Latest Global Warming News

Obama committed to green energy, auto bailout

New York, 18 Nov 2008 -  The anxious auto and clean-energy industries have received positive signals from President-elect Barack Obama in the past two days.

In an interview with 60 Minutes broadcast on Sunday, Obama said he intends to pursue a government stimulus package that includes investments to promote clean technologies, even though oil prices have fallen dramatically during 2008.

Coral study points to more harsh droughts

THE CANBERRA TIMES

17/11/2008

Dramatic Ecosystem Shift In North Atlantic

Ithica New York, 13 November 2008 - While Earth has experienced numerous changes in climate over the past 65 million years, recent decades have experienced the most significant climate change since the beginning of human civilized societies about 5,000 years ago, says a new Cornell University study.The paleo-climate record shows very rapid periods of cooling in the past, when temperatures have dropped by as much as 18 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) in a matter of years to decades, "the rate of warming we are seeing [now] is unprecedented in human history," said Cornell oceanographer Charles Greene, the lead author of the paper appearing in the November 2008 issue of the journal Ecology, which is published by the Ecological Society of America.

During the past 50 years, melting Arctic ice sheets and glaciers have periodically released cold, low-salinity slugs of water from the Arctic Ocean into the North Atlantic. This has led to dramatic ecosystem shifts as far south as North Carolina and extensive geographic range shifts of many plant and animal species. One microscopic algal species from the Pacific Ocean, not seen in the North Atlantic for over 800,000 years, has successfully crossed over the Arctic Ocean and reinvaded the North Atlantic during the past decade.

Evangelical in Australia to lobby on climate change

Canberra Australia 10 Nov 2008 -
PETER CAVE: Environmental and Christian groups have combined to host an American evangelical Christian who's in Australia this week to lobby the Federal Government on climate change.

The Reverend Richard Cizik is expected to meet Prime Minister Kevin Rudd today and will meet the Opposition's Environment spokesman Greg Hunt.

Antarctic climate change tipping point warning

Sydney AUSTRALIA, 13 Nov 2008 - SCIENTISTS have identified a climate change tipping point that could spark widespread devastation for animals living in Antarctic waters.
The researchers found a key species of plankton would be wiped out if levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached 450 parts per million.Experts warned the ocean would become too acidic for the plankton to grow, affecting the food supply of animals including fish, whales and penguins.

Dr Ben McNeil, an oceanographer at the Climate Change Research Centre, University of NSW and lead author of the study, said: "Oceanic acidification is a direct consequence of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

Obama will act quickly on climate change:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama will act against climate change early in his presidency, an environment adviser said on Wednesday amid doubts that a U.S. carbon-capping program will be in place before 2010."The president-elect will move quickly on climate change," Jason Grumet, the Obama campaign's lead energy and environment adviser, told a conference on carbon trading.

Grumet, who has been mentioned as a possible choice for the new U.S. administration's energy secretary, told the group of business and policy-making specialists: "My suggestion to all of you is to enjoy the holiday season ... and rest up because I think it's going to be a very, very busy 2009."

Last chance for the oceans

LONDON UK, November 12 2008 - Marine protection zones may be the only answer as climate change and factory fishing turn the world's seas into dead zones.  It was summer 2002 when fishermen between the towns of Florence and Lincoln on the north-west Pacific coast of the US began hauling in their pots only to find them full of dead crabs. Tourists then reported finding dead fish and worms washed up on beaches, and divers found the sea bed littered with marine life. It took a team of marine biologists, led by Professor Jane Lubchenco, from Oregon State University to identify giant algal "blooms" as the cause. The sea was full of minute phytoplankton algae that cause oxygen depletion. Quite simply, the water had too little oxygen to sustain life and nothing could survive in what was called "the dead zone"."We saw a crab graveyard and no fish the entire day," Lubchenco said after observing the sea bed from a submersible. "Thousands and thousands of dead crabs were littering the ocean floor, many sea stars were dead, and the fish have either left the area or have died and been washed away... seeing so much carnage was shocking and depressing."

In the 1960s, fewer than 50 dead zones had been identified worldwide, according to Professor Robert Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. But by 2006, he says, there were at least 200, ranging from the Gulf of Mexico and the Pearl River estuary in China, to the Aegean Sea in the Mediterranean and the Mersey estuary in the UK. Last year, more than 400 were found in coastal waters. The phenomena usually last only a few months but they devastate marine life and there is evidence that many are growing and lasting longer.

Maldives plans to buy a 'new homeland'

THE AGE

11/11/08

Gore's Climate for Change

Sunday November 9th, New York - The inspiring and transformative choice by the American people to elect Barack Obama as our 44th president lays the foundation for another fateful choice that he - and we - must make this January to begin an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and rapidly growing threat posed by the climate crisis.

The electrifying redemption of America's revolutionary declaration that all human beings are born equal sets the stage for the renewal of United States leadership in a world that desperately needs to protect its primary endowment: the integrity and livability of the planet.

Climate refugees to PNG

WEDNESDAY November 5th, CANBERRA - The world's first climate change refugees will be relocated from their Pacific island home to Papua New Guinea by March next year.The Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation says 40 families from north of Ontong Java in the Solomon Island's Malaita Province will be relocated to Bougainville.

Flooding has made parts of their islands completely uninhabitable and the islands are expected to be fully submerged by 2015.