If this investigation succeeds in proving that two major wars changed the course of the climate twice in the last century, it will also prove that shipping, fishing, off-shore drilling, and other ocean uses had constantly contributed to the global warming since the start of industrialization, more than 150 years ago. A new chapter on the climate change issue could be now opened, giving more attention to oceanic phenomena under the influence of the potential of the “1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea” . All research would lead to a better understanding and protection of the stability of our short-term weather and long-term global climate.

http://www.climate-talks.net/2005-ENVRE130

and

http://www.climate-talks.net/2005-ENVRE130/Climate-Talks-U/index.html

The consequences of ignoring the warnings are just beginning to be recognized in the wake of the Louisana/Katrina disasters.

Listening to Open Source – Politics of Climate Change, and looking at some of the referenced materi [...]

There is a vast amount of research from the scientific community in zero emission technologies (e.g. FutureGen) and the point source capture and subsurface storage of carbon dioxide (Norway has been doing this for years sucessfully and projects in the United States are already underway) that the public is generally unaware of. International groups including developed as well as developing nations are initiating the local and international legal framework that will have to accompany such activities. Economists have been working for at least a decade on establishing the theory that will make this a profitable enterprise, eliminating the need for government intervention. Once all these diverse activities iron out the details, the ‘problem’ of CO2 emissions will be overcome just as we’ve done for other problems in our species’ messy history (after all, at one point open sewers were standard). If only we had acted sooner, something we never seem to learn.

After extensive public education efforts, we don’t seem to feel guilty about recycling paper, glass, and plastic anymore, despite the continual harvesting of trees, sand, and refining of oil. I submit that culturally, it is not the actual ‘dirty’ activity that we are concerned about, but rather how that activity reflects the qualities we aspire to. I imagine one day we’ll feel just fine about storing carbon safely underground, as we do with our other trash. Humanity will happily keep using resources provided they feel they are doing so ‘responsibly’.

Once storage becomes a reality, we’ll just have to find something else to feel guilty about……..

Warming hits ‘tipping point’

Siberia feels the heat It’s a frozen peat bog the size of France and Germany combined, contains billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas and, for the first time since the ice age, it is melting

Ian Sample, science correspondent

Thursday August 11, 2005

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1546797,00.html

The positive feedback from liberating so much trapped methane will have severe effects, and pretty quickly, it says.

Listening to Politics of Climate Change the latest production of Chris Lydon’s Radio Open
Source venture on my iPod this morning, the thought crossed my mind: if all these terrible
things in Washington are happening to scientists, who…