Britain and California have formed a trans-Atlantic partnership to address global warming [more], bypassing the Bush administration to explore ways to curb greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean-burning fuels. The pact appears to be largely symbolic, though British Prime Minister Tony Blair and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are investigating laying the groundwork for a new trans-Atlantic market in carbon dioxide emissions - a marvelous idea. Blair and Schwarzenegger announced their collaboration during a meeting to exchange views with industry CEOs in a round-table discussion on how to work together to accelerate the deployment of clean-energy technologies. The Bush administration was notably absent from the list of participants. If this trans-Atlantic carbon market truly eventuates it would be a momentous moment as California would be accepting a cap on carbon emissions [more], something that the national government has fiercely resisted. This move would be a thorough repudiation of the President's lack of leadership on the matter (Alert).

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Global media is abuzz with discussion regarding whether the massive and deadly heatwaves hitting Europe, Asia and the United States, particularly California, are caused by and/or an indicator of global warming [more | more2 | news search]. Many capture the fact that while no single weather event can be conclusively linked to climate change, clearly it plays an important part in current global record temperatures. Scientists explain using probability metaphors, speaking of "stacked decks of cards" or "weighed dice". What human caused global warming does is increase the likelihood, duration and severity of not only heatwaves but also hurricanes, droughts, flooding and other extreme weather events. To deny what is happening now globally in terms of extreme weather events is delusional, deadly wishfulness.

Yes, we must adapt to climate change happening now. But just as importantly we MUST begin a program to reduce emissions immediately and substantially to avoid mid to long term impacts that are beyond the capacity of the Earth and society to withstand. Make no mistake, climate change is not only real, it is well advanced. The only questions of any real importance now is whether it can be recognized as such, its ramifications and remedies better understood, and societal changes on a massive scale developed and pursued in time to save us all. And this almost certainly is going to involve strict regulation, carbon taxes and even carbon rationing [more].

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New research by the highly respected Woods Hole Research Centre reported upon in the UK's Independent has concluded that the vast Amazon rainforest is on the brink of becoming a desert, with catastrophic consequences for the world's climate. They predict the Amazon rainforest (search) cannot withstand more than two consecutive years of drought without "mega-fires" sweeping across the drying jungle, destroying healthy rainforest ecosystems, and resultant denuded soil baking in the sun ultimately becoming a desert. The Amazon is now entering its second successive year of climate change intensified drought, making it likely that widespread forest die-back will start soon. The Amazon rainforests contain 90 billion tons of carbon, enough to increase the rate of global warming by 50 percent.

Long predicted climate change impacts such as intensified hurricanes, heatwaves and extreme droughts are already evident. This scenario of climate change destroying already human-diminished Amazonian ecosystems is a long feared positive feedback nightmare that would cause even further warming and drought. This positive feedback along with others such as melting permafrost and release of ocean methane may dramatically intensify climate changes leading to abrupt, run-away atmospheric collapse that makes much of the Earth uninhabitable and destroys civilization as we know it.

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The Washington Post runs an article today entitled "Warming to the Inconvenient Facts" which points out the difficulty in moving beyond the recent surge in climate change awareness in the U.S. to identifying and implementing the myriad of major policy-changes in every aspect of life necessary to maintain a habitable climate and Earth. Americans continue to resist the dramatic personal and societal actions necessary to lower carbon emissions - though denial is starting to crumble.

"If the scientists are right about an apocalyptic future of floods, droughts, dead coral reefs, rising sea levels and advancing deserts, global warming is an existential threat that should affect our approach to just about every issue. To take it seriously, we would have to change the way we think about transportation, agriculture, development, water resources, natural disasters, foreign relations and more."

Given that climate change is only but one - albeit the most discussed now - aspect of collapsing global ecosystems; there are a whole range of additional crises including species loss, ocean dead zones, depleted soils, desertification, water shortages, toxic poisons that while often entwined with climate change are deadly in their own right, and require their own urgent policy responses throughout all aspects of human endeavours. The task of pulling humanity into sustainability with its ecosystem habitats intact and operable will be the overriding struggle of every moment of remaining human history.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (4) | More on climate change policy responses

Everywhere one looks the Earth's climate is going to hell threatening civilization. Just recently the potentially cataclysmic positive climate change feedback of methane being released from warming oceans has again been highlighted. Earlier researchers solidified the link between climate change and wildfires. If the world's forests burn - particulary the Amazon - this further positive feedback would release huge stores of carbon which will further intensify warming and climate variability. Meanwhile Europe is experiencing a deadly heatwave perfectly consistent with global warming science's predictions (search). And the combination of a continental heatwave in the U.S. and Al Gore's truth telling seem to be waking up American's leadership somewhat from their stupor. And overshadowing it all are the militant results of decades of oil production at any cost in the Middle East threatening WWIII. Perhaps the best we can hope for from this tragic situation is a major oil disruption that hastens societal change before the atmosphere becomes dysfunctional.

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Is it getting hot in here? Apparently so, as the first half of 2006 was the warmest on record in the U.S. - 3.4 degrees above the 20th century record:

"January through June was the warmest first half of any year in the continental United States since records began in 1895, U.S. government scientists reported Friday. The average January-June temperature was 51.8 degrees Fahrenheit -- 3.4 degrees above the 20th century average, according to preliminary data reported by scientists at the National Climatic Data Center..."

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The new issue of MIT's Technology Review magazine has a profile of Jim Hansen who may be the most respected climate scientist in the world. Hansen (search) currently heads NASA's premier climate-research center, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He was the first to highlight the crisis in 1988 and has been accurately predicting the progress of global warming for 25 years. The interview highights his global warming work and the governmental pressure that has come with it. Hansen predicts that if mankind continues to increase emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, global temperatures will rise between two to three degrees Celsius this century. However, he remains optimistic stating that if we move aggressively to cap greenhouse gas emissions (search) now, we can potentially prevent the global climate disaster. Nonethless, we at Ecological Internet feel strongly that global climate change is happening now.

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A new study identifies climate change as a primary cause of more frequent, intense and large wildfires in the western United States (more | more2). Over eleven hundred forest wildfires between 1970 and 2003 that burned at least 1,000 acres were studied. Wildfires were found to be a major indicator of climate change impacting the continental United States now. Startlingly the fire season was found to have increased by two-and-one-half months. Rising global temperatures causing more severe fires are expected to change forest composition and their ability to store atmospheric carbon dioxide. Climate change impacted forests (search) adding carbon to the atmosphere is expected to drive temperatures even higher in a dangerous positive feedback loop. Meanwhile President Bush has stated he is "solving" global warming, perhaps referring to his policy of heavily logging these forests, with forest slash and open canopies making them even more combustible.

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