How Climate Change is Destroying the Earth

by Silvio Marcacci
Earth & Industry readers most likely will agree that climate change is happening, and is caused by human actions. But it's often hard for individuals, no matter how well read, to fully grasp the enormity of how anthropogenic climate change is affecting the planet.
That's why we were interested to come across a new infographic from learnstuff.com that attempts to do just that - not only encompass all the evidence of climate change, but detail how it is destroying the Earth:

Thanks to extensive research and noticeable changes in weather and storm prevalence, it’s getting harder to turn a blind eye to the reality of climate change. Since the Industrial Age spurred the increasing usage of fossil fuels for energy production, the weather has been warming slowly. In fact, since 1880, the temperature of the earth has increased by 1 degree Celsius.
Although 72% of media outlets report on global warming with a skeptical air, the overwhelming majority of scientists believe that the extreme weather of the last decade is at least partially caused by global warming. Some examples of climate calamities caused partly by global warming include:

• Hurricane Katrina
• Drought in desert countries
• Hurricane Sandy
• Tornadoes in the Midwest

These storms, droughts, and floods are causing death and economic issues for people all over the world – many of whom cannot afford to rebuild their lives from the ground up after being wiped out by a tsunami or other disaster. Read More

Ships to sail directly over the north pole by 2050, scientists say

Melting sea ice will allow ice-strengthened vessels to sail directly over the pole, and normal ships to take the 'northern sea route'
Ships should be able to sail directly over the north pole by the middle of this century, considerably reducing the costs of trade between Europe and China but posing new economic, strategic and environmental challenges for governments, according to scientists.
The dramatic reduction in the thickness and extent of late summer sea ice that has taken place in each of the last seven years has already made it possible for some ice-strengthened ships to travel across the north of Russia via the "northern sea route". Last year a total of 46 ships made the trans-Arctic passage, mostly escorted at considerable cost by Russian icebreakers.
But by 2050, say Laurence C. Smith and Scott R. Stephenson at the University of California in the journal PNAS on Monday, ordinary vessels should be able to travel easily along the northern sea route, and moderately ice-strengthened ships should be able to take the shortest possible route between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, passing over the pole itself. The easiest time would be in September, when annual sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean is at its lowest extent. Read More

2012: The Year of Extreme Weather

By CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE

The weather reports are in. 2012 was the hottest and the most extreme year on record in many places.
While parts of China are enduring the harshest winter in 30 years, the Antarctic is warming at an alarming rate. In Australia, out-of-control bushfires are partially the result of record-breaking weather (new colors were added to weather forecast maps, to account for the new kind of heat). In the United States, where Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of New Jersey and New York and where extreme drought still lingers in the Midwest, the average temperature in 2012 was more than a whole degree Fahrenheit (or 5/9 of a degree Celsius) higher than average – shattering the record.

On Friday a long-term weather forecast for the United States was released, when the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee published a draft of the third Climate Assessment Report. Like last year’s weather, the assessment does not pull its punches.
“Climate change threatens human health and well-being in many ways, including impacts from increased extreme weather events, wildfire, decreased air quality, diseases transmitted by insects, food, and water, and threats to mental health,” write the authors as part of their key findings.
Experts from 13 federal agencies, including NASA, the State Department and the Department of Defense put together the report under the auspices of the United States Global Change Research Program.

While some predictions have been adjusted upward from previous reports, the difference in tone in this newest assessment is striking. The second assessment, published in 2009, predicted thresholds that will be crossed, while the 2013 draft presents a reality in which some of the changes are already irreversible. Read More

Beasts of the Southern Wild - Official Trailer HD (2012)

The beautiful and mesmerizing Beasts of the Southern Wild is the best reviewed film of the year so far, with 20 scores of 100 on Metacritic. The film first made its mark at the Sundance Film Fest very early in the year, then continued on to the Cannes Film Fest where the film won the Fipresci Prize, the Golden Camera Award, the Prix Regards Jeune and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury’s special mention. It is unlike any film that will be released this year, and can’t really be categorized or filed in any particular category – it is wholly original.
The film is about the spirit of New Orleans and how it was damaged/diminished during and after Katrina. Maybe no one will ever say that’s what it’s literally about, maybe it can dwell quite easily in metaphor but the comparisons are hard to deny. What happened after Katrina was that suddenly New Orleans became a tragedy – the poor were exposed, vulnerable, abandoned – then rescued, then pitied, then put in a position of having to rebuild that which never wanted to be destroyed. In this little girl, the spirit lives. In this little girl, the spirit is handed down by the older generations. Read More

Scientists’ Dreams for 2013: Fix Science TV, Make Climate Change Sink In, and More

Last week, as 2013 dawned, Future Tense asked members of the scientific community: What would you like to see change in—or for—science in the coming year?

“My most ardent wish,” ornithologist/ecologist Gordon H. Orians replied, is “acceptance that Earth’s climate is really changing, that we are the primary cause of those changes, and that those changes, which are already serious, are certain to impose major challenges for human life. Widespread denial impedes progress in designing and implementing appropriate policies and regulations.”

Renowned geologist and author Richard Alley has been testifying before Congress about climate change since 2003, and he thinks mainstream media are the problem. “It would be nice to see more members of the press––not just the best of you but most or all of you––explain more clearly the difference between what one scientist may say on a contentious topic, and what the National Academy of Sciences, or the other authoritative assessment bodies, say about that topic.”

Former Nature editor Chris Gunter thinks scientists are the ones who have to adapt. She proposes including “a new section at the end of traditional scientific papers, titled ‘outreach resources.' ” She adds, “If we can't explain our work to non-specialists and non-scientists, then we will never be able to effectively compete for funds, especially in times of turmoil, like now.”

William Conrad, a pharmacology Ph.D. candidate at Seattle’s Howard Hughes Medical Institute, is also focused on publishing. “First,” he says, “make articles freely available within one year of publication; second, make peer review more transparent.”
 

We also need to recalibrate the balance between science and entertainment. “I want science to be re-injected into science television,” said paleontology journalist and author Brian Switek; “We're in a sorry state when [the network formerly known as] The Learning Channel's main claim to fame is a tiny prima donna hopped up on Mountain Dew, and Animal Planet is able to trick viewers into believing that there's a government conspiracy to hide Mermaids.” Read More

Ice Swirls off the Coast of Greenland…For Now

NASA's Aqua satellite view of ice swirling off the coast of Greenland.

Global warming is real. Temperatures are changing, climate is changing, and most importantly, arctic ice is changing, melting. It is absolutely critical we understand this process better so that we can better understand the implications, and some of the most formidable tools in our possession are Earth-observing satellites. Their keen and unblinking eyes watch the planet below, recording a host of characteristics so that we may record their changes.

NASA’s Aqua satellite is one in this fleet, mapping out the entire surface of the Earth—and in particular the water covering our world—every day or two. On December 30, 2012, it took this incredible picture of the southeast coast of Greenland in the late afternoon:

Right now, in the depth of winter, the ice over Greenland and the Arctic is growing. But come March, when temperatures warm, that ice will start to melt. Over the past few years the melting has been larger nearly every year, with the extent (area covered) and volume (total amount) of the ice decreasing rapidly. In late summer 2007 the historical record for lowest sea ice extent was broken, and then in 2011 that record was shattered again. Last year, Greenland experienced a melting season unlike anything that has been seen in a long time; there were unusual conditions that led to this event, such as a large heat wave, but the overall trend is clearly not good. And the reason is very, very clear; global warming, caused by human activity. Read More

California Tackles Climate Change, But Will Others Follow?

Daniel Stone

National Geographic News

Can California save the planet?
The state that has instigated every key U.S. effort to curb fossil-fuel emissions since the 1960s now will tackle the greatest challenge of all—reining in greenhouse gases—with a cap-and-trade system launched this week.
In a closed three-hour auction conducted online Wednesday, California's energy companies and large manufacturers placed their bids for 62 million permits that essentially give them the right to pollute. Using these chits and a healthy number of free permits California has allocated them, the businesses begin in January operating in a market-based program that officials hope will cut the state's carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent over the next eight years. (Related: "Pictures: Nine Surprisingly Gassy Cities")
The aim is ambitious, and for advocates of action on climate change, there is a larger goal still. They are hoping that California will lead the way to the kind of broader action on global warming that has been stymied both in Washington, D.C., and in international negotiations. (Related: "Climate Change Talks Hinge on 'Green Growth,' says De Boer")
"I think this will show that you can decouple economic growth from emissions growth," said Tim O'Connor, director of the Environmental Defense Fund's California Climate Initiative. "We think California will be the best of all examples. This is the strongest and boldest move yet in the U.S. to combat climate change." Read More

Poles apart: satellites reveal why Antarctic sea ice grows as Arctic melts

The mystery of the expansion of sea ice around Antarctica, at the same time as global warming is melting swaths of Arctic sea ice, has been solved using data from US military satellites.
Two decades of measurements show that changing wind patterns around Antarctica have caused a small increase in sea ice, the result of cold winds off the continent blowing ice away from the coastline.
"Until now these changes in ice drift were only speculated upon using computer models," said Paul Holland at the British Antarctic Survey. "Our study of direct satellite observations shows the complexity of climate change.
"The Arctic is losing sea ice five times faster than the Antarctic is gaining it, so, on average, the Earth is losing sea ice very quickly. There is no inconsistency between our results and global warming."
The extent of sea ice is of global importance because the bright ice reflects sunlight far more than the ocean that melting uncovers, meaning temperature rises still further. Read More

NOAA releases comprehensive 2011 State of the Climate report

On Tuesday, July 10, 2012, NOAA released the 2011 State of the Climate report. This report is a peer reviewed paper that was compiled by 378 scientists from 48 countries around the world. This report looks at the extreme weather events that occurred in 2011. It also analyzes global climate indicators and monitoring stations and instruments used on land, sea, ice, and sky. The report says that 2011 was the coolest year on record since 2008, but it remained above the 30-year average (1981-2010). La Nina – the cool phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation – was the major cooling factor, globally, in 2011. At the same time, the influence of human-caused global warming on the climate system continues to grow. The report identified “human fingerprints” in more than two dozen climate indicators examined by this international research team — from air temperatures to ocean acidity. More specifics of the report below.
According to NOAA, La Niña played a major role in the crazy weather events that occurred in 2011, such as the violent tornado outbreaks in the United States, severe droughts in southern United States, northern Mexico, and East Africa, and one of the worst summer heat waves in central and southern Europe since 2003. Read More

Thirty-six years of failure: a brief history of climate change

Doug Craig / Redding.com

In late June of 1988, the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the government of Canada sponsored "the World Conference on Our Changing Atmosphere: Implications for Global Security".
More than 300 scientists and policy makers from 46 countries attended and released a Conference Statement that said in part, "Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to a global nuclear war. The Earth's atmosphere is being changed at an unprecedented rate by pollutants resulting from human activities, inefficient and wasteful fossil fuel use and the effects of rapid population growth in many regions."
"The 1988 conference...put climate change on the global agenda and proposed a specific initial target for a global reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases - 20% below 1988 levels by 2005 - on the way to a much larger ultimate reduction, to be set following further research and debate."
To put this into perspective, nine years later, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that virtually every nation on Earth signed, except for the US, involved a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Eleven years later, President Obama, in turn, pledged to reduce American emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. This could be called goalpost shifting.
It is like a 200 pound man setting a goal to weigh 175 pounds in one year. A year later when he weighs 250 pounds, he sets a goal to weigh 225 pounds in one year. A year later when he weighs 300 pounds, his new goal is to weigh 275 pounds in one year. And so on. Our objective from the beginning appears to have been to set goals, not reach them. And when we fail to reach previous goals, we just set new ones. Anyway, the media and the public have a short memory and barely care. And in an election year, the fate of the planet is low on our list of priorities. Read More

Researchers conclude that climate change led to collapse of ancient Indus civilization

"A new study combining the latest archaeological evidence with state-of-the-art geoscience technologies provides evidence that climate change was a key ingredient in the collapse of the great Indus or Harappan Civilization almost 4000 years ago. The study also resolves a long-standing debate over the source and fate of the Sarasvati, the sacred river of Hindu mythology."

Once extending more than 1 million square kilometers across the plains of the Indus River from the Arabian Sea to the Ganges, over what is now Pakistan, northwest India and eastern Afghanistan, the Indus civilization was the largest—but least known—of the first great urban cultures that also included Egypt and Mesopotamia. Like their contemporaries, the Harappans, named for one of their largest cities, lived next to rivers owing their livelihoods to the fertility of annually watered lands.
"We reconstructed the dynamic landscape of the plain where the Indus civilization developed 5200 years ago, built its cities, and slowly disintegrated between 3900 and 3000 years ago," said Liviu Giosan, a geologist with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and lead author of the study published the week of May 28 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Until now, speculations abounded about the links between this mysterious ancient culture and its life-giving mighty rivers."
Today, numerous remains of the Harappan settlements are located in a vast desert region far from any flowing river. In contrast to Egypt and Mesopotamia, which have long been part of the Western classical canon, this amazingly complex culture in South Asia with a population that at its peak may have reached 10 percent of the world's inhabitants, was completely forgotten until 1920's. Since then, a flurry of archaeological research in Pakistan and India has uncovered a sophisticated urban culture with myriad internal trade routes and well-established sea links with Mesopotamia, standards for building construction, sanitation systems, arts and crafts, and a yet-to-be deciphered writing system. Read More

Game Over for the Climate

New York Times

GLOBAL warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.”

If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate.

Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.

That is the long-term outlook. But near-term, things will be bad enough. Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding. Economic losses would be incalculable. More and more of the Midwest would be a dust bowl. California’s Central Valley could no longer be irrigated. Food prices would rise to unprecedented levels. Read More

Discussing the Coming Climate Crisis With Heidi Cullen

Record-breaking heat. Floods. Droughts. Tornadoes. Don’t believe the skeptics—the evidence of climate change is all around us. An interview with climatologist Heidi Cullen. 

Record-breaking heat. Floods. Droughts. Tornadoes. Don’t believe the skeptics—the evidence of climate change is all around us. An interview with climatologist Heidi Cullen. 

Cullen is in the habit of keeping a close eye on the weather: Climate Central is a nonprofit science research organization headquartered in Princeton, N.J. Before she joined them, Cullen, who holds a doctorate from Columbia University, was the Weather Channel’s first on-air climate expert.

We had just been through a March of record-shattering heat, and we were roasting through mid-April days. On top of that, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, most of the U.S. is experiencing an unusually dry period, with southern Florida bone dry. More than 63 percent of Georgia is in the worst two levels of drought, the highest of any state.

Because of the dry, windy conditions, wildfires and brush fires have been raging along the East Coast from New England to Florida; billowing black clouds from New Jersey Meadowlands fires have been visible from midtown Manhattan. And in much of New England, stream flow levels were at record lows—with Vermont, though still reeling from last summer’s disastrous floods, abnormally dry.

“We may have just broken another record,” Cullen says of the recent heat wave. “That’s what we do these days. We break records.”

Cullen noted that her phone didn’t stop ringing during the March heat wave. Whenever there is an unusual weather event, journalists want to know if it is caused by climate change. “In fact, I was just talking to someone at NPR who facetiously asked, ‘How’s your summer going so far?’”

It seemed an appropriate atmosphere in which to ask a climate scientist what’s going on with the weather. And what weather has to do with climate change. Read More

Earth Day: The History of a Movement

"Much like 1970, Earth Day 2010 came at a time of great challenge for the environmental community. Climate change deniers, well-funded oil lobbyists, reticent politicians, a disinterested public, and a divided environmental community all contributed to a strong narrative that overshadowed the cause of progress and change."

(Earth Day Network) Each year, Earth Day -- April 22 -- marks the anniversary of what many consider the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.
The height of hippie and flower-child culture in the United States, 1970 brought the death of Jimi Hendrix, the last Beatles album, and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”. Protest was the order of the day, but saving the planet was not the cause. War raged in Vietnam, and students nationwide increasingly opposed it.
At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. “Environment” was a word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news.  Although mainstream America remained oblivious to environmental concerns, the stage had been set for change by the publication of Rachel Carson's New York Times bestseller Silent Spring in 1962.  The book represented a watershed moment for the modern environmental movement, selling more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries and, up until that moment, more than any other person, Ms. Carson raised public awareness and concern for living organisms, the environment and public health.
Earth Day 1970 capitalized on the emerging consciousness, channeling the energy of the anti-war protest movement and putting environmental concerns front and center.
The idea came to Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Inspired by the student anti-war movement, he realized that if he could infuse that energy with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution, it would force environmental protection onto the national political agenda. Senator Nelson announced the idea for a “national teach-in on the environment” to the national media; persuaded Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican Congressman, to serve as his co-chair; and recruited Denis Hayes as national coordinator. Hayes built a national staff of 85 to promote events across the land.
As a result, on the 22nd of April, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.
Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts. "It was a gamble," Gaylord recalled, "but it worked."
As 1990 approached, a group of environmental leaders asked Denis Hayes to organize another big campaign. This time, Earth Day went global, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage. Earth Day 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It also prompted President Bill Clinton to award Senator Nelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1995) -- the highest honor given to civilians in the United States -- for his role as Earth Day founder.
As the millennium approached, Hayes agreed to spearhead another campaign, this time focused on global warming and a push for clean energy. With 5,000 environmental groups in a record 184 countries reaching out to hundreds of millions of people, Earth Day 2000 combined the big-picture feistiness of the first Earth Day with the international grassroots activism of Earth Day 1990. It used the Internet to organize activists, but also featured a talking drum chain that traveled from village to village in Gabon, Africa, and hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Earth Day 2000 sent world leaders the loud and clear message that citizens around the world wanted quick and decisive action on clean energy. Read More

Are Killer Storms Being Fueled by Climate Change

by Bryan Walsh
(TIME) It could have been so much worse. Over 100 tornadoes ripped through several Plains states in just 24 hours over the weekend. Cars were tossed through the air and houses were pulverized. Hail the size of baseballs fell from the sky, crushing anything left in the open. More than what is ordinarily a month's worth of cyclones struck in a single day, yet miraculously, only one, in the Oklahoma town of Westwood, proved fatal, killing six victims who lived in and around a mobile-trailer park. "God was merciful," Kansas Governor Sam Brownback told CNN on Sunday.
But it wasn't just God or chance. The low death toll was also due to a faster and more insistent warning system by weather forecasters, who put the word out early and often and over many platforms that the past weekend could be a dangerous one for the Midwest, thanks to an unusually strong storm system. The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center took the unusual step of alerting people in the region more than a day before what was termed a possible "high-end, life-threatening event." Warnings went out over radios, smart phones and TVs, urging people to stay underground or in a tornado shelter for the duration of the storm. And with memories of the more than 500 people who died in cyclones last year still fresh, residents in the affected areas paid attention and stayed out of harm's way. Read More

Are Ocean Levels And Temperatures On The Rise?

A new study has revealed a global warming and rising of the oceans. Contrasting ocean temperature readings from the 1870s with modern readings, this study reveals an upward rising trend spanning over 100 years.

Dan Roemmich, a Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego physical oceanographer led the research. He found a .33 degree Celsius (.59-degree Fahrenheit) increase on average in the top portions of the ocean, down to 700 meters. Ocean surface temperatures, however, saw the largest amount of temperature rise at .59 degrees Celsius (1.1 degree Fahrenheit) and down to .12 degrees Celsius (.22 degree Fahrenheit) at 900 meters.

Roemmich’s study is the first to compare the temperature between the voyage of HMS Challenger (1872-1876) and data from modern day readings conducted by ocean-probing robots. These robots continuously report the ocean’s temperature thanks to the global Argo program. Scientists have long believed 90% of Earth’s excess heat in the climate system since the 1960s has been trapped and stored in the oceans.

Roemmich’s study, however, reports the warming trend began much sooner, as soon as 100 years ago. His report was co-authored by John Gould of the United Kingdom-based National Oceanography Centre and John Gilson of Scripps Oceanography. It was published on April 1, 2012, in an advance online edition of Nature Climate Change.

“The significance of the study is not only that we see a temperature difference that indicates warming on a global scale, but that the magnitude of the temperature change since the 1870s is twice that observed over the past 50 years,” said Roemmich, co-chairman of the International Argo Steering Team. “This implies that the time scale for the warming of the ocean is not just the last 50 years but at least the last 100 years.” Read More

La Niña could set the stage for flu pandemics

(Earth Magazine) In 1918, the Spanish flu spread around the world, claiming between 50 million and 100 million lives — more than 3 percent of the world’s population. The previous fall and winter, La Niña had brought cooler-than-normal sea-surface temperatures to the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. More recently in 2009, swine flu swept across the planet. Again, the widespread outbreak was preceded by La Niña conditions. This link might be more than coincidental, according to new research, and could lead to improved predictions of future pandemics.
In a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jeffrey Shaman of Columbia University and Marc Lipsitch of Harvard University note that La Niña can alter weather patterns and shift the migration patterns of birds. Such a rerouting of avian flu carriers could set the stage for the rise of novel — and deadly — strains of the virus, they say.
To examine the connection between La Niña and flu pandemics, Shaman and Lipsitch looked at the four most recent, well-dated human influenza pandemics — 1918, 1957, 1968 and 2009 — and then looked at El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions during the fall and winter immediately preceding the emergence of the outbreaks. The researchers found that, indeed, all four pandemics were preceded by La Niña.
The study is limited, however, by the paucity of data, Shaman says. With just four well-dated flu pandemics, the scientists say, it’s unclear whether the relationship is causal, and La Niña affects flu, or coincidental, and the association arose by chance.
If it is causal and La Niña affects the development and onset of pandemic flus, one scenario according to the team is as follows: La Niña brings about cooler sea-surface temperatures and shifts wind and precipitation patterns across the expanse of the equatorial Pacific. Those local changes impact global weather conditions, which in turn affect the resources and habitability along the flyways of migratory birds. Previous research, for example, has found impacts on migratory birds’ health and fitness, molting times, stopover patterns and contact with other bird species.
Like a burned-out traveler on an international flight, stressed birds in the presence of new company are more susceptible to picking up viruses. Conditions for a pandemic arise then, when different strains of influenza simultaneously infect a single host in a process called reassortment.
“Like all viruses, influenza hijacks the cellular machinery of its host and uses it to make copies of itself,” Shaman says. Introduce two or more strains and the host’s cells can make a hybrid strain that’s “radically different, and which the world’s population has no prior exposure to and little immunity against. This new hybrid strain can spread very efficiently around the planet,” he says. “This is a pandemic.”
Shaman notes, however, that “the jury is still out” and more work needs to be done, such as examining the mixing between bird species, and rates of reassortment in response to ENSO. “But the hypothesis we use to explain the relationship makes sense and is testable,” he says. “If evidence from future studies supports this hypothesis — if the relationship is shown to be robust — then we have a framework for developing advanced predictions of pandemic influenza risk. This would enable governments and public health officials to time the allocation of influenza resources better.”
For now, only time will tell what, if anything, follows the 2011–2012 La Niña. “La Niña by itself is not sufficient, it’s just a state that may increase the likelihood of reassortment,” Shaman says. “Many downstream effects, such as changes in weather, in bird behavior, and convergence of divergent flu subtypes, would be needed to facilitate the reassortment that generates the novel pandemic flu strain.”

Effective World Government Will Be Needed to Stave Off Climate Catastrophe

By Gary Stix/Scientific American

Almost six years ago, I was the editor of a single-topic issue on energy for Scientific American that included an article by Princeton University’s Robert Socolow that set out a well-reasoned plan for how to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations below a planet-livable threshold of 560 ppm. The issue came replete with technical solutions that ranged from a hydrogen economy to space-based solar.
If I had it to do over, I’d approach the issue planning differently, my fellow editors permitting. I would scale back on the nuclear fusion and clean coal, instead devoting at least half of the available space for feature articles on psychology, sociology, economics and political science. Since doing that issue, I’ve come to the conclusion that the technical details are the easy part. It’s the social engineering that’s the killer. Moon shots and Manhattan Projects are child’s play compared to needed changes in the way we behave.
A policy article authored by several dozen scientists appeared online March 15 in Science to acknowledge this point: “Human societies must now change course and steer away from critical tipping points in the Earth system that might lead to rapid and irreversible change. This requires fundamental reorientation and restructuring of national and international institutions toward more effective Earth system governance and planetary stewardship.”
The report summarized 10 years of research evaluating the capability of international institutions to deal with climate and other environmental issues, an assessment that found existing capabilities to effect change sorely lacking. The authors called for a “constitutional moment” at the upcoming 2012 U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio in June to reform world politics and government. Among the proposals: a call to replace the largely ineffective U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development with a council that reports to the U.N. General Assembly, at attempt to better handle emerging issues related to water, climate, energy and food security. The report advocates a similar revamping of other international environmental institutions.
Unfortunately, far more is needed. To be effective, a new set of institutions would have to be imbued with heavy-handed, transnational enforcement powers. There would have to be consideration of some way of embracing head-in-the-cloud answers to social problems that are usually dismissed by policymakers as academic naivete. In principle, species-wide alteration in basic human behaviors would be a sine qua non, but that kind of pronouncement also profoundly strains credibility in the chaos of the political sphere. Some of the things that would need to be contemplated: How do we overcome our hard-wired tendency to “discount” the future: valuing what we have today more than what we might receive tomorrow? Would any institution be capable of instilling a permanent crisis mentality lasting decades, if not centuries? How do we create new institutions with enforcement powers way beyond the current mandate of the U.N.? Could we ensure against a malevolent dictator who might abuse the power of such organizations?
Behavioral economics and other forward-looking disciplines in the social sciences try to grapple with weighty questions. But they have never taken on a challenge of this scale, recruiting all seven billion of us to act in unison. The ability to sustain change globally across the entire human population over periods far beyond anything ever attempted would appear to push the relevant objectives well beyond the realm of the attainable. If we are ever to cope with climate change in any fundamental way, radical solutions on the social side are where we must focus, though. The relative efficiency of the next generation of solar cells is trivial by comparison.

Study shows oceans becoming much more acidic

The world's oceans are turning acidic at what could be the fastest pace of any time in the past 300 million years, even more rapidly than during a monster emission of planet-warming carbon 56 million years ago, European and US scientists say in a new study.

Looking back at that bygone warm period in Earth's history could offer help in forecasting the impact of human-spurred climate change, researchers said of a review of hundreds of studies of ancient climate records published in the journal Science.
Quickly acidifying seawater eats away at coral reefs, which provide habitat for other animals and plants, and makes it harder for mussels and oysters to form protective shells. It can also interfere with small organisms that feed commercial fish like salmon. Read More

Global Warming Felt in Gardens

Global warming is hitting not just home, but garden. The color-coded map of planting zones often seen on the back of seed packets is being updated by the government, illustrating a hotter 21st century.

It’s the first time since 1990 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has revised the official guide for the nation’s 80 million gardeners, and much has changed. Nearly entire states, such as Ohio, Nebraska and Texas, are in warmer zones.

The new guide, unveiled Wednesday at the National Arboretum, arrives just as many home gardeners are receiving their seed catalogs and dreaming of lush flower beds in the spring.

It reflects a new reality: The coldest day of the year isn’t as cold as it used to be, so some plants and trees can now survive farther north. Read More