Survival Instincts
By Barry Didcock
BBC’s post-apocalypse classic is back – and the timing is spot-on.
IF 1970S sitcom The Good Life had an evil twin it was Survivors, a post-apocalyptic tale from Dalek creator Terry Nation that ran for three series on BBC One between 1975 and 1977. Today, its cult status assures its place in the canon of British television's sci-fi greats, alongside Doctor Who and Blake's 7. If you're old enough to remember it, you will; if not, think yourself lucky. It was the stuff of nightmares.
The plot was simple: a plague has wiped out most of the world's population and the few survivors have to return to an agrarian way of life while avoiding the manifest perils of a now-lawless society. In this world, Felicity Kendal is toast and so is her goat.
The theme music was minimalist and menacing, the opening credits equally so, and the show's stencilled title gave it a brutal and immediate iconography. The first episode was called The Fourth Horseman, the second Genesis.
Moreover, in Terry Nation's writing and in the brittle performances of lead actors Carolyn Seymour (as the indomitable Abby Grant), Ian McCulloch (Greg Preston), Lucy Fleming (Jenny Richards) and Talfryn Thomas (Tom Price), there was a constant sense of panic and paranoia. This, after all, was the era of oil shortages, power cuts, strikes, inflation and nuclear stand-offs.
In fact, Nation didn't even accept that his show was science fiction. "Survivors has its roots in the future," he told the Radio Times in April 1975, "but it's not science fiction. It's not going into the realms of the impossible, it's skating very close to the possible."
How close to the possible it skated was illustrated in the same interview when Nation pointed to the headline on that week's Sunday Times. It was a story about the 200 people in London who had come into contact with a man killed by Lassa fever, a rare and lethal haemorrhagic virus.
Now, in the age of flu scares and jungle survival programmes like I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, the BBC has re-made the cult series. Or, as writer and executive producer Adrian Hodges prefers, "re-imagined" it for the iPod generation. And, he thinks, it's even more relevant and shocking today than it was in the 1970s.
"Look around the living room - we all live on-line, we all have mobiles. We're further away from being able to look after ourselves than at any point in human history," he says. "More importantly, I think the theme of fear of pandemic is bigger and stronger than ever. Look at bird flu, look at Sars. These kinds of medical health scares always seem to be with us, but since the end of the cold war we seem more inclined than ever to believe something like this could happen."
Hodges has kept only some of the main characters from the original series. Scottish actress Julie Graham takes the role of Abby Grant, Paterson Joseph plays Greg Preston and Max Beesley is Tom Price, here a charming sociopath who has broken out of prison by murdering a guard.
But the character of Jenny Richards has been split into two - Jenny Collins (Doctor Who's Freema Agyeman) and her friend Dr Anya Raczynski (Zoe Tapper) - and Hodges has introduced two Muslim characters in the form of Al Sadiq, a well-heeled champagne-drinking playboy (Nip/Tuck's Phillip Rhys), and Najid (Chahak Patel), a devout 11-year-old who sports a football top under his traditional linen clothing.
One other difference from the original is that Hodges and director John Alexander now have computer-generated imagery at their disposal. So Abby Grant and Greg Preston can meet on a motorway that is quiet and still as far as the eye can see - only it wasn't: it was a small portion of test track that was extended using CGI.
The day-to-day task, as the title suggests, is continued survival. But how, with no electricity, no mobiles, no petrol?
"If you were one of the lucky ones who survived, what would you do?" asks Hodges. "How would you survive once you'd cleaned out the supermarket? Could you hunt and kill an animal? That's quite a shocking thing to contemplate."
But though Survivors is a multi-racial 2008 remake trading on the name of an illustrious 1970s predecessor, its central theme of an apocalyptic event almost wiping out humanity has a long and proud tradition in British literature.
It's in the King James Bible for a start. The book of Genesis tells us that Noah was saved from the deluge by God's instruction to build an ark. The Earth was "corrupt" and "filled with violence" so God sent a hard rain. Temporal wickedness was washed away, Noah and the animals were not.
Two-and-a-half centuries after the King James Bible was published, Mary Shelley produced her own take on the post-apocalyptic tradition. British science fiction writer Brian Aldiss has made the case for Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein being the first true example of the genre. He could have more easily claimed The Last Man, which she published eight years later. Set in a late 21st-century world decimated by plague and written as a memoir, it tells the story of the last human, one Lionel Verney.
Although deeply autobiographical - its central characters are based on Lord Byron and Shelley's husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley - its theme is a bleak one: personal isolation. The novel ends with Verney setting off in a boat from a deserted Rome in an attempt to find other survivors.
Other authors picked up this post-apocalyptic theme and moulded it to their own ends. In 1885 the nature writer Richard Jefferies published After London, set in a city devastated by an unspecified catastrophe. The survivors are essentially knocked back into mediaeval times, nature quickly gains the upper hand and - the important bit as far as Jefferies was concerned - the capital becomes a poisonous marshland. London, city of vice, is wiped away.
But while the post-apocalyptic vision is terrifying to some, it's strangely appealing to others. As well as co-opting Shelley to the side of sci-fi, Aldiss also coined the phrase "the cosy catastrophe", meaning the cataclysm which neatly activates a story of cleansing, of triumph over adversity.
Aldiss was referring to the work of John Wyndham, specifically his famous 1951 novel The Day Of The Triffids in which most of the Earth's population is blinded before being attacked by plant life. Again, London is a place which must be left at all costs and the novel ends in the unlikely environs of the Isle of Wight, where a few sighted survivors set up a colony and begin the reconquest. Wyndham, in the novel's closing passage, calls it "the great crusade to drive the triffids back and back with ceaseless destruction until we have wiped the last one of them from the face of the land that they have usurped".
Aldiss's own works were not generally so optimistic. His catastrophes were not cosy, just ragged, brutal and open-ended. There was often no prospect of a fight back.
Bleakest of the lot, perhaps, is Nevil Shute's On The Beach, written in 1957 - at the height of the cold war - and set in the aftermath of a nuclear war. Its survivors search in vain for proof that they are not alone, holding on to hope but finding that fate has tricked them cruelly. For them, suicide or death by radiation are the only ways out.
There's a Swiftian satire to be had in post-apocalyptic visions, too. Margaret Atwood's Booker-nominated 2003 novel Oryx And Crake takes the last man on Earth theme and uses it to examine everything from genetic engineering to child pornography. The idea for the book came to Atwood during a trip into Australia's tropical rainforests. It's sobering to learn, however, that as she sat in Toronto Airport in September 2001 mapping out her post-apocalyptic world, she learned her flight had been cancelled due to the attacks on the World Trade Centre. She stopped work immediately. "It's deeply unsettling when you're writing about a fictional catastrophe and then a real one happens," she later noted.
In Survivors, Hodges throws all this into the pot. Fear of disease and lawlessness drive his survivors out of London; there are hints of more sinister reasons for the outbreak of the virus; psychological journeys are undertaken and hard questions asked about morality, trust and co-operation. There is satire, up to a point.
But while his vision for Survivors is not utopian, neither is it dystopian. At one point in the first episode Abby Grant meets Callum Brown, an instructor on the outward-bound course her son Peter was attending when the virus struck. In a pivotal scene, Brown tells Abby he sees the virus as a chance for mankind to rediscover its humanity. It's what you might call the New Leaf school of post-apocalyptic thinking.
In that respect, Brown speaks for Hodges too. "There are many different views of the future after a situation like this," says the writer. "Mine is scary but affirmative and optimistic in the long run, though it may not seem that way at times. I don't take a fantastically pessimistic view of human nature. I don't think it would turn into Lord Of The Flies overnight."
THEY THINK IT'S ALL OVER...
Tea and toast with your apocalypse? How British filmmakers viewed the morning after the end of the world
The Changes Loosely based on Peter Dickinson's trilogy of novels for young adults - The Weathermonger, Heartsease and The Devil's Children - this BBC children's series screened in 1975 and was a counterpart to Survivors. Machines begin to emit an ear-splitting noise causing humans to destroy them, returning the world to a pre-technological society. Electricity pylons become "the bad wires" and are avoided. Even bicycles are smashed. The action is viewed through the eyes of a 10-year-old girl who sets out to uncover the mystery behind the changes. Unavailable on DVD and repeated only once, in 1976, its cult status is now assured.Threads Written by Kes author Barry Hines, set in Sheffield and screened on BBC Two in September 1984, Threads imagined what life would be like in the years following a nuclear war. Like Peter Watkins's The War Game 20 years earlier - commissioned by the BBC but still banned when Threads screened - Hines's dystopian essay mixed documentary-style facts with live action. A decade on from the war, his survivors are speaking broken English mixed with dialect words, dying from radiation poisoning and giving birth to mutant babies. There is no prospect of redemption here. The programme was given a second airing on BBC One in August 1985 to mark the 40th anniversary of the nuclear attacks on Japan.
28 Days Later In 2002, Trainspotting director Danny Boyle took the idea of a "rage" virus affecting the majority of the population and turned it into a post-apocalyptic British zombie flick. Cillian Murphy is the cycle courier who wakes up in a hospital bed only to find London deserted. Or is it? The script was written by Alex Garland, author of The Beach, and Boyle's original ending had Murphy's character dying. Test audiences thought it too bleak, however, and it was replaced with an ending in which Murphy survives, leaving the door open for the 2007 sequel, 28 Weeks Later.
Children Of Men Based on a 1992 novel by crime writer PD James, Children Of Men was filmed in 2006 and starred Clive Owen and Michael Caine. Set in 2027 and heavy on religious imagery, it shows a dystopian world whose inhabitants can no longer reproduce. The youngest person on the planet is 18 and mankind, apparently, is dying out. Theo, whose own son died in a flu pandemic, is given the job of escorting a young woman to the Human Project, a shadowy quasi-terrorist group. Her secret? She's pregnant. The message is one of hope and, ultimately, salvation.
Survivors starts tonight (BBC One, 9pm)
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Sunday, November 23, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
An Appeal to Reason
An Appeal To Reason
John Tamny, 11.17.08, 12:00 AM EST
Has Al Gore read Nigel Lawson's book?
Nigel Lawson, chancellor of the Exchequer under Margaret Thatcher, and author of three books--including his essential account of the Thatcher years, The View from No. 11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical--had trouble finding a publisher for his most recent book, An Appeal to Reason, which casts a skeptical eye on global warming.
As he notes in the foreword, one rejection letter suggested that "it would be very difficult to find a wide market" for a book that "flies so much in the face of the prevailing orthodoxy." So while Lawson acknowledges that his contribution to the discussion won't "shake the faith" of global warming's true believers, he's written what is a very informative book for those not yet convinced that Armageddon is our future, absent massive worldwide government action.
Lawson acknowledges up front that while he is not a scientist, neither "are the vast majority of those who pronounce on the matter" of global warming "with far greater certainty." And throughout, he deliberately uses the term "global warming" rather than the "attractively alliterative weasel words, 'climate change,'" and he does so "because the climate changes all the time."
In discussing global warming, Lawson happily takes the road less traveled in making the basic point about the science of global warming being "far from settled," not to mention that scientific truth "is not established by counting heads," as so many advocates of all manner of popular causes would likely prefer. So while Lawson doesn't hide from the fact that the 20th century ended slightly warmer than it began, he reminds readers that there has been no further evidence of global warming since the turn of the century.
Furthermore, news accounts would have us believe that calculating temperature is a foolproof process. But in reality, these calculations include data taken from the former Soviet Union, along with records from less-developed parts of the world. When Lawson checked U.S. temperature records, records thought to be most reliable, he found that only three of the last 12 years are among the warmest on record; 1934 being the warmest year of all. And though the level of carbon dioxide did increase 30% during the 20th century amid a slight warming trend, it's also boomed this century amid a slight cooling.
When we consider the slight warming that materialized during the 20th century, Lawson notes that it's not certain that the majority of it has to do with human activity. In truth, clouds/water vapor are the biggest contributors to the much vaunted "greenhouse effect," but the science of clouds is "one of the least understood aspects of climate science." Importantly, the earth's climate has always been subject to variations unrelated to human industrial activity, the "medieval warm period" of 1,000 years ago having occurred well before industrialization.
Regarding actions we might take, Lawson reminds readers that we need to avoid the kind of panic that could lead to disastrous policies. Indeed, he makes plain that there "is something inherently absurd about the conceit that we can have any useful idea of what the world will look like in a hundred years time," not to mention the other projected calamities expected to occur over 1,000 years from now. If this is doubted, ask yourself how many times weather forecasts meant to predict the next day have proven to be massively incorrect.
John Tamny, 11.17.08, 12:00 AM EST
Has Al Gore read Nigel Lawson's book?
Nigel Lawson, chancellor of the Exchequer under Margaret Thatcher, and author of three books--including his essential account of the Thatcher years, The View from No. 11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical--had trouble finding a publisher for his most recent book, An Appeal to Reason, which casts a skeptical eye on global warming.
As he notes in the foreword, one rejection letter suggested that "it would be very difficult to find a wide market" for a book that "flies so much in the face of the prevailing orthodoxy." So while Lawson acknowledges that his contribution to the discussion won't "shake the faith" of global warming's true believers, he's written what is a very informative book for those not yet convinced that Armageddon is our future, absent massive worldwide government action.
Lawson acknowledges up front that while he is not a scientist, neither "are the vast majority of those who pronounce on the matter" of global warming "with far greater certainty." And throughout, he deliberately uses the term "global warming" rather than the "attractively alliterative weasel words, 'climate change,'" and he does so "because the climate changes all the time."
In discussing global warming, Lawson happily takes the road less traveled in making the basic point about the science of global warming being "far from settled," not to mention that scientific truth "is not established by counting heads," as so many advocates of all manner of popular causes would likely prefer. So while Lawson doesn't hide from the fact that the 20th century ended slightly warmer than it began, he reminds readers that there has been no further evidence of global warming since the turn of the century.
Furthermore, news accounts would have us believe that calculating temperature is a foolproof process. But in reality, these calculations include data taken from the former Soviet Union, along with records from less-developed parts of the world. When Lawson checked U.S. temperature records, records thought to be most reliable, he found that only three of the last 12 years are among the warmest on record; 1934 being the warmest year of all. And though the level of carbon dioxide did increase 30% during the 20th century amid a slight warming trend, it's also boomed this century amid a slight cooling.
When we consider the slight warming that materialized during the 20th century, Lawson notes that it's not certain that the majority of it has to do with human activity. In truth, clouds/water vapor are the biggest contributors to the much vaunted "greenhouse effect," but the science of clouds is "one of the least understood aspects of climate science." Importantly, the earth's climate has always been subject to variations unrelated to human industrial activity, the "medieval warm period" of 1,000 years ago having occurred well before industrialization.
Regarding actions we might take, Lawson reminds readers that we need to avoid the kind of panic that could lead to disastrous policies. Indeed, he makes plain that there "is something inherently absurd about the conceit that we can have any useful idea of what the world will look like in a hundred years time," not to mention the other projected calamities expected to occur over 1,000 years from now. If this is doubted, ask yourself how many times weather forecasts meant to predict the next day have proven to be massively incorrect.
Brown Haze.......
Mysterious brown haze covering world
A massive mile-thick brown pollution haze has settled over vast areas of the planet, changing weather patterns and threatening health and crops, according to the UN.
Vast areas of Asia, the Middle East, southern Africa and the Amazon Basin, are affected by the smog-like plumes, caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and firewood, are known as "atmospheric brown clouds".
Video: Himalayas could soon disappear
Natural wonders to see before they disappear
The earth's seven biggest mysteries
When mixed with emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for warming the earth's atmosphere like a greenhouse, they are the newest threat to the global environment, according to a report commissioned by the UN Environment Programme.
"All of this points to an even greater and urgent need to look at emissions across the planet," said Achim Steiner, head of the UNEP.
Brown clouds are caused by an unhealthy mix of particles, ozone and other chemicals that come from cars, coal-fired power plants, burning fields and wood-burning stoves. First identified by the report's lead researcher in 1990, the clouds were depicted in the report as being more widespread and causing more environmental damage than previously known.
Perhaps most widely recognised as the haze this past summer over Beijing's Olympics, the clouds have been found to be more than a mile thick around glaciers in the Himalaya and Hindu Kush mountain ranges. They hide the sun and absorb radiation, leading to new worries not only about global climate change but also about extreme weather conditions.
"All these have led to negative effects on water resources and crop yields," the report says.
Health problems associated with particulate pollution, such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, are linked to nearly 350,000 premature deaths in China and India every year, said Henning Rohde, a University of Stockholm scientist who worked on the study.
Soot levels in the air were reported to have risen alarmingly in 13 megacities: Bangkok, Beijing, Cairo, Dhaka, Karachi, Kolkata, Lagos, Mumbai, New Delhi, Seoul, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tehran.
Brown clouds were also cited as dimming the light by as much as 25% in some places including Karachi, New Delhi, Shanghai and Beijing. The phenomenon complicates the climate change scenario, because the brown clouds also help cool the earth's surface and mask the impact of global warming by an average of 40%, according to the report.
Further reading
Photos: animals now extinct
Video: Himalayas could soon disappear
The earth's seven biggest mysteries
Natural wonders to see before they disappear
Would you dare visit these wild places?
A massive mile-thick brown pollution haze has settled over vast areas of the planet, changing weather patterns and threatening health and crops, according to the UN.
Vast areas of Asia, the Middle East, southern Africa and the Amazon Basin, are affected by the smog-like plumes, caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and firewood, are known as "atmospheric brown clouds".
Video: Himalayas could soon disappear
Natural wonders to see before they disappear
The earth's seven biggest mysteries
When mixed with emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for warming the earth's atmosphere like a greenhouse, they are the newest threat to the global environment, according to a report commissioned by the UN Environment Programme.
"All of this points to an even greater and urgent need to look at emissions across the planet," said Achim Steiner, head of the UNEP.
Brown clouds are caused by an unhealthy mix of particles, ozone and other chemicals that come from cars, coal-fired power plants, burning fields and wood-burning stoves. First identified by the report's lead researcher in 1990, the clouds were depicted in the report as being more widespread and causing more environmental damage than previously known.
Perhaps most widely recognised as the haze this past summer over Beijing's Olympics, the clouds have been found to be more than a mile thick around glaciers in the Himalaya and Hindu Kush mountain ranges. They hide the sun and absorb radiation, leading to new worries not only about global climate change but also about extreme weather conditions.
"All these have led to negative effects on water resources and crop yields," the report says.
Health problems associated with particulate pollution, such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, are linked to nearly 350,000 premature deaths in China and India every year, said Henning Rohde, a University of Stockholm scientist who worked on the study.
Soot levels in the air were reported to have risen alarmingly in 13 megacities: Bangkok, Beijing, Cairo, Dhaka, Karachi, Kolkata, Lagos, Mumbai, New Delhi, Seoul, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tehran.
Brown clouds were also cited as dimming the light by as much as 25% in some places including Karachi, New Delhi, Shanghai and Beijing. The phenomenon complicates the climate change scenario, because the brown clouds also help cool the earth's surface and mask the impact of global warming by an average of 40%, according to the report.
Further reading
Photos: animals now extinct
Video: Himalayas could soon disappear
The earth's seven biggest mysteries
Natural wonders to see before they disappear
Would you dare visit these wild places?
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Blimey ~ The Irish do weather!
Freak weather is becoming the norm
Ireland as a whole is likely to warm by 3-4 degrees by the end of this century, writes John Gibbons
FIRST, SOME good news: despite the atrocious weather of the last week or so, overall Ireland is in fact rated as one of the countries in the world least vulnerable in the medium term to the effects of climate change. That will probably be cold comfort for the motorists battling through flooded roads, farmers unable to harvest their crops or householders mopping out their ruined homes. Ireland has long enjoyed a Goldilocks climate - not too hot, not too cold. While poor summers are not unusual, we have largely been spared the weather extremes endured by many other countries.
Last Saturday's deluge, the most intense in nearly half a century, battered many parts of Dublin and Kildare.
What had been viewed as freak weather events are now rapidly becoming the new climate norms. Computer models for Ireland in the decades ahead show greater seasonal extremes, with autumns and winters becoming as much as 25 per cent wetter with drier, drought-prone summers. Where then do August deluges fit into this model? "Overall summer rainfall is declining; we're getting less rain, but it comes in severe bursts, and that seems to be consistent with what we're seeing here," says Peter Lynch, professor of meteorology at UCD.
These short, sharp episodes of intense rainfall are both difficult to predict and extremely destructive, as they quickly overwhelm drainage systems. "With so much recent building in flood plains, this is causing more instances of severe flooding," says Lynch. Adaptation through improvements in engineering and planning is now essential, he said.
Prof John Sweeney of NUI Maynooth (who also does work for the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) pointed out that much of the widescale house-building over the last decade had taken place in low-lying regions. Rivers' natural flood plains are being converted into housing estates and covered in concrete, leading to a loss of land into which flood waters can drain.
However, the Department of the Environment has still not moved to prevent local authorities from allowing houses and infrastructure to be built on flood plains.
The oceans act, in effect, like a giant sponge absorbing the bulk of the extra heating global warming has injected into our system. "The climate system has inertia," says Dr James Hansen of the Nasa Goddard Institute. "But that inertia is not our friend." The great bulk of this tightly coiled climatic spring now resides in elevated ocean temperatures.
It takes an immense amount of energy to warm an entire ocean. Surface temperatures of the Atlantic waters around Ireland are now increasing by around 0.4 degrees per decade, but the Irish Sea has undergone even more dramatic and unprecedented heating, of up to 0.7 degrees a decade.
As the water warms, its energy increases and the hydrological cycle intensifies. According to Prof Sweeney, ocean water temperatures in the region south of Newfoundland where our recent weather systems are forming have increased by an astonishing 5-6 degrees.
Wetter, wilder winters and summers of droughts and downpours are among the medium-term predictions for Ireland in a world of increasingly chaotic climate. Dublin city consumes 550 million litres of water a day. This is set to increase to 880 million litres by 2031 as the city continues to expand. At the same time, water levels in the river Liffey, which supplies 80 per cent of the capital's needs, could be halved by mid-century as a result of global warming.
The capital is facing a 20 per cent drop in its water supply within the next 12 years. The most likely solution will be to extract additional supplies from the Shannon at Lough Ree to make up the deficit.
Ireland as a whole is likely to warm by 3-4 degrees by the end of this century, with the most intense heating in the south and east. Extreme weather will be our constant companion in the decades ahead. Rising sea levels will exacerbate a process which may render many of Ireland's low-lying coastal areas uninhabitable this century.
"Let's just say I wouldn't be buying a seafront property any time soon," Prof Lynch said to me.
In this unfolding century of ever-deepening climate disruption, Ireland, one of the world's most globalised societies, can hardly expect to stand as an island apart, somehow insulated from the unfolding chaos lapping ever more urgently against our own shores.
• John Gibbons is founder of Climatechange.ie. info@climatechange.ie
© 2008 The Irish Times
Ireland as a whole is likely to warm by 3-4 degrees by the end of this century, writes John Gibbons
FIRST, SOME good news: despite the atrocious weather of the last week or so, overall Ireland is in fact rated as one of the countries in the world least vulnerable in the medium term to the effects of climate change. That will probably be cold comfort for the motorists battling through flooded roads, farmers unable to harvest their crops or householders mopping out their ruined homes. Ireland has long enjoyed a Goldilocks climate - not too hot, not too cold. While poor summers are not unusual, we have largely been spared the weather extremes endured by many other countries.
Last Saturday's deluge, the most intense in nearly half a century, battered many parts of Dublin and Kildare.
What had been viewed as freak weather events are now rapidly becoming the new climate norms. Computer models for Ireland in the decades ahead show greater seasonal extremes, with autumns and winters becoming as much as 25 per cent wetter with drier, drought-prone summers. Where then do August deluges fit into this model? "Overall summer rainfall is declining; we're getting less rain, but it comes in severe bursts, and that seems to be consistent with what we're seeing here," says Peter Lynch, professor of meteorology at UCD.
These short, sharp episodes of intense rainfall are both difficult to predict and extremely destructive, as they quickly overwhelm drainage systems. "With so much recent building in flood plains, this is causing more instances of severe flooding," says Lynch. Adaptation through improvements in engineering and planning is now essential, he said.
Prof John Sweeney of NUI Maynooth (who also does work for the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) pointed out that much of the widescale house-building over the last decade had taken place in low-lying regions. Rivers' natural flood plains are being converted into housing estates and covered in concrete, leading to a loss of land into which flood waters can drain.
However, the Department of the Environment has still not moved to prevent local authorities from allowing houses and infrastructure to be built on flood plains.
The oceans act, in effect, like a giant sponge absorbing the bulk of the extra heating global warming has injected into our system. "The climate system has inertia," says Dr James Hansen of the Nasa Goddard Institute. "But that inertia is not our friend." The great bulk of this tightly coiled climatic spring now resides in elevated ocean temperatures.
It takes an immense amount of energy to warm an entire ocean. Surface temperatures of the Atlantic waters around Ireland are now increasing by around 0.4 degrees per decade, but the Irish Sea has undergone even more dramatic and unprecedented heating, of up to 0.7 degrees a decade.
As the water warms, its energy increases and the hydrological cycle intensifies. According to Prof Sweeney, ocean water temperatures in the region south of Newfoundland where our recent weather systems are forming have increased by an astonishing 5-6 degrees.
Wetter, wilder winters and summers of droughts and downpours are among the medium-term predictions for Ireland in a world of increasingly chaotic climate. Dublin city consumes 550 million litres of water a day. This is set to increase to 880 million litres by 2031 as the city continues to expand. At the same time, water levels in the river Liffey, which supplies 80 per cent of the capital's needs, could be halved by mid-century as a result of global warming.
The capital is facing a 20 per cent drop in its water supply within the next 12 years. The most likely solution will be to extract additional supplies from the Shannon at Lough Ree to make up the deficit.
Ireland as a whole is likely to warm by 3-4 degrees by the end of this century, with the most intense heating in the south and east. Extreme weather will be our constant companion in the decades ahead. Rising sea levels will exacerbate a process which may render many of Ireland's low-lying coastal areas uninhabitable this century.
"Let's just say I wouldn't be buying a seafront property any time soon," Prof Lynch said to me.
In this unfolding century of ever-deepening climate disruption, Ireland, one of the world's most globalised societies, can hardly expect to stand as an island apart, somehow insulated from the unfolding chaos lapping ever more urgently against our own shores.
• John Gibbons is founder of Climatechange.ie. info@climatechange.ie
© 2008 The Irish Times
Friday, August 15, 2008
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
Oil & our survival
Reducing oil use 'our survival challenge'
Expert on oil supply tells receptive Sebastopol audience quick, decisive action needed
By MIKE McCOYTHE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Published: Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 6:03 a.m. Last Modified: Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 8:52 a.m.
It was easy to tell oil supply expert Richard Heinberg was preaching to the choir Saturday.
Parked around the Sebastopol Veterans Memorial building where 250 people crowded in to hear Heinberg foretell the gloomy future of oil and the global economy, one of every five cars was a gas-sipping hybrid.
But unfortunately, Heinberg said, enough of the rest of the world has not caught up yet with what it faces.
The ability of the world to wean itself from the ever-declining production of oil “is our survival challenge for the 21st century,” he said.
Heinberg, 57, a senior fellow with the Post Carbon Institute based in Sebastopol, is considered among the leading voices on the issue of peak oil supply, the time when the world’s supply of oil drops below the amount needed to fuel the worldwide economy.
The impact of that, particularly on individuals, can already be seen in the rising cost of food and the end of cheap travel, he noted.
Foodstuffs are trucked an average of 1,500 miles “from farm to plate” these days, Heinberg said, noting the need to conserve fuel demands that food be grown closer to home.
Airline travel is the same since the cost of fuel for large passenger planes will drive the industry into the red, he said.
Heinberg’s lecture, titled “Kiss Your Gas Goodbye,” was largely an update, a sort of “I told you so” of a lecture he gave at the same site three years ago that predicted a decline in global oil production and intensifying competition and chaos by nations to get it.
Heinberg said things have changed since then. “Most of what we talked about then is now history,” he told the audience.
Three years ago, when he made his prediction and warned that alternatives to oil had to be found, a gallon of gas in Sonoma County cost $2.19.
Today it hovers around $4.30 as the demand for oil increases worldwide while the available supply continues to slip.
Heinberg, who predicts oil exports throughout the world will drop by 50 percent over the next decade, urged that decisive action must be undertaken quickly.
“We’re talking about a civilization-ending crisis,” he said.
Fellow speaker Julian Darley, president of the Post Carbon Institute, however, presented the beginning of a 10-point plan he is developing to soften the blow of the doom-and-gloom Heinberg fears is coming.
“We must begin to live within the means of our planet,” he said.
To do that, he said, individuals must reduce their use of oil and the waste of raw materials; use car-pools; diversify into other sources of energy, including wind, solar and geothermal; and find high-tech ways to store energy.
You can reach Staff Writer Mike McCoy at 521-5276 or mike.mccoy@pressdemocrat.com.
Expert on oil supply tells receptive Sebastopol audience quick, decisive action needed
By MIKE McCOYTHE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Published: Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 6:03 a.m. Last Modified: Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 8:52 a.m.
It was easy to tell oil supply expert Richard Heinberg was preaching to the choir Saturday.
Parked around the Sebastopol Veterans Memorial building where 250 people crowded in to hear Heinberg foretell the gloomy future of oil and the global economy, one of every five cars was a gas-sipping hybrid.
But unfortunately, Heinberg said, enough of the rest of the world has not caught up yet with what it faces.
The ability of the world to wean itself from the ever-declining production of oil “is our survival challenge for the 21st century,” he said.
Heinberg, 57, a senior fellow with the Post Carbon Institute based in Sebastopol, is considered among the leading voices on the issue of peak oil supply, the time when the world’s supply of oil drops below the amount needed to fuel the worldwide economy.
The impact of that, particularly on individuals, can already be seen in the rising cost of food and the end of cheap travel, he noted.
Foodstuffs are trucked an average of 1,500 miles “from farm to plate” these days, Heinberg said, noting the need to conserve fuel demands that food be grown closer to home.
Airline travel is the same since the cost of fuel for large passenger planes will drive the industry into the red, he said.
Heinberg’s lecture, titled “Kiss Your Gas Goodbye,” was largely an update, a sort of “I told you so” of a lecture he gave at the same site three years ago that predicted a decline in global oil production and intensifying competition and chaos by nations to get it.
Heinberg said things have changed since then. “Most of what we talked about then is now history,” he told the audience.
Three years ago, when he made his prediction and warned that alternatives to oil had to be found, a gallon of gas in Sonoma County cost $2.19.
Today it hovers around $4.30 as the demand for oil increases worldwide while the available supply continues to slip.
Heinberg, who predicts oil exports throughout the world will drop by 50 percent over the next decade, urged that decisive action must be undertaken quickly.
“We’re talking about a civilization-ending crisis,” he said.
Fellow speaker Julian Darley, president of the Post Carbon Institute, however, presented the beginning of a 10-point plan he is developing to soften the blow of the doom-and-gloom Heinberg fears is coming.
“We must begin to live within the means of our planet,” he said.
To do that, he said, individuals must reduce their use of oil and the waste of raw materials; use car-pools; diversify into other sources of energy, including wind, solar and geothermal; and find high-tech ways to store energy.
You can reach Staff Writer Mike McCoy at 521-5276 or mike.mccoy@pressdemocrat.com.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Monsoon flood risk in ................Britain???
Thousands prepare to evacuate homes over monsoon flood risk... and summer festivals are a washout too
By Daily Mail ReporterLast updated at 11:54 AM on 10th July 2008
More heavy rain is set to batter Britain today as thousands prepared to evacuate their homes after the unusual monsoon weather left a trail of flood warnings.
The deluge yesterday - which saw parts of the country receiving a month’s rainfall in 24 hours - caused a wave of chaos.
The relentless showers caused a string of train delays, smashed sea walls and even turned the annual Buckingham Palace garden party into an ocean of umbrellas.
But despite a brief respite from the misery - with a spot of sunshine for many parts - the downpours, caused by a European monsoon, are set to continue.
Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England are expected to bear the brunt of today’s torrent although showers are expected across much of the UK.
The Environment Agency today had 12 flood warnings and 38 flood watches in place.
A flood watch occurs when it is considered probable there will be minor flooding of land and roads, and a flood warning when it is possible that houses and buildings will be at risk.
The flood warnings are all in south-west England with flood watches covering south Wales and parts of the River Thames.
And with rain set to continue for most of the weekend and showers forecast for next week, festival-goers were being warned to pack their Wellingtons.
In Sussex, 150,000 people at Goodwood's Festival of Speed face three days of downpours when the celebration of motor racing begins tomorrow.
And fans of Scottish rockers The Fratellis are also likely to be swamped by showers when the annual programme of concerts at Somerset House in London begins tonight.
Most areas of southern and central England and Wales should be much drier today than yesterday, with a mixture of sunshine and showers.
But Tony Conlan, a forecaster from MeteoGroup, suggested that those further north could suffer.
He said: ‘There may be heavy showers but it is going to be more localised. There may well be localised flooding.’
Yesterday, the South West was the hardest hit region with 2.8 inches of rain falling - a month’s worth in one day.
Southern and central England and Wales, with rainfall up to 1.6 inches.
The downpours caused problems on the roads, with motoring organisation the AA recording 28 per cent more breakdowns than normal today, mostly weather-related.
Call-outs are expected to top 12,000 for the day, compared with the usual 9,500.
But despite the lack of sunshine, yesterday’s event at Buckingham Palace everyone seemed to be having a good time.
Everyone, that is, except for the Prince of Wales, who grimaced at the grey skies above with a look that said all that needed to be said.
The fact that his mother held a garden party at the Palace the day before and enjoyed perfect, unspoilt sunshine may have had something to do with it, of course.
‘He said "sorry about the weather",’ said one guest, Carol Heading, 62.
'Why he has to apologise for it, I can’t imagine.’
She was one of hundreds of Red Cross volunteers at the event, which marked the centenary of the British Red Cross’s Royal Charter.
Hours later the rain was no respecter of persons, however distinguished, at Sir David Frost’s summer party.
Once again brollies were out, David Cameron struggling with a rather large one, Alan Whicker losing a battle with the wind with his.
Some guests decided to throw style to the wind and wear plastic macs, but cutting a sartorial dash has never been Michael Winner’s strong suit.
Spray: Wet driving conditions yesterday led to 28% more breakdowns
By Daily Mail ReporterLast updated at 11:54 AM on 10th July 2008
More heavy rain is set to batter Britain today as thousands prepared to evacuate their homes after the unusual monsoon weather left a trail of flood warnings.
The deluge yesterday - which saw parts of the country receiving a month’s rainfall in 24 hours - caused a wave of chaos.
The relentless showers caused a string of train delays, smashed sea walls and even turned the annual Buckingham Palace garden party into an ocean of umbrellas.
But despite a brief respite from the misery - with a spot of sunshine for many parts - the downpours, caused by a European monsoon, are set to continue.
Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England are expected to bear the brunt of today’s torrent although showers are expected across much of the UK.
The Environment Agency today had 12 flood warnings and 38 flood watches in place.
A flood watch occurs when it is considered probable there will be minor flooding of land and roads, and a flood warning when it is possible that houses and buildings will be at risk.
The flood warnings are all in south-west England with flood watches covering south Wales and parts of the River Thames.
And with rain set to continue for most of the weekend and showers forecast for next week, festival-goers were being warned to pack their Wellingtons.
In Sussex, 150,000 people at Goodwood's Festival of Speed face three days of downpours when the celebration of motor racing begins tomorrow.
And fans of Scottish rockers The Fratellis are also likely to be swamped by showers when the annual programme of concerts at Somerset House in London begins tonight.
Most areas of southern and central England and Wales should be much drier today than yesterday, with a mixture of sunshine and showers.
But Tony Conlan, a forecaster from MeteoGroup, suggested that those further north could suffer.
He said: ‘There may be heavy showers but it is going to be more localised. There may well be localised flooding.’
Yesterday, the South West was the hardest hit region with 2.8 inches of rain falling - a month’s worth in one day.
Southern and central England and Wales, with rainfall up to 1.6 inches.
The downpours caused problems on the roads, with motoring organisation the AA recording 28 per cent more breakdowns than normal today, mostly weather-related.
Call-outs are expected to top 12,000 for the day, compared with the usual 9,500.
But despite the lack of sunshine, yesterday’s event at Buckingham Palace everyone seemed to be having a good time.
Everyone, that is, except for the Prince of Wales, who grimaced at the grey skies above with a look that said all that needed to be said.
The fact that his mother held a garden party at the Palace the day before and enjoyed perfect, unspoilt sunshine may have had something to do with it, of course.
‘He said "sorry about the weather",’ said one guest, Carol Heading, 62.
'Why he has to apologise for it, I can’t imagine.’
She was one of hundreds of Red Cross volunteers at the event, which marked the centenary of the British Red Cross’s Royal Charter.
Hours later the rain was no respecter of persons, however distinguished, at Sir David Frost’s summer party.
Once again brollies were out, David Cameron struggling with a rather large one, Alan Whicker losing a battle with the wind with his.
Some guests decided to throw style to the wind and wear plastic macs, but cutting a sartorial dash has never been Michael Winner’s strong suit.
Spray: Wet driving conditions yesterday led to 28% more breakdowns
Monday, July 7, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Economic disasters with us NOW!!
The economic disaster will get worseBy Edmund Conway
It had to happen sooner or later. We have an economic disaster that cannot be blamed on Gordon Brown. No, not the collapse of Northern Rock, which the Prime Minister wrongly tried to attribute to problems in the American sub-prime market. Not the slump in house prices, rising unemployment or our stalling economic activity, which are all home-grown traumas.
We face longest era of turmoil in memory, says Bank boss
Read more from Edmund Conway
No, this is 21st-century stagflation: a toxic brew of soaring inflation and slumping growth. Technically, Mr Brown could have done more to prevent the latter, although I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But the return of stagflation - or globeflation, or whatever peculiar name the wise men will give it - is an international phenomenon, with higher prices generated by China's rising economy and the fear that we may be running out of oil/metals/food/water.
Its consequences will be keenly felt here on our sensitive, import-dependent island. While we won't see inflation shoot up to 25 per cent as it did in the 1970s, the experience will be no less painful.
Experts, who had assumed that the Bank's next move with interest rates would be down rather than up, are scrabbling to change their forecasts. They are now betting on the apocalyptic prospect that the Monetary Policy Committee will raise borrowing costs as we head into a housing crash. They are also wagering that inflation will remain above four per cent for the next half-century.
This is terrible news for Mr Brown, who was quietly hoping the Bank would come to his rescue and slash rates to generate a bounce in time for the next election. While he may have looked across the Atlantic for his scapegoat last time, this time the culprit - or at least the catalyst - for the chaos is closer: in Frankfurt.
For it was there, last week, that the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, threw a massive spanner in the works by warning that inflation is such a concern that he is likely to raise euro rates next month.
Having weathered the financial markets crisis (give or take the nationalisation of a high street bank), we are now facing something quite different: a widespread economic crunch that will affect us all. And if this weren't enough doom and gloom, it is worth remembering that the behaviour by central banks in Europe and America is uncannily reminiscent of the spat in October 1987 that helped spark the worst-ever falls in the stock market (though, admittedly, share prices have fallen far enough to make a repeat of Black Monday a near-impossibility).
Either way, life is about to become even more painful - not just for homeowners, who are already having to contend with a fall in the value of their property, but for anyone with a job. Unemployment, already rising, will escalate, and companies will become increasingly reluctant to raise their wages. The standard of living for the average Briton will fall as the cost of living outpaces our earnings. The financial markets are starting to face up to this prospect. It will be some time before the full reality dawns on the wider public, but when it does it will be difficult to stomach.
Whether the Bank raises rates or not, the cost of borrowing for households and companies is already rising; this will accelerate over the next few weeks. With money market borrowing rates almost half a percentage point higher than last week, banks and building societies will soon pass this extra cost on to homeowners in the shape of higher fixed-rate mortgages and higher fees.
If the housing market were in good shape, this would be worrying enough, but coming as it does when prices are falling at the fastest rate since the last crash - by some measures even faster - it is a cause for concern. For all the damage done by higher taxes and regulations over the past decade, the economy is still a better-adjusted animal than it was in the early 1990s - albeit more debt-ridden.
But with mortgage rates spiralling just at the moment when consumers are at their least optimistic, there is no telling how severe the downturn could get. Mr Brown's personal poll ratings may have further depths to plumb as a result - even accounting for the traditional British affection for the underdog.
I used to believe that in economics and politics you make your own luck, and this dictum has applied pretty well for most of Brown's premiership. Having spent and borrowed too much when he should have been putting away cash for rainy days, he is now being punished for it. Unlike George Bush, he has nothing left in the can for major tax cuts, and would have to borrow in order to lower taxes.
This would be unwise. First of all, Alistair Darling has already cut taxes by £2.7 billion for those affected by the 10p tax fiasco; I doubt an extra few billion would make much meaningful difference.
Second, and most important, it would threaten to undermine the economy in more deep-seated ways than one can easily imagine. The two borrowing rules Brown laid down as Chancellor (that the Government must borrow only to invest; and that total government debt should not exceed 40 per cent of GDP) are among the few threads helping us avoid those double-digit inflation rates we saw in the 1970s. The minute anyone sensed that Labour really was preparing to borrow its way out of this, we would be punished by the international capital markets with an even weaker pound and far bigger price rises as a consequence.
The most sensible thing would be to batten down the hatches, keep cutting spending and to borrow as little extra as possible. We will have high inflation for the next year or so, but as the world economy slows, so will the price rises. Although the markets have become overexcited about high inflation, I still suspect the next move in Bank rates will be down - not up. Labour could put this at risk if it went for unfunded tax cuts.
Of course, an eventual upturn won't save Brown from what seems his inevitable fate - any more than it did John Major. However, it may prevent him from going down in history as the man who wrecked the British economy for the first quarter of the 21st century.
Have your say
It had to happen sooner or later. We have an economic disaster that cannot be blamed on Gordon Brown. No, not the collapse of Northern Rock, which the Prime Minister wrongly tried to attribute to problems in the American sub-prime market. Not the slump in house prices, rising unemployment or our stalling economic activity, which are all home-grown traumas.
We face longest era of turmoil in memory, says Bank boss
Read more from Edmund Conway
No, this is 21st-century stagflation: a toxic brew of soaring inflation and slumping growth. Technically, Mr Brown could have done more to prevent the latter, although I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But the return of stagflation - or globeflation, or whatever peculiar name the wise men will give it - is an international phenomenon, with higher prices generated by China's rising economy and the fear that we may be running out of oil/metals/food/water.
Its consequences will be keenly felt here on our sensitive, import-dependent island. While we won't see inflation shoot up to 25 per cent as it did in the 1970s, the experience will be no less painful.
Experts, who had assumed that the Bank's next move with interest rates would be down rather than up, are scrabbling to change their forecasts. They are now betting on the apocalyptic prospect that the Monetary Policy Committee will raise borrowing costs as we head into a housing crash. They are also wagering that inflation will remain above four per cent for the next half-century.
This is terrible news for Mr Brown, who was quietly hoping the Bank would come to his rescue and slash rates to generate a bounce in time for the next election. While he may have looked across the Atlantic for his scapegoat last time, this time the culprit - or at least the catalyst - for the chaos is closer: in Frankfurt.
For it was there, last week, that the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, threw a massive spanner in the works by warning that inflation is such a concern that he is likely to raise euro rates next month.
Having weathered the financial markets crisis (give or take the nationalisation of a high street bank), we are now facing something quite different: a widespread economic crunch that will affect us all. And if this weren't enough doom and gloom, it is worth remembering that the behaviour by central banks in Europe and America is uncannily reminiscent of the spat in October 1987 that helped spark the worst-ever falls in the stock market (though, admittedly, share prices have fallen far enough to make a repeat of Black Monday a near-impossibility).
Either way, life is about to become even more painful - not just for homeowners, who are already having to contend with a fall in the value of their property, but for anyone with a job. Unemployment, already rising, will escalate, and companies will become increasingly reluctant to raise their wages. The standard of living for the average Briton will fall as the cost of living outpaces our earnings. The financial markets are starting to face up to this prospect. It will be some time before the full reality dawns on the wider public, but when it does it will be difficult to stomach.
Whether the Bank raises rates or not, the cost of borrowing for households and companies is already rising; this will accelerate over the next few weeks. With money market borrowing rates almost half a percentage point higher than last week, banks and building societies will soon pass this extra cost on to homeowners in the shape of higher fixed-rate mortgages and higher fees.
If the housing market were in good shape, this would be worrying enough, but coming as it does when prices are falling at the fastest rate since the last crash - by some measures even faster - it is a cause for concern. For all the damage done by higher taxes and regulations over the past decade, the economy is still a better-adjusted animal than it was in the early 1990s - albeit more debt-ridden.
But with mortgage rates spiralling just at the moment when consumers are at their least optimistic, there is no telling how severe the downturn could get. Mr Brown's personal poll ratings may have further depths to plumb as a result - even accounting for the traditional British affection for the underdog.
I used to believe that in economics and politics you make your own luck, and this dictum has applied pretty well for most of Brown's premiership. Having spent and borrowed too much when he should have been putting away cash for rainy days, he is now being punished for it. Unlike George Bush, he has nothing left in the can for major tax cuts, and would have to borrow in order to lower taxes.
This would be unwise. First of all, Alistair Darling has already cut taxes by £2.7 billion for those affected by the 10p tax fiasco; I doubt an extra few billion would make much meaningful difference.
Second, and most important, it would threaten to undermine the economy in more deep-seated ways than one can easily imagine. The two borrowing rules Brown laid down as Chancellor (that the Government must borrow only to invest; and that total government debt should not exceed 40 per cent of GDP) are among the few threads helping us avoid those double-digit inflation rates we saw in the 1970s. The minute anyone sensed that Labour really was preparing to borrow its way out of this, we would be punished by the international capital markets with an even weaker pound and far bigger price rises as a consequence.
The most sensible thing would be to batten down the hatches, keep cutting spending and to borrow as little extra as possible. We will have high inflation for the next year or so, but as the world economy slows, so will the price rises. Although the markets have become overexcited about high inflation, I still suspect the next move in Bank rates will be down - not up. Labour could put this at risk if it went for unfunded tax cuts.
Of course, an eventual upturn won't save Brown from what seems his inevitable fate - any more than it did John Major. However, it may prevent him from going down in history as the man who wrecked the British economy for the first quarter of the 21st century.
Have your say
Monday, June 2, 2008
John Carlisle ~ I blame the sun!!
Sun to Blame for Global Warming
by John Carlisle
Those looking for the culprit responsible for global warming have missed the obvious choice - the sun. While it may come as a newsflash to some, scientific evidence conclusively shows that the sun plays a far more important role in causing global warming and global cooling than any other factor, natural or man-made. In fact, what may very well be the ultimate ironic twist in the global warming controversy is that the same solar forces that caused 150 years of warming are on the verge of producing a prolonged period of cooling.
The evidence for future cooling is supported by considerable scientific research that has only recently begun to come to light. It wasn't until 1980, with the aid of NASA satellites, that scientists definitively proved that the sun's brightness - or radiance - varies in intensity, and that these variations occur in predictable cyclical patterns. This was a crucial discovery because the climate models used by greenhouse theory proponents always assumed that the sun's radiance was constant. With that assumption in hand, they could ignore solar influences and focus on other influences, including human.
That turned out to be a reckless assumption. Further investigation revealed that there is a strong correlation between the variations in solar irradiance and fluctuations in the Earth's temperature. When the sun gets dimmer, the Earth gets cooler; when the sun gets brighter, the Earth gets hotter. So important is the sun in climate change that half of the 1.5° F temperature increase since 1850 is directly attributable to changes in the sun. According to NASA scientists David Lind and Judith Lean, only one-quarter of a degree can be ascribed to other causes, such as greenhouse gases, through which human activities can theoretically exert some influence.
The correlation between major changes in the Earth's temperature and changes in solar radiance is quite compelling. A perfect example is the Little Ice Age that lasted from 1650 to 1850. Temperatures in this era fell to as much as 2° F below today's temperature, causing the glaciers to advance, the canals in Venice to freeze and major crop failures. Interestingly, this dramatic cooling happened in a period when the sun's radiance had fallen to exceptionally low levels. Between 1645 and 1715, the sun was in a stage that scientists refer to as the Maunder Minimum. In this minimum, the sun has few sunspots and low magnetism which automatically indicates a lower radiance level. When the sun began to emerge from the minimum, radiance increased and by 1850 the temperature had warmed up enough for the Little Ice Age to end.
The Maunder Minimum is not an isolated event: it is a cyclical phenomenon that typically appears for 70 years following 200-300 years of warming. With only a few exceptions, whenever there is a solar minimum, the Earth gets colder. For example, Europe in the 13th and 15th Centuries experienced significantly lower temperatures and in both cases the cold spells coincided with a minimum. Similar correlations were found in the 9th Century and again in the 7th Century. Since 8700 B.C., there have been at least ten major cold periods similar to the Little Ice Age. Nine of those ten cold spells coincided with Maunder Minima.
There is no reason to believe that this 10,000-year-old cycle of solar-induced warming and cooling will change. Dr. Sallie Baliunas, an astrophysicist with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and one of the nation's leading experts on global climate change, believes that we may be nearing the end of a solar warming cycle. Since the last minimum ended in 1715, Baliunas says there is a strong possibility that the Earth will start cooling off in the early part of the 21st Century.
Indeed, it could already be happening. Of the 1.5° F in warming the planet experienced over the last 150 years, two-thirds of that increase, or one degree, occurred between 1850 and 1940. In the last 50 years, the planetary temperature increased at a significantly slower rate of 0.5° F - precisely when dramatically increasing amounts of man-made carbon dioxide emissions should have been accelerating warming. Further buttressing the arguments for future cooling is the evidence from NASA satellites that the global temperature has actually fallen 0.04° F since 1979.
Of course, it is impossible to precisely predict when solar radiance will drop and global temperatures will begin falling. But one thing is certain: There is little evidence that mankind is responsible for global warming. There is considerable evidence that the sun causes warming and will most likely stimulate cooling in the not so distant future.
John K. Carlisle is the Director of The National Center for Public Policy Research's Environmental Policy Task Force. Comments may be sent to JCarlisle@nationalcenter.org.
by John Carlisle
Those looking for the culprit responsible for global warming have missed the obvious choice - the sun. While it may come as a newsflash to some, scientific evidence conclusively shows that the sun plays a far more important role in causing global warming and global cooling than any other factor, natural or man-made. In fact, what may very well be the ultimate ironic twist in the global warming controversy is that the same solar forces that caused 150 years of warming are on the verge of producing a prolonged period of cooling.
The evidence for future cooling is supported by considerable scientific research that has only recently begun to come to light. It wasn't until 1980, with the aid of NASA satellites, that scientists definitively proved that the sun's brightness - or radiance - varies in intensity, and that these variations occur in predictable cyclical patterns. This was a crucial discovery because the climate models used by greenhouse theory proponents always assumed that the sun's radiance was constant. With that assumption in hand, they could ignore solar influences and focus on other influences, including human.
That turned out to be a reckless assumption. Further investigation revealed that there is a strong correlation between the variations in solar irradiance and fluctuations in the Earth's temperature. When the sun gets dimmer, the Earth gets cooler; when the sun gets brighter, the Earth gets hotter. So important is the sun in climate change that half of the 1.5° F temperature increase since 1850 is directly attributable to changes in the sun. According to NASA scientists David Lind and Judith Lean, only one-quarter of a degree can be ascribed to other causes, such as greenhouse gases, through which human activities can theoretically exert some influence.
The correlation between major changes in the Earth's temperature and changes in solar radiance is quite compelling. A perfect example is the Little Ice Age that lasted from 1650 to 1850. Temperatures in this era fell to as much as 2° F below today's temperature, causing the glaciers to advance, the canals in Venice to freeze and major crop failures. Interestingly, this dramatic cooling happened in a period when the sun's radiance had fallen to exceptionally low levels. Between 1645 and 1715, the sun was in a stage that scientists refer to as the Maunder Minimum. In this minimum, the sun has few sunspots and low magnetism which automatically indicates a lower radiance level. When the sun began to emerge from the minimum, radiance increased and by 1850 the temperature had warmed up enough for the Little Ice Age to end.
The Maunder Minimum is not an isolated event: it is a cyclical phenomenon that typically appears for 70 years following 200-300 years of warming. With only a few exceptions, whenever there is a solar minimum, the Earth gets colder. For example, Europe in the 13th and 15th Centuries experienced significantly lower temperatures and in both cases the cold spells coincided with a minimum. Similar correlations were found in the 9th Century and again in the 7th Century. Since 8700 B.C., there have been at least ten major cold periods similar to the Little Ice Age. Nine of those ten cold spells coincided with Maunder Minima.
There is no reason to believe that this 10,000-year-old cycle of solar-induced warming and cooling will change. Dr. Sallie Baliunas, an astrophysicist with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and one of the nation's leading experts on global climate change, believes that we may be nearing the end of a solar warming cycle. Since the last minimum ended in 1715, Baliunas says there is a strong possibility that the Earth will start cooling off in the early part of the 21st Century.
Indeed, it could already be happening. Of the 1.5° F in warming the planet experienced over the last 150 years, two-thirds of that increase, or one degree, occurred between 1850 and 1940. In the last 50 years, the planetary temperature increased at a significantly slower rate of 0.5° F - precisely when dramatically increasing amounts of man-made carbon dioxide emissions should have been accelerating warming. Further buttressing the arguments for future cooling is the evidence from NASA satellites that the global temperature has actually fallen 0.04° F since 1979.
Of course, it is impossible to precisely predict when solar radiance will drop and global temperatures will begin falling. But one thing is certain: There is little evidence that mankind is responsible for global warming. There is considerable evidence that the sun causes warming and will most likely stimulate cooling in the not so distant future.
John K. Carlisle is the Director of The National Center for Public Policy Research's Environmental Policy Task Force. Comments may be sent to JCarlisle@nationalcenter.org.
Here comes the Sun.........
Sun Blamed for Warming of Earth and Other Worlds
By Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 12 March 2007 07:27 am ET
Earth is heating up lately, but so are Mars, Pluto and other worlds in our solar system, leading some scientists to speculate that a change in the sun’s activity is the common thread linking all these baking events.
Others argue that such claims are misleading and create the false impression that rapid global warming, as Earth is experiencing, is a natural phenomenon.
While evidence suggests fluctuations in solar activity can affect climate on Earth, and that it has done so in the past, the majority of climate scientists and astrophysicists agree that the sun is not to blame for the current and historically sudden uptick in global temperatures on Earth, which seems to be mostly a mess created by our own species.
Wobbly Mars
Habibullo Abdussamatov, the head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, recently linked the attenuation of ice caps on Mars to fluctuations in the sun's output. Abdussamatov also blamed solar fluctuations for Earth’s current global warming trend. His initial comments were published online by National Geographic News.
“Man-made greenhouse warming has [made a] small contribution [to] the warming on Earth in recent years, but [it] cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance,” Abdussamatov told LiveScience in an email interview last week. “The considerable heating and cooling on the Earth and on Mars always will be practically parallel."
But Abdussamatov’s critics say the Red Planet’s recent thawing is more likely due to natural variations in the planet’s orbit and tilt. On Earth, these wobbles, known as Milankovitch cycles, are thought to contribute to the onset and disappearance ice ages.
“It’s believed that what drives climate change on Mars are orbital variations,” said Jeffrey Plaut, a project scientist for NASA’s Mars Odyssey mission. “The Earth also goes through orbital variations similar to that of Mars.”
As for Abdussamatov’s claim that solar fluctuations are causing Earth’s current global warming, Charles Long, a climate physicist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratories in Washington, says the idea is nonsense.
“That’s nuts,” Long said in a telephone interview. “It doesn’t make physical sense that that’s the case.”
In 2005, Long’s team published a study in the journal Science showing that Earth experienced a period of “solar global dimming” from 1960 to 1990, during which time solar radiation hitting our planet’s surface decreased. Then from the mid-1990’s onward, the trend reversed and Earth experienced a “solar brightening.”
These changes were not likely driven by fluctuations in the output of the Sun, Long explained, but rather increases in atmospheric clouds or aerosols that reflected solar radiation back into space.
Other warming worlds
Others have pointed out anomalous warming on other worlds in our solar system.
Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist at Liverpool John Moores University who monitors studies and news reports of asteroids, global warming and other potentially apocalyptic topics, recently quoted in his daily electronic newsletter the following from a blog called Strata-Sphere:
“Global warming on Neptune's moon Triton as well as Jupiter and Pluto, and now Mars has some [scientists] scratching their heads over what could possibly be in common with the warming of all these planets ... Could there be something in common with all the planets in our solar system that might cause them all to warm at the same time?”
Peiser included quotes from recent news articles that take up other aspects of the idea.
“I think it is an intriguing coincidence that warming trends have been observed on a number of very diverse planetary bodies in our solar system,” Peiser said in an email interview. “Perhaps this is just a fluke.”
In fact, scientists have alternative explanations for the anomalous warming on each of these other planetary bodies.
The warming on Triton, for example, could be the result of an extreme southern summer on the moon, a season that occurs every few hundred years, as well as possible changes in the makeup of surface ice that caused it to absorb more of the Sun’s heat.
Researchers credited Pluto’s warming to possible eruptive activity and a delayed thawing from its last close approach to the Sun in 1989.
And the recent storm activity on Jupiter is being blamed on a recurring climatic cycle that churns up material from the gas giant’s interior and lofts it to the surface, where it is heated by the Sun.
Sun does vary
The radiation output of the Sun does fluctuate over the course of its 11-year solar cycle. But the change is only about one-tenth of 1 percent—not substantial enough to affect Earth’s climate in dramatic ways, and certainly not enough to be the sole culprit of our planet’s current warming trend, scientists say.
“The small measured changes in solar output and variations from one decade to the next are only on the order of a fraction of a percent, and if you do the calculations not even large enough to really provide a detectable signal in the surface temperature record,” said Penn State meteorologist Michael Mann.
The link between solar activity and global warming is just another scapegoat for human-caused warming, Mann told LiveScience.
“Solar activity continues to be one of the last bastions of contrarians,” Mann said. “People who don’t accept the existence of anthropogenic climate change still try to point to solar activity.”
The Maunder Minimum
This is not to say that solar fluctuations never influence Earth’s climate in substantial ways. During a 75-year period beginning in 1645, astronomers detected almost no sunspot activity on the Sun. Called the “Maunder Minimum,” this event coincided with the coldest part of the Little Ice Age, a 350-year cold spell that gripped much of Europe and North America.
Recent studies have cast doubt on this relationship, however. New estimates of the total change in the brightness of the Sun during the Maunder Minimum suggest it was only fractions of a percent, and perhaps not enough to create the global cooling commonly attributed to it.
“The situation is pretty ambiguous,” said David Rind, a senior climate researcher at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who has modeled the Maunder Minimum.
Based on current estimates, even if another Maunder Minimum were to occur, it might result in an average temperature decrease of about 2 degrees Fahrenheit, Rind said.
This would still not be enough to counteract warming of between 2 to 12 degrees Fahrenheit from greenhouse gases by 2100, as predicted by the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
LiveScience staff writer Andrea Thompson contributed to this article.
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By Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 12 March 2007 07:27 am ET
Earth is heating up lately, but so are Mars, Pluto and other worlds in our solar system, leading some scientists to speculate that a change in the sun’s activity is the common thread linking all these baking events.
Others argue that such claims are misleading and create the false impression that rapid global warming, as Earth is experiencing, is a natural phenomenon.
While evidence suggests fluctuations in solar activity can affect climate on Earth, and that it has done so in the past, the majority of climate scientists and astrophysicists agree that the sun is not to blame for the current and historically sudden uptick in global temperatures on Earth, which seems to be mostly a mess created by our own species.
Wobbly Mars
Habibullo Abdussamatov, the head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, recently linked the attenuation of ice caps on Mars to fluctuations in the sun's output. Abdussamatov also blamed solar fluctuations for Earth’s current global warming trend. His initial comments were published online by National Geographic News.
“Man-made greenhouse warming has [made a] small contribution [to] the warming on Earth in recent years, but [it] cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance,” Abdussamatov told LiveScience in an email interview last week. “The considerable heating and cooling on the Earth and on Mars always will be practically parallel."
But Abdussamatov’s critics say the Red Planet’s recent thawing is more likely due to natural variations in the planet’s orbit and tilt. On Earth, these wobbles, known as Milankovitch cycles, are thought to contribute to the onset and disappearance ice ages.
“It’s believed that what drives climate change on Mars are orbital variations,” said Jeffrey Plaut, a project scientist for NASA’s Mars Odyssey mission. “The Earth also goes through orbital variations similar to that of Mars.”
As for Abdussamatov’s claim that solar fluctuations are causing Earth’s current global warming, Charles Long, a climate physicist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratories in Washington, says the idea is nonsense.
“That’s nuts,” Long said in a telephone interview. “It doesn’t make physical sense that that’s the case.”
In 2005, Long’s team published a study in the journal Science showing that Earth experienced a period of “solar global dimming” from 1960 to 1990, during which time solar radiation hitting our planet’s surface decreased. Then from the mid-1990’s onward, the trend reversed and Earth experienced a “solar brightening.”
These changes were not likely driven by fluctuations in the output of the Sun, Long explained, but rather increases in atmospheric clouds or aerosols that reflected solar radiation back into space.
Other warming worlds
Others have pointed out anomalous warming on other worlds in our solar system.
Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist at Liverpool John Moores University who monitors studies and news reports of asteroids, global warming and other potentially apocalyptic topics, recently quoted in his daily electronic newsletter the following from a blog called Strata-Sphere:
“Global warming on Neptune's moon Triton as well as Jupiter and Pluto, and now Mars has some [scientists] scratching their heads over what could possibly be in common with the warming of all these planets ... Could there be something in common with all the planets in our solar system that might cause them all to warm at the same time?”
Peiser included quotes from recent news articles that take up other aspects of the idea.
“I think it is an intriguing coincidence that warming trends have been observed on a number of very diverse planetary bodies in our solar system,” Peiser said in an email interview. “Perhaps this is just a fluke.”
In fact, scientists have alternative explanations for the anomalous warming on each of these other planetary bodies.
The warming on Triton, for example, could be the result of an extreme southern summer on the moon, a season that occurs every few hundred years, as well as possible changes in the makeup of surface ice that caused it to absorb more of the Sun’s heat.
Researchers credited Pluto’s warming to possible eruptive activity and a delayed thawing from its last close approach to the Sun in 1989.
And the recent storm activity on Jupiter is being blamed on a recurring climatic cycle that churns up material from the gas giant’s interior and lofts it to the surface, where it is heated by the Sun.
Sun does vary
The radiation output of the Sun does fluctuate over the course of its 11-year solar cycle. But the change is only about one-tenth of 1 percent—not substantial enough to affect Earth’s climate in dramatic ways, and certainly not enough to be the sole culprit of our planet’s current warming trend, scientists say.
“The small measured changes in solar output and variations from one decade to the next are only on the order of a fraction of a percent, and if you do the calculations not even large enough to really provide a detectable signal in the surface temperature record,” said Penn State meteorologist Michael Mann.
The link between solar activity and global warming is just another scapegoat for human-caused warming, Mann told LiveScience.
“Solar activity continues to be one of the last bastions of contrarians,” Mann said. “People who don’t accept the existence of anthropogenic climate change still try to point to solar activity.”
The Maunder Minimum
This is not to say that solar fluctuations never influence Earth’s climate in substantial ways. During a 75-year period beginning in 1645, astronomers detected almost no sunspot activity on the Sun. Called the “Maunder Minimum,” this event coincided with the coldest part of the Little Ice Age, a 350-year cold spell that gripped much of Europe and North America.
Recent studies have cast doubt on this relationship, however. New estimates of the total change in the brightness of the Sun during the Maunder Minimum suggest it was only fractions of a percent, and perhaps not enough to create the global cooling commonly attributed to it.
“The situation is pretty ambiguous,” said David Rind, a senior climate researcher at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who has modeled the Maunder Minimum.
Based on current estimates, even if another Maunder Minimum were to occur, it might result in an average temperature decrease of about 2 degrees Fahrenheit, Rind said.
This would still not be enough to counteract warming of between 2 to 12 degrees Fahrenheit from greenhouse gases by 2100, as predicted by the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
LiveScience staff writer Andrea Thompson contributed to this article.
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Al Gore is " a gross alarmist"
A top hurricane forecaster called Al Gore "a gross alarmist'' Friday for making an Oscar-winning documentary about global warming.
"He's one of these guys that preaches the end of the world type of things. I think he's doing a great disservice and he doesn't know what he's talking about,'' Dr. William Gray said in an interview with The Associated Press at the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans, where he delivered the closing speech.
A spokeswoman said Gore was on a flight from Washington, D.C., to Nashville Friday; he did not immediately respond to Gray's comments.
Gray, an emeritus professor at the atmospheric science department at Colorado State University, has long railed against the theory that heat-trapping gases generated by human activity are causing the world to warm.
Over the past 24 years, Gray, 77, has become known as America's most reliable hurricane forecaster; recently, his mentee, Philip Klotzbach, has begun doing the bulk of the forecasting work.
Gray's statements came the same day the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change approved a report that concludes the world will face dire consequences to food and water supplies, along with increased flooding and other dramatic weather events, unless nations adapt to climate change.
Rather than global warming, Gray believes a recent uptick in strong hurricanes is part of a multi-decade trend of alternating busy and slow periods related to ocean circulation patterns. Contrary to mainstream thinking, Gray believes ocean temperatures are going to drop in the next five to 10 years.
Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth,'' has helped fuel media attention on global warming.
Kerry Emanuel, an MIT professor who had feuded with Gray over global warming, said Gray has wrongly "dug (his) heels in'' even though there is ample evidence that the world is getting hotter.
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All About Global Warming
"He's one of these guys that preaches the end of the world type of things. I think he's doing a great disservice and he doesn't know what he's talking about,'' Dr. William Gray said in an interview with The Associated Press at the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans, where he delivered the closing speech.
A spokeswoman said Gore was on a flight from Washington, D.C., to Nashville Friday; he did not immediately respond to Gray's comments.
Gray, an emeritus professor at the atmospheric science department at Colorado State University, has long railed against the theory that heat-trapping gases generated by human activity are causing the world to warm.
Over the past 24 years, Gray, 77, has become known as America's most reliable hurricane forecaster; recently, his mentee, Philip Klotzbach, has begun doing the bulk of the forecasting work.
Gray's statements came the same day the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change approved a report that concludes the world will face dire consequences to food and water supplies, along with increased flooding and other dramatic weather events, unless nations adapt to climate change.
Rather than global warming, Gray believes a recent uptick in strong hurricanes is part of a multi-decade trend of alternating busy and slow periods related to ocean circulation patterns. Contrary to mainstream thinking, Gray believes ocean temperatures are going to drop in the next five to 10 years.
Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth,'' has helped fuel media attention on global warming.
Kerry Emanuel, an MIT professor who had feuded with Gray over global warming, said Gray has wrongly "dug (his) heels in'' even though there is ample evidence that the world is getting hotter.
Top 10 Surprising Results of Global Warming
International Group Issues Global Warming Report
All About Global Warming
Flooding in Italy......
Robin Pomeroy in Turin
June 1, 2008
ITALY has declared a state of emergency in the country's north after flooding and mudslides left at least four people, including an infant, dead in heavy rains that have also hit Belgium, Britain, France and Germany.
The state of emergency will enable aid to be speeded up to the affected regions of Piedmont and Valle d'Aosta.
In Piedmont, four people were killed in landslides, including a three-year-old child whose body was found yesterday.
Schools were closed in the town of Saviglano because of mudslides and 30 people were evacuated from their homes in Demonte.
A mudslide at Villar Pelice, near Turin, swept away a house, killing an elderly man inside it. A second person was found dead in a car also caught up in the mudslide.
Fifty patients were evacuated from a hospital in Turin but Red Cross official Giuseppe Vernero said the worst seemed to be over.
Train lines between Turin and Lyon in south-eastern France were closed to avoid accidents after heavy rains.
Road tunnels linking France and Italy were closed to trucks for several hours after parts were affected by a mudslide. Several highways were blocked or closed for safety in the Alpine districts of Savoie and Isere. Mudslides and flooding also hit villages and cut secondary roads in eastern France, while other routes were blocked by fallen trees.
Streets were turned to rivers of mud in the eastern Belgian city of Liege after a violent storm. Belgian television showed cars swept along in the mud and flooded houses.
In Germany, heavy rain and hail caused extensive damage, while at Moenchengladbach, near Dusseldorf, a woman suffered a severe electric shock when she went into her flooded cellar in bare feet to cut the power.
A clean-up operation was under way in south-west England after torrential rain caused flash flooding.
In Somerset, cars were abandoned on water-logged roads, fire crews had to rescue a number of motorists and hundreds of homes and businesses were flooded.
Source: The Sun-Herald
June 1, 2008
ITALY has declared a state of emergency in the country's north after flooding and mudslides left at least four people, including an infant, dead in heavy rains that have also hit Belgium, Britain, France and Germany.
The state of emergency will enable aid to be speeded up to the affected regions of Piedmont and Valle d'Aosta.
In Piedmont, four people were killed in landslides, including a three-year-old child whose body was found yesterday.
Schools were closed in the town of Saviglano because of mudslides and 30 people were evacuated from their homes in Demonte.
A mudslide at Villar Pelice, near Turin, swept away a house, killing an elderly man inside it. A second person was found dead in a car also caught up in the mudslide.
Fifty patients were evacuated from a hospital in Turin but Red Cross official Giuseppe Vernero said the worst seemed to be over.
Train lines between Turin and Lyon in south-eastern France were closed to avoid accidents after heavy rains.
Road tunnels linking France and Italy were closed to trucks for several hours after parts were affected by a mudslide. Several highways were blocked or closed for safety in the Alpine districts of Savoie and Isere. Mudslides and flooding also hit villages and cut secondary roads in eastern France, while other routes were blocked by fallen trees.
Streets were turned to rivers of mud in the eastern Belgian city of Liege after a violent storm. Belgian television showed cars swept along in the mud and flooded houses.
In Germany, heavy rain and hail caused extensive damage, while at Moenchengladbach, near Dusseldorf, a woman suffered a severe electric shock when she went into her flooded cellar in bare feet to cut the power.
A clean-up operation was under way in south-west England after torrential rain caused flash flooding.
In Somerset, cars were abandoned on water-logged roads, fire crews had to rescue a number of motorists and hundreds of homes and businesses were flooded.
Source: The Sun-Herald
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
China: 80,000 evacuated as troops scurry to keep swollen lake from flooding
Last update: May 27, 2008 - 9:16 PM
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Chinese officials evacuated 80,000 people from a valley threatened by possible flooding from a lake formed by landslides following this month's earthquake as soldiers carved a channel to try to drain the water safely.
The landslides dammed the Jian River, just north of Beichuan in Sichuan Province. All afternoon Tuesday, a large Russian cargo helicopter made several trips to ferry earth-moving equipment from a base at the nearby town of Leigu up to the dam site. Over the weekend, 1,800 soldiers carrying dynamite hiked to the dam area.
The threat of flooding from dozens of lakes swelling behind walls of mud and rubble that have plugged narrow valleys in parts of the disaster zone is adding a new worry for millions of survivors. More than 30 villages were emptied and the people were being sent to camps.
As fears about the lake intensified, the area was struck by two powerful aftershocks on Tuesday, one registering magnitude 5.2 and another measuring 5.7 about a half-hour later.
GRIEF TO ANGER
Bereaved parents whose children were crushed to death in their classrooms in Sichuan Province have turned mourning ceremonies into protest events in recent days, forcing officials to address a growing political backlash over shoddy construction of public schools.
Parents of the estimated 10,000 children who lost their lives in the quake have grown so enraged about collapsed schools that they have overcome their usual caution about confronting Communist Party officials. Many say they are especially upset that some schools for poor students crumbled into rubble even though government offices and more elite schools not far away survived the quake largely intact.
The protests threaten to undermine the government's attempts to promote its response to the quake as effective and to highlight heroic rescue efforts by the People's Liberation Army, which has dispatched 150,000 soldiers to the region
PARADE OF LOOTERS?
About 20 men and women suspected of looting houses and stores in Dujiangyan were paraded in front of the public as a part of efforts to tackle a burgeoning wave of looting in the aftermath of the recent massive earthquake.
The suspects were lined up on a truck and paraded in front of the shelter area, where about 1,000 local residents are living in tents as a result of the quake. "We'll crack down on any criminal activity strictly," a police officer said.
Last update: May 27, 2008 - 9:16 PM
document.write('');
Chinese officials evacuated 80,000 people from a valley threatened by possible flooding from a lake formed by landslides following this month's earthquake as soldiers carved a channel to try to drain the water safely.
The landslides dammed the Jian River, just north of Beichuan in Sichuan Province. All afternoon Tuesday, a large Russian cargo helicopter made several trips to ferry earth-moving equipment from a base at the nearby town of Leigu up to the dam site. Over the weekend, 1,800 soldiers carrying dynamite hiked to the dam area.
The threat of flooding from dozens of lakes swelling behind walls of mud and rubble that have plugged narrow valleys in parts of the disaster zone is adding a new worry for millions of survivors. More than 30 villages were emptied and the people were being sent to camps.
As fears about the lake intensified, the area was struck by two powerful aftershocks on Tuesday, one registering magnitude 5.2 and another measuring 5.7 about a half-hour later.
GRIEF TO ANGER
Bereaved parents whose children were crushed to death in their classrooms in Sichuan Province have turned mourning ceremonies into protest events in recent days, forcing officials to address a growing political backlash over shoddy construction of public schools.
Parents of the estimated 10,000 children who lost their lives in the quake have grown so enraged about collapsed schools that they have overcome their usual caution about confronting Communist Party officials. Many say they are especially upset that some schools for poor students crumbled into rubble even though government offices and more elite schools not far away survived the quake largely intact.
The protests threaten to undermine the government's attempts to promote its response to the quake as effective and to highlight heroic rescue efforts by the People's Liberation Army, which has dispatched 150,000 soldiers to the region
PARADE OF LOOTERS?
About 20 men and women suspected of looting houses and stores in Dujiangyan were paraded in front of the public as a part of efforts to tackle a burgeoning wave of looting in the aftermath of the recent massive earthquake.
The suspects were lined up on a truck and paraded in front of the shelter area, where about 1,000 local residents are living in tents as a result of the quake. "We'll crack down on any criminal activity strictly," a police officer said.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Darwin on Line
Darwin's first draft goes online
The first draft of a book which changed the world's attitude to evolution is available for the first time online.
Papers which led to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution were previously only available to scholars at Cambridge University's library.
The draft notes are among 20,000 archive items created by the 19th Century naturalist during his lifetime.
Dr John van Wyhe, a Darwin specialist at Cambridge University, said: "He changed our understanding of nature."
World-changing ideas
The online archive about Charles Darwin is so vast it would take someone two months to view it all if they downloaded one image per minute.
"His papers reveal how immensely detailed his researches were. The family has always wanted Darwin's papers and manuscripts to be available to anyone who wants to read them," said Dr van Wyhe.
"The fact that everyone around the world can now see them on the web is simply fantastic.
"Charles Darwin is one of the most influential scientists in history. The collection of his papers now online is extremely important and therefore very exciting.
"This release makes his private papers, mountains of notes, experiments and research behind his world-changing publications available to the world for free."
Story from BBC NEWS:
The first draft of a book which changed the world's attitude to evolution is available for the first time online.
Papers which led to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution were previously only available to scholars at Cambridge University's library.
The draft notes are among 20,000 archive items created by the 19th Century naturalist during his lifetime.
Dr John van Wyhe, a Darwin specialist at Cambridge University, said: "He changed our understanding of nature."
World-changing ideas
The online archive about Charles Darwin is so vast it would take someone two months to view it all if they downloaded one image per minute.
"His papers reveal how immensely detailed his researches were. The family has always wanted Darwin's papers and manuscripts to be available to anyone who wants to read them," said Dr van Wyhe.
"The fact that everyone around the world can now see them on the web is simply fantastic.
"Charles Darwin is one of the most influential scientists in history. The collection of his papers now online is extremely important and therefore very exciting.
"This release makes his private papers, mountains of notes, experiments and research behind his world-changing publications available to the world for free."
Story from BBC NEWS:
Thursday, April 3, 2008
California Housing Market Collapse....& Comments
L.A. Land: Peter Viles on the rapidly changing landscape of the real estate market in Los Angeles and beyond
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« More on McCain's housing speech Main Paulson: Let housing prices fall »
California freefall: Home prices down 26% in February
Signs of distress are piling up in the California housing market, where prices are falling at three times the national rate of decline.
--Statewide, median sales prices fell by a stunning 26% from year-ago levels in February, with home prices dropping at a rate of nearly $3,000 a week, the California Association of Realtors reports. Further, the CAR says the Fed's interest rate-cutting campaign "will have little near-term direct effect on the housing market."
--In the San Fernando Valley, losing a home to foreclosure is now almost as common for families as buying a home. The L.A. Daily News: "During January and February, there were 1,084 foreclosures and 1,335 sales of houses and condos in Valley communities from Glendale to Calabasas, according to the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center at California State University, Northridge.""It's bad. It's really bad," market analyst Nima Nattagh told the Daily News.
The California Association of Realtors reports median prices fell 27.2% from year-ago levels in the hard-hit Inland Empire east of Los Angeles, 30.9% in Sacramento, and 39.1% in Santa Barbara County.
On a percentage basis, the California price meltdown is more than three times as severe as the national decline of 8.2% in median prices reported this week by the National Association of Realtors. On an absolute basis, the California meltdown is even more severe: Nationally, prices fell over the past year at a rate of $338 per week; in California, prices fell at a rate of $2,788 per week.According to the CAR, "The median sales price of an existing, single-family detached home in California during February 2008 was $409,240, a 26.2 percent decrease from the revised $554,280 median for February 2007." The February 2008 median price fell 4.8 percent compared with January’s revised $429,790 median price."The Federal Reserve Bank’s recent action to reduce the federal funds rate will have little near-term direct effect on the housing market," said CAR Vice President and Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young. "However, Fed rate cuts should result in more favorable real estate finance rates as we move through the year."
Median home sales prices sometimes exaggerate swings in market activity. A year ago, median home sales prices in California continued to show price gains, even though the market downturn had begun. At the time, the collapse of sub-prime lending had the effect of freezing the lower end of the market. With fewer sales of less expensive homes, the market was dominated by sales at higher price points, and median sales prices showed gains.
The opposite appears to be happening now, as lower-priced foreclosed homes come onto the market, increasing sales at lower price points, while the market for more expensive homes has slowed dramatically. Thoughts? Comments? E-mail story tips to peter.viles@latimes.comPhoto Credit: Associated Press
Posted by Peter Viles on March 26, 2008 in Foreclosure Permalink
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Peter,
Thanks for the post. I just read a few articles about this in the last few days. Here in the Santa Barbara area we are seeing huge reductions in prices in certain areas while others are remaining fairly stable (having reached a bottom seemingly). The problem for us with a lot of these statistics is that they include Lompoc and Santa Maria for Santa Barbara and these markets are very different.
With that said, we are seeing a fair amount of activity in the last 7-8 weeks with a lot of pending sales. No price increases to speak of but a lot of activity. Condos though are still up in the air.
Posted by: Santa Barbara Real Estate Voice March 26, 2008 at 10:40 AM
I am ecstatic to see the collapse of home prices in California...I do feel sorry thought for middle class families that were duped into bad loans.....Yet, it is great to see this collapse in the real estate market happening....
Posted by: John March 26, 2008 at 10:51 AM
More hysterical nonsense.
The drop is related to foreclosures being dumped on the market........skewing the numbers.
Ignore this nonsense
Posted by: Joe smith March 26, 2008 at 10:52 AM
Let's see some more on the positives to come from the CA housing correction.
Greedy idiots will be punished.
What's left of the intelligent and rational middle class will have a higher likelihood of being able to afford a decent home without moving out of state. (A few months ago, you needed a 6-figure household income to afford a home in L.A.'s worst neighborhoods.)
Our politicians will actually have to show leadership and think and make difficult decisions, since they can't just ride along taking credit for the sunshine and ongoing prosperity. (Business punishing laws and taxes, combined with terrible public schools and a high cost of living IS NOT a recipe for sustainable community and economic development.)
Posted by: John March 26, 2008 at 10:54 AM
Median prices were half a million..hahha..What a joke. People don't have that kind of rea money. Living way above their means. I hope they are all homeless for years. They have cost people who do it the rigfht way much now in taxes and stoack market collapse.
Posted by: Mark March 26, 2008 at 10:55 AM
The California prices were inflated and overpriced to begin with. Who wants to live in a liberal state where you are taxed to death, gas prices are inflated due to everyone bowing to the extreme environmentalists?
Sell those houses to graduating students from Berkley....oh wait, you have to be productive human being with a job to get a house.
Posted by: Darrell March 26, 2008 at 10:56 AM
To say that median prices are down 26% does not necessarily mean that every million dollar home is now worth 740K. It could mean that million dollar homes are sitting on the market while 500K homes are selling at a brisk pace. It could mean that there are no more million dollar homes ON the market and all the 500K homes are selling slowly.
The headline alone does not really tell a complete story.
Posted by: Jim Roof March 26, 2008 at 10:58 AM
Who could be surprised by the California real estate price meltdown? Many parts of that market have been grossly over priced for years!
Posted by: Tony March 26, 2008 at 11:01 AM
"the median sales price of median price of an existing, single-family detached home in California during February 2008 was $409,240..."
That's still very high, something like three times the national average. CA prices are falling far because they had climbed to such ridiculous levels.
It's bad, but it was an inevitable correction.
Posted by: Dan March 26, 2008 at 11:02 AM
This isn't a big surprise. Home prices were 3 times higher in CA than the national average, it makes sense that they would fall at 3 times the rate. The CA median home price is still double the national average. I think it still has a ways to fall before normal people will be able to buy a house.
Posted by: Etosamoe March 26, 2008 at 11:02 AM
The first stage of a real estate recovery has to be price capitulation, which we are now entering. While painful for the people who bought at inflated prices, the price adjustment to more realistic levels will help people who are now able to buy or will soon. CA home prices got disconnected from reality. Reality is back in Vogue.
How long will it take for the excess unsold homes to get to "normal" levels in So. CA?
Posted by: George March 26, 2008 at 11:04 AM
Sales volume is up dramatically at the low end of the market. The banks are putting their inventory of foreclosures on the market at well below market prices and it has spurred sales. It's not uncommon to see 5 to 10 offers on properties.
All the action is on properties under $500,000 that are priced 25% to 40% lower that two years ago. While sales numbers will be up, the median price is going to plummet when it get's reported for March and April sales.
Posted by: We Help-U-Buy Guy March 26, 2008 at 11:07 AM
Canada ~ Shock & Horror
American Refugees are flooding into Canada: Tens of thousands of Americans are now economic refugees
Posted on March 21, 2008 by Sopan Greene
Source: Cycho.com
In September of 2007, the city of Windsor, which borders the United States, officially asked for financial assistance from Ottawa to deal with American refugees flooding into Canada. This is proving to be the tip of the iceberg, and only the first wave of economic refugees that have been created in the United States.
There are now tent cities being built outside most large metropolitan areas, one of the largest of which is in Los Angeles. The following report from the BBC highlights the consequence of the US subprime meltdown and the fears that the crisis is growing.
The homelessness situation has grown so rapidly in the United States that certain cities are issuing color-coded wristbands – blue for those who can stay, “orange for people who need to provide more documentation, and white for those who must leave.” Refugees will no longer be able to stay in one area, meaning that many towns and cities will now have to be prepared to receive migrant refugees displaced by local governments from other districts and States.
click to enlarge - source
Canadians will also need to be prepared for this influx, especially considering that the average processing time for a refugee claim in Canada is currently 14.2 months, “a period during which the applicant is eligible for financial and other support. A failed claimant then also has the right to seek leave to appeal his or her rejection to federal court.” If the American refugee crisis continues to grow as analysts predict, then the cost to Canadians will be astronomical.
Aside from tens of thousands of Americans becoming refugees in their own country, there is another problem. As The Atlantic is reporting, “the subprime crisis is just the tip of the iceberg. Fundamental changes in American life may turn today’s McMansions into tomorrow’s tenements.” Over 60% of the homes in certain communities “were in foreclosure as of late last year. Vandals have kicked in doors and stripped the copper wire from vacant houses; drug users and homeless people have furtively moved in.”
“The experience of cities during the 1950s through the ’80s suggests that the fate of many single-family homes on the metropolitan fringes will be resale, at rock-bottom prices, to lower-income families—and in all likelihood, eventual conversion to apartments… much of the future decline is likely to occur on the fringes, in towns far away from the central city, not served by rail transit, and lacking any real core.
In other words, some of the worst problems are likely to be seen in some of the country’s more recently developed areas—and not only those inhabited by subprime-mortgage borrowers. Many of these areas will become magnets for poverty, crime, and social dysfunction.”
All of this is occurring while: the US government bails out Wall Street; credit card companies raise record amounts of money by issuing shares; the economic crisis draws comparison to the 1929 stock market crash; investigation of predatory banks gets killed; The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. prepares for bank failures; and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta releases a crisis peparedness video.
And some thought that Stocking the Root Cellar was only for conspiracy theorists.
NOTE: Some Americans are discovering that they are able to keep their homes and save themselves from becoming refugees by challenging the banks. All they are doing is asking the courts for proof that the banks own the mortgage notes that they claim to own.
“Judges in at least five states have stopped foreclosure proceedings because the banks that pool mortgages into securities and the companies that collect monthly payments haven’t been able to prove they own the mortgages.” More on this at “Banks Lose to Deadbeat Homeowners as Loans Sold in Bonds Vanish.”
I personally know what I would be doing if I owned a mortgage in the United States. Good luck, and remember, according to the ex-Comptroller General of the United States, the top accountant for the United States of America, “deficit spending and promised benefits for federal entitlement programs have put every man, woman, and child in the United States on the hook for $175,000”. In essence, the United States is bankrupt.
Filed under: Middle Class Decline, Money, Videos Tagged: bank failure, bankruptcy, canadians, credit crisis, current events, economic refugees, economy, federal reserve, mortgage crisis, news, refugees, subprime crisis, wall street
Posted on March 21, 2008 by Sopan Greene
Source: Cycho.com
In September of 2007, the city of Windsor, which borders the United States, officially asked for financial assistance from Ottawa to deal with American refugees flooding into Canada. This is proving to be the tip of the iceberg, and only the first wave of economic refugees that have been created in the United States.
There are now tent cities being built outside most large metropolitan areas, one of the largest of which is in Los Angeles. The following report from the BBC highlights the consequence of the US subprime meltdown and the fears that the crisis is growing.
The homelessness situation has grown so rapidly in the United States that certain cities are issuing color-coded wristbands – blue for those who can stay, “orange for people who need to provide more documentation, and white for those who must leave.” Refugees will no longer be able to stay in one area, meaning that many towns and cities will now have to be prepared to receive migrant refugees displaced by local governments from other districts and States.
click to enlarge - source
Canadians will also need to be prepared for this influx, especially considering that the average processing time for a refugee claim in Canada is currently 14.2 months, “a period during which the applicant is eligible for financial and other support. A failed claimant then also has the right to seek leave to appeal his or her rejection to federal court.” If the American refugee crisis continues to grow as analysts predict, then the cost to Canadians will be astronomical.
Aside from tens of thousands of Americans becoming refugees in their own country, there is another problem. As The Atlantic is reporting, “the subprime crisis is just the tip of the iceberg. Fundamental changes in American life may turn today’s McMansions into tomorrow’s tenements.” Over 60% of the homes in certain communities “were in foreclosure as of late last year. Vandals have kicked in doors and stripped the copper wire from vacant houses; drug users and homeless people have furtively moved in.”
“The experience of cities during the 1950s through the ’80s suggests that the fate of many single-family homes on the metropolitan fringes will be resale, at rock-bottom prices, to lower-income families—and in all likelihood, eventual conversion to apartments… much of the future decline is likely to occur on the fringes, in towns far away from the central city, not served by rail transit, and lacking any real core.
In other words, some of the worst problems are likely to be seen in some of the country’s more recently developed areas—and not only those inhabited by subprime-mortgage borrowers. Many of these areas will become magnets for poverty, crime, and social dysfunction.”
All of this is occurring while: the US government bails out Wall Street; credit card companies raise record amounts of money by issuing shares; the economic crisis draws comparison to the 1929 stock market crash; investigation of predatory banks gets killed; The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. prepares for bank failures; and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta releases a crisis peparedness video.
And some thought that Stocking the Root Cellar was only for conspiracy theorists.
NOTE: Some Americans are discovering that they are able to keep their homes and save themselves from becoming refugees by challenging the banks. All they are doing is asking the courts for proof that the banks own the mortgage notes that they claim to own.
“Judges in at least five states have stopped foreclosure proceedings because the banks that pool mortgages into securities and the companies that collect monthly payments haven’t been able to prove they own the mortgages.” More on this at “Banks Lose to Deadbeat Homeowners as Loans Sold in Bonds Vanish.”
I personally know what I would be doing if I owned a mortgage in the United States. Good luck, and remember, according to the ex-Comptroller General of the United States, the top accountant for the United States of America, “deficit spending and promised benefits for federal entitlement programs have put every man, woman, and child in the United States on the hook for $175,000”. In essence, the United States is bankrupt.
Filed under: Middle Class Decline, Money, Videos Tagged: bank failure, bankruptcy, canadians, credit crisis, current events, economic refugees, economy, federal reserve, mortgage crisis, news, refugees, subprime crisis, wall street
Monday, March 31, 2008
Toni's story ~ I don't want children!
Meet the Women Who Won't Have Babies - Because They're Not Eco Friendly.
When Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet. At 27 this young woman was sterilised to "protect the planet". Her boyfriend (now husband) presented her with a congratulations card. Toni says "Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet. Every person uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population."
Nothing in Toni's upbringing gave any clues as to the views which would shape her adult life. "No sooner had we finished our wedding cake than all our relatives started to ask when they could expect a new addition to the family.
"When I was a child, I developed a passion for the environment - I became a vegetarian when I was 15. The only person who understood how I felt was my first husband, who didn't want children either. We both wanted to save the planet - not add to the problem."
"I'd been on the Pill for five years and didn't want to take hormone-based contraception indefinitely. "My GP said I was far too young to be sterilised, and that I was bound to change my mind one day. "We decided my husband would have a vasectomy instead. He was 25, but the GP allowed him to go ahead. "I found it insulting that she thought that, just because I was a woman, I'd reach a point where an urge to breed would overcome all rational thought."
"Through my job I made many friends who, like me, were more interested in trying to change society and save the planet rather than having families of our own. "We used to say that if ever we did want children, we'd adopt, as there are so many children in need of a loving family. But when she was 25, she discovered that despite taking the Pill, she had fallen pregnant by her boyfriend. "I went to my doctor about having a termination, and asked if I could be sterilised at the same time. "This time it was a male doctor. He said: 'You may not want a child, but one day you may meet a man who does'. He refused to consider it. "After my abortion, I was more determined than ever to pursue sterilisation. I had my mother's support - she realised I wasn't going to grow out of my beliefs. At 27, Toni moved to Brighton, where her dream of medical intervention was realised. As Toni awaited the surgery which would destroy her fertility, she met her future husband, Ed, 38. "I liked him immediately, and I told him what I was doing because if he wanted children then he needed to know I wasn't the woman for him." "But Ed didn't want children for the same reasons."
Ed and I married in September 2002, and have a much nicer lifestyle as a result of not having children. "My only frustration is that other people are unable to accept my decision. "What I consider mad are those women who ferry their children short distances in gas-guzzling cars."
November 21, 2007 Daily Mail rw Karen Gaia says: I am not advocating that everyone remain childless. There are some people that want zero children, and some that want three. It all works out when women have choices and education.
When Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet. At 27 this young woman was sterilised to "protect the planet". Her boyfriend (now husband) presented her with a congratulations card. Toni says "Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet. Every person uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population."
Nothing in Toni's upbringing gave any clues as to the views which would shape her adult life. "No sooner had we finished our wedding cake than all our relatives started to ask when they could expect a new addition to the family.
"When I was a child, I developed a passion for the environment - I became a vegetarian when I was 15. The only person who understood how I felt was my first husband, who didn't want children either. We both wanted to save the planet - not add to the problem."
"I'd been on the Pill for five years and didn't want to take hormone-based contraception indefinitely. "My GP said I was far too young to be sterilised, and that I was bound to change my mind one day. "We decided my husband would have a vasectomy instead. He was 25, but the GP allowed him to go ahead. "I found it insulting that she thought that, just because I was a woman, I'd reach a point where an urge to breed would overcome all rational thought."
"Through my job I made many friends who, like me, were more interested in trying to change society and save the planet rather than having families of our own. "We used to say that if ever we did want children, we'd adopt, as there are so many children in need of a loving family. But when she was 25, she discovered that despite taking the Pill, she had fallen pregnant by her boyfriend. "I went to my doctor about having a termination, and asked if I could be sterilised at the same time. "This time it was a male doctor. He said: 'You may not want a child, but one day you may meet a man who does'. He refused to consider it. "After my abortion, I was more determined than ever to pursue sterilisation. I had my mother's support - she realised I wasn't going to grow out of my beliefs. At 27, Toni moved to Brighton, where her dream of medical intervention was realised. As Toni awaited the surgery which would destroy her fertility, she met her future husband, Ed, 38. "I liked him immediately, and I told him what I was doing because if he wanted children then he needed to know I wasn't the woman for him." "But Ed didn't want children for the same reasons."
Ed and I married in September 2002, and have a much nicer lifestyle as a result of not having children. "My only frustration is that other people are unable to accept my decision. "What I consider mad are those women who ferry their children short distances in gas-guzzling cars."
November 21, 2007 Daily Mail rw Karen Gaia says: I am not advocating that everyone remain childless. There are some people that want zero children, and some that want three. It all works out when women have choices and education.
Where is the world heading?
An Overview of Urbanization, Internal Migration, Population Distribution and Development in the World
The distribution of humanity on the earth's surface has always responded to the opportunities that different territories provide. After the invention of agriculture, the availability of arable land largely determined the place where most people settled.
The practice of agriculture also permitted the accumulation of food surpluses and the differentiation of productive activities that led to the emergence of more complex settlements generically identified as "cities". In modern history, cities have played key roles as centres of Government, production, trade, knowledge, innovation and rising productivity. The changes brought about by the industrial revolution would be unimaginable in the absence of cities. The mechanization of production made necessary the concentration of population.
Rapid industrialization was accompanied by increasing urbanization. In 1920, the more developed regions, being the most industrialized, had just under 30 per cent of their population in urban areas. As industrialization advanced in the developing world so did urbanization, particularly in Latin America where 41 per cent of the population was urban by 1950. In Africa and Asia levels of urbanization remained lower, although the urban population increased markedly, particularly in Asia. Between 1920 and 2007, the world's urban population increased from about 270 million to 3.3 billion, with 1.5 billion urban dwellers added to Asia, 750 million to the more developed regions, just under 450 million to Latin America and the Caribbean, and just over 350 million to Africa.
These changes foreshadow those to come. Between 2007 and 2050, the urban population is expected to increase as much as it did since 1920, that is, 3.1 billion additional urban dwellers are expected by 2050, including 1.8 billion in Asia and 0.9 billion in Africa.
These powerful trends will shape and in turn be shaped by economic and social development. Follow the link for the complete report (a PDF). February 06, 2008 UN/POP
The distribution of humanity on the earth's surface has always responded to the opportunities that different territories provide. After the invention of agriculture, the availability of arable land largely determined the place where most people settled.
The practice of agriculture also permitted the accumulation of food surpluses and the differentiation of productive activities that led to the emergence of more complex settlements generically identified as "cities". In modern history, cities have played key roles as centres of Government, production, trade, knowledge, innovation and rising productivity. The changes brought about by the industrial revolution would be unimaginable in the absence of cities. The mechanization of production made necessary the concentration of population.
Rapid industrialization was accompanied by increasing urbanization. In 1920, the more developed regions, being the most industrialized, had just under 30 per cent of their population in urban areas. As industrialization advanced in the developing world so did urbanization, particularly in Latin America where 41 per cent of the population was urban by 1950. In Africa and Asia levels of urbanization remained lower, although the urban population increased markedly, particularly in Asia. Between 1920 and 2007, the world's urban population increased from about 270 million to 3.3 billion, with 1.5 billion urban dwellers added to Asia, 750 million to the more developed regions, just under 450 million to Latin America and the Caribbean, and just over 350 million to Africa.
These changes foreshadow those to come. Between 2007 and 2050, the urban population is expected to increase as much as it did since 1920, that is, 3.1 billion additional urban dwellers are expected by 2050, including 1.8 billion in Asia and 0.9 billion in Africa.
These powerful trends will shape and in turn be shaped by economic and social development. Follow the link for the complete report (a PDF). February 06, 2008 UN/POP
Greedy Atlanta
Atlanta's Role in Drought is Scrutinized.
With officials projecting that Atlanta could run out of water within three months, Georgia politicians have pleaded with the Army Corps of Engineers not to release more water from the reservoir as part of an effort to save two species of mussels 200 miles downriver. Yet there is a growing sense that the metropolis itself is the problem. Atlanta's rapid growth, and its disregard for conservation, is straining the region's ecosystem. The governors of Florida, Alabama and Georgia agreed to reduce by 16% the amount of water released from Lake Lanier, which would give some relief. But experts say the Southeast's struggles over water resources are far from over. What has got to be on the table is Atlanta's unrestricted growth and cavalier attitude to water use. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist wrote in a letter to President Bush that Florida's $134 million commercial seafood industry depended on the water and added that his state had acted responsibly in enacting water legislation. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley argued that downstream communities and a nuclear-power plant in his state required water, too. Within Georgia the drought has brought to the fore long-simmering resentment against the booming capital of the New South. There is concern that Atlanta could slake its thirst on Augusta's water supplies.
Atlanta is a greedy, poorly designed behemoth of a city incapable of hearing the word 'no' and dealing with it. They cannot bring themselves to tell their constituents that perhaps if they didn't have six bathrooms, it might ease the situation a bit.
While other cities have water-conservation measures, Atlanta, one of the country's fastest-growing metropolitan regions, has been particularly shortsighted.
Atlanta's population climbed to 4.1 million from 2.9 million. Its draw on the water increased to 420 million gallons a day from 320 million. For its drinking water, Atlanta relies almost entirely on Lake Lanier, a 38,000-acre man-made reservoir in northern Georgia built in the 1950s. Not surprisingly, developers and members of the business community rankle at suggestion that the state should introduce legislation to prohibit developers from building if no water is available. February 07, 2008 Los Angeles Times rw Karen Gaia says: several states do have legislation to prohibit developers from building if no water is available. However, counties often play a shell game with the water to make developers happy. If states where water is a problem were take a careful look at their water supply and were to act responsibly, there would be litttle or no more development allowed.
With officials projecting that Atlanta could run out of water within three months, Georgia politicians have pleaded with the Army Corps of Engineers not to release more water from the reservoir as part of an effort to save two species of mussels 200 miles downriver. Yet there is a growing sense that the metropolis itself is the problem. Atlanta's rapid growth, and its disregard for conservation, is straining the region's ecosystem. The governors of Florida, Alabama and Georgia agreed to reduce by 16% the amount of water released from Lake Lanier, which would give some relief. But experts say the Southeast's struggles over water resources are far from over. What has got to be on the table is Atlanta's unrestricted growth and cavalier attitude to water use. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist wrote in a letter to President Bush that Florida's $134 million commercial seafood industry depended on the water and added that his state had acted responsibly in enacting water legislation. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley argued that downstream communities and a nuclear-power plant in his state required water, too. Within Georgia the drought has brought to the fore long-simmering resentment against the booming capital of the New South. There is concern that Atlanta could slake its thirst on Augusta's water supplies.
Atlanta is a greedy, poorly designed behemoth of a city incapable of hearing the word 'no' and dealing with it. They cannot bring themselves to tell their constituents that perhaps if they didn't have six bathrooms, it might ease the situation a bit.
While other cities have water-conservation measures, Atlanta, one of the country's fastest-growing metropolitan regions, has been particularly shortsighted.
Atlanta's population climbed to 4.1 million from 2.9 million. Its draw on the water increased to 420 million gallons a day from 320 million. For its drinking water, Atlanta relies almost entirely on Lake Lanier, a 38,000-acre man-made reservoir in northern Georgia built in the 1950s. Not surprisingly, developers and members of the business community rankle at suggestion that the state should introduce legislation to prohibit developers from building if no water is available. February 07, 2008 Los Angeles Times rw Karen Gaia says: several states do have legislation to prohibit developers from building if no water is available. However, counties often play a shell game with the water to make developers happy. If states where water is a problem were take a careful look at their water supply and were to act responsibly, there would be litttle or no more development allowed.
Water Water Everywhere ~ NOT
Are Our Current Growth and Water Use Sustainable?.
The use of water is constantly changing as our population continues to expand, and we respond to any number of external events, including new technologies, global climate, and energy availability. Arizona initially developed through exploiting its natural resources, often at rates that would deplete the region over time. We will need the ability to make adjustments in a timely manner and avoid crossing critical thresholds that could result in irreversible shortages. Groundwater overuse could dewater an aquifer and compact its underground structure. This could lead to permanent loss of water storage capacity, increased vulnerability to drought, drying up of streams, or land subsidence. All of which have occurred in Arizona.
To meet demand, we must increase our investments in new water resources. Many of our leaders miss this fundamental relationship. They want to allow continued growth, but do not want to invest in the tools needed to manage and serve our complex communities. Arizona has made significant advances in linking water and growth including requiring Arizona's larger or faster-growing local governments to consider water adequacy in their long-range plans. They require a 100-year renewable water supply before land can be subdivided, and last year's legislation allowing cities and towns to require new subdivisions to have a 100-year water supply.
Arizona's leaders will be considering transportation and water-management initiatives. It is hoped that we will, envision and plan for strong and healthy communities and be willing to invest to make it happen. Priority goals for assuring a sustainable Arizona water supply include: • Develop long-range water-demand projections. • Forge regional partnerships. • Secure future supplies. • Understand and prepare for climate change. • Modify the state's regulatory and water-management organizations to require water adequacy in urban and rural areas, and to facilitate water transfers. • Address environmental quality, related to water management. February 01, 2008 AZ Central.com rw
The use of water is constantly changing as our population continues to expand, and we respond to any number of external events, including new technologies, global climate, and energy availability. Arizona initially developed through exploiting its natural resources, often at rates that would deplete the region over time. We will need the ability to make adjustments in a timely manner and avoid crossing critical thresholds that could result in irreversible shortages. Groundwater overuse could dewater an aquifer and compact its underground structure. This could lead to permanent loss of water storage capacity, increased vulnerability to drought, drying up of streams, or land subsidence. All of which have occurred in Arizona.
To meet demand, we must increase our investments in new water resources. Many of our leaders miss this fundamental relationship. They want to allow continued growth, but do not want to invest in the tools needed to manage and serve our complex communities. Arizona has made significant advances in linking water and growth including requiring Arizona's larger or faster-growing local governments to consider water adequacy in their long-range plans. They require a 100-year renewable water supply before land can be subdivided, and last year's legislation allowing cities and towns to require new subdivisions to have a 100-year water supply.
Arizona's leaders will be considering transportation and water-management initiatives. It is hoped that we will, envision and plan for strong and healthy communities and be willing to invest to make it happen. Priority goals for assuring a sustainable Arizona water supply include: • Develop long-range water-demand projections. • Forge regional partnerships. • Secure future supplies. • Understand and prepare for climate change. • Modify the state's regulatory and water-management organizations to require water adequacy in urban and rural areas, and to facilitate water transfers. • Address environmental quality, related to water management. February 01, 2008 AZ Central.com rw
Ticking bombs.......
"We've been too kind to those who are destroying the planet.We have been inexcusably, unforgivably, insanely kind." -- Derrick Jensen
"We feel you don't have a conservation policy unless you have a population policy" -- David Brower
"Given that population growth continues for . . . years after birthrates have been reduced to replacement level, it is imperative that programs designed to limit population growth be initiated very quickly." -- paleoecologist, Mark Bush
"We feel you don't have a conservation policy unless you have a population policy" -- David Brower
"Given that population growth continues for . . . years after birthrates have been reduced to replacement level, it is imperative that programs designed to limit population growth be initiated very quickly." -- paleoecologist, Mark Bush
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Humanity is the problem
COMMENTARY
Humanity is the greatest challenge
Posted: 15 Jan 2008by John Feeney
The growth in human population and rising consumption have exceeded the planet's ability to support us, argues John Feeney, writer and editor of growthmadness.org. It is time, he says, to ring the alarm bells and take radical action in order to avert unspeakable consequences. "We're out of our league, influencing systems we don't understand" he says.
We humans face two problems of desperate importance. The first is our global ecological plight. The second is our difficulty acknowledging the first.
Despite increasing climate change coverage, environmental writers remain reluctant to discuss the full scope and severity of the global dilemma we've created. Many fear sounding alarmist, but there is an alarm to sound and the time for reticence is over.
We've outgrown the planet and need radical action to avert unspeakable consequences. This - by a huge margin - has become humanity's greatest challenge.
If we've altered the climate, it should come as no surprise that we have damaged other natural systems. From deforestation to collapsing fisheries, desertification, the global spread of chemical toxins, ocean dead zones, and the death of coral reefs, an array of interrelated declines is evidence of the breadth of our impact.
Add the depletion of finite resources such as oil and ground-water, and the whole of the challenge upon us emerges.
Barring decisive action, we are marching, heads down, toward global ecological collapse.
Web of life
We're dismantling the web of life, the support system upon which all species depend. We could have very well entered the "sixth mass extinction"; the fifth having wiped out the dinosaurs.
Though we like to imagine we are different from other species, we humans are not exempt from the threats posed by ecological degradation.
Analysts worry, for example, about the future of food production. Climate change-induced drought and the depletion of oil and aquifers - resources on which farming and food distribution depend - could trigger famine on an unprecedented scale.
Billions could die. At the very least, we risk our children inheriting a bleak world, empty of the richness of life we take for granted.
Alarmist? Yes, but realistically so.
The most worrisome aspect of this ecological decline is the convergence in time of so many serious problems. Issues such as oil and aquifer depletion and climate change are set to reach crisis points within decades.
Biodiversity loss is equally problematic. As a result of their ecological interdependence, the extinction of species can trigger cascade effects whereby impacts suddenly and unpredictably spread. We're out of our league, influencing systems we don't understand.
Turning pointOne thing is certain: continued inaction or half-hearted efforts will be of no help - we're at a turning point in human historyAny of these problems could disrupt society. The possibility of them occurring together is enough to worry even the most optimistic among rational observers.
Some credible analyses conclude we've postponed action too long to avoid massive upheaval and the best we can do now is to soften the blow. Others hold out hope of averting catastrophe, though not without tough times ahead.
One thing is certain: continued inaction or half-hearted efforts will be of no help - we're at a turning point in human history.
Though few seem willing to confront the facts, it's no secret how we got here. We simply went too far. The growth which once measured our species' success inevitably turned deadly.
Unceasing economic growth, increasing per capita resource consumption, and global population growth have teamed with our reliance on finite reserves of fossil energy to exceed the Earth's absorptive and regenerative capacities.
Getting a grip
We are now in "overshoot"; our numbers and levels of consumption having exceeded the Earth's capacity to sustain us for the long-term.
And as we remain in overshoot, we further erode the Earth's ability to support us.
Inevitably, our numbers will come down, whether voluntarily or through such natural means as famine or disease.
So what can get us out of this mess? First comes awareness. Those in a position to inform must shed fears of alarmism and embrace the truth.
More specifically, we need ecological awareness. For instance, we must "get" that we are just one among millions of interdependent species.
It's imperative we reduce personal resource consumption. The relocalisation movement promoted by those studying oil depletion is a powerful strategy in that regard.
We need a complete transition to clean, renewable energy. It can't happen overnight, but reliance on non-renewable energy is, by definition, unsustainable.
But there is a caveat: abundant clean energy alone will not end our problems. There remains population growth which increases consumption of resources other than energy.
We have to rethink the corporate economic growth imperative. On a finite planet, the physical component of economic growth cannot continue forever.
Hiding the truth
In fact, it has gone too far already. As a promising alternative, the field of ecological economics offers the "steady state economy".
We must end world population growth, then reduce population size. That means lowering population numbers in industrialised as well as developing nations.
Scientists point to the population-environment link. But today's environmentalists avoid the subject more than any other ecological truth. Their motives range from the political to a misunderstanding of the issue.
Neither justifies hiding the truth because total resource use is the product of population size and per capita consumption. We have no chance of solving our environmental predicament without reducing both factors in the equation.
Fortunately, expert consensus tells us we can address population humanely by solving the social problems that fuel it.
Implementing these actions will require us all to become activists, insisting our leaders base decisions not on corporate interests but on the health of the biosphere.
Let's make the effort for today's and tomorrow's children.
Dr John Feeney is an environmental writer and activist in Boulder, Colorado, US. His online project is growthmadness.org. This viewpoint article first appeared in the BBC Green Room, a forum for a series of opinion pieces on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website. It provoked a large response. Click here to read these.
Reproduced with permission
Humanity is the greatest challenge
Posted: 15 Jan 2008by John Feeney
The growth in human population and rising consumption have exceeded the planet's ability to support us, argues John Feeney, writer and editor of growthmadness.org. It is time, he says, to ring the alarm bells and take radical action in order to avert unspeakable consequences. "We're out of our league, influencing systems we don't understand" he says.
We humans face two problems of desperate importance. The first is our global ecological plight. The second is our difficulty acknowledging the first.
Despite increasing climate change coverage, environmental writers remain reluctant to discuss the full scope and severity of the global dilemma we've created. Many fear sounding alarmist, but there is an alarm to sound and the time for reticence is over.
We've outgrown the planet and need radical action to avert unspeakable consequences. This - by a huge margin - has become humanity's greatest challenge.
If we've altered the climate, it should come as no surprise that we have damaged other natural systems. From deforestation to collapsing fisheries, desertification, the global spread of chemical toxins, ocean dead zones, and the death of coral reefs, an array of interrelated declines is evidence of the breadth of our impact.
Add the depletion of finite resources such as oil and ground-water, and the whole of the challenge upon us emerges.
Barring decisive action, we are marching, heads down, toward global ecological collapse.
Web of life
We're dismantling the web of life, the support system upon which all species depend. We could have very well entered the "sixth mass extinction"; the fifth having wiped out the dinosaurs.
Though we like to imagine we are different from other species, we humans are not exempt from the threats posed by ecological degradation.
Analysts worry, for example, about the future of food production. Climate change-induced drought and the depletion of oil and aquifers - resources on which farming and food distribution depend - could trigger famine on an unprecedented scale.
Billions could die. At the very least, we risk our children inheriting a bleak world, empty of the richness of life we take for granted.
Alarmist? Yes, but realistically so.
The most worrisome aspect of this ecological decline is the convergence in time of so many serious problems. Issues such as oil and aquifer depletion and climate change are set to reach crisis points within decades.
Biodiversity loss is equally problematic. As a result of their ecological interdependence, the extinction of species can trigger cascade effects whereby impacts suddenly and unpredictably spread. We're out of our league, influencing systems we don't understand.
Turning pointOne thing is certain: continued inaction or half-hearted efforts will be of no help - we're at a turning point in human historyAny of these problems could disrupt society. The possibility of them occurring together is enough to worry even the most optimistic among rational observers.
Some credible analyses conclude we've postponed action too long to avoid massive upheaval and the best we can do now is to soften the blow. Others hold out hope of averting catastrophe, though not without tough times ahead.
One thing is certain: continued inaction or half-hearted efforts will be of no help - we're at a turning point in human history.
Though few seem willing to confront the facts, it's no secret how we got here. We simply went too far. The growth which once measured our species' success inevitably turned deadly.
Unceasing economic growth, increasing per capita resource consumption, and global population growth have teamed with our reliance on finite reserves of fossil energy to exceed the Earth's absorptive and regenerative capacities.
Getting a grip
We are now in "overshoot"; our numbers and levels of consumption having exceeded the Earth's capacity to sustain us for the long-term.
And as we remain in overshoot, we further erode the Earth's ability to support us.
Inevitably, our numbers will come down, whether voluntarily or through such natural means as famine or disease.
So what can get us out of this mess? First comes awareness. Those in a position to inform must shed fears of alarmism and embrace the truth.
More specifically, we need ecological awareness. For instance, we must "get" that we are just one among millions of interdependent species.
It's imperative we reduce personal resource consumption. The relocalisation movement promoted by those studying oil depletion is a powerful strategy in that regard.
We need a complete transition to clean, renewable energy. It can't happen overnight, but reliance on non-renewable energy is, by definition, unsustainable.
But there is a caveat: abundant clean energy alone will not end our problems. There remains population growth which increases consumption of resources other than energy.
We have to rethink the corporate economic growth imperative. On a finite planet, the physical component of economic growth cannot continue forever.
Hiding the truth
In fact, it has gone too far already. As a promising alternative, the field of ecological economics offers the "steady state economy".
We must end world population growth, then reduce population size. That means lowering population numbers in industrialised as well as developing nations.
Scientists point to the population-environment link. But today's environmentalists avoid the subject more than any other ecological truth. Their motives range from the political to a misunderstanding of the issue.
Neither justifies hiding the truth because total resource use is the product of population size and per capita consumption. We have no chance of solving our environmental predicament without reducing both factors in the equation.
Fortunately, expert consensus tells us we can address population humanely by solving the social problems that fuel it.
Implementing these actions will require us all to become activists, insisting our leaders base decisions not on corporate interests but on the health of the biosphere.
Let's make the effort for today's and tomorrow's children.
Dr John Feeney is an environmental writer and activist in Boulder, Colorado, US. His online project is growthmadness.org. This viewpoint article first appeared in the BBC Green Room, a forum for a series of opinion pieces on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website. It provoked a large response. Click here to read these.
Reproduced with permission
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