Tapsearch Com EditorGlobal warming: is it for real?
March 19th 2007 03:25
Yes it is for real. But while Western countries argue about how to limit it, the poorer countries are already suffering.
Below I've clipped in a few articles I found that discuss different elements of global warming. I found these two articles from NY Times in different sections of the paper. Yet, they highlight the dichotomy of living in a globalised world. On one hand you have the Germans getting anxious about the idea of introducing speed limits to all of the autobahn to limit carbon dioxide emissions. On the other side of the planet you have an island already suffering and struggling as a result of global warming.
Yet there was a documentary recently that claimed global warming is a conspiracy. That we went through a period of global cooling in the 80s, and this is really just a cyclical effect that means nothing. It also argues that the desalination plans of the middle east help to reverse the effects of the melting ice caps! This was based on a documentary on Channel 4 in the UK called the Global Warming Swindle
Does the autobahn contribute to global warming? (Taken from the NY Times full article link)
Last week, the European Union’s environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas of Greece, set off a national debate by suggesting that the German government introduce a general speed limit on the autobahn.
Few things are closer to the German heart than the freedom to drive like Michael Schumacher, the fabled Formula One champion. Rule-bound and risk-averse in so many other ways, Germans regard driving on the autobahn at face-peeling speeds as close to an inalienable right.
To be sure, at least half of the 7,500 miles of autobahn already have either permanent or temporary speed limits. But the autobahn’s anything-goes stretches are the world’s fastest public roads.
“Speed limits are useful for many reasons, and are the order of the day in most of the E.U.’s 27 member states and the United States,” Mr. Dimas said in an interview with the mass-market newspaper Bild. “Strangely enough, it is only in Germany where they are controversial.”
No kidding. His mild words were met with heated indignation from politicians and automotive groups here. Some acted as if Brussels were demanding that Germany outlaw beer and bratwurst.
This is “a trivialization of the climate problem,” declared the German environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel. The German Association of the Automotive Industry said Germans needed “no coaching” from other Europeans on how to protect the environment.
Critics brandish statistics that show a speed limit of 120 kilometers an hour (75 m.p.h.) would reduce Germany’s overall carbon-dioxide emissions by a few million tons a year, less than 0.5 percent. Better, they say, to focus on building more efficient power plants and houses.
Yet, as environmental groups and a few lonely politicians point out, a few million tons of carbon dioxide is still a considerable savings. Unlike other measures — clean coal plants or hybrid cars, for example — a speed limit could be imposed tomorrow and at relatively little cost.
“Our politicians like to say that Germany should not have to do more than other European countries on climate change, but in this area, we are doing less,” said Josef Göppel, one of the few conservative members of Parliament who favor a limit.
For years, speed limit advocates tried to argue their case on safety grounds. The autobahn, though, is statistically safer than highways in many countries, even if its crashes are singularly horrific. Saving the planet, it turns out, may be more persuasive than saving lives.
In the depths of the oil crisis in late 1973, West Germany imposed a speed limit of 100 kilometers an hour (60 m.p.h.). Four months later, the government rescinded it. Mr. Ruf recalls worrying during those dark days that the family’s sports car business was doomed.
“This is a dream we are selling to the world,” he said. “It’s a tradition I think we have to defend.”
Rising Sea Levels Threaten Indian Islands
By REUTERS
Filed at 10:24 p.m. ET
MOUSHUNI ISLAND, India (Reuters) - Sheikh Alauddin, like hundreds of other residents living on West Bengal's Moushuni island, has never heard the term ``global warming.'' But he is living with its consequences.
``At night we just pray to God, and hope the sea does not drown us,'' the 60-year-old told Reuters in Poilagheri village on the sparsely-populated island, part of the Sunderbans national park and the world's largest mangrove forest.
After a 10-year study in and around the Bay of Bengal, oceanographers say the sea is rising at 3.14 millimeters a year in the Sunderbans against a global average of 2 mm, threatening low-lying areas of India and Bangladesh.
``At least 15 islands have been affected but erosion is widespread in other islands as well,'' said Sugato Hazra, an oceanographer at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal.
A United Nations climate panel, which grouped 2,500 scientists from 130 countries, concluded last month that human activity was causing global warming and predicted more droughts, heatwaves and rising seas.
But for the Sunderbans, made up of hundreds of islands and criss-crossed by narrow water channels and home to many of India's dwindling tiger population, the threat is more immediate.
``The crops have failed due to scanty rainfall but where do we go?'' says Alauddin as his family of twelve stares at their parched farmland.
A combination of drought and then heavy rainfall this year and increasing soil salinity have made it impossible to grow enough food to survive on traditional agriculture alone.
At least 4 million people live in the islands spread across 9,630 sq. km (3,700 sq. miles) of mangrove swamps.
TIGERS THREATENED
Top climate experts on the UN panel predicted that temperatures would increase by between 1.8 and 4 Celsius (3.2 and 7.8 Fahrenheit), and sea levels would rise by between 7 and 23 inches to submerge islands in the 21st century.
The impact could be even greater if ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland thaw.
The 400 or so families living on tiny Moushuni know what is coming.
Two nearby islands disappeared beneath the sea after residents were forced to leave, and the sea has swallowed about 100 sq. km of mangrove forest in three decades in the Sunderbans.
``Global warming and rising sea levels are already having a telling effect on the tiger's habitat,'' said Pronobes Sanyal of the National Coastal Zone Management Authority.
Rapid erosion over the last five years has destroyed mangrove cover up to 15 meters inland on several islands, environment experts say.
Proof global warming is for real
Below I've clipped in a few articles I found that discuss different elements of global warming. I found these two articles from NY Times in different sections of the paper. Yet, they highlight the dichotomy of living in a globalised world. On one hand you have the Germans getting anxious about the idea of introducing speed limits to all of the autobahn to limit carbon dioxide emissions. On the other side of the planet you have an island already suffering and struggling as a result of global warming.
Yet there was a documentary recently that claimed global warming is a conspiracy. That we went through a period of global cooling in the 80s, and this is really just a cyclical effect that means nothing. It also argues that the desalination plans of the middle east help to reverse the effects of the melting ice caps! This was based on a documentary on Channel 4 in the UK called the Global Warming Swindle
Does the autobahn contribute to global warming? (Taken from the NY Times full article link)
Last week, the European Union’s environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas of Greece, set off a national debate by suggesting that the German government introduce a general speed limit on the autobahn.
Few things are closer to the German heart than the freedom to drive like Michael Schumacher, the fabled Formula One champion. Rule-bound and risk-averse in so many other ways, Germans regard driving on the autobahn at face-peeling speeds as close to an inalienable right.
To be sure, at least half of the 7,500 miles of autobahn already have either permanent or temporary speed limits. But the autobahn’s anything-goes stretches are the world’s fastest public roads.
“Speed limits are useful for many reasons, and are the order of the day in most of the E.U.’s 27 member states and the United States,” Mr. Dimas said in an interview with the mass-market newspaper Bild. “Strangely enough, it is only in Germany where they are controversial.”
No kidding. His mild words were met with heated indignation from politicians and automotive groups here. Some acted as if Brussels were demanding that Germany outlaw beer and bratwurst.
This is “a trivialization of the climate problem,” declared the German environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel. The German Association of the Automotive Industry said Germans needed “no coaching” from other Europeans on how to protect the environment.
Critics brandish statistics that show a speed limit of 120 kilometers an hour (75 m.p.h.) would reduce Germany’s overall carbon-dioxide emissions by a few million tons a year, less than 0.5 percent. Better, they say, to focus on building more efficient power plants and houses.
Yet, as environmental groups and a few lonely politicians point out, a few million tons of carbon dioxide is still a considerable savings. Unlike other measures — clean coal plants or hybrid cars, for example — a speed limit could be imposed tomorrow and at relatively little cost.
“Our politicians like to say that Germany should not have to do more than other European countries on climate change, but in this area, we are doing less,” said Josef Göppel, one of the few conservative members of Parliament who favor a limit.
For years, speed limit advocates tried to argue their case on safety grounds. The autobahn, though, is statistically safer than highways in many countries, even if its crashes are singularly horrific. Saving the planet, it turns out, may be more persuasive than saving lives.
In the depths of the oil crisis in late 1973, West Germany imposed a speed limit of 100 kilometers an hour (60 m.p.h.). Four months later, the government rescinded it. Mr. Ruf recalls worrying during those dark days that the family’s sports car business was doomed.
“This is a dream we are selling to the world,” he said. “It’s a tradition I think we have to defend.”
Rising Sea Levels Threaten Indian Islands
By REUTERS
Filed at 10:24 p.m. ET
MOUSHUNI ISLAND, India (Reuters) - Sheikh Alauddin, like hundreds of other residents living on West Bengal's Moushuni island, has never heard the term ``global warming.'' But he is living with its consequences.
``At night we just pray to God, and hope the sea does not drown us,'' the 60-year-old told Reuters in Poilagheri village on the sparsely-populated island, part of the Sunderbans national park and the world's largest mangrove forest.
After a 10-year study in and around the Bay of Bengal, oceanographers say the sea is rising at 3.14 millimeters a year in the Sunderbans against a global average of 2 mm, threatening low-lying areas of India and Bangladesh.
``At least 15 islands have been affected but erosion is widespread in other islands as well,'' said Sugato Hazra, an oceanographer at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal.
A United Nations climate panel, which grouped 2,500 scientists from 130 countries, concluded last month that human activity was causing global warming and predicted more droughts, heatwaves and rising seas.
But for the Sunderbans, made up of hundreds of islands and criss-crossed by narrow water channels and home to many of India's dwindling tiger population, the threat is more immediate.
``The crops have failed due to scanty rainfall but where do we go?'' says Alauddin as his family of twelve stares at their parched farmland.
A combination of drought and then heavy rainfall this year and increasing soil salinity have made it impossible to grow enough food to survive on traditional agriculture alone.
At least 4 million people live in the islands spread across 9,630 sq. km (3,700 sq. miles) of mangrove swamps.
TIGERS THREATENED
Top climate experts on the UN panel predicted that temperatures would increase by between 1.8 and 4 Celsius (3.2 and 7.8 Fahrenheit), and sea levels would rise by between 7 and 23 inches to submerge islands in the 21st century.
The impact could be even greater if ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland thaw.
The 400 or so families living on tiny Moushuni know what is coming.
Two nearby islands disappeared beneath the sea after residents were forced to leave, and the sea has swallowed about 100 sq. km of mangrove forest in three decades in the Sunderbans.
``Global warming and rising sea levels are already having a telling effect on the tiger's habitat,'' said Pronobes Sanyal of the National Coastal Zone Management Authority.
Rapid erosion over the last five years has destroyed mangrove cover up to 15 meters inland on several islands, environment experts say.
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