series of confrontational tactics by students, including brief occupations of the president’s office.
The board later adopted a policy stating that it would be unlikely to take such a step again.
“The college’s policy is that the endowment is not to be invested for social purposes” beyond the obvious one of educating students, said Suzanne P. Welsh, vice president for finance at the school. “To use the endowment in support of other missions is not appropriate. It’s not what our donors have given money for.”
Matters could escalate in coming months, with Swarthmore scheduled to host a February meeting — the students call it a “convergence” — of 150 students from other colleges who are working on divestment.
Students said they were well aware that the South Africa campaign succeeded only after on-campus actions like hunger strikes, sit-ins and the seizure of buildings. Some of them are already having talks with their parents about how far to go.
“When it comes down to it, the members of the board are not the ones who are inheriting the climate problem,” said Sachie Hopkins-Hayakawa, a Swarthmore senior from Portland, Ore. “We are.”
Brent Summers contributed reporting from Burlington, Vt.
Climate Change Is Killing the Economy: Here’s What Can Be Done to Stop It
By Bernice Napach | Daily Ticker – Fri, Dec 21, 2012 7:00 AM EST
Video [ embedded ..Hanemann puts his take on the situation simply and clearly ]
Congress this week is considering a $60 billion bill to pay for damages inflicted by Superstorm Sandy across three Northeastern states in late October. Though some Republican congressional members are balking at the sum, which the White House is requesting, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut say the damage is closer to $82 billion.
In either case, these sums are nothing compared to the long-term price the U.S. will pay as a result of extreme weather caused by climate change says Michael Hanemann .. http://wpcarey.asu.edu/directory/people/profile.cfm?person=2234630 , an economics professor specializing in climate change at Arizona State University.
"What we're going to experience is unprecedented in human history in terms of the type of climate we're creating for ourselves," Hanemann tells The Daily Ticker. "The rate of warming has increased maybe five times what it was in the early part of the 20th century. The earth is getting warmer faster."
Hanemann says the increasing frequency of these unusual weather patterns prove that climate change is real and continuing. At the root of the earth's warming, says Hanemann, is the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Those emissions are declining somewhat in the U.S. but globally they reached a record high in 2011.
Hanemann says the earth has warmed almost 1 degree Celsius since just before the Industrial Revolution. GDP could permanently drop 2.5% if temperatures increase another 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), says Michael Livermore, Executive Director at NYU's Institute for Policy Integrity .. http://policyintegrity.org/ .. and research scholar at NYU Law School's Environmental Law Center.
Using today's GDP of roughly $16 trillion that amounts to a permanent $400 billion decline in GDP. Further warming would erase even more growth.
Climate change affects GDP in multiple ways:
* Heat waves increase energy costs and contribute to droughts, which destroy crops and raise food prices.
* Floods destroy or damage infrastructure, homes and businesses. Repairs can boost growth but lost earnings of businesses and individuals cannot be recovered. If those businesses never reopen, growth will decline even further.
* Heat waves, floods and other effects of extreme weather also create health problems. Paying those increased health care costs often slow personal consumption and business investment.
New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have asked the federal government for $82 billion for losses due to Superstorm Sandy. Losses from Hurricane Katrina topped $150 billion and Fitch Ratings recently reported that New Orleans hasn't completely recovered seven years later.
Livermore says there are steps government and individuals can can take now to slow the rate of increased warming and the damage that would follow.
For the government he suggests cap and trade legislation, development of cleaner renewable fuels and infrastructure projects including sea walls in New York City to protect against flooding and other consequences of more extreme weather.
He recommends that individuals insulate homes, drive more fuel-efficient autos and use other fuel-efficient products like compact fluorescent light bulbs and Energy Star refrigerators as well as support politicians who are focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The costs for all of these moves "is nowhere near the costs we face if we don't act," says Livermore.
Hanemann recommends expanding the electric grid to accommodate increased use of air conditioning and expanded water storage. In the meantime, he says, "We need to prepare for more wildfires, floods and droughts."
Top 10 Environmental Stories of 2012 Jeremy Hance and Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com December 18, 2012
Below is a quick review of some of the biggest environmental stories of 2012.
The "top stories" are listed in no particular order.
Scientists: we're reaching a tipping point (Hance)
Climate change, overpopulation, consumption, and ecological destruction is pushing planet Earth toward a tipping point .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0607-hance-planetary-collapse-tipping-points.html .. according to a major study in Nature released over the summer. This could result in a new "planetary state" that would be far harsher and bleaker than the current one (beginning around 12,000 years ago), which saw the rise and success of human society. According to scientists, if 50-90 percent of an ecosystem is altered, it risks falling into collapse. Extrapolating this over the whole globe, scientists found that today 43 percent of the world's terrestrial ecosystems have been converted into agriculture and cities. Even unaltered areas are impacted by pollution, biodiversity decline, and climate change. To avoid a tipping point, the researchers say we should not allow 50 percent of the world's ecosystems to be lost. But this will prove impossible without rapid action and societal change, as the global population continues to grow and more ecosystems are lost every year .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0515-hance-living-planet-report-full.html .. to agriculture, urbanization, mining, and logging. What would a new planetary state look like? Biodiversity would likely collapse impacting food production and other ecosystem services; the Earth would warm to a new temperature regime .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1119-hance-4-degrees.html .. of destructive extremes; and vanishing natural resources would likely spawn human conflict. In other words, human societies would face one calamity after another. The scientists say it doesn't have to be this way, instead we need to rapidly phase out fossil fuels, conserve biodiversity, protect forests, overhaul fisheries, transform agricultural systems, deal with overpopulation via education and access to contraception, and focus on an economy of human well-being over GDP. All of this is possible, it's merely a matter of will.
The great Arctic melt: record sea ice melt stuns scientists (Hance)
Global warming is causing dramatic changes worldwide, none more so than the loss in Arctic sea ice. This year, the sea ice--which expands during the Arctic winter and shrinks during the summer--hit its lowest extent ever recorded .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0919-hance-arctic-seaice-minimum.html : 3.4 million square kilometers (1.32 million square miles). The new record, beating the previous set just five years ago, upset even the most pessimistic predictions of how quickly the Arctic sea ice could vanish and caused scientists to re-evaluate how swiftly the world is changing. Arctic sea ice is important to a wide variety of species in the region, including polar bears and seals. The loss of sea ice is also expected to create a positive feedback cycle, heating up the region even faster. But the impacts may go far beyond the Arctic: new studies published this year have found a tantalizing link between the loss of Arctic sea ice and some weather patterns: less ice in the Arctic may be slowing down the jet stream and causing weather patterns to become stuck, known to meteorologists as blocking patterns. It was just such a blocking pattern .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1105-hance-sandy-extreme-weather.html .. that pushed Hurricane Sandy into the East Coast rather than out to sea, where such hurricanes usually venture to dissipate over the Atlantic. More research is necessary, but the great Arctic melt may have impacts far beyond the top of the world. Scientists now believe the Arctic will be ice free within a few decades. According to research this hasn't occurred in at least 2.5 million years; modern humans have only been around for 200,000 years.
Hurricane Sandy brings climate change back to U.S. consciousness (Hance)
After a U.S. Presidential Election where not a single moderator .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1023-hance-climate-change-debate.html .. in four debates asked a question on climate change--an issue that many scientists and world leaders see as the globe's most pressing--Hurricane Sandy changed everything, at least in the short-term. After killing over a hundred people in the Caribbean, Hurricane Sandy struck the U.S. East Coast, sending massive storm surges up the New Jersey coast and flooding Lower Manhattan. The storm killed 153 people in the U.S. and inflicted damages that will cost upwards of $80 billion. Scientists say the tropical storm was likely intensified by climate change .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1029-hance-climate-hurricane-sandy.html : rising sea levels means larger storm surges, warmer ocean waters cause more precipitation, and unseasonal weather means hurricane season may be lasting longer. In fact, recent studies predict that while climate change may not increase the number of hurricanes in general, it will increase the number of extremely intense ones. Images of Manhattan under water and storm-ravaged New Jersey found their way around the world, and instigated a new national debate on climate change. Shortly after the storm, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1101-bloomberg-picks-obama.html .. endorsed Barack Obama for a second term, largely due to his acceptance of climate science and his support of programs to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. In Obama's first press conference after winning re-election, he was asked the question .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1114-hance-climate-silence-obama.html .. moderator's sipped during the debate, i.e. what will he do to combat climate change? His lackluster response .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1115-hance-climate-obama-urgency.html .. was less important perhaps than the fact that the question was asked: something that would have been unthinkable a month earlier. The media and political silence over climate change during the past few years in the U.S. had become so ironically deafening that activists created whole groups and campaigns urging people to simply raise the issue about it then came Hurricane Sandy. But while Sandy has undoubtedly raised awareness and media coverage of the impacts of climate change, whether or not it spurs meaningful action remains to be seen.
Fire scar from Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado. Photo by: NASA.
New research finds link between climate change and droughts, floods, heat waves (Butler)
High profile research published in 2012 built a case to link increasing weather variability to climate change. In March, a review published in Nature Climate Change .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0328-hance_extremeweather_climatechange.html .. found "strong evidence" of a link between a warming world and the frequency and intensity of droughts, floods, and heat waves. In July, a report published by the American Meteorological Society reached a similar conclusion. The American Meteorological Society's report is intended to be an annual offering.
Rio+20 was billed as a chance for global society to begin a transition towards sustainability, merging economic goals (such as eradicating poverty) with environmental ones. While no one expected a miracle, the agreement--non-binding--which was eventually signed was blasted by a wide array of environmental and anti-poverty groups .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0620-hance-rio20-groups-react.html .. as "pathetic," (Greenpeace), "a dead end" (Oxfam), and "a colossal waste of time" (WWF). Criticism didn't just come from outside groups, EU representative Ida Auken said they were "not happy with it." Even issues where environmental campaigners thought they'd see progress, such as improved management of the high seas which have been rampantly overfished, nations (in this case U.S., Japan, Canada, Russia and Venezuela) were able to kick any meaningful changes down the road for another few years. Ending fossil fuel subsidies, which was buoyed by massive grassroots support, was also avoided thanks to countries like Canada and Venezuela. Some blamed the host nation, Brazil, for pushing for any agreement so long as it was signed. Some singled out Canada and the U.S. .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0618-hance-rio20-canada-villain.html .. for watering everything down. The Rio+20 agreement acknowledges the global environmental crisis, entrenched poverty, the importance of a new economic model that takes ecosystems into account but nations left the summit committed to doing pretty much nothing about it.
Loss and damages enters climate agreement at Doha (Hance)
While the Climate Summit at Doha was largely characterized by a complete lack of ambition and an inability, once again, for countries to match policy with what science demands to stave off dangerous climate change, there was one surprising move at the meeting: loss and damages. It may sound innocuous, but when future generations look back at the Doha summit, these may be the words that most ring out. For the first time the Doha agreement sets up a mechanism by which vulnerable nations may receive funds from carbon polluters for loss and damages. In other words, an island nation that is flooded by rising seas could potentially seek compensation for the destruction from the world's big polluters. Not surprisingly, the addition was opposed by many in the developed world, including the U.S. In the end, the agreement's language was watered down and watered down and added under the already—established $100 billion fund—to avoid claims of unlimited money—before the U.S. and other could agree. But this may open the door, however slight, for countries racked by climate change impacts to seek compensation.
Flood of research shows pesticides playing role in bee decline (Hance)
Has the smoking gun for Colony Collapse Disorder been found? Maybe. A slew of new studies have shown that popular pesticides are likely decimating bee populations over the long-term and at the sublethal level, in other words while the pesticides don't kill the bees outright, their impacts may eventually lead to a complete breakdown of colonies. Two studies in Science .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0329-hance_beecollapse_pesticides.html .. found that pesticides which first came into use in the 1990s, known as neonicotinoids, have resulted in bee hives losing their queens while worker bees seeing a loss in their ability to navigate, until eventually they would become lost to the hive. Another research project .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0405-hance_colonycollapse_pesticides.html .. found that lacing corn syrup, which is increasingly fed to bees, with tiny amounts of neonicotinoids resulted in the collapse of hives after six months. They theorize that the pesticide is reaching bees through corn fields sprayed with neonicotinoids. Several other studies .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1024-hance-bees-pesticides-mix.html .. during the year found similar long-term impacts on bees due to pesticide exposure. The studies have not gone unnoticed: France this year banned one of the pesticides in the studies, while the EU is looking at the issue as well. Pesticide makers, who make hundreds of millions annually on sales of neonicotinoids, deny any link between their products and the bee collapse but the new studies provide increasingly difficult data to ignore. The question is beginning to be asked: how quickly will governments act?
Mixed messages from Brazil on the Amazon rainforest (Butler)
In October, Brazil sparked fear in the hearts of some environmentalists when President Dilma Rousseff signed into law a revised version of the country's forest code .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1019-brazil-forest-code-finalized.html , which governs how much forest private landowners must maintain. Though the most controversial aspects of the new code were excluded by Rousseff, greens nonetheless warned that it could spur an increase in deforestation at the same time that the Brazilian government is planning massive infrastructure expansion across the Amazon Basin. On that front, work on the Belo Monte dam .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1130-money-for-belo-monte.html , set to become one the world's largest dams, moved forward after Brazil's Supreme Court set aside complaints raised by rights groups and environmentalists .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0828-belo-monte-resumes.html . The project will divert 80 percent of the flow of the Xingu River, a major Amazon tributary, and flood tens of thousands of hectares of forest. But even as these developments raised concerns, Brazil in December announced that Amazon forest loss fell to the lowest on record .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1127-amazon-deforestation-2012.html .. between August 2011 and July 2012. Annual deforestation in that period was more than 80 percent below the 2003-2004 peak of 27,772 sq km.
Chut Wutty with Prey Lang Network representatives, November 2011. Copyright Fran Lambrick 2011. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
[ Nearly 93,000 Square Miles of Amazon Rainforest Destroyed in 10 Years
With one of the world's highest rates of primary forest loss and a series of controversial concessions granted to foreign companies in key forest areas, Cambodia is widely viewed as an environmental pariah. But things took a turn for the worse with several high profile murders of environmentalists in 2012. In April, forest activist Chut Wutty was shot dead .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0426-hance_chutwutty.html .. at an illegal logging site by military police. His killing — which journalists say was not properly investigated — was followed in September by the brutal slaying of Hang Serei Oudom .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0913-hance-oudom-murder.html , a journalist who often reported on illegal logging.
Massacre of rangers and okapi at park headquarters (Hance)
In the early morning of June 24th, a marauding group of poachers--headed by notorious Paul Sadala, a.k.a. 'Morgan'--raided the headquarters .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0629-okapi-massacre.html .. of the Okapi Wildlife Reserve in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). They set fire to buildings, destroyed equipment, shot down two rangers and killed four other people, and then in a truly bizarre act killed 13 rare okapis housed at the facility as "ambassadors" for the forest. The devastating attack is believed to be revenge for recent initiatives to fight illegal elephant poaching and gold mining in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve. Plagued by two recent civil wars that left millions dead both due to violence as well as disease and starvation, the DRC remains one of the most difficult places in the world to practice conservation work, yet is home to a stunning variety of rainforest species, from forest elephants to mountain gorillas. The brazen attack by Morgan and his crew also highlights the increasing clashes around the world between poachers, often backed by organized criminals, and wildlife rangers as demand for wildlife parts such as ivory, rhino horn, and tiger bones sky rocket.
Australia creates world's biggest marine protected areas (Hance)
At the kickoff of the Rio+20 Summit, Australia announced it .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0614-hance-australia-mpas.html .. would establish the world's largest network of marine protected areas, spanning 3.1 million square kilometers (1.19 million square miles). The announcement meant that the country would increase the number of its marine reserves from 27 to 60, putting nearly 40 percent of its waters under some form of protection. The plan also set aside a part of the Coral Sea, which includes the Great Barrier Reef, for protection. The new marine protected areas include bans on oil and gas mining and tougher regulations on fisheries. Marine scientists have become increasingly vocal .. http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0620-hance_marine_extinction.html .. that oceanic biodiversity is imperiled by a combination of overfishing, nutrient pollution, ocean acidification and climate change.
Extinct toad returned to the wild due to artificially enhanced ecosystem (Hance)
In what may well be a world first in species conservation, a vanished animal has been reintroduced into its habitat .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1101-hance-kihansi-released.html .. but only after engineers built a man-made system in order to recreate a lost ecosystem. Discovered in 1996 in Tanzania, the Kihansi spray toad (Nectophrynoides asperginis) went extinct just 13 years later .. http://news.mongabay.com/2009/1104-hance_kihansi.html . What happened? The construction of a dam altered the the flow of the Kihansi River, drying up the toad's habitat. Without its moist, fecund ecosystem the toad went extinct. However successful captive breeding efforts saved the toad from total oblivion. Then came the construction of a specially built "misting system" that brings the river's spray from rapids back to the toads' habitat. In October of this year, researchers released the first Kihansi spray toads back into the wild.
Australia kicks off carbon tax and Mexico passes climate legislation, but both imperiled (Hance)
This summer Australia kicked off a carbon tax that targets around 300 of the country's biggest polluters. The tax started out at around $24 for every metric ton of carbon pollution, aiming to cut carbon by 159 million metric tons in eight years. The money raised by the tax will be used to reduce income taxes, increase pensions, and welfare. The Clean Energy Act establishing the tax was hugely opposed by Australia's opposition government, the Centre-right coalition, which warned it would repeal the tax if they gain power. Meanwhile, Mexico passed the strongest climate legislation .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0423-hance_mexico_climatebill.html .. yet in a developing country this spring. The legislation pledges to cut carbon emissions 30 percent by 2020, according to 2000 levels. However, with the election of Enrique Pena Nieto in the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) as the new president, the implementation of this law may be hampered. Nieto has pledged to increase oil and gas production in Mexico, which is the 11th largest carbon polluter.
Dam occupations: Belo Monte and Murum dams (Butler)
Indigenous protesters in Brazil and Sarawak rose up against controversial rainforest dam projects. At the Belo Monte site, several demonstrations culminated in a group of protesters digging a trench .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0615-rio20-belo-monte-protest.html .. through the an earthen dam that blocks a portion of the Xingu River. That action was followed by a three-week occupation .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0712-hance-occupation-belo-monte.html .. of the dam site. Belo Monte will flood more than 40,000 hectares of rainforest and displace tens of thousands of people. The project will impede the flow of the Xingu, which is one of the Amazon's mightiest tributaries, disrupting fish migrations and potentially affecting nutrient flows in a section of the basin. In Sarawak, a state in Malaysian Borneo, indigenous community members blockaded a key road .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1115-hance-murum-dam-block.html .. leading to the Murum dam site. The 900 megawatt Murum dam will inundate 24,500 hectares of native land and force the resettlement of seven indigenous communities.
Indonesian government blocks controversial oil palm plantation (Butler)
After a long-standing campaign by environmentalists and local communities, the Indonesian government investigated an oil palm concession under development by PT Kallista Alam in Tripa peat swamp on the island of Sumatra. Officials found "irregularities" in the company's permit, leading to revocation by a court .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1001-aceh-permit.html . Tripa was widely seen as a test case for Indonesia's commitment to a two-year moratorium on new logging and plantation concessions across 14.5 million hectares of forest and peatlands. The concession was granted in an off-limits area after the moratorium was in effect. The area was also protected under an earlier presidential decree on conversion of deep peat. PT Kallista Alam has since sued the governor of Aceh .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1214-tripa-case-update.html .. for revoking the permit.
Australia passes Lacey Act-like legislation against illegal timber imports (Butler)
In November, Australia passed the Illegal Logging Prohibition Bill .. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1121-hance-australia-law-illegal-logging.html , joining the U.S. in outlawing the importation of illegal logged timber from abroad. The new legislation makes it a criminal offense for Australian businesses to import timber from illegal operations. The Australian government estimates that $400 million worth of illegal timber products are sold in the country each year often as outdoor furniture and wood for decks. The law was pushed by a wide coalition of businesses, environmental groups, and social and religious organizations.
REPORT: California's Record Fire Season Drives Climate Change Into The News
Research June 18, 2014 3:23 PM EDT ››› LAURA SANTHANAM
A Media Matters analysis found that California's largest-circulating newspapers are increasingly mentioning how climate change is worsening the state's wildfires. California has faced an extremely early and severe fire season in 2014, in line with climate research showing that over the last four decades, fires have grown millions of acres larger and the fire season has extended by about three months on average.
State Newspapers Report Climate Context More Often As Wildfire Threat Grows
California's Newspapers Increase Climate Coverage In Wildfire Stories By Over 50 Percent. Of all articles, columns and editorials analyzed, 11 percent mentioned climate change in their wildfire coverage in the three months leading up to and including California's early fire season this year. This amount marks an improvement over coverage from the same newspapers' coverage during an equivalent time period in 2013 when only 7 percent of wildfire stories mentioned climate change. The absolute number of stories that mentioned climate change increased by 55 percent from 9 to 14 articles.
U-T San Diego Mentions Climate Change Only Once, To Cast Doubt On It. Oddly enough, the newspaper that covers an area that has seen some of the most immediate and recent devastation due to the wildfires, the U-T San Diego, mentioned climate change the least. U-T San Diego mentioned climate change only once in its wildfire coverage, while questioning its existence:
--- If climate change is a fact, preparation [for wildfires] is more important than ever.
"These (weather) patterns are only going to get worse," [Sheryl Landrum of the Fire Safe Council of San Diego County] says. "Be prepared." [U-T San Diego, 5/30/14] ---
By comparison, the Orange County Register, San Jose Mercury News and San Francisco Chronicle all have improved slightly, connecting climate change to wildfires in a few articles, an increase from zero mentions in the 2013 study.
NY Times' David Carr: U-T San Diego Has Declined Under New Leadership. Since Doug Manchester, hotel mogul and major Republican donor, became the paper's owner and publisher and renamed it from the San Diego Union-Tribune, the newspaper's coverage has declined in quality, according to New York Times' media critic David Carr. Carr wrote:
--- There is a growing worry that the falling value and failing business models of many American newspapers could lead to a situation where moneyed interests buy papers and use them to prosecute a political and commercial agenda. Paul Body Douglas Manchester, owner of The U-T San Diego.
That future appears to have arrived in San Diego, where The U-T San Diego, the daily newspaper bought by the local developer and hotelier Douglas F. Manchester, often seems like a brochure for his various interests.
Climate Change Contributing To Larger Fires, Longer Fire Seasons In West
California's Fierce Wildfire Season Had "Unprecedented" Early Start. NPR reported that California's fire season had an "unprecedented" early start this year in a conversation with California's secretary for natural resources:
--- MELISSA BLOCK, HOST: These fires herald what promises to be an especially busy and dangerous fire season in California. The entire state is in a condition of extreme drought. Couple that with high temperatures and strong Santa Ana winds and you wind up with what we're seeing now: spinning columns of fierce flame called firenados. I'm joined now by California's secretary for natural resources, John Laird. Welcome to the program, Mr. Laird.
JOHN LAIRD: It's a pleasure to be with you.
BLOCK: Is it unprecedented for fire season to be starting this early?
LAIRD: It really is. Normally, we staff up throughout all of California approximately June 1 for fire season. Occasionally, it's different in different parts of the state. This year, we were up everywhere by April 1, and in some places, the fire season never really stopped from last year.
[...]
BLOCK: Well, when you look at this combination of factors, is it clear to you that climate change is to blame for the drought and the heat, and ultimately for these fires?
LAIRD: I think climate change is a major factor. And it's always questionable to link specific events scientifically to climate change. But the fact that our fire season has changed, the weather patterns are changing, that shows that in my home area of Santa Cruz, we used to always have streams and the river that flowed comfortably into May and sometimes June, and we turn to our reservoir as a backup in the summer months. And now the reservoir is now a central part of supply. You can just see the changes as people operate on the ground. [NPR, 5/16/14 .. http://nhpr.org/post/whats-blame-californias-early-fire-season ] ---
Wildfire Season Has Grown By About Three Months On Average. Climate Desk created this chart based on data provided by fire ecologist Anthony Westerling of the University of California at Merced, which shows that the fire season in the West, including California, has gotten about three months longer on average. Mother Jones reported that scientists are connecting this expensive change to global warming, and expect changes in wildfires to be "among the most severe consequences of climate change in North America":
--- And the longer seasons mean even higher costs, explains Interior's Douglas. That's because seasonal firefighters must be kept on the payroll and seasonal facilities must be kept open longer.
Environmental change is complicating the work of fire managers who already had their work cut out for them restoring forests from the decades-long practice .. http://www.foresthistory.org/ASPNET/Policy/Fire/Suppression/Suppression.aspx .. of suppressing all fires, which led to an unhealthy buildup of fuel that can turn a small fire into a megafire.
"Until the '80s or so, it was easy to explain fires as consequence of fuel accumulation," says Wally Covington, director of the Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern Arizona University. "Now, piled on that are the effects of climate change. We are seeing larger fires and more of them."
Wildfires Have Grown By Millions Of Acres On Average Since 1980s. Climate Desk also created this chart based on data from the National Interagency Fire Center showing that fires on federal lands have about quadrupled on average, and are continuing to get larger:
Climate Change Increasing Wildfire Risk. When the U.S. Global Change Research Program issued its third National Climate Assessment (NCA) report on May 6, it warned that: "[p]rolonged periods of high temperatures associated with droughts contribute to conditions that lead to larger wildfires and longer fire seasons." Multiple models forecast "more wildfires as climate change continues."
--- Fire naturally shapes southwestern landscapes. Indeed, many Southwest ecosystems depend on periodic wildfire to maintain healthy tree densities, enable seeds to germinate, and reduce pests. Excessive wildfire destroys homes, exposes slopes to erosion and landslides, threatens public health, and causes economic damage. The $1.2 billion in damages from the 2003 Grand Prix fire in southern California illustrates the high cost of wildfires.
[...]
Numerous fire models project more wildfire as climate change continues. Models project a doubling of burned area in the southern Rockies, and up to a 74% increase in burned area in California, with northern California potentially experiencing a doubling under a high emissions scenario toward the end of the century. Fire contributes to upslope shifting of vegetation, spread of invasive plants after extensive and intense fire, and conversion of forests to woodland or grassland. [U.S. Global Change Research Program, 5/6/14 .. http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/system/files_force/downloads/low/NCA3_Climate_Change_Impacts_in_the_United%20States_LowRes.pdf?download=1 ]
---
Methodology
This report analyzes coverage from the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Sacramento Bee, U-T San Diego and the Orange County Register found within Nexis under the search terms "wildfire," "wild fire" or "forest fire" between March 15, 2014 and June 15, 2014.
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