Global warming approaching point of no return warns leading climate expert

[muriel_volestrangler]

Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told an international conference attended by 114 governments in Mauritius this month that he personally believes that the world has "already reached the level of dangerous concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere" and called for immediate and "very deep" cuts in the pollution if humanity is to "survive".

His comments rocked the Bush administration - which immediately tried to slap him down - not least because it put him in his post after Exxon, the major oil company most opposed to international action on global warming, complained that his predecessor was too "aggressive" on the issue.

A memorandum from Exxon to the White House in early 2001 specifically asked it to get the previous chairman, Dr Robert Watson, the chief scientist of the World Bank, "replaced at the request of the US". The Bush administration then lobbied other countries in favour of Dr Pachauri - whom the former vice-president Al Gore called the "let's drag our feet" candidate, and got him elected to replace Dr Watson, a British-born naturalised American, who had repeatedly called for urgent action.

But this month, at a conference of Small Island Developing States on the Indian Ocean island, the new chairman, a former head of India's Tata Energy Research Institute, himself issued what top United Nations officials described as a "very courageous" challenge.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=603752

It's good to see that even the oil companies' chosen candidate is willing to point out the danger.

[bahrbearian]

1. If he's " let's drag our feet" we are doomed. n/t

[rodeodance]

2. BushCo has his own 'science'--the world be dammned!!

[NickofTime]

4. Tsunami Proves Global Warming Threat!

Problem is rising sea levels!

[enough]

5. It looks as if the world is already damned.

snip>

And in November, a multi-year study by 300 scientists concluded that the Arctic was warming twice as fast as the rest of the world and that its ice-cap had shrunk by up to 20 per cent in the past three decades.

The ice is also 40 per cent thinner than it was in the 1970s and is expected to disappear altogether by 2070. And while Dr Pachauri was speaking parts of the Arctic were having a January "heatwave", with temperatures eight to nine degrees centigrade higher than normal.

He also cited alarming measurements, first reported in The Independent on Sunday, showing that levels of carbon dioxide (the main cause of global warming) have leapt abruptly over the past two years, suggesting that climate change may be accelerating out of control.

He added that, because of inertia built into the Earth's natural systems, the world was now only experiencing the result of pollution emitted in the 1960s, and much greater effects would occur as the increased pollution of later decades worked its way through. He concluded: "We are risking the ability of the human race to survive."
 

[NNadir]

3. We are already past the point of no return, since there is no political

chance of reversing the policies leading to this disaster.

Physically, such a reversal would involve enormous focus, effort and investment. There is absolutely no will on the planet to do what is necessary.

I regret, severely regret, the world my children will face.

[Dogmudgeon]

8. Where the political will comes from

It will take the first major event in a die-off to galvanize citizen and political effort to confront our energy, resource, and environmental problems.

But I agree -- we are past the point of no return in a number of systems. I personally believe that the bulk of the climate change is now coming from natural processes that have been catalyzed by human activity. In other words, even if every human being disappeared right now, the climate would still follow a "climate flip-flop" pattern of heating, followed by cooling, followed in the long run by another 100,000-year-long stadial epoch Ice Age.

We won't confront our immanent problems over energy until we have tens of thousands of people dying of cold and cold-related illnesses during week-long cold snaps and snowstorms (like we had over the weekend) in the USA.

Food production crises will have to kill lots of cute dark-skinned children in the Third World before anyone with political clout in the USA takes it seriously. Five-dollar-per-box prices for a pound of spaghetti and $3 oranges would probably hasten the process more than mass death overseas.

I do believe we can meet these challenges. But the chasm between "can" and "will" is vast, indeed. And modern society has shown an amazing aptitude for half-vast solutions.

--p!

[NNadir]

9. I don't for a second think that the crisis will involve only cute dark

skinned children. I agree with Jared Diamond that the entire planet is about to face "Somaliaization."

BTW the United States is the poorest country on the planet, with the greatest debt and one of the most poorly educated populations for what is (or until very recently was) a first world nation.

It's not going to happen somewhere else. With the outcome of the last election, fraudulent or not, it will certainly happen here as much as it will happen anywhere.

[rfkrfk]

6. a journey of a thousand miles,

begins with a single step.
Countries that have ratified the Kyoto treaty,
must be held to the treaty.
The rhetorical emmission does not sound good,
sadly, I think that UK, the rest of the EU,
Canada, NZ, Japan, seem to be setting the groundwork
for their country to ignore their Kyoto obligations.
.
International jet fuel tax,... Zero, not one penny.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. I agree that jet fuel should be taxed

the problem is that the US will never tax fuel bought in the States before it taxes all its other fuels at a similar rate. So the airlines would start moaning about unfair competition - or you might end up with the farce of jet fuel being bought in the USA (or other tax-free countries) and sent overseas to refuel jets.

The UK government is trying to abandon its targets that were tougher than Kyoto, but was still committing to meet Kyoto itself, as far as I know. Looking at recent reports, Canada seems to be trying to weaken the targets - are others too? I haven't seen anything about that.

[rfkrfk]

10. explain this 'targets' thing

I sense, some countries that have ratified Kyoto,
acting in bad faith.
.....they set tougher targets, time passes,
they won't meet the tougher targets,
then they won't meet Kyoto.
{note, I am aware that the EU claims to have some
type of carbon trading system}
The vague actions of these deadbeat politicians, is not enough.
.
International jet fuel is zero by treaty {Chicago 1944}.
US 'domestic' jet fuel tax is 4.3 cents {not a typo, four cents}

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. The UK thought it could cut its CO2 even more than Kyoto asked for

Mr Blair insisted in the House of Commons yesterday that urgent steps were being taken to try to make up ground.
...
He said: "We are one of the very few countries in the world that is going to meet its Kyoto targets and we should be proud of that. It is true that we set an even tougher target for ourselves on emissions.

"At the moment, instead of a 20 per cent reduction we will achieve a 14 per cent reduction. We’ve got to take the measures necessary to meet it."

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=52&id=1407742004

And the Canadian targets are covered in stories like Cutback in Kyoto targets proposed.