Hello friends--
Appended below are a series of stories drawn largely from the BBC
World News Service published on the internet from October=>November.
Collectively, they provide a good overview of the current state of
Planetary health. It is NOT good. Please pass along to all who may be
interested.
Cheers,
Peter Grimes
=====================================================================
BBC News | Africa | UN: Africa is dying from Aids
BBC News Online: World: Africa
Thursday, October 29, 1998 Published at 02:01 GMT
UN: AFRICA IS DYING FROM AIDS
The United Nations says it expects a dramatic decline in
life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa because of the Aids
epidemic - in some countries by as much as 20 years. Worldwide
the situation looks more optimistic but the UN says the effect of
Aids has forced it to cut its long-term projection for the
world's population by 400m. The new report on population trends
says the vast majority of the 30 million people in the world
currently infected with the HIV virus live in the countries of
sub-Saharan Africa.
The head of the UN's Population Division, Joseph Chamie,
said the continuing spread of the virus through the continent
would have a devastating effect on life expectancy there.
"There'll be a heavy, heavy death toll relating to Aids," he
said.
LIFE EXPECTANCY - 47 AND SHRINKING
On average, in the 29 hardest hit African countries, people
live for seven years less due to Aids - life expectancy at birth
is now estimated at 47 years. But in, Botswana, the worst
affected country where one of every four adults is infected, life
expectancy is anticipated to fall further, to 41 years by 2005.
Other countries named in the report include Botswana, Kenya,
Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Zambia and
Zimbabwe, where more than 10% of the adult population is infected
by the HIV virus. Eventually, in some African countries, the
average life expectancy may drop by 20 years.
OPTIMISM OUT OF AFRICA
Outside Africa, though, the report is more optimistic,
predicting that in 2050 many people will live for one hundred
years or more. Joseph Chamie said: "Lower death rates and longer
life in most countries is probably humanity's greatest
achievement. "From biblical times there has been this attempt to
live a long, healthy life - and that's what's been achieved now,"
he said.
The world according to the UN is ageing, with an ever
growing percentage of the population being over 60 years old.
Europe is most affected, with the proportion of older people
expected to increase from 20% in 1998 to 35% in 2050.
WORLD POPULATION TO REACH NINE BILLION
The UN says it expects the world's population to increase from
5.9 to almost nine billion people by the middle of next century
but the growth rate is decreasing. That is due in part to
declining birth rates. The global average fertility level is now
at 2.7 births per woman - during the early 1950s, the average
number was 5 births.
=============================================================
Reuters News - Scientists warn of impending global water crisis
BRUSSELS, Oct 27 - Two prize winning scientists warned on
Tuesday that world leaders would have to address highly
sensitive political issues in the coming 30 years to avoid
bloody wars over scarce water resources.
Malin Falkenmark and David Schindler, who were awarded the
1998 Volvo Environment Prize on Tuesday, warned of looming
freshwater shortages as population growth increased pressure on
supplies that were dwindling because of wastage and pollution.
Falkenmark, professor at the Swedish Natural Science
Research Council, told a press conference the population of the
world's cities was set to rise by over 2.1 billion -- the
current population of China and India combined -- by 2025.
These people would all need water but unless the factories and
farms created to provide them with incomes and food adopted
environmentally friendly practices, they would pollute the very
water supplies on which these people depended, she explained.
"We can see examples of cities collapsing in the developing
countries because the water is no longer useable," she said.
Schindler, professor at Canada's Alberta university, warned that
although the use of persistent organic pollutants like chlorine
based pesticides and mercury was decreasing, at least in the
West, climate change and depletion of the planet's
protective ozone layer meant their effects on water, the
environment and health were actually increasing.
Global warming, blamed on emissions of greenhouse gases like
carbon dioxide, was causing glaciers to melt, releasing the
pollutant chemicals that had built up within the ice during the
1960s and 1970s, he said.
Falkenmark said that over the next 30 years the world needed
to do three things to stave off a global water crisis.
Europe needed to be prepared to export six times more food
to dry developing countries with high birth rates, she said. She
said her research had shown that rainfall, already scarcer than
in the rich north, evaporated more quickly in these dry southern
countries, compounding their problems.
Secondly, industry and agriculture had to stop polluting
water to the point that it became unuseable.
And crucially, politicians needed to address the conflict
between the needs of populations living upstream of river basins
and those dwelling downstream. "We cannot just ignore the
problem just because it is politically sensitive," she said.
Inefficient irrigation meant people living downstream of China's
Yellow River were deprived of water for 200 days a year, while
new industries set up to boost population in upstream regions
were polluting what resources remained.
=============================================================
Monday, November 2, 1998 Published at 07:09 GMT
GRIM CLIMATE WARNING
By Environment Correspondent Alex Kirby
With another major international conference on climate
change starting in Argentina on Monday, delegates will be
pondering a sombre message from a panel of respected British
climatologists.
Scientists from the Hadley Centre on Climate Change, part of
the UK's Meteorological Office, have published a new scenario of
climate change. The report paints a dire picture of a world
which many people alive today will inhabit between 2041 and 2070.
It will be, they say, a world with many more sick, hungry and
thirsty people, because of climate change. And they have
identified a new threat which earlier predictions failed to
include.
Fifty years from now, the world's forests will not be
helping to soak up the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide(CO2).
They will themselves be a significant source of carbon emissions.
They say that based on the temperature peaks of every year in the
last millennium, 1998 is likely to end up as the UK's hottest
year since 1106.
Their predictions are based on the most recent version of
the centre's climate model, and assume that the world will go on
pouring out greenhouse gases without doing anything to reduce
them.
Fears confirmed
The report confirms several earlier, more tentative
predictions by other scientists, notably those working for the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the most authoritative
worldwide group of climatologists. Comparisons of climate model
simulations and actual observations show that human greenhouse
gas emissions have contributed substantially to global warming
over the past half century.
Climate models can simulate reasonably well the climate
change of the past 150 years, and, the Hadley Centre group says,
"this gives us confidence in predictions of the future".
There are confirmations of what is happening now. The 1997-1998
El Nino climate disturbance in the Pacific was the most extreme
on record.
Looking to the future, the research backs up the worst fears
of previous forecasters. Over the next century, greenhouse gas
emissions will increase warming by about 3 degrees (C) - the most
extreme rise in 10,000 years. Perhaps the most serious part of
the report is that dealing with the role of the world's forests.
It predicts that tropical forests in northern Brazil will die
back in the 2050s, and globally tropical grassland will be
transformed into desert, or at least temperate grassland.
For the first half of the 21st century, vegetation will absorb
CO2 at a rate of about 2-3 billion tonnes (1 bn tonnes = 1GtC)
per year. Human emissions of CO2 are about 7GtC a year. But from
2050 onwards, vegetation dying under the impact of climate change
will itself add about 2GtC a year to greenhouse emissions,
further intensifying global warming.
In a masterpiece of judicious understatement, the authors
say: "This enhancement is not yet included in climate
predictions."
This is a diplomatic way of recognising "positive feedback"
- a way by which the global warming we have caused will itself
cause further and quite unpredictable damage. And there are some
quite specific predictions about what lies in store.
About 170 million people globally are predicted to suffer
from extreme water shortage.
Crop yields will increase in areas like Canada and Europe,
but nearer the equator they will shrink. Africa will be worst
affected, with 18% more of its people at risk of hunger simply
because of climate change.
Global sea levels will rise by 21cms and a further 20m
people will be at risk from flooding, particularly in south and
south east Asia.
If the predictions are correct, malaria infection will also
increase, and in areas where it is not currently endemic.
Are humans to blame?
Controversy continues to rage over the reliability of
climate change forecasts, and over the very notion that climate
change is being caused by human activity, and not by natural
cycles. But the overwhelming consensus of climatological opinion
insists that climate change is real, and that we are playing the
chief part in causing it. This evidence from the Hadley Centre is
compelling and suggests that the threat is far more real and
urgent than some scientists - and many politicians - have yet
acknowledged.
==============================================================
Friday, October 16, 1998 Published at 16:33 GMT 17:33 UK
CLIMATE REPORT 'NOT SCAREMONGERING'
MICHAEL MEACHER: SCIENTISTS BEING CONSERVATIVE
By BBC News Online Environment Correspondent Alex Kirby
The Easter floods which devastated parts of the English
Midlands were believed to be a "once-in-a-lifetime" event. By
the end of the next century, though, they could be happening
seven or eight times as often. That is one illustration the
Environment Minister, Michael Meacher, uses to illustrate the
seriousness of the report on climate change (Climate Change
Scenarios for the United Kingdom).
The report, compiled by scientists working for the UK
Climate Impacts Programme, has other graphic examples of what Mr
Meacher calls "the very real threat that climate change
represents to us". There are likely to be more frequent and more
severe winter gales over parts of the country. The northern half
of Britain will become wetter and much of the rain will come in
fiercer storms than it does now. There will be more very hot
days, more chance of drought, and an inexorable rise in sea
levels.
But Mr Meacher rejects categorically any suggestion that the
report is an exercise in scaremongering. "The scientists are
being extremely careful", he told me. "They are not being
apocalyptic, and they are not over-egging the pudding. I think
they are absolutely right to do that. We must keep rigorously to
what the evidence indicates". At the same time, Mr Meacher
accepts that going no further than the evidence allows can have
its dangers. The report looks at the possibility of much more
rapid climate change and says it cannot be ruled out.
Its authors are especially concerned about two
possibilities. One is that the oceans could warm up more quickly
than anyone has predicted. That could mean the Gulf Stream being
diverted away from Britain's shores, leaving us with a climate
more like northern Canada's. The other possibility is that the
ice sheet surrounding Antarctica could melt faster than present
estimates suggest. Although no reputable scientist is yet
suggesting that either of these will happen, nobody will rule
them out.
What is happening now is a vast experiment with the climate,
and it may yet behave in ways that science can not predict.
Mr Meacher acknowledges that the picture is gradually getting
more sombre. "Look at El Nino, the pattern of weather disruption
in the Pacific", he said. "Forty or fifty years ago El Ninos
happened about once every five years. Now they are occurring
roughly twice as often. "And the 1997-98 El Nino has been the
most extreme recorded. The severity is on the increase".
Adapting to the rate of climate change sketched out in the
report would not be "all doom and gloom. There will be gain as
well as pain - new jobs, warmer homes for poor people, better air
quality". Mr Meacher praised the way British business is
accepting the need to change the way it works, describing it as
"pretty responsible". He stressed the need to save energy, to
cut greenhouse emissions from transport, and to produce more
electricity from renewable sources, like solar and wave power.
But he said many of us still had not taken to heart the message
that climate change is going to require us all to make changes in
our lives.
===============================================================
Friday, November 6, 1998 Published at 00:06 GMT
'WARMER WORLD THREATENS HEALTH'
By Environment Correspondent Alex Kirby
The world faces the prospect of "an explosive spread in
infectious diseases that are already claiming new victims in
industrialised countries", the World Wide Fund for Nature has
warned. The problem is global warming, which is bringing "a
combination of rapid warming of the globe and extreme weather
events", it says. Previously unaffected regions are now
susceptible, with children and the elderly among the prime
victims. WWF climate policy officer, Dr Ute Collier, says:
"Reducing the carbon pollution that causes climate change
deserves the same kind of priority that governments are devoting
to preventing proliferation of chemical and biological weapons."
WWF says Hurricane Mitch, which has wrought such appalling
destruction in central America, "is a forewarning of further
chaos to come as the world warms up".
The report says there is scientific agreement that the world
has warmed by 0.6C this century. The seven warmest years in a
century-and-a-half of record-keeping have all occurred in the
past decade. If governments do nothing to slow emissions of the
gases causing global warming, the report says, a temperature
increase of between 1C and 3.5C is predicted over the next
century.
Economic risks
WWF is most worried about malaria, cholera, and dengue fever
- a flu-like illness which can be fatal and for which there is no
vaccine. National economies could be threatened. A cholera
outbreak in Peru in 1991 cost the country more than $1bn in lost
seafood exports and tourism. WWF says the dengue fever threat to
the Caribbean could put its $12bn tourist industry in jeopardy.
Both dengue fever and malaria are affecting new populations as
warmer conditions allow mosquitoes to survive over a wider area,
and at higher altitudes. The report's author, Dr Paul Epstein,
of Harvard Medical School in the USA, says: "Warmer winters and
nights are altering the distribution of mosquito-borne diseases,
while extreme weather events such as floods and droughts are
spawning large 'clusters' of infectious disease outbreaks."
Malaria kills up to two million people a year, and more than two
billion are thought to be at risk. It has been found as far north
as New York and Michigan.
The report says the problem will be worsened as global
warming upsets the population balance of natural predators.
Owls, snakes, birds and bats, which keep insect and rodent
numbers in check, are likely to be affected as the earth warms
up.
Threat to food supplies
And the report says that health conditions in poor countries
depend very much on the success of the harvest. Floods, which
promote the growth of fungi, and droughts, which encourage
whiteflies, locusts and rodents, are both expected to become more
frequent and more severe. "Half of the world's agricultural
production, worth $250bn, is currently lost to pests and weeds,"
says WWF. "This figure could increase with warmer and more
unpredictable weather." It says the governments at the Buenos
Aires climate conference must take the threat seriously. WWF
wants Western industrialised countries to cut their greenhouse
emissions permanently by 2000.
===============================================================
Friday, November 6, 1998 Published at 17:15 GMT
TRADING IN POLLUTION
By Environment Correspondent Tim Hirsch
Every day, stressed young men in brightly coloured jackets
scream their way through multi-million pound deals at London's
International Petroleum Exchange (IPE). As the world's
governments gather in Buenos Aires to discuss action against
global warming, these traders have their eyes on what will soon
become a highly-prized commodity: the permission to pollute.
At last year's conference in Kyoto, the industrialised countries
of the world agreed in principle to legally-binding cuts in
emissions of the "greenhouse" gases widely believed to be
changing the world's climate - each country has its own target,
but the average amounts to a 5% cut between 1990 and 2010.
That may sound a straightforward commitment, but before the Kyoto
agreement can come into force, a highly complex system of rules
needs to be sorted out which will make these cuts more than just
a promise on a piece of paper - the devil is most definitely in
the detail.
There is no guarantee of finding a way through the
international squabbles which have bogged down the first few days
of the meeting in Argentina. One of the key arguments centres on
the role that market forces will play in sharing out the
pollution cuts - and this is where the traders come in.
The IPE wants the UK government to go ahead and set up a system
of emission permits which could be traded in the City of London.
The chief executive of the exchange, Lynton Jones, says that
companies which are good at cutting pollution will have spare
permits which they can then sell to companies which are not so
good at it, and so long as the total bank of permits is reduced
year by year, the cuts can be achieved most efficiently.
The City traders had a disappointment this week when a
government-commissioned report by the British Airways chairman
Lord Marshall said it was too soon to set up this kind of system,
and recommended instead an energy tax to encourage business to
pollute less. But he did suggest that "dry run" trials should be
set up to see how the permit-trading system might work.
BP goes ahead
Some companies are choosing not to wait for the politicians
to set the rules. The oil giant BP is setting up its own system
of international emissions trading between a dozen of its major
worldwide business units. The system is aimed at achieving a 10%
cut in pollution caused by its rigs, refineries and operations
like the "nodding donkeys" pumping oil to the surface near Poole
Harbour in Dorset. The chief executive of BP Exploration, Rodney
Chase, says this system will ensure that clean-up money goes to
the best places.
While the principle of trading is now widely accepted, and
is written into the Kyoto protocol, there are fears that if it's
not controlled properly, it could open up a loophole threatening
the whole process. Because of the collapse of the former Soviet
economy since 1990, Russia and the Ukraine could end up with a
huge bank of cheap, spare emission permits. If they are bought up
by American companies, the world's biggest polluter could end up
escaping real efforts to clean up its industry. Dr Paul Ekins of
the environmental think tank Forum for the Future says unless
trading is confined to countries with well-regulated financial
markets, the Kyoto agreement could be dead in the water.
===============================================================
Changes In North Pacific Stump Ocean Scientists
The Register-Guard
Changes in North Pacific stump ocean scientists
October 27, 1998
By NATALIE PHILLIPS
Scripps-McClatchy Western Service
FAIRBANKS, Alaska - Something is changing in the North
Pacific. A wide band of algae, picked up by satellites because
it has turned the normally dark water an aqua blue, is blooming
in the Bering Sea. A biologist working in the area spotted a pod
of five to seven right whales, an endangered species that hasn't
been seen in those numbers in nearly a century. And for the
first time since the 1940s, Canadian commercial fishermen are
harvesting sardines.
No one knows whether the changes can be tied simply to El
Nino, the phenomenon that warmed much of the Pacific Ocean over
the past two years, or is the result of something even bigger.
Researchers are trying to find out.
Nearly 300 scientists from countries rimming the North
Pacific gathered in Fairbanks last week to discuss the changes
during the seventh annual meeting of the North Pacific Marine
Science Organization, also known as PICES. The group is modeled
after the International Council for Exploration of the Seas, or
ICES, a 100-year-old group of scientists who track changes in the
Atlantic Ocean. Member nations of PICES are Japan, South Korea,
Russia, Canada and the United States. They added ``P'' for the
Pacific Ocean to get their name.
On Friday, the group, in its first Alaska meeting, talked
about El Nino, the much-publicized phenomenon that changes
weather patterns and causes Pacific waters to warm.
The scientists gathered in Fairbanks looked beyond the
occasional tuna and yellow fin caught of the Gulf of Alaska -
much farther north than where they're normally found - to
systemic changes in the ocean. They have documented a 3-degree
warming of the North Pacific, and changes in the atmosphere and
in plankton production and distribution during El Nino.
But many scientists cautioned that El Nino might not be the
only thing responsible for the changes. Global warming might be
to blame. And a major shift might be occurring in the ocean
similar to the big ecosystem change in the Gulf of Alaska in the
late 1970s. In the so-called regime shift, the gulf's water
warmed and the populations of shrimp, capelin and other species
collapsed while those of pollock and some others exploded.
While scientists were able to predict that the 1997-98 El
Nino was coming, the big surprise was its intensity, said James
O'Brien, director of the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction
Studies at Florida State University. ``No one forecasted that El
Nino was going to come on so strong.''
The increase in ocean temperatures was accompanied by a
constant 4- to 12-inch rise in the mean sea level, said William
Crawford of the Institute of Ocean Science in Sidney, British
Columbia. The level dropped back to normal abruptly at the end of
February. His colleague Mike Foreman said the rise may be related
to global warming.
Scientists have also found that a distinct atmospheric
pressure system change accompanies El Nino. The low that normally
sits over the Aleutian Islands moves dramatically east and
settles over the Gulf of Alaska. During La Nina, the weather
pattern that usually follows El Nino, the low moves back over the
Aleutians. For Alaskans, that is supposed to translate into cold,
dry weather.
Scientists are finding that the production and distribution
of oceanic nutrients in some cases changed with El Nino. Some
biologists think a disappearance of nutrients may have caused
starvation and the die-off of thousands, maybe tens of thousands,
of common murres from Prince William Sound to Bistol Bay this
past year.
Frank Whitney of Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans
reported a reduction of nutrients in the waters along the shores
of the Gulf of Alaska. He thinks the depletion has affected
Canadian salmon, which follow the coastline all the way to the
Aleutians before heading to sea.
His colleague Gordon McFarlane says El Nino may be partially
responsible for the migration, but he suspects there is a
large-scale ecological change under way as well.
================================================================
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Monday, November 9, 1998 Published at 15:49 GMT
WALRUSES 'THREATENED BY CLIMATE CHANGE'
By Environment Correspondent Alex Kirby
The environmental campaign group Greenpeace says it has
found evidence that walruses and other Arctic species are being
affected by climate change. It says some of the species affected
are barometers of the changes taking place, and are a clear
warning that more change is inevitable. The crew of a Greenpeace
vessel, the Arctic Sunrise, which recently sailed along the edge
of the Arctic pack ice between Alaska and the Chukotka region of
Russia, found that the edge of the ice was much further north
than usual. Greenpeace campaigners say the edge of the ice is
normally only a few tens of miles north of Point Barrow in
Alaska. But this year they found it was at least 150 nautical
miles north of the settlement, retreating towards the North Pole.
Walruses need thick ice
Walruses use the pack ice for resting and breeding. An adult
male weighs getting on for two tons, and a female about half of
that. The thinner ice cannot support weights like these, so the
animals' habitat is shrinking. The walruses dive for food to the
seabed, where they feed on molluscs and other invertebrates. But
with the ice so far further north than usual, the edge of the
pack is now over much deeper water than the walruses are used to.
As the ice edge retreats beyond the continental shelf waters of
the Chukchi Sea, Greenpeace says, the water could be too deep for
the walruses to dive for food.
Breeding affected
Dr Brendan Kelly, of the School of Fisheries and Ocean
Sciences at the University of Alaska, who was on the Arctic
Sunrise, says the ratio of walrus cows to calves is much lower
than he would like to see. "If the trend continues," says Dr
Kelly, "we will definitely see a decline in the population. That
may very well be due to the retreat of the ice". The Greenpeace
expedition also says it found problems with some Arctic seabirds,
especially the black guillemot. It says the birds' numbers were
quite healthy during the 1970s and 80s, but that they have fallen
dramatically since then. The guillemots nest on shore but, like
the walruses, they depend entirely on food found at the edge of
the pack ice. Dr George Divoky, of the Institute of Arctic
Biology at the University of Alaska, says black guillemot are
"like the proverbial canary in the coal mine". They and similar
species "are an excellent indicator of climate change, because
the effects of warming on these habitats are direct and
immediate". "The guillemots are trying to tell us that Arctic
Alaska has changed greatly in the last thirty years, and more
changes are on the way."
==============================================================
Sunday, November 15, 1998 Published at 00:22 GMT
UK REJECTS ATTACK ON CLIMATE DEAL
Environmentalists say a new global agreement to tackle
greenhouse gases fails to do enough to halt climate change. But
UK Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott has rejected the
criticisms. Emerging from the negotiations at the United Nations
Climate Conference in Buenos Aires, he said it was "a very good
day for the environment".
Friends of the Earth labelled the agreement, thrashed out
between 160 countries, as an "inaction" plan. The group warned
that the world had lost valuable time in the race to stave off
climate change. At stake is one of the Earth's most troubling
environmental issues: undue warming of the planet believed to be
made worse by carbon dioxide released from burning coal and gas,
principally from power plants and cars.
Timetable for cuts
Last December, 38 industrial nations met in Kyoto, Japan and
agreed to binding reductions in their greenhouse gas emissions by
2012, setting a target 5% below 1990 levels. The Buenos Aires
deal sets a timetable for the gradual implementation of that cut.
There is also a framework for starting to transfer high
technology and investment from the developed to the developing
world. The intention is to encourage investment in projects
which reduce greenhouse gas pollution to create credits that can
be used as offsets against pollution elsewhere. To make the
system work it is thought inevitable that a trade in carbon
dioxide pollution permits will be set up. Although not dealt
with specifically in the text, such a system would require major
polluting companies to buy the right to pollute in the form of
tradable permits. Outstanding issues not resolved include
whether to impose penalties on nations which do not achieve their
targets, how to transfer climate-friendly technology to
developing countries so they pollute less, and the nuts and bolts
of how to measure the pollutants.
Too little, too late
FOE claimed the conference had failed to face up to the
fact that the Kyoto targets were not ambitious enough.
"Every year that they put off hard political decisions, dangerous
climate change becomes an increasing inevitability," the group
said. "This meeting has been a trade fair, wrangling over how to
keep the fossil fuel industry alive and burning."
Greenpeace climate campaigner Stephanie Tunmore said the
real issue of escalating greenhouse gas emissions had been
"obscured by a thick fog of jargon". She added: "Climate is
getting pushed further and further down the agenda."
UK defends agreement
However, Mr Prescott denied the agreement fudged the real
issues. "In a short time we have come a long way in trying to
combat climate change for future generations," he said. "We set
legally binding targets in Kyoto. Now, less than 12 months later,
developed countries have set themselves an action plan to deliver
those targets. "Throughout this international process the UK has
played a leading role, both in international diplomacy and in
pioneering the science which underpins it."
===============================================================
Thursday, November 5, 1998 Published at 15:37 GMT
GLOBAL WARMING: THE FACTS
Scientists say global warming causes rising sea levels: The map
shows the effect a rise of 1.5m would have on the Nile delta
Every time severe weather strikes, global warming seems to be
blamed. But what is it and should we be worried?
Is it real?
Records show that the average temperature of the planet is
climbing quite rapidly.
The global average surface air temperature has risen by between
0.3 and 0.6 degrees C in the last century. For Britain, 1998 has
proved the hottest year in the last thousand years.
Although the global weather system is extremely complex and not
wholly understood, experts say that such a rapid change in
temperature is bound to have severe implications for future
weather and climate patterns.
Climate researchers are predicting that the Earth's average
temperature will continue to increase in the next 100 years.
If greenhouse gas emissions drop slightly, the average world
temperature in 2100 could be 1 degree C warmer than in 1990.
But if they increase a lot and the climate proves very sensitive,
the rise could be 3.5 degrees C.
Scientists think they have uncovered evidence of just such
sensitivity. They believe that rainforests damaged by the results
of climate change will themselves start emitting carbon, making
the problem worse still.
The global sea level has risen by between 10 and 25 cms over the
last century, as glaciers melt and warming sea water expands.
Levels could rise by between 15 and 95 cms by 2100, and they will
inevitably go on rising for 500 years, because the oceans have
only just begun to warm up.
If the researchers' predictions are correct, the rate of change
over the last two to three centuries will have been greater than
at any other time in the last 10,000 years.
The greenhouse effect
Most scientists believe recent global warming has been generated
by human influence on a naturally-occurring phenomenon called the
greenhouse effect. Under normal conditions some of the sun's
heat is radiated back into space. The 'greenhouse effect' occurs
when heat is trapped in the atmosphere by gases like carbon
dioxide, methane and CFCs. The Sun's energy heats the surface of
the Earth, although some of that heat is radiated back into space
and the planet cools. Some gases in the atmosphere, called the
greenhouse gases, prevent this radiation and so trap the heat.
Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have been pumping out
huge quantities of greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide.
Before 1850 human activity had little influence on the amount of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but since the industrial
revolution concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous
oxide and chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, have greatly increased.
Burning fossil fuels is responsible for most of the increase in
carbon dioxide. The upsurge in concentrations of methane is due
to gas produced by livestock and rice paddies.
The consequences
General warming is expected to lead to an increase in the
number of extremely hot days and decrease in the number of
extremely cold days. Warmer temperatures will lead to more severe
droughts and floods in some places, and because rapid climate
changes are unpredictable may lead to some "surprises".
And even if people are able to adapt to climate change, many
animal species will not.
For vegetation the prospect is even worse. Plants and trees will
not be able to migrate fast enough to find new habitats as the
heat encroaches on their existing territory.
What can be done?
Future trends may depend on action humans take to modify
their activities. Both scientists and environment campaigners say
human impact on the climate can be reduced by a number of
measures:
We could reduce energy consumption by making fewer journeys and
using better insulation in our homes. This would lessen the need
to burn coal and oil, and lead to reduced emissions of carbon
dioxide and nitrous oxide.
Advances in technology could result in fossil fuels being burned
more efficiently. Emissions could be reduced by making wider use
of low carbon fossil fuels like natural gas, and decarbonising
exhaust gases from power plants.
Environmental groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth
would like to see a switch to renewable and clean sources of
energy such as solar, wind and hydro-electric power. Sustaining
existing forest cover, planting new trees and better management
of land use is also suggested as a means to slow global warming.
More controversial is the use of nuclear power. Nuclear fission
avoids using large quantities of fossil fuel for energy but is
very contentious because it produces radioactive waste.
Nuclear fusion, a theoretical way of harnessing power by fusing
atoms which is still under development, may one day provide a
cleaner alternative to the world's energy problem.
What we are seeing now is the result of the greenhouse gases
emitted up till 1968, because the climate takes about 30 years to
catch up with extra pollution already emitted. The damage our
pollution today is causing will not become apparent till about
2030.
And analysis of ancient ice rings drilled from miles down on the
Greenland ice cap shows that the climate can cool down or heat up
quite dramatically in less than three decades.
================================================================
Tuesday, November 3, 1998 Published at 16:12 GMT
THE GLOBAL IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE
Climate change could cause serious problems for us all.
Although there is great uncertainty about exactly how climate
change will affect us, researchers who have prepared reports for
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlight
the following possibilities:
SEA LEVEL RISES: At present some 46m people live in areas at
risk of flooding due to storm surges. Scientists estimate that a
50cm rise in sea level would increase this number to 92 million
and a one-metre rise would put 118 million in peril.
IF THE GLOBAL OCEAN LEVEL WENT UP BY ONE METRE:
Egypt would lose 1% of its land area
The Netherlands would lose 6%
Bangladesh would lose 17.5%
Some 80% of the Majuro Atoll in the Pacific Marshall Islands
would disappear under water
CROPS AND PRODUCTIVITY:
It is thought that total global crop production would be
unchanged but regional effects would vary widely. Those most at
risk from famine would be people relying on isolated agricultural
systems in arid and semi-arid regions. Populations particularly
under threat live in sub-Saharan Africa, south east Asia and
tropical areas of Latin America. Climate change could also alter
the range of agricultural pests.
DISEASE:
Extensions of the geographical range and season for some
organisms could result in increases of diseases like malaria,
dengue fever and yellow fever. If the temperature increases by
3-5 degrees Centigrade, the number of people potentially exposed
to malaria could go up from 45% to 60% of the world population
and result in an extra 50-80 million cases a year. Air pollution
and exposure to greater extremes in temperature could lead to a
greater frequency of asthma and respiratory diseases.
ECOSYSTEMS:
Scientists predict that composition and range of many
ecosystems will shift as species respond to climate change.
Research models project that a substantial fraction of the
world's forests, and possibly up to two thirds, will undergo
major changes. They say the species composiiton will change and
some forest may disappear all together. Deserts are likely to
become more extreme, resulting in increased soil erosion.
Mountain glaciers could retreat and inland wetlands would be
affected by global warming with resultant changes in habitat for
the current species.
================================================================
Tuesday, November 10, 1998 Published at 23:52 GMT
World: Americas
THE THAWING OF ALASKA:
THE MELTING GLACIER ALSO DEPLETES WALRUS HABITAT
By BBC Environment Correspondent Robert Pigott
As Alaska's climate changes, its landscape is being
transformed. The Columbia Glacier, big enough to dwarf the
mountains through which it flows, is melting. Warmer weather
made the glacier lose its footing on a ridge in Prince William
Sound 16 years ago, and since then it has retreated eight miles,
leaving a litter of floating ice behind it.
Scientists say that since the mid 1970s glaciers have been
melting faster than ever. On average they're losing 15% of their
length every decade. Freezing rain locks away food from Caribou
that cannot dig. The changes indicate a more dramatic world
impact, says Gunter Weller of the Geophysical Institute at the
University of Alaska: "We're looking at dramatic changes, that
have implications for the rest of the world. "These changes are
unprecedented...the recession of glaciers, the disappearance of
sea ice, the thawing of the permafrost, they all indicate major
impacts."
Thawing after 125,000 years
The most far reaching effects are taking place beneath the
surface. The permanently frozen ground which covers most of
Alaska is thawing for the first time for 125,000 years. If these
higher temperatures persist, tens of millions of acres of forest
will be turned into swamps. Trees lean drunkenly as the ground
beneath them gives way, and die in the water logged soil. As the
vegetation in these drowning forests rots, the methane and carbon
dioxide it gives off could speed climate change significantly.
Where blocks of ice lie buried, holes several metres deep are
opening up in the ground. The telegraph poles linking the widely
scattered human population have to be tethered to stop them
falling over. Warmer winters have brought not drought but heavy
snow, which breaks the branches of trees. Warm, dry summers have
weakened them further, and led to an explosion in the population
of predatory insects.
Wildlife threatened
Beetles eat the tissue between the bark and wood - starving
the tree by interrupting the flow of nutrients on which it
depends. Studies of Alaska's wild animals confirm profound
changes in climate. The caribou population is declining. It's
possible that freezing rain is sealing their food out of reach
under a layer of ice. Fires, like one which destroyed this
forest in 1983, also threaten wildlife. After summer drought
fires are more intense, scorching the soil and releasing tonnes
of carbon dioxide.
Winter has again come late to Alaska this year. The Nenana River
should be frozen by now. Much of Alaska's frosty earth is now
only one or two degrees below freezing. As it thaws this once
changeless icy wilderness is being steadily destroyed.
=================================================================
BBC News Online: Sci/Tech
Thursday, November 19, 1998 Published at 14:49 GMT
SKY SPY SPOTS CLIMATE CRISES
By Environment Correspondent Alex Kirby
Almost a fifth of the world's tropical rain forests are at
high risk, according to a group of international scientists who
are monitoring the Earth's vegetation from space. The
scientists, members of the Global Rain Forest Mapping Project
(GRFM), say the problem appears to be worst in parts of southern
Asia. The GRFM, launched in 1995, involves teams from Japan, the
USA, the European Union and Brazil.
Twice-yearly sweeps
It uses high resolution satellite imaging to look at
vegetation patterns and to detect any changes. The scientists aim
to map all the world's rainforests twice a year, checking on
natural events like floods and fires, and also on the planting of
new forests. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
requires policies for tackling global warming to be based on
scientifically reliable information and measurements. One of the
European scientists working on the GRFM, Alan Belward, says:
"What we're particularly interested in is developing patterns of
tropical forest distribution. "We're interested in how
biodiversity is being affected, and we're interested because the
forests themselves have a major influence on global climate".
Besides future trends, the GRFM team has already made a
disturbing discovery. It has found places where the forest is
disappearing at up to 15% every year. Alan Belward describes
that as "very alarming". He says: "We've found that these hot
spots account for about 18% of the total area of the global
tropical forest".
Nowhere is immune
"So it is a very significant problem. Every part of the
world's forests is affected. "But perhaps the highest risk area
is continental south east Asia, and the least affected area
central Africa". The advantage of the GRFM's technique is that
it is accurate, fast and effective. There have been earlier maps
of global vegetation. But Alan Belward says they could not match
what the GRFM is doing. "They've come from all sorts of
different sources", he says, "with different accuracy levels, and
they've been collected over many years". "With our satellite
observations from space, we can get the whole situation in just a
few weeks from a single standard data source". And a further
advance is the ability of some of GRFM's satellites to see what
is on the ground even when there is thick cloud overhead.
===================================================================
BBC News Online: Sci/Tech
Wednesday, November 25, 1998 Published at 13:12 GMT
SOARAWAY US GREENHOUSE FORECAST
By Environment Correspondent Alex Kirby
Days after the end of the Buenos Aires conference on climate
change, there is a sombre warning from the world's biggest
polluter. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA), part of
the American government's Department of Energy, has published a
draft version of its 1999 annual energy outlook. The outlook
predicts that US emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from energy
use will rise by 33% by 2010, compared with their 1990 level.
And by 2020, the outlook predicts, CO2 emissions will have almost
doubled, to 47% up on 1990. CO2 is the main gas caused by human
activity which climatologists say is responsible for global
warming, known also as the greenhouse effect. Under the Kyoto
Protocol, an international agreement drawn up last year, the
industrialised world agreed to cut its emissions of all
greenhouse gases to 5.2% below their 1990 levels by about 2010.
Mission impossible ?
The US announced in Buenos Aires that it was signing the
Protocol - the last major industrial country to do so. That means
it is legally bound to cut all its greenhouse gases by 7% - which
will almost certainly be impossible if the EIA prediction is
accurate. A former US climate negotiator, Robert Reinstein, said
earlier this month that his country could not live up to its
Kyoto commitments. Mr Reinstein, who was the chief American
negotiator at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, said the US had signed
up to something impossible. The EIA says emissions are likely to
rise so fast because energy demand will itself rise. The agency
also expects nuclear power to decline, and thinks there will be
only a slow growth in the use of renewable energy, such as wind
and solar power. In making its predictions, it has taken into
account the plans already made by Washington for stabilizing
greenhouse gas emissions at their 1990 levels by the year 2000.
In making its predictions, it has taken into account the plans
already made by Washington for stabilizing greenhouse gas
emissions at their 1990 levels by the year 2000.
Gains soon wiped out
But it does not take account of new policies that may be
introduced now the US has signed the Kyoto Protocol. The EIA
accepts that improved technology will mean more fuel-efficient
cars and aircraft. But it says the gains will be offset by the
increase in road and air travel. It expects the price of natural
gas to increase only modestly, while the price of coal is
predicted actually to drop. The EIA expects the price of a ton of
coal to fall from $18.14 in 1997 to $12.74 in 2020, partly as a
result of "competitive pressures on labor costs". The relative
cheapness of natural gas and oil are expected to make it hard for
renewable energy to penetrate the market. And while the US was
importing just under half the oil it used last year, that figure
is expected to rise over the next two decades to almost two-
thirds.
===============================================================
BBC News | World | Urban growth means more hunger, UN says
BBC News Online: World
Sunday, November 29, 1998 Published at 15:36 GMT
Urban growth means more hunger, UN says
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO),
has issued a warning that the growth of huge cities in the
developing world will be accompanied by worsening food shortages.
In its annual report, the FAO says the number of chronically
hungry people in the world is continuing to rise.
The infrastructure needed for feeding massive populations -
involving co-ordination between producers, transporters and
sellers - is not keeping up with urban expansion. By the
millennium there will be 20 cities of more than 10m people,
nearly all of them in the third world. The number of
impoverished city dwellers will have risen from 400m in 1990 to
1bn, and there will be an "anarchic spread" of shanty towns,
sickness, corruption and inflation.
Optimistic aims
At the FAO world food summit in Rome two years ago,
agriculture ministers said they aimed to halve the number of
people going hungry by the year 2015. These latest statistics
show the trend is already in the opposite direction. Population
growth continues unabated in the world's biggest cities, meaning
more shanty towns, more overcrowding and more middle-men in food
distribution. Soon, the world's urban population will exceed the
number of people living in rural areas.
Inadequate support
The FAO also warned that poor city infrastructure is linked
to the costs of food. Poor people spend up to 80% of income just
on food, much more than rural families. City people also often
have a worse diet. Wholesale food markets are also often badly
sited, costly and unfit for their purpose, the FAO said.
In Africa, they lack basic equipment, such as refrigeration, and
in Latin America, markets pollute the environment with their
waste and block city centres with delivery trucks.
The FAO stressed the important role played by small markets
and street vendors who provide food for the poorest people.
In Caracas, Venezuela, for example, produce bought on the street
represents a quarter of total household expenditure on food.