Articles Tagged "A Moment Of Clarity"

Goods and services from the natural world should be factored into the global economic system, says UN biodiversity report.

The economic case for global action to stop the destruction of the natural world is even more powerful than the argument for tackling climate change, a major report for the United Nations will declare this summer.

The Stern report on climate change, which was prepared for the UK Treasury and published in 2007, famously claimed that the cost of limiting climate change would be around 1%-2% of annual global wealth, but the longer-term economic benefits would be 5-20 times that figure.

The UN's biodiversity report – dubbed the Stern for Nature – is expected to say that the value of saving "natural goods and services", such as pollination, medicines, fertile soils, clean air and water, will be even higher – between 10 and 100 times the cost of saving the habitats and species which provide them.

To mark the UN's International Day for Biological Diversity tomorrow, hundreds of British companies, charities and other organisations have backed an open letter from the Natural History Museum's director Michael Dixon warning that "the diversity of life, so crucial to our security, health, wealth and wellbeing is being eroded".

Click source to read FULL report from Juliette Jowit

Former federal opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull has announced he will quit parliament.

"I have announced I will not recontest Wentworth at the election this year," he said today.

Mr Turnbull has been considering his future since Tony Abbott beat him by one vote in a leadership ballot in December.

He lost his leadership because he supported an emissions trading scheme to tackle climate change. Mr Abbott, who also once supported such an approach, dumped it as Liberal policy in his first act as leader.

In a statement released this morning, Mr Turnbull rued that decision.

"I thank [former prime minister] John Howard for giving me the opportunity to serve as environment and water minister. With his support I was able to ensure that for the first time in our history the interstate waters of the Murray Darling Basin were placed under national responsibility," he said.

"However, I regret that another important reform begun during that time, the establishment of an emissions trading scheme, is no longer Liberal Party policy."

‘Every error exaggerated the impact of change’

The UN body that advises world leaders on climate change must investigate an apparent bias in its report that resulted in several exaggerations of the impact of global warming, according to its former chairman.

In an interview with The Times Robert Watson said that all the errors exposed so far in the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) resulted in overstatements of the severity of the problem.

Professor Watson, currently chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said that if the errors had just been innocent mistakes, as has been claimed by the current chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, some would probably have understated the impact of climate change.

The errors have emerged in the past month after simple checking of the sources cited by the 2,500 scientists who produced the report.

The report falsely claimed that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 when evidence suggests that they will survive for another 300 years. It also claimed that global warming could cut rain-fed North African crop production by up to 50 per cent by 2020. A senior IPCC contributor has since admitted that there is no evidence to support this claim.

The Dutch Government has asked the IPCC to correct its claim that more than half the Netherlands is below sea level. The environment ministry said that only 26 per cent of the country was below sea level.

With the science under siege and the politics in disarray, it may fall to civil society to keep this still crucial fight alive

What a difference three months makes. Back in November, the world broadly agreed that emissions of carbon dioxide were heating up the planet and that we needed to do something about it, even if we couldn't agree exactly what. And though we'd had the usual pre-summit rollercoaster ride of dire predictions and naive exhortations (yes, I plead guilty to some of those), even hardheaded types dared to hope that Copenhagen might produce the basis of a global climate treaty.

As late as 7 December, 56 newspapers around the world could declare in a common, Guardian-led editorial: "The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history's judgment on this generation: one that saw a ­challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it."

Now, with climate science under siege and climate politics in disarray, that sounds like the rhetoric of another age. The American commentator Walter Russell Mead recently captured the mood: "The global warming movement as we have known it is dead … basically, Sarah Palin 1, Al Gore zip." A senior British diplomat compares those trying to secure global action on climate change post-Copenhagen to "small groups wandering in different directions around the battlefield like a beaten army". A leading scientist offers an equally pithy assessment: "Everybody is completely clueless."

Not depressed yet? This weekend a BBC poll showed a dramatic fall in the number of people who believe warming is happening; carbon markets have ­tumbled; a Guardian survey of over 30 leading figures involved in climate negotiations found almost none who believed a global deal was possible this year; in Australia a man who described climate change as "absolute crap" could soon be prime minister.

A senior Tory MP has issued a direct challenge to David Cameron's environmental policies after warning tough green targets could 'cripple' the economy.

David Davis accused the green movement of having a 'fixation' with imposing targets on reducing carbon emissions.

The former Tory leadership challenger warned that taxpayers are already facing a £55billion price tag for 'green' policies.
before.'

Mr Davis said that building wind farms would blight hundreds of thousands of properties and 'ruin' lives through the unbearable noise levels, while future predicted power shortages would further undermine public support for action.

Even George Monbiot, one of the fiercest media propagandists of the warming faith, admits he should have been more sceptical and says the science now needs to be rechecked:

It’s no use pretending that this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them. Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad.There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request. Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.

Click source to read FULL article from Andrew Bolt

In her first public comments since arriving in Canberra three weeks ago, Baroness Amos, a former leader of the House of Lords, said Australia was well-positioned to lead the international community on climate change but the public debate should move beyond scepticism and negativity to finding solutions.

Her comments come days after a senior Liberal, Nick Minchin, said he and most of his party colleagues believed man-made climate change was a myth.

''I have been surprised that the science itself is being questioned,'' she said. ''These are things where there have been debates over a long period of time in other countries and where we have reached conclusions and moved on.

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A leading climate scientist today accused the Indian environment ministry of "arrogance" after the release of a government report claiming that there is no evidence climate change has caused "abnormal" shrinking of Himalayan glaciers.

Jairam Ramesh, India's environment minister, released the controversial report in Delhi, saying it would "challenge the conventional wisdom" about melting ice in the mountains.

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Whether we like it or not, we will not get substantive action unless the growing scepticism in the electorate is addressed. This means a much greater willingness to engage in debate and discussion. And a far greater emphasis on showing that a low-carbon future does not have to be impoverished, chilly or restricted. In other words, those with influence need to stress the importance of advanced technology rather than the turning down of the thermostat. The threat of climate change is a society-wide challenge, so it needs to engage those who presently see global warming as yet another burden foisted on them by duplicitous government. We're past the stage when government and science can simply ignore the sceptics.

Click soure to read the FULL article from THE GUARDIAN!