'Here we go again' - why we must silence the fake claims

Here we go again. Along with leading climate scientists, I recently argued there was a temporary slowdown in the rate of warming during the first decade of this century. For those who seem to miss the point, this means there was still an increase in temperature, but the rate of increase was slower.

The article (Nature Climate Change, DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2938) gently took issue with a conclusion reached by Tom Karl, of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and his colleagues last summer (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa5632), that no such slowdown had occurred.

Climate change deniers are nothing if not predictable. Give them an inch and they take a mile. They seized on this to manufacture yet another fake controversy. Conservative news outlets claimed the two studies showed a fundamental schism within the scientific community and called into question the veracity of human-caused climate change.

Read Michael Mann’s piece in the New Scientist - “Why we need to stop fake claims that global warming paused.”

It's abundantly clear: global warming is going into overdrive

Global warming into overdrive.

Preliminary February and early March temperatures are in, and it’s now abundantly clear: warming is going into overdrive.

As of 3 March, it appears that average temperatures across the northern hemisphere breached 2°C above pre-industrial levels for the first time in recorded history, and probably the first time since human civilisation began thousands of years ago.

The 2°C mark has long been held (somewhat arbitrarily) as the point above which climate change may begin to become “dangerous” to humanity. It has now arrived – though very briefly and only in the northern hemisphere – much more quickly than anticipated. This is a milestone moment for our species. Climate change deserves our greatest possible attention.

Read the New Scientist story - “Northern hemisphere temperature breaches a terrifying milestone.”

We're failing to cope with the dilemmas of the modern world

O

ur moral instincts are failing to cope with the dilemmas of the modern world.

Is it time to use tricks, pills or brain zaps to hack this outdated mind set?

In June, a new voice backed up what many scientists have been saying for a while – that climate change is caused by human activity and we have a moral responsibility to tackle it.

In an historic edict, Pope Francis warned that failing to act would have “grave consequences”, the brunt of which would fall on the world’s poorest people. His words came as a stark reminder that global climate change is among the most pressing moral dilemmas of the 21st century.

It joins a long list. He could have added spiralling inequality, persistent poverty, death from preventable diseases and nuclear proliferation to the ethical challenges that define our times. Some are newer than others, but all could plausibly be fixed. The fact we’re struggling with all of them raises a troubling question: does our moral compass equip us to deal with the threats we face ...

This story – “Morality 2.0: How manipulating our minds could save the world” – is in New Scientist, but you need to be a subscriber to read the whole piece.

UK embarks on 'dream scenario' for fighting climate change

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t is the dream scenario for fighting climate change: a power station that delivers negative emissions. And it could be coming to the UK, helped along by the growth of forests in the American South and some handy holes beneath the North Sea.

The giant coal power station at Drax in Yorkshire, with its 12 cooling towers, is one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters. It sends some 23 million tonnes of carbon dioxide up its stacks each year, while supplying up to a tenth of the UK’s power.

Its owners are now planning to replace coal with wood pellets and bury the emissions. Combined with growing trees to replace all those burned, the mega-polluter could one day be transformed into the world’s largest industrial absorber of CO2.

Read the New Scientist story - “UK to build world’s first power plant with negative emissions.”

'Half-way to hell' as we pass self-set 2C red line

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s 2015 shapes up to be the hottest year on record, scientists warn the world could be halfway towards surpassing countries’ self-set red line of 2C temperature rise.

New research commissioned by the New Scientist shows that four out of the five major surface temperature records are set to pass the 1C point this year, measured from the 1850-1899 average.

At 1C climate change is already affecting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations as warming brings escalating sea level rise and more intense and volatile weather extremes.

Read the EcoWatch story - “Halfway to Hell: Global Temperatures Hit Critical Point, WarnScientists”.

New Scientist warns: 'It's even worse than we thought'

Beyond the determined efforts of a few innovative individuals, there is little positive news about climate change mitigation.

In a report headed: “Climate change: It’s even worse than we thought” New Scientist looks at arctic warming, extreme weather, sea levels, food production planetary feedbacks, human emissions and heat stress.

The news in each case is not good and it appears human survival depends entirely upon us changing our behaviours, significantly.

El Niño events to double this century

Dilemmas arising from climate change will increase sharply this century.

Michael Slezak.

Writing in New Scientist, Michael Slezak, has warned that extreme El Niño events that can kill thousands will double in their frequency.

In his story headed: “Devastating El Niño events to double this century”, Slezak said the finding pointing increased El Niño events was further evidence of the worsening of global warming.

The last major El Niño, during 1997 and 1998, is estimated to have caused up to $45 billion in damage and kill 23,000 people.

It brought flooding to the Americas and Africa, tropical cyclones to Pacific islands, and droughts and wildfires to Australia and south-east Asia.

Time for talk ends and the hard work starts

With the time for talk ending, the hard work of actually reducing carbon dioxide emissions is now beginning to be understood.

Writing in New Scientist, Fred Pearce quotes EU climate commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, who described the proposed targets as “ambitious”.

Hedegaard said: “Emission targets must be met with domestic actions along, with no contribution from ‘offset projects’ such as paying poor nations to plant and protect forests”.

Pearce’s story, headed: “Latest European climate targets may never be met”, tells readers that environmental groups have reacted to what is being proposed with dismay, arguing the target are not tough enough.

Election landslide brings challenges for those who care

Saturday’s Federal Election brought some rather special challenges for those of us interested in the welfare of people and the environment that sustains them.

The Tony Abbott lead Coalition was swept to power in what appeared to be a competition between the environment and the economy.

It was, and is, an immeasurably unfair race – with the environment (long-term concerns) being something of a turtle and the economy (immediacy and short-term gains) being the hare.

The climate skeptics, many of whom populate our new government, are unable to disassociate the two, as are, obviously, many of those who voted on Saturday.

The environment and the economy have always been dissimilar with one being driven by nature and the other by a human construct.

Until we have the intellectual athleticism to be able to recognise that difference and add the cost of what damage we do to the environment to the cost of human endeavours, then the complications of climate change will only worsen.

Saturday’s election the Coalition pushed, in a public sense, our concerns about the environment to the periphery of the social agenda and in an article headed: “Australia rips up climate-change policies” NewScientist argued the landslide election result was bad news for the climate.