Category Archives: Climate Change

Dahr Jamail | “Devastating” Impacts of Climate Change Increasing

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http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/23660-devastating-impacts-of-climate-change-increasing

A massive collapse of an ice sheet in Western Antarctica has begun and, according to scientists, is most likely an unstoppable event that will cause an inevitable rise in global sea levels of at least 10 feet.

The rise will be relatively slow at first, but by 2100 will ramp up sharply. This could happen sooner, warn the scientists, as the impacts of anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD/climate change) continue to intensify.

“This is really happening,” Thomas P. Wagner, who runs NASA’s programs on polar ice and helped oversee some of the research, said. “There’s nothing to stop it now.”

On April 13, the world’s leading scientific body for the assessment of ACD warned of a “devastating rise of 4-5C if we carry on as we are.”

According to Mike Childs, the head of science, policy and research at Friends of the Earth, an increase to 4C warming would mean a “devastating” impact on agriculture and human civilization. Childs added that we would face even more extreme weather events and lose approximately 20-30 percent of the wildlife on the planet. This assessment may even be overly hopeful, given that humans have never lived on a planet at 3.5C or higher.

A report released in April by a joint Australian/US research team states that escalating CO2 emissions now threaten the entire marine food chain, given that more than 90 percent of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans.

The extreme temperature duality witnessed across the US this past winter is likely to become the norm, thanks to ACD, and it was again revealed who the largest CO2 emitters are. China, the US and India lead as the world’s largest polluters.

The rapidity with which ACD is progressing now is truly astounding. Greenhouse gas emissions grew in the first decade of the 21st century at a rate nearly double that of the previous 30 years combined – this, despite the massive economic downturn in 2008.

With full steam ahead for the industrial growth society that dominates the planet, this dispatch reveals another month of dramatic impacts and stunning reports that show, starkly, how humans are disfiguring all facets of the earth.

Earth

According to a recent study published in Nature, increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere could be lengthening the growing seasons of grasses and other plants. This might seem like good news, except that another study published in Nature about two weeks later revealed that increased CO2 emissions are making the world’s staple food crops of wheat, rice, maize and soybeans less nutritious, which is worsening the already serious health problems already suffered by the billions of malnourished people on the planet.

ACD is also playing a role in causing a dramatic increase in wheat rust, a fungal disease known as “the polio of the food world,” spreading from Africa to South and Central Asia, the Middle East and now Europe. This is causing calamitous losses for the world’s second most important grain crop after rice, and scientists are very concerned about the dangers this poses to global food security.

This is in addition to the increasing frequency of agricultural shocks caused by extreme weather events that are resulting in a surge in food prices that is hitting consumers, as well as everyone in the food chain, from farmers to agricultural traders to food manufacturers.

In the US, beef prices have already hit an all-time high, since extreme weather like massive droughts has thinned the country’s beef cattle herds to the lowest levels since 1951, when there was only half the number of people to feed.

The San Jose Tico Times in Costa Rica reported that ACD is causing the collapse of wildlife habitats, widespread animal extinction, water scarcity and the spreading of diseases across the already extremely vulnerable populations of Latin America. The region already has the highest biodiversity on the planet, but one-third of all coral-building species there are already threatened with extinction, and 40 percent of the mangrove species along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of Central America are threatened with extinction.

Escalating temperatures across the US Southwest are causing changes for birds and reptiles – and while some are benefitting from said changes, others like jays and other birds could lose as much as 80 percent of their breeding range by 2100, are losing and becoming threatened with extinction.

In the Arctic region of the planet, permafrost stores vast amounts of organic material that is teeming with microbes. Scientists are now reporting that as the permafrost thaws, as it is now at ever-increasing rates, it is changing the composition of the vegetation in the Arctic by releasing these microbes and accelerating ACD. According to Jeff Chanton, an environmental scientist who was involved in the study, when the peat in the permafrost thaws, water floods the soil and the chemistry change in the soil increases greenhouse gas production.

Speaking of the Arctic, in Alaska the landscape is radically changing in the north as melting permafrost is causing forests to no longer grow straight, as trees are tilting and falling over.

Meanwhile, child psychiatrists, psychologists and educators are reporting escalating anxiety levels in youth, who are flooded with disconcerting talk and news about the destruction of our planet.

Water

Water-related phenomena continue to be one of the more obvious ways to observe the impacts of ACD across the planet.

Storms bringing rainfall amounts and wind speeds more akin to hurricanes than spring showers deluged the Florida panhandle and parts of Alabama recently. In line with ACD trends, dramatic rainfall events like this have increased across the US, and in the Southeast, the frequency of heavy precipitation events has increased by approximately 25 percent over the 1958-2011 period.

In the Northeastern US, due to ACD storms like Hurricane Sandy that flooded New York are now 20 times more likely to occur than they were 170 years ago, according to a recent study.

In nearby New Jersey, local officials are appealing to the US Army Corps of Engineers to produce a method to stop the flooding which is expected to continue to worsen.

Across the country in California, while dealing with a record-setting drought, the state is simultaneously having to plan for flooding of its coastal cities, due to rising seas.

Rotterdam and Ho Chi Minh City are both on the front lines of ACD. Given that both sit on river deltas and are defined and threatened by their relationship to water, they are on the flood defensive and making preparations for what is to come.

Global sea levels already rising 2-3 millimeters annually, and increasing. But the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta is already sinking so rapidly that the local, relative sea level may be rising by up to 2 centimeters each year, according to a recent study.

On the other end of the spectrum are drought and drought-related problems.

In Alberta, Canada, among other places, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find enough drinking water. Many residents there are concerned about water tainted by agricultural runoff that is an increasingly common phenomenon due to ACD as extreme weather events like flooding become more frequent. The flooding then washes E. coli from horse manure into the drinking supply.

In New Mexico, water managers in Albuquerque are saying that the Rio Grande may hit a 40-year low this summer due to the ongoing drought in that state.

Meanwhile, west of there, the Colorado River’s stunted flow, coupled with ongoing drought, has shrunk water levels at Lake Mead to their lowest level in generations. The Lake Mead reservoir, which supplies 90 percent of Las Vegas’ water, is ebbing “as though a plug had been pulled from a bathtub drain.”

Due to the record-setting drought in California, tens of thousands of young salmon are literally having to be shipped to the Pacific in hopes of keeping them alive. This is because drought, ranging from moderate to exceptional, now covers 100 percent of the state for the first time in 15 years.

Local state media outlets are reporting that California’s water wars will reach a “new level of crazy'” this year, as farmers, environmental lawyers, wildlife groups, cities and even the Fresno County sheriff have posted thoughts in a siege of protests to state officials about the use of this year’s tiny snowpack and half-empty reservoirs.

While researchers tend to shy away from connecting weather extremes to ACD in real time, a recent study out of Utah State University now links ACD to California’s drought.

At Oregon’s Crater Lake, where having enough snow for recreation has rarely been an issue historically, the national park has been gradually losing its iconic snow for the past eight decades.

The drought that covers most of the southwest has caused a new problem in southern Colorado, where storms of tumbleweeds have invaded areas, blocking rural roads and irrigation canals, and even barricading homes and an elementary school.

The situation for southeast Colorado is bleak, as a new dust bowl appears to be setting in.

The impact of nearly four years of deep drought is showing itself in three ways: pastures have dried up or are choked with drifts of sand; tumbleweeds are blowing into tall hills against fences, homes and barns; and massive dust storms are erasing topsoil and making it harder to grow grain, wheat and sunflowers.

Water is now a major issue in Brazil, which holds the world’s largest fresh water reserves. Since most of Brazil’s water comes from the Amazon, ongoing drought and deforestation is causing the once abundant water source to no longer seem infinite.

In Northwestern Haiti, drought is so intense it is threatening the population there, where a lack of rain in recent months has killed crops in Haiti’s poorest region, and left people literally struggling to survive.

Across the Atlantic, South Sudan is now on the verge of the world’s worst famines in a quarter of a century. The UN now estimates that fully one third of the country’s population could be facing starvation due to inadequate agricultural production stemming from the lack of water.

In India, scientists are concerned about how pollution and rising temperatures are deleteriously impacting the monsoon, which accounts for three quarters of India’s annual rainfall.

In war-ravaged Syria, a looming drought could push millions more people there into hunger and escalate the already massive refugee crisis, according to the UN.

Scientists are now asking how much longer Mt. Everest might remain climbable. The April 18 icefall that claimed over a dozen lives was the single deadliest climbing accident in the mountain’s history. Yet, the massive icefall across an area that rarely sees them of such scope, was abruptly followed by several others across the route, underscoring how ACD is altering the face of the planet.

Ocean life continues to be dramatically impacted by ACD. The critically endangered hawksbill sea turtle’s migration routes are being altered due to ACD, as the beaches they use for hatching are shrinking.

Increasingly acidic ocean water is dissolving sea snails’ shells, according to a recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study. These impacts are clear off the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington, where scientists have found evidence that increasing acidity of ocean waters is dissolving the shells of a key species at the base of the food chain.

In Washington State, above-average precipitation spawned in part by ACD helped cause the deadly landslide that buried dozens of homes. Experts with the US Geological Survey said that rainfall in the region where the slide occurred was 150-200 percent of the long-term average for February and March.

Up in the newly ice-free Arctic waters off the coast of Alaska, the waters that are vital to millions of seabirds that flock north every summer are being exploited by commercial shippers seeking shorter routes, according to a recent study.

Air

A new method of analyzing publicly available data shows that the portion of days with warm weather in the US has increased by 25 percent over the past 50 years, and the graph is worth a look.

ACD and extreme weather events are threatening California’s air quality, according to the state’s pollution control officers. This is not good news, given that the American Lung Association recently released a report finding that almost 150 million people in the country live in areas where air pollution levels are already unhealthy to breathe – with particle and ozone pollution increasing the risk of heart disease, lung cancer and asthma attacks – and the situation is worsening.

New research also shows that suicides in Salt Lake County in Utah escalate during periods of elevated air pollution.

More confirmation for what is already known came in a new study that shows that Arctic methane emissions are “certain to trigger warming” as ACD continues to melt permafrost and release increasingly large amounts of methane into the atmosphere where it is creating a positive feedback loop.

Fire

Not surprisingly, the number and size of massive wildfires is increasing in the Western US due to rising temperatures and worsening drought from ACD, and new research shows that these trends will continue in the coming decades. This, along with several early-season fires and fires that are occurring at twice the normal rate already for this year, has caused California state officials to ramp up preparations for what could well be another record year of burns.

Researchers from the University of Utah released a report showing that over the last three decades, wildfires across the western US have, indeed, been growing both larger and more frequent.

Extreme heat and exceptionally dry conditions have already turned Oklahoma into a tinderbox, where multiple wildfires have already erupted during a heat wave that was unprecedented for this early in the season.

A different kind of fire has spread across North Dakota, where towering flames from oil and gas wells fill the sky above the Berthold Indian Reservation as the natural gas flares are causing grass fires, creating driving hazards, and contributing to CO2 emission and further accelerating ACD.

Things are even worse in the Amazon, where drought and deforestation are pushing the region towards a tipping point that will cause rapid, large-scale destruction during drier years, according to a recent study.

Denial and Reality

ACD has progressed enough that the UN has warned that renewable energy resources need to be increased three to four times if there is to be any hope of preventing a global catastrophe.

UN-appointed climate experts recently reported that since countries have already waited so long to take the dramatic actions necessary to lessen the impacts of ACD, only a dramatic worldwide effort over the next 15 years could stave off the disastrous ACD impacts to come.

Yet mitigating ACD is more challenging than ever, and becoming increasingly so with each passing day. CO2 emissions continue to set annual records, and nothing short of a wartime response is warranted. Nevertheless, governments around the world have made, at best, extremely weak efforts towards transitioning away from fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, the march of ACD continues unabated.

March 2014 was the fourth warmest March ever in recorded history, globally, according to recent NASA data. That makes March the 349th month (over 29 years straight) in which global temperatures were above the historic average.

Given that methane is already being released from melting Arctic permafrost at record levels, March also revealed the disconcerting fact that Northern Siberia was a full nine degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal, with Norway and Denmark averaging temperatures nearly 7 degrees warmer than normal.

A recent study published in Nature Climate Change showed that part of East Antarctica is more vulnerable than expected to thawing that could trigger an unstoppable slide of ice into the ocean and raise world sea levels for thousands of years. According to the study, the area of Antarctica in question has enough ice to increase global sea levels by 10 to 13 feet. Antarctica holds enough ice to raise sea levels 188 feet if it ever all melts.

For those in the US who are still in ACD denial, who are now a distinct minority, Showtime has released an ACD TV series using movie stars as ACD correspondents to appeal to the mass market.

Even corporate media outlets are publishing and broadcasting information about the realities of ACD, like this data on region-specific particulars about how ACD will impact people across the US.

In case that wasn’t enough to drive home the point, Australia’s Treasury Secretary Martin Parkinson told an audience in Washington that it has become inevitable that his country would have to resettle ACD refugees in the future.

Other preparations include US researchers from the University of Delaware racing the clock to try to develop chickens that will be able to survive on a hotter planet.

While not necessarily recent news, it came to the fore again that scientists are again considering a formal declaration that 1950 marked the dawn of a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene – an age defined by human impact on the planet, particular in the form of ACD.

In early May, the White House released the National Climate Assessment, which stated unequivocally that ACD is a clear and present danger, and has moved from a distant threat to a present-day reality, and that no US citizen will remain unscathed. The report, a culmination of five years of work, provides a comprehensive review of both observed and projected impacts of ACD. Key images and graphs can be viewed here.

Lastly and most importantly, if you choose only one link to view from this article, click this one – it will astound you to see in broad historical context (800,000 years) just how abruptly and profoundly humans have impacted the earth by pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. The visualization underscores the true massiveness of the crisis we are in.

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Study: Global Veganism Would Reduce Carbon Emissions More Than Energy Intervention

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Study: Global Veganism Would Reduce Carbon Emissions More Than Energy Intervention

Producing nearly 15% of the Earth’s greenhouse gas emissions, the meat industry is one of the top contributors to climate change. Slowly, very slowly, movements like Meatless Mondays and Vegan Before 6 have demonstrated the value, and deliciousness, of adopting a vegan diet, but a carnivorous diet is still seen as evidence of prosperity.

In 2009, researchers at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency calculated that global veganism would reduce agriculture-related carbon emissions by nearly 17%, methane emissions by 24%, and nitrous oxide emissions by 21% by 2050.

The researchers discovered that worldwide veganism, or even just worldwide vegetarianism, would achieve gains at a much lower cost that an energy intervention, like carbon taxes, for instance.

The study demonstrated tremendous value of a vegan or vegetarian diet in staving off climate change, but there are so many other benefits as well. Antibiotic resistance stemming from the meat consumed that has been pumped full of antibiotics would plummet. Pollution rates would drop significantly as factory farms, the biggest polluters in the meat industry, became a thing of the past. General human health and well-being would rise from a plant-based diet free from cholesterol and pharmaceuticals.

By 2050, the global population is predicted to reach a staggering 9 BILLION people.

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Baby Steps Won’t Get Us There In Time

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[In the end, the author of this lengthy article proposes what she earlier disparaged as “baby steps.”]

What if Everyone in the World Became a Vegetarian?

Vegan burgers with sweet potato and chickpeas.
Treating yourself to vegan burgers with sweet potato and chickpeas isn’t just a delicious indulgence; it could help save the planet.

Photo by Elena Veselova/Thinkstock

The meat industry is one of the top contributors to climate change, directly and indirectly producing about 14.5 percent of the world’s anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, and global meat consumption is on the rise. People generally like eating meat—when poor people start making more money, they almost invariably start buying more meat. As the population grows and eats more animal products, the consequences for climate change, pollution, and land use could be catastrophic.

Attempts to reduce meat consumption usually focus on baby steps—Meatless Monday and “vegan before 6,”passable fake chicken, andin vitro burgers. If the world is going to eat less meat, it’s going to have to be coaxed and cajoled into doing it, according to conventional wisdom.

But what if the convincing were the easy part? Suppose everyone in the world voluntarily stopped eating meat, en masse. I know it’s not actually going to happen. But the best-case scenario from a climate perspective would be if all 7 billion of us woke up one day and realized that PETA was right all along. If this collective change of spirit came to pass, like Peter Singer’s dearest fantasy come true, what would the ramifications be?

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At least one research team has run the numbers on what global veganism would mean for the planet. In 2009 researchers from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency publishedtheir projections of the greenhouse gas consequences if humanity came to eat less meat, no meat, or no animal products at all. The researchers predicted that universal veganism would reduce agriculture-related carbon emissions by 17 percent, methane emissions by 24 percent, and nitrous oxide emissions by 21 percent by 2050. Universal vegetarianism would result in similarly impressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. What’s more, the Dutch researchers found that worldwide vegetarianism or veganism would achieve these gains at a much lower cost than a purely energy-focused intervention involving carbon taxes and renewable energy technology. The upshot: Universal eschewal of meat wouldn’t single-handedly stave off global warming, but it would go a long way toward mitigating climate change.

Continued: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/feed_the_world/2014/05/meat_eating_and_climate_change_vegetarians_impact_on_the_economy_antibiotics.html

Gassy Cows Are Warming The Planet, And They’re Here To Stay

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http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/04/11/301794415/gassy-cows-are-warming-the-planet-and-theyre-here-to-stay?ft=3&f=1001%2c1003%2c1004%2c1090

by Maanvi Singh

April 12, 2014 5:06 AM ET

Correction April 12, 2014

An earlier version of this story said that the methane emissions associated with livestock come from their farts. In fact, most of those methane emissions come from belches.

 

These guys are gassy, and their emissions are contributing to global warming.

These guys are gassy, and their emissions are contributing to global warming.

Sorry to ruin your appetite, but it’s time to talk about cow belches.

Humans the world over are eating meat and drinking milk — some of us a little less, some of us a lot more, than years past. Farmers are bringing more and more cows into the world to meet demand, and with them escapes more methane into the atmosphere.

In 2011, methane from livestock accounted for 39 percent of all the greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, according to a report that United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization released Friday. That’s more than synthetic fertilizer or deforestation. Methane from livestock rose 11 percent between 2001 and 2011.

The bulk of the emissions — 55 percent — came from beef cattle. Dairy cows, buffalo, sheep and goats accounted for the rest.

Those emissions, combined with emissions from all the other sectors of food production, aren’t likely to go down anytime soon. Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, forestry and fishing have doubled over the past 50 years, according to the report. Emissions could go up by 30 percent by 2050.

All this talk about cow belches might make you want to give up meat. So should we all become vegetarians? Asking everyone to reduce their meat consumption isn’t a very practical strategy, says Francesco Tubiello, a natural resources officer for the FAO.

The demand for meat is rising most quickly in developing countries. And since the diets of many in the developing world are short on protein and calories, the poorest of them could really benefit from more meat production. Plus, “for many developing countries, agriculture is their main economic sector,” Tubiello tells The Salt.

Global meat consumption is likely to keep going up over the next 30 years, Tubiello says. (Though, as many have argued, it does make sense for the affluent people of the world who currently over-consume meat to cut back.) But the FAO says the best way to reduce agriculture’s contribution to global warming is to tackle other sources of emissions.

For example, we could improve how efficiently we use agricultural land. “There are many ways to improve the productivity of land,” Tubiello says, like increasing crop yields. That means we need to find more ways to use less land to make the same amount of food.

Encouraging farmers to use fertilizers more judiciously would also help. When farmers spray their fields with nitrogen fertilizer, microbes in the soil convert it to nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas. “A lot of the fertilizer is not used efficiently,” Tubiello says.

The FAO report found that fertilizers accounted 14 percent of agricultural emissions in 2011. And the amount emissions from fertilizers has risen 37 percent since 2001.

Of course, we can’t ignore the fact that raising livestock takes a huge toll on the environment. But, Tubiello says, there are ways to mitigate the environmental impact of raising livestock without doing away with meat altogether.

For example, we could also try to switch up what we feed cows. Having cows graze on grass isn’t a very efficient use of land, as the grass makes for smaller animals, who end up emitting more greenhouse gases per pound of meat produced, than animals raised on grain.

However, corn and soy that most cows eat makes them especially gassy, so feeding them alfalfa and supplements could reduce how much they belch. More research on how to optimize what we feed livestock could help farmers reduce emissions.

But even if we can’t control how much cows belch, we can control what we do with their poop. When nitrogen in livestock manure and urine is also broken down into nitrous oxide — and emissions from manure accounted for 16 percent of agricultural emissions in 2011, according to the FAO. Managing all that manure — or even reusing it as fuel, is one way to reduce emissions.

Warm Alaskan Winter May Pose Problems for Iditarod Dog Sled Race

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http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/warm-alaska-winter-may-present/23749451
By Kristen Rodman, AccuWeather.com Staff Writer
February 27, 2014; 4:25 PM
Alaska’s most popular sporting [sic] event, the Iditarod Sled Dog Race is set to begin March 1, 2014. However, due to the milder-than-normal weather that has depleted snowpack this winter this winter, mushers may encounter some setbacks.

Kicking off the race, the annual ceremonial start will take place in downtown Anchorage on Saturday, March 1, 2014. The actual start to the competition will be on Sunday afternoon, March 2, 2014, in Willow, despite recent discussions.

Due to the lack of snowcover thus far this winter, race organizers considered moving the race start from Willow to Fairbanks, according to an Alaska Public Media  article. However, a construction company offered to help fix the trail with specialized equipment, and as a result, the race will stick to its traditional route through the Rainy Pass of the Alaska Range.

Musher Michelle Phillips of Tagish, Yukon Territory, Canada, makes the final push on the Bering Sea ice for the finish line a few miles outside Nome, Alaska, on Wednesday, March 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

“It’s been a very unusual winter up across Alaska,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jack Boston said. “The problem has been frequent mild days, which have been knocking down the snowcover.”

In January, Anchorage’s average temperature was 12 F above normal, causing the city’s snowcover to melt. Farther northwest in Nome, the temperature soared to a record-breaking high on Jan. 27, 2014, hitting 50 F for the first time ever during the winter season. Nome’s average temperature for January was 16 F above normal.

Despite the region’s massive winter warmup, many areas along the path of the race have received near-normal snowfall. So far this winter, Anchorage has received 53.7 inches of snow, or 90 percent of the normal snowfall, while Nome has accumulated 53.9 inches, or 96 percent of the normal snowfall.

As nearly 70 mushers get ready to make the 1,000-mile, multiple-day journey from Willow to Nome, the weather does not seem like it is going to cooperate this year but not because of its normal severity. Typically, the troublesome weather conditions that the race faces include winter storms, blizzards, high winds and subzero temperatures.

“It looks like a mild start to the Iditarod,” AccuWeather Long-Range Forecast Meteorologist Jason Nicholls said. “It looks like there can be a little snow on the ground around March 5, 2014, but it should not amount to much more than a few inches.”

Not All Winter Sports Negatively Impacted by Climate Change…

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…THAT IS, IF YOU CONSIDER KILLING RABBITS A “SPORT”!!!

The USA Today ran an article yesterday by U.S. Olympic cross country skier, Andrew Newell, entitled, Climate Change Impacts Winter Sports.” Newel tells us, “As a skier, my life revolves around winter and being outside. Years spent training have not only honed my skills, but also shown me the negative impacts of climate change first-hand. There have been countless times in the past 10 years when our early season competitions have been delayed or canceled due to lack of snow, or our spring and summer training camps disrupted due to erratic weather or insufficient snowpack. It’s no coincidence then that the last decade was also the hottest decade ever recorded…

“Even the most reliable snowfall areas have seen a decrease in storms and precipitation. In the last few seasons, Scandinavian countries such as Finland, Norway and Sweden, which host world cup ski events in November and December, have had to rely upon man-made snow and injected ice for races. Many Nordic athletes, myself included, train on glaciers during the summer months.DSC_0098

“I’ve witnessed the visible recession of off season ski destinations such as Eagle Glacier in Alaska and the Dachstein Glacier in Austria in the last decade. Warming temperatures melting snow has meant in recent years, summer skiing conditions on glaciers have become too unstable to train on. Some countries have resorted to skiing indoors in artificial ski tunnels due to unpredictable conditions.

‘The conditions in Sochi are no exception. The organizers of these Winter Games ran into similar problems and had to go to extreme and unorthodox means to supply the snow necessary to hold high-level competitions. Workers in Russia have been stockpiling nearly 16 million cubic feet of snow and adding a special kind of salt to prevent melting.”

The article goes on: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/02/11/andrew-newell-olympics-global-warming/5370379/  and in many ways parallels an early post of mine about the impacts of climate change on skiing, “In Case You Haven’t Noticed, Global Warming is Real.”  https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2014/02/01/in-case-you-havent-noticed-yet-global-warming-is-real/

imagesQB1DEJITBut there’s one winter “sport” (if it can be called that) that isn’t effected by a lack of snow–bunny blasting. As Utah’s Daily Herald claims, “Rabbit hunting offers chance for winter sport” reports, “Regulations allow each hunter with a license to kill up to 10 cottontails.” [per day, no doubt.] And it also quotes Mark Zornes, who boasts, “This is what bunny hunting is like,” he said. “We rarely see people doing this, and this is the most fun kind of hunting. It’s also a great kid activity.”

So, forget snow sports, winter can be yet another chance to kill something.

In Case You Haven’t Noticed Yet, Global Warming Is Real

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If you’re one of the lucky few who live somewhere as yet relatively unaffected by climateunderwear change, or you spend all your time indoors listening to Rush Limbaugh and watching Donald Trump on Fox News, I’m here to tell you, global warming is real.

It may be hard to accept that the Earth’s overall temperature is rapidly warming up if your state has just experienced a polar vortex, but if you live in California or the Pacific Northwest you know all too well the drastic effect climate change is having on winter weather—especially if you’re a skier like me.

As an avid powder skier I’ve been closely following the snow reports for the mountains in the western United States and I’m seeing a depressing trend toward shallower snow packs and away from our normal winter wonderland.

Why is this happening? As the San Jose Mercury News reported it, “Meteorologists have fixed their attention on the scientific phenomenon they say is to blame for the emerging drought: a vast zone of high pressure in the atmosphere off the West Coast, nearly four miles high and 2,000 miles long, so stubborn that one researcher [Swain] has dubbed it the ‘Ridiculously Resilient Ridge.’ Like a brick wall, the mass of high pressure air has been blocking Pacific winter storms from coming ashore in California, deflecting them up into Alaska and British Columbia, even delivering rain and cold weather to the East Coast.” Much to the dismay of skiers, this stubborn high pressure ridge is pushing the jet stream, and our winter moisture, along a much more northerly track.

Ok, but what does this, and the lack of winter storms (for us here in the West) have to do with global warming? In an article in ThinkProgress.org, “Leading Scientists Explain How Climate Change Is Worsening California’s Epic Drought,” we learn that “Beyond the expansion and drying of the subtropics predicted by climate models, some climatologists have found in their research evidence that the stunning decline in Arctic sea ice would also drive western drought — by shifting storm tracks…Scientists say this anomaly looks very much like what the models predicted as sea ice declined. The storm track response also looks very similar with correspondingly similar impacts on precipitation (reduced rainfall in CA, increased precipitation in SE Alaska).”

In addition to California’s record-breaking drought and water rationing, you probably heard on the national news about their destructive January brush fires. But even more shocking than those unseasonable fires are a recent pair of 300 acre wildfires on the normally soggy North Oregon Coast, which burned nearly to the beach. January fires in the Pacific Northwest rain forest are almost unheard of, as anyone who has tried to light a campfire in winter there will attest. In an article about the forest fires, The Daily Astorian (North Oregon Coast ’s local paper) reported that the National Weather Service in Portland issued a “red flag” warning in response to conditions (strong dry east winds and humidity as low as 25%) that can contribute to wildfires burning out of control. Instead of the 25% humidity, coastal Oregon humidity on a winter’s day should be more like 125%.

Whether you choose to “believe in” global warming or not, I urge any of you enjoying this mild, dry winter weather to please think snow!

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Large carnivore decline puts humans at risk

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http://www.nbcnews.com/science/cry-wolf-large-carnivore-decline-puts-humans-risk-study-says-2D11880999

copyrighted Hayden wolf walking

by John Roach

A few years after wolves were reintroduced to the Northern Rockies in 1995, fifth-generation Montana rancher Rick Jarrett gave up on the parcel of federal land near Yellowstone National Park that he grazed for 20 years. The carnivores harassed his cattle so much that they stopped gaining weight. Skinny cattle don’t sell.

“It wasn’t worth being there anymore,” he told NBC News. To turn a profit, he now confines his livestock to several thousand acres on and around his ranch in Big Timber, where his cattle and sheep are free to pack on the pounds — for now. The wolves, he said, will eventually get there, too.

While Jarrett is bitter about having to live with wolves, such coexistence is increasingly necessary if the world hopes to reverse a downward spiral of its largest carnivores such as wolves as well as lions, tigers, and bears, according to a review study published Thursday in the journal Science.

As the carnivores decline, ecosystems and food chains that humans depend on for survival are unraveling and, in many cases, adding to the economic woes of everyone from farmers to ecotourism companies.

“We should be thinking of ourselves in the end because if enough important species go extinct and we lose enough ecosystem services and economic services, then humanity will suffer,” William Ripple, an ecologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis and the study’s lead author, told NBC News.

What to do? Ripple and 13 colleagues from around the world found that more than three quarters of Earth’s largest carnivores are in population declines. Most occupy only a fraction of their historic ranges and more than half are threatened with extinction.

 The paper’s main finding is familiar to wildlife conservationists — large carnivores are in trouble — but pays scant attention to the most important problem: “What are we going to do about it?” Craig Packer, an ecologist at the University of Minnesota who was not involved with the study, told NBC News.”I think that is a huge challenge.”

Finding solutions is complicated, Ripple noted. The study, he said, is meant to illustrate the plight of carnivores and what humans stand to lose if the creatures go extinct — information that could steer policy via, for example, a global committee focused on carnivore conservation.

In the paper, the researchers argue that humans are ethically obligated to conserve large carnivores — the animals have an intrinsic right to exist on planet Earth. They then back the argument with examples of the way the role carnivores play in the ecosystem help humans.

In Africa, for example, loss of leopards and lions has translated to an increase in baboon populations, which in turn are raiding farmers’ livestock and crops for food. “In extreme cases, the farm family needs to keep their children home to guard the crops instead of go to school,” Ripple said.

Other benefits of carnivores noted in the study include control of deer, elk, and moose populations, which in turn keep forest plants healthy for other critters, limit erosion, and enhance water quality. Parks full of wolves and bears also attract tourists, whose dollars boost local economies.

Wolf-specific tourism in Yellowstone National Park, the paper notes, brings in $22 to $48 million per year.

What’s more, the scientists add, regions where carnivores keep other animal populations in check are full of plants that soak up carbon from the atmosphere, helping to slow global climate change. Jarrett, the Montana rancher, doubted such arguments would foster better feelings toward wolves.

“Granted carbon sequestration is important,” he said, “but the benefit we are going to get from wolves … is so insignificant it isn’t even funny.”

Legitimate fears The reality, noted Packer, who is an expert on human-carnivore interactions and deeply involved in African lion conservation, is that humans naturally fear these animals, often for good reason.

“You cannot expect somebody living in rural Africa or rural Asia to risk being eaten by a lion or a tiger so that your moral sense is gratified back in California or Texas or New York,” he said. “Conservationists need to recognize that there are legitimate reasons why people want to get rid of these animals.”

To reduce human predation on lions, Packer advocates the controversial use of patrolled and maintained fences that serve as a physical barrier between people and wildlife.

Ultimately, he said, the conflict among humans about our relationship with carnivores comes down to emotion versus intellect. While arguments such as carnivores’ ability to buffer ecosystems against climate change are “interesting,” in the end, he said, emotion usually wins.

“You have to find ways that people feel safe and that people benefit economically.”

John Roach is a contributing writer for NBC News.

Reducing Gas Emissions from Livestock Key to Curbing Climate Change: Study

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By James A. Foley

Jan 03, 2014

A study published recently in the journal Nature Climate Change highlights both the need for policy changes and greater emphasis on livestock management in order to curb climate change.

Although it’s well known that significant quantities of methane are produced by the burps and excrement of the world’s livestock, the study authors contend that inadequate attention is being paid to to the greenhouse gasses associated with ruminant animals such as cows, sheep, goats and buffalo.

“Because the Earth’s climate may be near a tipping point to major climate change, multiple approaches are needed for mitigation,” study leader William Ripple, a professor in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University. said in a statement. “We clearly need to reduce the burning of fossil fuels to cut CO2 emissions. But that addresses only part of the problem. We also need to reduce non-CO2 greenhouse gases to lessen the likelihood of us crossing this climatic threshold.”

Ripple and his colleagues suggest that an effective way to mitigate the effects these greenhouse gasses have on the environment is to reduce global populations of ruminant livestock.

At approximately 3.6 billion heads, the world population of ruminant livestock is about half the global human population. Moreover, about 25 percent of the Earth’s land area is dedicated to livestock grazing, and a third of all arable land is used to grow feed crops for livestock, the researchers write.

On the basis of pounds of food produced, cattle and sheep generate between 19 and 48 times more greenhouse gasses than protein-rich plant foods such as beans, grains, or soy products, the researchers found.

More: http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/5514/20140103/reducing-gas-emissions-livestock-key-curbing-climate-change-study.htm#

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