REUTERS: ACTUAL CLIMATE EFFECTS ARE WORSE THAN IPCC WORST CASE.
Global warming seen worse than predicted
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The climate is heating up far faster than scientists had predicted, spurred by sharp increases in greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries like China and India, a top climate scientist said on Saturday.
"The consequence of that is we are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we've considered seriously," Chris Field, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago.
WASHINGTON POST: POSITIVE FEEDBACK LOOPS ARE KICKING IN
WAPO:
A Unexpectedly large amounts of carbon dioxide are being released into the atmosphere as the result of "feedback loops" that are speeding up natural processes.Unexpectedly large amounts of carbon dioxide are being released into the atmosphere as the result of "feedback loops" that are speeding up natural processes. CO2 concentrations are rising much faster than predicted by the IPCC only last year.
NOAA: ATMOSPHERIC MEASUREMENTS CONFIRM FEARS
World carbon dioxide levels jump 2.3 ppm in 2008 to highest in 650,000 — if not 20 million — years
The present concentration is the highest during the last 650,000 years and probably during the last 20 million years.
Worse, the rate of growth of CO2 concentrations this decade is 2.1 ppm a year — 40% higher than the rate from the 1990s. At the same time that CO2 emissions are soaring, CO2 sinks are saturating (see "The ocean is absorbing less carbon dioxide").
Vital data on the rate if fossil fuel burning from 2000-2007 was not available to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Had they had the information, primarily the growth in coal combustion in China and India, the IPCC predictions would have been much more dire.
COAL-FIRED PLANTS ARE DEATH FACTORIES
James Hansen in the Guardian points the finger...............directly at coal plants.
Coal is not only the largest fossil fuel reservoir of carbon dioxide, it is the dirtiest fuel. Coal is polluting the world's oceans and streams with mercury, arsenic and other dangerous chemicals. The dirtiest trick that governments play on their citizens is the pretence that they are working on "clean coal" or that they will build power plants that are "capture-ready" in case technology is ever developed to capture all pollutants.
The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.
STEP 1: ALL CONSTRUCTION OF NEW COAL PLANTS MUST BE HALTED
STEP 2:CLINTON MUST LAY DOWN THE LAW THIS WEEK TO THE CHINESE: NO NEW COAL PLANTS
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION GETS IT, BUT THEY NEED HELP
The Obama administration understands that the future of the planet's climate stability is imminently threatened.
Secretary of Energy Chu is warning that California will lose its farms and vineyards.
Are you fired up and ready to support the Obama administration and its hard choices ahead? The path to decarbonization of the economy is filled with tough opponents, rough, and long. We are all in this together. Let's get started.