Australia needs national plan for rising seas

By Michael Perry SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia needs to adopt a national policy to combat rising sea levels, which may see people forced to abandon coastal homes and banned from building beachside homes, said a parliamentary climate change committee. The committee’s report said that A$150 billion ($137 billion) worth of property was at risk from […]

Africa readies united front for crucial climate talks

By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, Oct 22 (IPS) – As African leaders meet in Ethiopia to discuss the devastating impacts of climate change, the United Nations has released a report warning that the economically-troubled continent will be one of the hardest hit by the ravages of global warming. “Projected climatic changes for Africa suggest a […]

Start planning for climate-change refugees from Pacific islands: scientist

  By Staff Writers, Majuro (AFP) Oct 19, 2009 Pacific islands in danger of being obliterated by rising sea levels should seek aid for relocation at a crunch UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, a Fiji-based scientist said. “By 2100, I don’t see how many islands will be habitable,” professor Patrick Nunn, a climate change […]

The oceans are coming, part 1: the Global Mistake

Pure doom goodness from Club Orlov: By Keith Farnish and Dmitry Orlov In September 2009 the latest global temperature rise projections released by the Hadley Centre, part of the British Meteorological Office indicated an average rise of 4 degrees Celsius (that’s a balmy 7.2°F) by 2055 given a business as usual scenario. Some places will […]

Climate refugees strain Bangladesh capital

Dhaka (AFP) Oct 18, 2009 – When a cyclone destroyed her home two years ago, Shahana Begum joined the swelling ranks of Bangladeshi “climate refugees” who, experts say, could one day overwhelm the capital Dhaka. When a cyclone destroyed her home two years ago, Shahana Begum joined the swelling ranks of Bangladeshi “climate refugees” who, […]

With each passing month the situation gets more desperate: climate change sinks Carteret Islanders

From TreeHugger: Though it may be a number of years before your life is personally impacted by climate change, for people in low-lying island nations and the world’s great river deltas rising sea levels and saltwater ruining land is already a fact of life. One such place is the Carteret Islands off the coast of […]

Thai villager beats back waves, but faces new climate threat

Kok Karm, Thailand (AFP) Oct 8, 2009 – Using nothing but bamboo poles and remarkable ingenuity, one Thai villager succeeded in beating back the waves that had slowly engulfed his seaside community and robbed it of precious land. But now that heroic feat may be undone by a new foe — the forces of climate […]

Rising sea level threatens the south coast of England

(University of Southampton) A new study by researchers at the University of Southampton has found that sea levels have been rising across the south coast of England over the past century, substantially increasing the risk of flooding during storms. The team has conducted a major data collection exercise, bringing together computer and paper-based records from […]

Wetlands loss caused by Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas pipelines

By Mark Schleifstein, The Times-PicayuneOctober 05, 2009, 9:46PM A new study [pdf] for the federal Minerals Management Service concludes that the construction of pipelines related to oil and gas production in the Outer Continental Shelf of the Gulf of Mexico “can cause locally intense habitat changes, thereby contributing to the loss of critically important land […]

Impacts of climate change coming faster and sooner: UNEP

  Washington/Nairobi, 24 September 2009 -The pace and scale of climate change may now be outstripping even the most sobering predictions of the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC). An analysis of the very latest, peer-reviewed science indicates that many predictions at the upper end of the IPCC’s forecasts are becoming […]

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