Climate Change: Ignoring Climate Crisis Could Lead to Economic Collapse, UK Economist Reports

LONDON - Ignoring climate change could lead to economic upheaval on the scale of the 1930s Depression, underlining the need for urgent action to combat global warming, a British report on the costs of climate change said, according to Reuters/Planet Ark.

The report by chief British government economist Nicholas Stern, a 27-page summary of which was obtained by Reuters, says the benefits of determined worldwide steps to tackle climate change would greatly outweigh the costs.

The 700-page report, to be published on Monday, said that no matter what we do now the chance "is already almost out of reach" to keep greenhouse gases at a level which scientists say should avoid the worst effects of climate change.

It said the world does not have to choose between tackling climate change and economic growth, contradicting US President George W. Bush who pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol against global warming in part because he said it would cost jobs.

"The evidence gathered by the review leads to a simple conclusion: the benefits of strong, early action considerably outweigh the costs," said the report, prepared for British Prime Minister Tony Blair and finance minister Gordon Brown.

"Our actions over the coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century," it said.

It precedes UN climate talks, starting in Nairobi on Nov. 6, focusing on finding a successor to Kyoto which ends in 2012.

Read the full story: UK

Read the press notice: HM Treasury

Download the full report: Stern Report

Categories: climate change, global warming, poverty, economy

Climate Change: Yale Global Features Part II of Hansen's "Planet in Peril"

Yale Global Online, a web-based publication of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, features Part II of Jim Hansen's "The Planet in Peril:

People have some measure of control over how much the climate will change, explains Jim Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. In the second of a two-part series, he makes specific recommendations that do require some sacrifice: Humans must end their reliance on fossil fuels; governments can impose carbon taxes in a way that provides incentives to decrease fuel consumption and changes human behavior; industries and universities can make development of renewable energy sources a top priority. Public awareness is growing about the impending dangers, including species extinction, violent weather patterns and the washing away of coastal cities, displacing millions. Nations and industries that take early steps to end or manage global warming will have a competitive advantage. Global warming is not just an environmental or health or economic concern – reversing the trend is a matter of human survival. – from YaleGlobal

Read the full article: Hansen, Peril Part II

Categories: climate change, global warming, science, greenhouse gases

Climate Change: Farmers Go Green to Fight Global Warming

Tackling Climate Change is going to take all sorts from all sectors. Some will seem like strange bedfellows. Like, I dunno, enviros and oil men, evangelicals and pro-choice green soccer Moms...

Now farmers are getting into the mix. Some see it as a way to save family farms by suplying biodiesel. Others understand that if dramatic climate change occurs, they may have difficulty growing cash crops where they farm today. (Any real estate agents out there looking to sell some future farm land in Siberia or Alaska?)

CNN.com reports on the farmer situation from Iowa. (Sing it: "Oh the greenies and the farmers should be friends...")

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Gary Larsen, a 63-year-old grandfather who raises corn and soybeans, is among the growing number of farmers concerned with the potential effects of global warming.

"We don't know how the world could actually turn out, but doing absolutely nothing and sticking your head in the sand is not an option," said Larsen, who lives near Elk Horn, Iowa.

He has adopted environmentally friendly farming methods and even recently bought a hybrid car.

Hybrids aren't replacing one-ton pickups in mid-America, but many in the agriculture industry are reacting to the potential effects of global warming, developing new technology and farming methods to brace for the possibility of widespread drought and crop-pounding storms.

In the past century, the Earth's surface temperature has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit and could climb another 5 to 10 degrees over the next century, according to government officials.

The Environmental Protection Agency has blamed human activities for most of the warming over the last 50 years, including the buildup of greenhouse gases that trap heat.

"It's dire in the sense that this problem is already with us, and it's hard to see how it can go away," said Kevin E. Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

"There are no global concerted efforts to really address the problem."

Trenberth said farmers have quickly learned to manage the effects of hot, dry weather and soil-eroding storms.

"They see the trends and they adapt their practices," he said.

The industry has been especially aggressive in breeding and developing crops that more efficiently use soil moisture and nutrients. Such crops can ward off disease and pests that stress plants trying to cope with increased temperatures.

Read the full article: Farmers Going Green

Categories: climate change, global warming, agriculture

Environmentalism: Makower's ecoAmerica Discovery

Joel Makower, in his blog Two Steps Forward, writes about a new organization ecoAmerica and their desire to reengage Americans to support sustainability and protect our natural heritage. The group's challenge to the environmental movement is provactive and timely:

The question of how to engage Americans on pressing environmental issues is a perennial one. Arguably, environmental activist groups haven't made much traction. After more than 35 years since the birth of the modern environmental movement, the major green nonprofits cumulatively engage only 3 million to 4 million Americans -- the roughly 1% of Americans who appear on the groups' mailing lists.

It's no wonder, then, that the environment ranks near the bottom of issues about which Americans are concerned. And it explains why environmentally proactive political candidates don't run on those issues -- and why conservative politicians, as a rule, can run roughshod over the planet with impunity.

A group called ecoAmerica -- "the first environmental non-profit with a core expertise in consumer marketing" -- is looking to change all that. Armed with a half-million dollars in market research and out-of-the-box -- for enviros, at least -- thinking, the group hopes to engage "environmentally agnostic" Americans to support green causes "as a personal and public policy priority."

Read the full article: Makower

More about ecoAmerica

Categories: environmentalism, sustainability, conservation ethic, marketing, green consumer

Climate Change: Global warming will shrink nations and change world maps, Hansen says

The evidence on global warming is overwhelming. Ongoing scientific research reveals that human-induced climate change will contribute to dangerous new weather patterns and rising sea levels that will gradually swamp many coastal cities, displacing millions of people over the next century.

Jim Hansen, director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, explores the implications of global warming in a two-part series for YaleGlobal, a web-based publication of the Yale Center for Globalization. The globe experienced abrupt temperature changes in the distant past, and Hansen offers a reminder that those changes resulted in mass extinctions and the evolution of new species.

Meanwhile, the changes caused by modern human activities dwarf any natural events recorded during the prehistoric era. Unless humans take action soon, by restraining activities that contribute to global warming, they can anticipate adapting to a transformed planet. Read the full article: YaleGlobal

Read the original article from which it was taken: The New York Review of Books

More on NASA's study of global warming: NASA

Categories: climate change, global warming, science

Climate Change: Major Institutional Investors Make a Statement

from The Climate Group

MAJOR INVESTMENT CONFERENCE HELD ON CLIMATE CHANGE

The Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) - Europe’s leading alliance of institutional investors working on climate change - held a major investor conference in Paris on October 12th and 13th. This event bought together senior figures from the corporate, financial and public sectors to discuss the investment consequences of climate change and the most appropriate response.

The conference followed a recent statement released by institutional investors managing assets worth more than £850bn, who pledged to use their collective financial muscle to encourage companies and governments to act to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

The Investor Statement on Climate Change, sponsored by the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) and signed by a number of Europe’s largest pension funds and asset managers, states that climate change is likely to have serious adverse impacts on the long-term interests of the millions of savers whose assets are managed by institutional investors and that investment decisions taken now will have a major impact on the world’s climate.
....

Douglas Ferrans, Chief Executive, Insight Investment, which is a member of the IIGCC said, “As institutional investors we recognise that the long-term interests of the millions of savers who we represent and the organisations they work for are inextricably intertwined with long term climate issues. This Statement is about encouraging real change right now, through ensuring that all actors in the investment system – asset managers, pension funds and their advisers – play their part in responding to climate change. The Statement also recognises the critical role of government in providing an investment environment that will help us ensure a more stable climate for current and future generations.”

Read more at Investors

Download the IIGCC statement here.

Categories: climate change, global warming, investments