climate change (Page 135)

Measures being proposed at the Copenhagen conference to curb greenhouse gas emissions are unlikely to affect potential long-term economic growth in the United States.

Economist Martin Ross says that adopting climate legislation would only cause slight changes in the nation’s Gross Domestic Product. A study which assessed the impacts of the plan being put forth found that measures being proposed would cost the average American household $57, $89, and $269 in 2015, 2020, and 2030, respectively. Over the same time period, household consumption, a measure of household purchasing power, is expected to rise by around 70%, while emissions are being reduced.
read more

Despite this, China has withdrawn from Climate talks – Who knew that there are glaciers in China as well as at the poles? And just like glaciers everywhere, they are melting! Which is why it’s such a shame that China is not cooperating with UN climate negotiations in Cophenhagen.

In fact, the world’s third largest ice sheet, in the remote plateau of Tibet, is warming up faster than any place else on earth. The researchers found that levels of black carbon in the ice core of the Tibetan plateau have soared since the 1990s due to the burning of coal in homes and industries.
read more

As countries all over the world gather in Copenhagen for a summit meeting on climate change, there has been controversy over some intercepted emails from the UK in which climate scientists admit to overstating the case for global warming. The whole topic is confusing, but in fact the news is bad: According to world meteorologists, the first decade of the 21st century has been “by far” the warmest on record, since instrumental record-keeping began 160 years ago.
read more

What’s going to happen in the future (and for that matter, what’s happening right now that nobody knows about)? Data from 20 million years ago explain why the earth is warming so much faster than expected, and suggest that a phenomenal climate catastrophe could take place within ten years. This is not good news.

Despite the fact that global warming can sometimes lead to colder weather, that’s not what’s happening right now: The overall the trend is towards hotter weather. Climate researcher Gerald Meehl says, “Climate change is making itself felt in terms of day-to-day weather in the United States. The ways these records are being broken show how our climate is already shifting.”
read more