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JUNEAU, Alaska — Global warming conjures images of rising seas that threaten coastal areas. But in Juneau, as almost nowhere else in the world, climate change is having the opposite effect: As the glaciers here melt, the land is rising, causing the sea to retreat.
Morgan DeBoer, a property owner, opened a nine-hole golf course at the mouth of Glacier Bay in 1998, on land that was underwater when his family first settled here 50 years ago.
“The highest tides of the year would come into what is now my driving range area,” Mr. DeBoer said.
Now, with the high-tide line receding even farther, he is contemplating adding another nine holes.
“It just keeps rising,” he said.
The geology is complex, but it boils down to this: Relieved of billions of tons of glacial weight, the land has risen much as a cushion regains its shape after someone gets up from a couch. The land is ascending so fast that the rising seas — a ubiquitous byproduct of global warming — cannot keep pace. As a result, the relative sea level is falling, at a rate “among the highest ever recorded,” according to a 2007 report by a panel of experts convened by Mayor Bruce Botelho of Juneau.
Greenland and a few other places have experienced similar effects from widespread glacial melting that began more than 200 years ago, geologists say. But, they say, the effects are more noticeable in and near Juneau, where most glaciers are retreating 30 feet a year or more.
As a result, the region faces unusual environmental challenges. As the sea level falls relative to the land, water tables fall, too, and streams and wetlands dry out. Land is emerging from the water to replace the lost wetlands, shifting property boundaries and causing people to argue about who owns the acreage and how it should be used. And meltwater carries the sediment scoured long ago by the glaciers to the coast, where it clouds the water and silts up once-navigable channels.
Here in Montana, climate change poses unique challenges. As levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases continue to rise, our state faces a daunting future of increased fire activity, pine beetle infestations, drought and the loss of glaciers. To preserve the landscapes and lifestyles that define us as Montanans, we must act now.
Largely due to our state’s high levels of coal and natural gas production, Montana is one of the highest per capita greenhouse gas emitters in the nation. But while our state is rich in coal, it is also blessed with other assets, including the fifth-greatest wind energy potential in the U.S. For these reasons, Montana has an obligation and an opportunity to reduce its carbon footprint n an opportunity that would simultaneously create much-needed jobs as well as stave off irreversible climate change.
With this in mind, students are calling on government to take action. After traveling to Washington, D.C., to lobby Montana’s congressional delegation, our student group n University of Montana Climate Action Now n returned to Big Sky country to make students’ voices heard at the state level.
On April 23, UMCAN was honored to host Gov. Brian Schweitzer on the UM campus, where he devoted an hour of his schedule to a brief speech and a meeting with UMCAN members.
During the meeting, UMCAN presented a platform that encompasses the essential ways Montana can take action on global warming. We asked Schweitzer to commit to the following:
n a) The scientific community’s recommended “25x20” policy, meaning a 25 percent reduction in statewide greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 2020;
n b) A 100 percent renewable energy future, with a goal of no coal, coal to liquid, natural gas or biofuels development; and
n c) A veto of Senate Bill 257, which would have undermined Montana’s Renewable Energy Standard and the incentive to invest in new renewables.
While we appreciate Schweitzer’s ongoing work on climate change, his continued support of “clean” coal leaves us unsatisfied. “Can we walk away from coal?” the governor asked us. “I don’t think we can.”
While UMCAN understands the challenges in shifting away from coal, we do not believe that investing Montana’s time and money in coal-to-liquid and carbon sequestration technologies is responsible, given the inevitable switch to renewables. With strict regulations on carbon emissions forthcoming from Congress, energy sources such as coal and natural gas will rapidly become more costly for producers and consumers alike. The time is now for the governor and the rest of Montana to read the writing on the wall and prepare for a sustainable future.
Schweitzer has the opportunity to become a climate champion. We are waiting to see if he will rise to the challenge.
Whitney Gaskill is a senior in environmental studies and member of UMCAN; Martha Sample is a senior in environmental studies and co-president of UMCAN; Zack Porter is a junior in geography and member of UMCAN. They write from Missoula.
Americans don't like to lose wars—which makes sense, since we have so little practice with it. Of course, a lot depends on how you define just what a war is. There are shooting wars—the kind that test our mettle and our patriotism and our resourcefulness and our courage—and those are the kind at which we excel. But other struggles test those qualities too. What else was the Great Depression or the space race or the construction of the railroads or the eradication of polio but a massive, often frightening challenge that we decided as a culture we ought to rise up and face? If we indulge in a bit of chest-thumping and flag-waving when the job is done, well, we earned it.
We are now faced with a similarly momentous challenge: global warming. The steady deterioration of the very climate of our very planet is becoming a war of the first order, and by any measure, the U.S. is losing. Indeed, if we're fighting at all—and by most accounts, we're not—we're fighting on the wrong side. The U.S. produces nearly a quarter of the world's greenhouse gases each year and has stubbornly made it clear that it doesn't intend to do a whole lot about it. Although 174 nations ratified the admittedly flawed Kyoto accords to reduce carbon levels, the U.S. walked away from them. While even developing China has boosted its mileage standards to 35 m.p.g., the U.S. remains the land of the Hummer. Oh, there are vague promises of manufacturing fuel from switchgrass or powering cars with hydrogen—someday. But for a country that rightly cites patriotism as one of its core values, we're taking a pass on what might be the most patriotic struggle of all. It's hard to imagine a bigger fight than one for the survival of the country's coasts and farms, the health of its people and the stability of its economy—and for those of the world at large as well.
The rub is, if the vast majority of people increasingly agree that climate change is a global emergency, there's far less consensus on how to fix it. Industry offers its plans, which too often would fix little. Environmentalists offer theirs, which too often amount to naive wish lists that could cripple America's growth. But let's assume that those interested parties and others will always be at the table and will always—sensibly—demand that their voices be heard and that their needs be addressed. What would an aggressive, ambitious, effective plan look like—one that would leave us both environmentally safe and economically sound?
President Obama will meet tomorrow at the White House with House Democrats who are struggling to reach consensus on a major energy and global warming bill.
A White House aide said the meeting between Obama and Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats is expected to cover a wide range of issues on the panel's plate, including health care reform and the proposal to set a first-ever mandatory cap on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
The session comes at a critical juncture for Obama's energy and environmental agenda. Democratic leaders last week postponed plans for a markup because they did not have enough votes to pass the legislation out of subcommittee, and closed-door talks since then with about a dozen conservative and moderate Democrats from districts with strong ties to industry have yet to yield an agreement.
BURLINGTON (AP) – University of Vermont undergraduates have become among the first researchers to apply what is known about global warming in the Northeast directly to questions about Lake Champlain's future.
The students spent a semester synthesizing and analyzing previous research to assess how climate change might affect the lake. No one else has undertaken that task, and for good reason, said Mark Watzin, dean of UVM's School of Environment and Natural Resources.
"There are a lot of people thinking about what climate change might mean to the lake, but the reality is we don't have the luxury of spending several months reviewing the literature and trying to piece together the data," she told the Burlington Free Press. "The (students') holistic perspective is a fantastic contribution."
The students concluded that as the climate warms, the lake is likely to become richer in phosphorus and more susceptible to noxious blue-green algae blooms. Phosphorus is a nutrient that feeds weed and algae growth, and the state has been making expensive efforts to reduce the amount that reaches the lake. Global warming is expected to drive more intense rainstorms, which can lead to more erosion and more phosphorus in the lake.
Thee students believe mass die-offs of alewives may occur more frequently, while potentially toxic mercury content may rise in food fish.
Tom Berry of the Nature Conservancy is working on a similar assessment of the lake. He said he has followed the students' work and plans to make use of it.
"Climate change is a slow-motion disaster," he said. "It's like rust on your car. If you crash your car, you pay attention, but rust creeps up on you."
Wars used to define the borders between countries but now global warming is causing two countries in Europe to redraw the boundary between them.
Italy and Switzerland have always relied on a very distinguishing mark to separate them, the Monte Rosa mountains in the Alps, but melting glaciers mean the division is not so clear any more.
heres the link to watch the video for it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8024783.stm
U.S. plant molecular biologists say they are developing gene variants of wheat, rice and corn that can produce increased yields under heat stress.
The researchers say the crops under development might be able to prevent the most devastating effects of climate change since rising temperatures associated with global warming are expected to devastate staples, such as rice and corn, by the end of the century.
Global warming, or climate change, is a subject that shows no sign of cooling down.
Here's the lowdown on why it's happening, what's causing it, and how it might change the planet.
Is It Happening?
Yes. Earth is already showing many signs of worldwide climate change.
• Average temperatures have climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degree Celsius) around the world since 1880, much of this in recent decades, according to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
• The rate of warming is increasing. The 20th century's last two decades were the hottest in 400 years and possibly the warmest for several millennia, according to a number of climate studies. And the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that 11 of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850.
• The Arctic is feeling the effects the most. Average temperatures in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia have risen at twice the global average, according to the multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report compiled between 2000 and 2004.
• Arctic ice is rapidly disappearing, and the region may have its first completely ice-free summer by 2040 or earlier. Polar bears and indigenous cultures are already suffering from the sea-ice loss.
• Glaciers and mountain snows are rapidly melting—for example, Montana's Glacier National Park now has only 27 glaciers, versus 150 in 1910. In the Northern Hemisphere, thaws also come a week earlier in spring and freezes begin a week later.
• Coral reefs, which are highly sensitive to small changes in water temperature, suffered the worst bleaching—or die-off in response to stress—ever recorded in 1998, with some areas seeing bleach rates of 70 percent. Experts expect these sorts of events to increase in frequency and intensity in the next 50 years as sea temperatures rise.
• An upsurge in the amount of extreme weather events, such as wildfires, heat waves, and strong tropical storms, is also attributed in part to climate change by some experts.
Are Humans Causing It?
• "Very likely," the IPCC said in a February 2007 report.
The report, based on the work of some 2,500 scientists in more than 130 countries, concluded that humans have caused all or most of the current planetary warming. Human-caused global warming is often called anthropogenic climate change.
• Industrialization, deforestation, and pollution have greatly increased atmospheric concentrations of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, all greenhouse gases that help trap heat near Earth's surface. (See an interactive feature on how global warming works.)
• Humans are pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere much faster than plants and oceans can absorb it.
• These gases persist in the atmosphere for years, meaning that even if such emissions were eliminated today, it would not immediately stop global warming.
• Some experts point out that natural cycles in Earth's orbit can alter the planet's exposure to sunlight, which may explain the current trend. Earth has indeed experienced warming and cooling cycles roughly every hundred thousand years due to these orbital shifts, but such changes have occurred over the span of several centuries. Today's changes have taken place over the past hundred years or less.
• Other recent research has suggested that the effects of variations in the sun's output are "negligible" as a factor in warming, but other, more complicated solar mechanisms could possibly play a role.
What's Going to Happen?
A follow-up report by the IPCC released in April 2007 warned that global warming could lead to large-scale food and water shortages and have catastrophic effects on wildlife.
• Sea level could rise between 7 and 23 inches (18 to 59 centimeters) by century's end, the IPCC's February 2007 report projects. Rises of just 4 inches (10 centimeters) could flood many South Seas islands and swamp large parts of Southeast Asia.
• Some hundred million people live within 3 feet (1 meter) of mean sea level, and much of the world's population is concentrated in vulnerable coastal cities. In the U.S., Louisiana and Florida are especially at risk.
• Glaciers around the world could melt, causing sea levels to rise while creating water shortages in regions dependent on runoff for fresh water.
• Strong hurricanes, droughts, heat waves, wildfires, and other natural disasters may become commonplace in many parts of the world. The growth of deserts may also cause food shortages in many places.
• More than a million species face extinction from disappearing habitat, changing ecosystems, and acidifying oceans.
• The ocean's circulation system, known as the ocean conveyor belt, could be permanently altered, causing a mini-ice age in Western Europe and other rapid changes.
• At some point in the future, warming could become uncontrollable by creating a so-called positive feedback effect. Rising temperatures could release additional greenhouse gases by unlocking methane in permafrost and undersea deposits, freeing carbon trapped in sea ice, and causing increased evaporation of water.
Former Vice President Al Gore shares his concerns on the pressing issue of global warming in this documentary. A long-time environmental activist, Gore first became aware of evidence on global warming in the 1970s, and since leaving public office he has become a passionate advocate for large- and small-scale changes in our laws and lifestyles that could help alleviate this crisis. An Inconvenient Truth records a multi-media presentation hosted by Gore in which he discusses the scientific facts behind global warming, explains how it has already begun to affect our environment, talks about the disastrous consequences if the world's governments and citizens do not act, and shares what each individual can do to help protect the Earth for this and future generations.
Here's the link to the movie i hope you enjoy it enough that you will go out and rent or buy this movie you really should.
http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&vid=54c53efa-d513-4b14-9cfd-d8...