Planetary Ruin

The European Union’s trade commissioner will on Monday dismiss French proposals for a “green” tax on goods from countries that have not ratified the Kyoto treaty as not only a probable breach of trade rules but also “not good politics”.

Peter Mandelson says that the levy, aiming to cancel the competitive advantage of countries that are not cutting carbon emissions to fight global warming, would be “highly problematic under World Trade Organisation rules and almost impossible to implement in practice”.

The proposals are gathering support after Günter Verheugen, industry commissioner, backed the idea after it was separately proposed by an advisory group of EU government officials and industry leaders he co-chairs.

“Not participating in the Kyoto process is not illegal. Nor is it a subsidy under WTO rules,” Mr Mandelson will warn in a podcast speech to 50,000 subscribers. “How would we choose what goods to target? China has ratified Kyoto but has no Kyoto targets because of its developing country status. The US has not ratified but states like California have ambitious climate change policies.”

Above all, he says, it would undermine the international co-operation required to combat climate change.

Dominique de Villepin, the French prime minister, embraced the idea last month amid fears that EU efforts to curb emissions are driving up power prices and industrial costs.

In contrast, Mr Mandelson backs a plan, to be unveiled this week, to include in the EU’s carbon emissions trading scheme all airlines landing or taking off in the EU, even though it is likely to antagonise the US and Asian countries.

Mr Mandelson, who favours a positive rather than punitive approach, is also writing to Pascal Lamy, WTO director-general, to suggest talks on scrapping tariffs on renewable energy and clean power generation equipment worldwide.

He also wants extra incentives for companies using environmentally sustainable methods to be built into a new generation of bilateral deals the EU is negotiating. Mr Mandelson says the rich world has “an historical environmental debt”, having contributed to 80 per cent of carbon emissions worldwide to date, and must lead the way.

He accepts there will be some pain in the short-term for industry but this could be offset by services growth selling European environmental know-how.

What he calls “climate security” is the biggest political challenge of the day. In early January, the European Commission will launch an energy policy, based on market liberalisation, efficiency savings and a faster shift to renewable sources and cleaner technology.

¦ Airlines could profit by £2.7bn ($5.3bn, €4bn) from their inclusion in the EU’s greenhouse gas emission trading scheme, according to an analysis published on Monday by the UK’s Institute for Public Policy Research, a left-leaning think-tank.

A separate report by WWF, the conservation charity, suggested that airlines, many of which have protested against being included, would profit by €3.5bn ($4.6bn, £2.3bn).

Both reports assume that airlines would be given free allowances for the amount of carbon dioxide they could emit, but that they would pass on the notional cost of buying the allowances to airline passengers.

But in practice airlines might find it difficult to profit from emissions trading in this way, given the fierce competition over prices on many routes.

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Lord Monckton, Viscount of Brenchley, has sent an open letter to Senators Rockefeller (D-WV) and Snowe (R-Maine) in response to their recent open letter telling the CEO of ExxonMobil to cease funding climate-skeptic scientists. (http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20061212_monckton.pdf).

Lord Monckton, former policy adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, writes: “You defy every tenet of democracy when you invite ExxonMobil to deny itself the right to provide information to senior elected and appointed government officials who disagree with your opinion.”

In what The Charleston (WV) Daily Mail has called “an intemperate attempt to squelch debate with a hint of political consequences,” Senators Rockefeller and Snowe released an open letter dated October 30 to ExxonMobil CEO, Rex Tillerson, insisting he end Exxons funding of a “climate change denial campaign.” The Senators labeled scientists with whom they disagree as “deniers,” a term usually directed at “Holocaust deniers.” Some voices on the political left have called for the arrest and prosecution of skeptical scientists. The British Foreign Secretary has said skeptics should be treated like advocates of Islamic terror and must be denied access to the media.

Responds Lord Monckton, “Sceptics and those who have the courage to support them are actually helpful in getting the science right. They do not, as you improperly suggest, obfuscate the issue: they assist in clarifying it by challenging weaknesses in the consensus argument and they compel necessary corrections … ”

Lord Moncktons Churchillian reproof continues, “You acknowledge the effectiveness of the climate sceptics. In so doing, you pay a compliment to the courage of those free-thinking scientists who continue to research climate change independently despite the likelihood of refusal of publication in journals that have taken preconceived positions; the hate mail and vilification from ignorant environmentalists; and the threat of loss of tenure in institutions of learning which no longer make any pretence to uphold or cherish academic freedom.”

Of Britains Royal Society, a State-funded scientific body which, like the Senators, has publicly leaned on ExxonMobil, Lord Monckton said, “The Societys long-standing funding by taxpayers does not ensure any greater purity of motive or rigour of thought than industrial funding of scientists who dare to question whether climate change will do any harm.”

To the Senators comparison of ExxonMobils funding of climate sceptics with tobacco-industry funding of research denying the link between smoking and lung cancer, Lord Monckton counters, “Your comparison of Exxons funding of sceptical scientists and groups with the former antics of the tobacco industry is unjustifiable and unworthy of any credible elected representatives. Either withdraw that monstrous comparison forthwith, or resign so as not to pollute the office you hold.”

Concludes Lord Monckton, “I challenge you to withdraw or resign because your letter is the latest in what appears to be an internationally-coordinated series of maladroit and malevolent attempts to silence the voices of scientists and others who have sound grounds, rooted firmly in the peer- reviewed scientific literature, to question what you would have us believe is the unanimous agreement of scientists worldwide that global warming will lead to what you excitedly but unjustifiably call disastrous and calamitous consequences.”

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Meet the world’s top destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane,or even George Bush: it is the cow.

A United Nations report has identified the world’s rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs.

The 400-page report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, entitled Livestock’s Long Shadow, also surveys the damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But in almost every case, the world’s 1.5 billion cattle are most to blame. Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.

Burning fuel to produce fertiliser to grow feed, to produce meat and to transport it – and clearing vegetation for grazing – produces 9 per cent of all emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. And their wind and manure emit more than one third of emissions of another, methane, which warms the world 20 times faster than carbon dioxide.

Livestock also produces more than 100 other polluting gases, including more than two-thirds of the world’s emissions of ammonia, one of the main causes of acid rain.

Ranching, the report adds, is “the major driver of deforestation” worldwide, and overgrazing is turning a fifth of all pastures and ranges into desert.Cows also soak up vast amounts of water: it takes a staggering 990 litres of water to produce one litre of milk.

Wastes from feedlots and fertilisers used to grow their feed overnourish water, causing weeds to choke all other life. And the pesticides, antibiotics and hormones used to treat them get into drinking water and endanger human health.

The pollution washes down to the sea, killing coral reefs and creating “dead zones” devoid of life. One is up to 21,000sqkm, in the Gulf of Mexico, where much of the waste from US beef production is carried down the Mississippi.

The report concludes that, unless drastic changes are made, the massive damage done by livestock will more than double by 2050, as demand for meat increases.

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Mankind has had less effect on global warming than previously supposed, a United Nations report on climate change will claim next year.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says there can be little doubt that humans are responsible for warming the planet, but the organisation has reduced its overall estimate of this effect by 25 per cent.

In a final draft of its fourth assessment report, to be published in February, the panel reports that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has accelerated in the past five years. It also predicts that temperatures will rise by up to 4.5 C during the next 100 years, bringing more frequent heat waves and storms.

advertisementThe panel, however, has lowered predictions of how much sea levels will rise in comparison with its last report in 2001.

Climate change sceptics are expected to seize on the revised figures as evidence that action to combat global warming is less urgent.

Scientists insist that the lower estimates for sea levels and the human impact on global warming are simply a refinement due to better data on how climate works rather than a reduction in the risk posed by global warming.

One leading UK climate scientist, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity surrounding the report before it is published, said: “The bottom line is that the climate is still warming while our greenhouse gas emissions have accelerated, so we are storing up problems for ourselves in the future.”

The IPCC report, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, has been handed to the Government for review before publication.

It warns that carbon dioxide emissions have risen during the past five years by three per cent, well above the 0.4 per cent a year average of the previous two decades. The authors also state that the climate is almost certain to warm by at least 1.5 C during the next 100 years.

Such a rise would be enough to take average summer temperatures in Britain to those seen during the 2003 heatwave, when August temperatures reached a record-breaking 38 C. Unseasonable warmth this year has left many Alpine resorts without snow by the time the ski season started.

Britain can expect more storms of similar ferocity to those that wreaked havoc across the country last week, even bringing a tornado to north-west London.

The IPCC has been forced to halve its predictions for sea-level rise by 2100, one of the key threats from climate change. It says improved data have reduced the upper estimate from 34 in to 17 in.

It also says that the overall human effect on global warming since the industrial revolution is less than had been thought, due to the unexpected levels of cooling caused by aerosol sprays, which reflect heat from the sun.

Large amounts of heat have been absorbed by the oceans, masking the warming effect.

Prof Rick Battarbee, the director of the Environmental Change Research Centre at University College London, warned these masking effects had helped to delay global warming but would lead to larger changes in the future.

He said: “The oceans have been acting like giant storage heaters by trapping heat and carbon dioxide. They might be bit of a time-bomb as they have been masking the real effects of the carbon dioxide we have been releasing into the atmosphere.

“People are very worried about what will happen in 2030 to 2050, as we think that at that point the oceans will no longer be able to absorb the carbon dioxide being emitted. It will be a tipping point and that is why it is now critical to act to counter any acceleration that will occur when this happens.”

The report paints a bleak picture for future generations unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced. It predicts that the climate will warm by 0.2 C a decade for the next two decades if emissions continue at current levels.

The report states that snow cover in mountainous regions will contract and permafrost in polar regions will decline.

However, Julian Morris, executive director of the International Policy Network, urged governments to be cautious. “There needs to be better data before billions of pounds are spent on policy measures that may have little impact,” he said.

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Officials from Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority met along the shores of the Dead Sea to settle details of a study to save the shrinking body of water, agreeing to proceed with plans to draw water from the Red Sea.

The surface level of the Dead Sea – the saltiest water in the world at the lowest point on Earth that is estimated at 1,200 feet below sea level – has fallen about three feet a year in the past 20 years because of evaporation and allegedly the diversion of rivers by Syria and Israel.

The Dead Sea and its surrounding has been the source of much human social history and it is linked to the three monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

In 2005, the three concerned parties appealed to the World Bank to coordinate financing the feasibility study. The World Bank have agreed and appealed to the donor countries.

Four donor countries – France, Japan, the United States and the Netherlands – have committed themselves to participate in financing the $15 million study. The study will look at the environmental and social consequences of transferring water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, Jordan’s Minister of Water and Irrigation Mohammed Thafer al-Alem said Sunday.

Geological experts warned that the drop in the water level would increase the earthquake possibilities. They also warn the Dead Sea will disappear in 50 years if current trends persist.

The Israeli Minister of National Infrastructure, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, said the “study is an excellent example for cooperation, peace and conflict reduction.”

The Red-Dead Sea canal project, which is expected to cost more than $1 billion, would exploit the 1,320-foot difference in altitude between both areas.

If implemented, the 248-mile desert area between the two seas would benefit from the fresh water to turn the region into an agricultural hub for the benefit of the three countries. A desalination project is also envisaged to provide drinking water for Amman. Israel and the Palestinian territories would also benefit from the drinking water.

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As far as we are concerned the following statement by Kirk Douglas is right on the money.  We do not wish to push our beliefs on you as to the direction the world needs to go but we want you to make your own informed decisions on what is best.  If you take the time to learn about the issues facing us today, you are more likely to make responsible decisions later and make an impacting change upon the world.  Read these words and do not take the doom and gloom approach that many media centers are taking.  Look at the hope and desire for a better world that Kirk’s message is all about.  It is up to us, all of us to do what is right. 

My name is Kirk Douglas. You may know me. If you don’t … Google me. I was a movie star and I’m Michael Douglas’ dad, Catherine Zeta-Jones’ father-in-law, and the grandparents of their two children. Today I celebrate my 90th birthday.

I have a message to convey to America’s young people. A 90th birthday is special. In my case, this birthday is not only special but miraculous. I survived World War II, a helicopter crash, a stroke, and two new knees.

It’s a tradition that when a “birthday boy” stands over his cake he makes a silent wish for his life and then blows out the candles. I have followed that tradition for 89 years but on my 90th birthday, I have decided to rebel. Instead of making a silent wish for myself, I want to make a LOUD wish for THE WORLD.

Let’s face it: THE WORLD IS IN A MESS and you are inheriting it. Generation Y, you are on the cusp. You are the group facing many problems: abject poverty, global warming, genocide, AIDS, and suicide bombers to name a few. These problems exist, and the world is silent. We have done very little to solve these problems. Now, we leave it to you. You have to fix it because the situation is intolerable.

You need to rebel, to speak up, write, vote, and care about people and the world you live in. We live in the best country in the world. I know. My parents were Russian immigrants. America is a country where EVERYONE, regardless of race, creed, or age has a chance. I had that chance. You are the generation that is most impacted and the generation that can make a difference.

I love this country because I came from a life of poverty. I was able to work my way through college and go into acting, the field that I love. There is no guarantee in this country that you will be successful. But you always have a chance. Nothing should interfere with it. You have to make sure that nothing stands in the way.

When I blow out my candles — 90! … it will take a long time … but I’ll be thinking of you.

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A small-scale, regional nuclear war could disrupt the global climate for a decade or more, with environmental effects that could be devastating for everyone on Earth, researchers have concluded.

The scientists said about 40 countries possess enough plutonium or uranium to construct substantial nuclear arsenals. Setting off a Hiroshima-size weapon could cause as many direct fatalities as all of World War II.

 ”Considering the relatively small number and size of the weapons, the effects are surprisingly large,” said one of the researchers, Richard Turco of the University of California, Los Angeles.  “The potential devastation would be catastrophic and long term.”

The lingering effects could re-shape the environment in ways never conceived. In terms of climate, a nuclear blast could plunge temperatures across large swaths of the globe. “It would be the largest climate change in recorded human history,” Alan Robock, associate director of the Center for Environmental Prediction at Rutgers’ Cook College and another member of the research team.

The results will be presented here today during the annual meeting of American Geophysical Union.

Blast fatalities

In one study, scientists led by Owen “Brian” Toon of the University of Colorado, Boulder, analyzed potential fatalities based on current nuclear weapons inventories and population densities in large cities around the world.

His team focused on the black smoke generated by a nuclear blast and firestorms—intense and long-lasting fires that create and sustain their own wind systems. 

For a regional conflict, fatalities would range from 2.6 million to 16.7 million per country. “A small country is likely to direct its weapons against population centers to maximize damage and achieve the greatest advantage,” Toon said.

Chilled climate

With the information, Robock and colleagues generated a series of computer simulations of potential climate anomalies caused by a small-scale nuclear war.

“We looked at a scenario of a regional nuclear conflict say between India and Pakistan where each of them used 50 weapons on cities in the other country that would generate a lot of smoke,” Robock told LiveScience.

They discovered the smoke emissions would plunge temperatures by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.25 degrees Celsius) over large areas of North America and Eurasia—areas far removed from the countries involved in the conflict.

Typically when sunlight travels through the atmosphere, some rays get absorbed by particles in the air, before reaching Earth’s surface. After a nuclear blast, however, loads of black smoke would settle into the upper atmosphere and absorb sunlight before it reaches our planet’s surface. Like a dark curtain pulled over large parts of the globe, the smoke would cause cool temperatures, darkness, less precipitation and even ozone depletion.

At the end of the 10 years, the simulated climate still hadn’t recovered. 

Global upshot

The study showed it doesn’t take much nuclear power to drive meteoric results. Whereas the scenarios presumed the countries involved would launch their entire nuclear arsenals, that total is just three-hundredths of a percent of the global arsenal.

Will the conclusions result in worldly changes? “We certainly hope there will be a political response because nuclear weapons are the most dangerous potential environmental danger to the planet. They’re much more dangerous than global warming,” Robock said.

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EVERY schoolchild in Scotland is to be offered the chance to see former US vice-president Al Gore’s film about the dangers of global warming under a scheme by energy company ScottishPower.

The firm, a major windfarm developer which also runs the coal-fired Longannet power station, is prepared to commit “tens of thousands of pounds” to the project and is currently in negotiations with the Scottish Executive to secure its backing.

ScottishPower, which has also given copies of Mr Gore’s book of the same name, An Inconvenient Truth, to hundreds of its staff, plans to pay for cinema screenings for older children in primary schools and all secondary pupils. The firm is currently discussing with the Executive how pupils could be bussed to cinemas, and to cinema owners about times for screenings.

The idea came about after Stephen Dunn, the company’s director of human resources and communications, bought the book in the US while visiting a company owned by ScottishPower.

“On the way home, I picked up the book in a bookstore in Oregon. We flew right back to the UK and I basically read the entire book during the night on the flight,” he said.

“The thing that grabbed me about it was it’s actually quite a simple book, telling a simple story about the world and what we are doing to it and how we have the opportunity to improve it. That sort of very personal picture of what we are doing struck home with me. The film is equally powerful.

“We are working with the Scottish Executive to see if we can put together a funding package to get this film viewed by schoolchildren across Scotland.

“We are putting up the cost of the cinemas and the cost of getting the film and we’re just looking for a bit of support from the Executive.”

Mr Dunn said ScottishPower was also looking at biomass generators and wave power in addition to its windfarm programme in an attempt to reduce emissions and the impact of global warming.

“In helping get this film out to schoolchildren, we give them the opportunity to think about what we are doing to this Earth in a very simple way – kids take very complex things and make them very easy much better than adults can.”

David Eaglesham, general-secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers Association, said: “The film certainly puts across a view about how the environment could be affected in the coming years, and climate change is something that is already being looked at in many areas of the curriculum.”

Ronnie Smith, the general-secretary of the EIS teaching union, said that the film would have to be put in context.

“I entirely accept that the environmental issue is moving up the agenda, but I think it would be preferable that it was used as part of the curriculum, rather than taking an one-off, piece-meal approach,” he said.

James Douglas-Hamilton, the Scottish Conservative’s education spokesman, said he had not seen the film, but added he was in favour of the “principle of greater environmental awareness, provided it is objectively done”.

A Scottish Executive spokesperson said:

“We are aware of the film proposal from ScottishPower and are currently considering this.”

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Rescuers scouring mountain villages buried under mud and boulders loosed by a powerful typhoon discovered more bodies Saturday, raising the death total to more than 300, with another 300 missing.
Officials fear the number of those killed by Typhoon Durian will rise as rescue operations continue in devastated villages on the slopes of the Mayon volcano, 210 miles southeast of Manila in the eastern Philippines.

The national Office of Civil Defense has reported 208 people dead, 261 missing and 90 injured.

But those figures included few of the 120 bodies found in the town of Guinobatan on the slopes of Mayon, where Albay Gov. Fernando Gonzalez said.

“We need food, tents, water, body bags,” Philippine National Red Cross official Andrew Nocon told DZMM radio. “We sent initially 300 bags, but we need more.”

In Padang, a few miles from Guinobatan, houses were buried under mud and debris, with only roofs protruding. Power pylons were toppled, a two-lane highway became a one-lane, debris-strewn road with overturned trucks scattered about and a backhoe half-buried by a massive boulder.

Luis Bello, a mayor’s aide in Padang, said 28 bodies were recovered there and photographed for identification by relatives. Some of the bodies had been washed out to sea and brought back by currents to the shores of an adjacent town.

Ash and boulders had been building on the slopes of the 8,077-foot Mayon — one of 22 active volcanos in the Philippines — which has been coming to life in recent months. Typhoon Durian’s winds of 139 mph and drenching rain on Thursday raked it all down on the deluged villages.

For nearly three hours late Thursday afternoon, mudslides tore through Mayon’s gullies, uprooting trees, flattening houses and engulfing people. Entire hamlets were swamped. Burials of victims were expected to start as soon as Saturday.

Gonzalez, who expected the death toll to rise, said the damage from the typhoon was unprecedented in the region.

“Every corner of this province has been hit. It is a total devastation,” he said. “Never before in the history have we seen water like this. Almost every residential area was flooded.”

Padang residents Benjamin Luga, 70, and his wife Elizabeth, 62, said they escaped the mudslide by tearing down their bathroom ceiling and hiding in the roof. A big boulder halted just two yards from their house.

“First we heard the howling winds, then came the flood. It was water, sand, gravel and boulders,” Elizabeth Luga said.

Looking at her house where the floors were covered in five feet of mud, she said she thought that the home would collapse under the onslaught of mud, water and debris, which felt “like an earthquake.”

Mayon, a popular tourist attraction because of its nearly perfect conical shape, erupted in July, depositing millions of tons of rocks and volcanic ash on its slopes. It has continued to rumble since then. Rains from previous typhoons may have loosened the materials, officials said.

A broken dike also flooded many parts of Albay, the local Red Cross said. It appealed for food, bottled water, blankets, mats and mosquito nets.

Canada donated $876,000, the Philippine Foreign Affairs Department reported, while Japan said it would send $173,000.

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It does not look good for Rosi Schipflinger. The slopes close to her Sonnenberg restaurant in the Austrian resort of Kitzbühel should be white, not a muddy brown.
 
“Where are the queues for the ski lift?” she says with a glance at the skies that have yet to yield a single snowflake. I’m having to put out deckchairs on my terrace.”

Similar stories are emerging from ski communities across the Alps, where the warmest autumn on record is posing a threat to one of the great European traditions: the pre-Christmas downhill season.

At the same time, with the weak dollar, British ski operators are experiencing a surge in demand for skiing holidays to North America, where snow conditions are said to be the best for 15 years.

Marion Telsnig, spokeswoman for Thomson Ski and Crystal Ski, said: “There has been good snow over there for three weeks, so our holidays there have been selling well.”

In most Alpine countries the first weekend of December usually brings a rush of visitors to the slopes. But now, if climate experts are to be believed, aprés-ski may take on a more ominous meaning. “Within the next 15 years or so it will be impossible to find a continuous snow blanket below 1,500m,” Helga Kromp-Kolb, of the University of Natural Resources in Vienna, says. “In 30 to 40 years ski regions below 2,000m will no longer exist.”

The International Ski Federation reports cancelled races in France, Austria, Switzerland, Norway and Italy because of a lack of snow. This month’s men’s downhill and Super G races at Val d’Isère, a French resort favoured by British skiers, have been scrapped. Not since Thomas Cook introduced ski tourism in the 19th century has there been so much dismay about the weather.

This November was the warmest in Austria since meteorological data was first gathered in 1775. At Cortina, the Queen of the Italian Dolomites, it is as if spring has arrived. At 1,224m midday temperatures are 15C — normal for May.

Alpine communities have coped with warm winter weather before, but this year there is a sense that it could be the beginning of the end of the European skiing experience.

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