Atmospheric carbon dioxide rises to 400 parts per million for the first time in human history – ‘We are creating a prehistoric climate in which human societies face huge and potentially catastrophic risks’

By Kerry Sheridan10 May 2013 WASHINGTON (AFP) – The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has broken above 400 parts per million for the first time in human history, US monitors announced Friday, indicating a record level for greenhouse gases. Climate scientists say that the symbolic threshold should serve as a call for action […]

With carbon dioxide approaching a new high, scientists sound the alarm

By CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE6 May 2013 THE HAGUE (The New York Times) – If uncertainty runs rampant in the global-warming debate, it is in part because scientific data is often too complex to be well understood by anyone but climate scientists. This month, however, the world is likely to reach a scientific milestone that appears […]

Arctic Ocean ‘acidifying rapidly’ – ‘Even if we stop emissions now, acidification will last tens of thousands of years. It is a very big experiment.’

By Roger Harrabin, Environment analyst6 May 2013 (BBC) – The Arctic seas are being made rapidly more acidic by carbon-dioxide emissions, according to a new report. Scientists from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) monitored widespread changes in ocean chemistry in the region. They say even if CO2 emissions stopped now, it would take […]

The last time CO2 was this high, humans didn’t exist – ‘There is the possibility that we’ve already breached the threshold of truly dangerous human influence on our climate and planet’

By Andrew Freedman 3 May 2013 (Climate Central) – The last time there was this much carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere, modern humans didn’t exist. Megatoothed sharks prowled the oceans, the world’s seas were up to 100 feet higher than they are today, and the global average surface temperature was up to 11°F […]

Oil sands country: Remote region at the heart of the Keystone controversy

By Anne Thompson, chief environmental correspondent26 April 2013 (NBC News) – While the possible construction of the Keystone XL pipeline has made for contentious disagreements from the halls of Congress to ranches in Nebraska, the real environmental debate begins in a place most Americans have never heard of. Nearly 700 miles north of the U.S.-Canada […]

How do we know that humans are responsible for global warming?

By Michael E. Mann, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor, Pennsylvania State University[Text excerpted from chapter 2 of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, by Michael E. Mann, Columbia University Press, New York, 2012, 395pp] (wunderground.com) – By the mid-1990s, it was possible to investigate the causal mechanisms behind changes in Earth’s climate using relatively sophisticated mathematical […]

U.S. Supreme Court asked to hear EPA greenhouse gas challenge – Virginia Supreme Court revives epic suit against Massey Coal

By Valerie Volcovici; editing by Xavier Briand19 April 2013 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Top industry groups and a dozen states have asked the Supreme Court to review a lower court decision upholding the Obama administration’s plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions generated by power plants and vehicles. The parties, which had until Friday to submit petitions […]

Al Gore: ‘The world as a whole is putting 90 million tonnes of global warming pollution into the atmosphere every day as if it is an open sewer’

By Evelyn Ring17 April 2013 (Irish Examiner) – We are using the atmosphere as if it is an open sewer, former US vice-president Al Gore, told a major international conference on hunger and climate change in Dublin yesterday. “The world as a whole is putting 90 million tonnes of global warming pollution into the atmosphere […]

Future of corals bleak –‘The slippery slope to slime looks to be coming true’

By Graham Readfearn15 April 2013 (ABC Environment) – On a large wooden deck on a coral cay island in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef, research assistant Aaron Chai removes the lid from one of 12 circular white water tanks. “This is the ‘do nothing’ tank,” he says, peering inside at a careful arrangement […]

Cutting specific pollutants could slow sea level rise by 50 percent – ‘We still have some control over the amount of sea level rise that we are facing’

Washington, 15 April 2013 (ANI) – With coastal areas bracing for rising sea levels, new research indicates that cutting emissions of certain pollutants can greatly slow down sea level rise this century. The research team found that reductions in four pollutants that cycle comparatively quickly through the atmosphere could temporarily forestall the rate of sea […]

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