Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication
Climate science and its relevance
Recently we saw the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 5th report on climate change ( http://www.ipcc.ch/ ). While some agree with it - most scientists do (1) - others - like the industry lobby- completely rubbishes it like this one:
http://www.naturalnews.com/042304_UN_climate_change_report_selectiv...
Some scientists - supported by the industrial lobby too don't agree with it. They say: The UN-promoted theory about the missing warming being hidden somewhere in the ocean is really an admission that its climate models do not accurately simulate natural internal variability in the system.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/16643-top-scien... ( this report is definitely written by the Industry lobby and the Republican lobby).
It is known that 'dark money' supports climate change denial effort. A Drexel University study finds that a large slice of donations to organizations that deny global warming are funneled through third-party pass-through organizations that conceal the original funder.
( http://drexel.edu/~/media/Files/now/pdfs/Institutionalizing%20Delay...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=dark-money-funds-c... )
An interesting blog by a science communicator says scientists have been framed and global warming hasn't been slowed down like the skeptics and deniers say! Read it here: http://talkingscience.weebly.com/1/post/2013/12/you-have-been-frame...!
The author of this blog made some very good points.
And this blog on SA
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-risks-as-conclusi...
says:
Climate Risks as Conclusive as Link between Smoking and Lung Cancer
Climate Deniers Intimidate Journal into Retracting Paper that Finds They Believe Conspiracy Theories
The paper was sound but a libel threat apparently exerted pressure on management at Frontiers in Psychology, suggesting a blow to academic freedomHowever, this topic really is all confusing to a layman with so much of contradictory news making the rounds.
Well, who should we believe when so many reports and articles flooding the media with contradictory arguments?
The studies are still going on and nobody knows for sure the real causes for the climate change at the global level. But still local changes can effect you!
I will try to help you in coming to your own conclusion
Okay, imagine these two situations:
(1)You are on a holiday and go to a forest. You feel happy and relieved for getting out of the smoke you are inhaling in your city. You can breathe easily now, feel relaxed and more energetic. Your young son and old mother get relief from their asthmatic conditions. You can see the pollution markers - lichens- growing everywhere. You don't see them in your city! You see several unknown birds singing and chirping in a forest. The water tastes so different and sweet. This is a fact. I myself faced this situation and most of you must have been too. Now want to know the reason why? Because you get clean and fresh natural air in this place. You get pure water in the forest. The Nature is untouched by human beings here. Well, almost!
(2) Now you return back from your holiday tour. You are in your home city. You definitely feel the heat difference, the air quality, and the resultant mood difference. You don't see several birds here. You will notice the smog, the thick black water flowing down the road after a spell of rain different as compared to the brown or transparent water you saw in the forest or a water fall you loved there. You feel breathless and you again start hearing the wheezing sound while your mother tries to breathe. Your water tastes rancid! Why? Because we are interfering with Nature and polluting it in the city! You can smell some chemicals in the air while rain starts coming down slowly? Acid rain? Exactly!
So?! Do you think I am lying when I say climate science is relevant or scientists are lying when they say climate change is happening?
Climate change is not only happening at the global level, but also at the local level, effecting each and every living being on this planet.
It is happening alright and the proof is before you! Forget about the IPCC report or what others say contradicting it. Feel the difference for yourself and come to your conclusions. And then help save the planet.
"Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten."
- Cree proverb
What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions, if in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true? - Nobel Laureate Sherwood Rowland ( On climate science predictions) - just because the models are not very accurate?--
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on
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Scientists have claimed that climbing Mount Everest is becoming less predictable and possibly more dangerous, as climate change brings warmer temperatures that may eat through the ice and snow on the highest peak in the world.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/global-warming/... -
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How Climate Change is Going To Affect India. Specifically.
https://in.news.yahoo.com/how-climate-change-is-going-to-affect-ind...
How Climate Change is Going To Affect India. Specifically.
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What to Do When We Run Out of Water
Climate change, alongside numerous other pressures, is having unprecedented effects on water resources both globally and locally. Retailers need to implement a range of adaptation measures to ensure the sustainability of supply chains.http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-to-do-when-we-run-ou...
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God Controls the Climate, So You Can Relax
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2014/04/24/god-contr...
This is a big topic of discussion among the scientists now:
Censorship of science writer on Fox News- mustn’t mention climate change
http://nuclear-news.net/2014/05/02/censorship-of-science-writer-on-... -
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Eating Less Red Meat, Reducing Food Waste Would Reduce Agricultural CO2 Emissions
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113130916/climate-change-and-... -
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Indian Monsoons Are Becoming More Extreme
Intense flooding, and excessive dry spells, have arisen in the past 30 years, making farming harder than ever
The Indian monsoon, a seasonal event that brings key moisture to an agricultural region where about 20 percent of the world's population resides, is getting more extreme, researchers report.A new study released yesterday in the journal Nature Climate Change found that extreme wet and dry spells within the monsoon period have increased since 1980.
"In the most fundamental sense, we are identifying climate change," said study co-author Noah Diffenbaugh, a Stanford University researcher and fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment.
"The question is what is causing that climate change. It could be global warming; it could be some other forcing factors," Diffenbaugh added.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/indian-monsoons-are-becom...
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Here’s What Happened When I Told Fox News I Wanted to Talk about Climate Change
Fox & Friends producer wanted to talk about future trends. I said #1 will be impacts of climate change. I was told to pick something else.
Editor- SA)http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2014/04/30/my-expe...
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Beautification drive killing Yamuna: Study
A German researcher's study of the dying Yamuna is an interesting take on Delhi's aspirations to be a 'world class city' vis-a-vis its utter failure in conserving the river. The study talks about Delhi's constant obsession with beautifying and developing Delhi's riverfront and how this has ironically meant nothing but further deterioration of the riparian ecology.Titled 'Bourgeois Environmentalism and the Reclamation of Yamuna's Floodplain for a World Class City in the Making', the PhD project of University of Cologne researcher Alexander Follmann concludes that successive governments' ambition to make the riverfront a "new frontier for urban development" notwithstanding, the reality is that it remains a "neglected backyard of the city".
The study raises issues highlighted by the ministry of environment and forest's C R Babu Committee report submitted to National Green Tribunal on Friday which show exactly why Delhi Development Authority's Yamuna Riverfront Development Scheme is untenable and has the potential to destroy fragile floodplains.
Follmann examines flooding trends in Delhi which experienced serious episodes in 1924, 1947, 1955, 1956 and 1978. By September 2010, Yamuna had crossed the danger mark of 207.11 metres at Old Railway Bridge, putting it at risk. All this shows how prone Delhi is to flooding.
Meanwhile, for decades Delhi's planning ideology for the riverfront has been based on anachronistic European models in disregard to the real ecological threats, the study says.
DDA's second master plan in 1999, for instance, proposed channelization —pressing of the river into a designated bed of embankments with concrete walls a la London's Thames and Paris' Seine—to develop prime real estate on the banks.
In 1998, it planned to develop a financial district, convention centres, stadiums and theme parks all on the river bed. The central government had declared the riverbed a "development area" under Section 12 of DDA Act 1989 which authorized DDA to "develop" it.
Then there were attempts to "clean up" the river and make a riverside promenade in front of Red Fort as a new tourist hotspot. To achieve this, huge demolition drives were conducted since 2004 displacing lakhs of poor, Follmann says. However, Yamuna's real problems—inadequate sewage treatment, deficiencies in sewage collection and non-adherence to warnings by scientists on altering its natural flow—remained unaddressed.
In line with Delhi's idea of a 'world class city', encroachments like Delhi Metro depots and Commonwealth Games Village were allowed to come up on the floodplains. The latest project has been DDA's Yamuna Riverfront Development Scheme in which roads, parks and vehicle parking lots would be built on the floodplains. "The Golden Jubilee Park is a perfect illustration of the middle-class centred vision of a world-class riverfront and again a new episode of bourgeois environmentalism," says Follmann in his study.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/pollution/Beaut... -
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Just when scientists thought the ozone layer’s worst days were behind it, it turns out they may have been missing a big threat to its health. Soon-to-be-published findings suggest that a natural mechanism that filters air rising to the top of the sky may not work as well as previously thought. If they're right, it's bad news for the Earth's climate.
''Does the Sky Have a Faulty Filter? ''
http://news.sciencemag.org/climate/2014/04/does-sky-have-faulty-filterThe climate implications could be broad as well. Sulfur aerosol pollution, created via coal burning, is skyrocketing in Southeast Asia. In the stratosphere, sulfates provide a temporary cooling mask that spreads globally and lasts a few years. If Rex is right, it could mean that cooling pollutants have an easier route to the stratosphere than previously thought, though his study doesn’t calculate the specific climate impacts of the faulty filter.
Other researchers are unconvinced. Atmospheric scientist Laura Pan of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, says the ozone measurements are just a suggestion of OH levels in the troposphere, not proof. More data, including measurements of other gases that affect OH levels, can confirm the OH levels, she says. She recently completed a field campaign in the same west Pacific region using aircraft that will give more data on the issue, but results are not yet available. The team from AWI, meanwhile, will soon begin a €5 million project off Palau in the west Pacific, funded by the European Union, to take more measurements of atmospheric chemicals that will help it estimate OH levels better.
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This is a perfect example of why scientists don't vote Republican
When it comes to climate change, the intellectual bankruptcy of the conservative movement is stunning
http://theweek.com/article/index/260711/this-is-a-perfect-example-o... -
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India to have roadmap for cutting carbon emissions
India has unveiled a draft national policy to provide a roadmap for building comprehensive strategies for cutting carbon emissions from deforestation.Officials said the national policy for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) along with the strategies will lead to REDD+ readiness in the country and enable India to gain from international REDD+ mechanism for its pro conservation policies and efforts in future.
At the same time, the policy, being formulated to tackle climate change, will also create financial incentives to local communities which are in the forefront of conservation of forests, they said.
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) under United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is a global endeavour to use carbon sequestration potential of the forests to manage climate change within accepted limits of tolerance.
The key objectives of the draft policy include creation of REDD+ architecture at National and Sub-National levels to support REDD+ actions and development of an appropriate REDD+ strategy and implementation frameworks at a nested level to represent the diversity of forests in the country.
It envisages management of the forests for a bouquet of ecosystem services, safeguarding the rights and interests of local communities including improvement of their livelihood and also seeks to encourage and incentivise local communities for their role in conservation by transferring the financial benefits accrued on account of REDD+ to them based on their performance.
The REDD+ strategy is proposed for operationalising the implementation of REDD+ policy.
It is expected to support the transformation in the forestry sector and other sectors that impact forests and needs to align with broader national development strategies.
The strategy is to work for developing institutional framework and providing clear role and responsibilities for various players and stakeholders.
India unveiled the national policy months after the governments adopted "the Warsaw Framework for REDD+".
In the UN Climate Change conference held in Warsaw last year, governments agreed on a set of decisions on ways to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
It had viewed that global deforestation accounts for some 20 per cent of the world's CO2 emissions.
The set of decisions adopted in Warsaw bolsters forest preservation and sustainable use of forests with direct benefits for people who live in and around forests.
The package provides a foundation for the transparency and integrity of actions and clarifies the coordination of support.
It establishes the means for results-based payments if developing countries can demonstrate the protection of forests. For this purpose, the package is backed by initial pledges of USD 280 million.
- (PTI)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/pollution/India... -
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