Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

A few years ago, scientists were predicting ice-free Arctic summers by about 2080. Then computer models started projecting earlier dates, around 2030 to 2050.

Then came the 2007 summer that saw Arctic sea ice shrink to the smallest extent ever recorded, down to 4.2 million sq km from 7.8 million sq km in 1980.

By the end of last year, one research group was forecasting ice-free summers by 2013.

"I think we're going to beat last year's record melt, though I'd love to be wrong," said Dr Stroeve.

"If we do, then I don't think 2013 is far off anymore. If what we think is going to happen does happen, then it'll be within a decade anyway."

Scientists are witnessing a rapid melting of Arctic sea ice again this year. This is happening 50 years earlier than was previously predicted. It is hard to deny global warming with evidence such as this. The problem we now face is, have the scientists been too conservative with their predictions of sea level rises and other catastrophic warnings that may already be too late to stop?

A group of high-profile Australians has issued a statement that has been described as a to 'call arms' to avoid the dangerous effects of climate change.

The group, which includes some of the country's leading scientists, population and health experts - as well as politicians - is calling for an urgent response to global warming.

They say global warming is accelerating at a greater speed than previously thought and the window of opportunity for avoiding severe consequences is rapidly closing.

The accelerating speed of global warming is catching scientists by surprise. We may have already crossed over the tipping point. We need to act now, the time for debate is over. We need leaders that are willing to make the tough decisions and be honest with us all. This will be the biggest test of the Rudd government.

Mark Lynas in today's Guardian, referring to simulations of scenarios by the Stockholm Network:

Let's look at the modelled temperature increases associated with each scenario. "Agree and ignore" sees temperatures rise by 4.85C by 2100 (with a 90% probability); for "Kyoto plus", it's 3.31C; and "step change" 2.89C. This is the depressing bit: no politically plausible scenario we could envisage will now keep the world below the danger threshold of two degrees, the official target of both the EU and UK. This means that all scenarios see the total disappearance of Arctic sea ice; spreading deserts and water stress in the sub-tropics; extreme weather and floods; and melting glaciers in the Andes and Himalayas. Hence the need to focus far more on adaptation: these are impacts that humanity is going to have to deal with whatever now happens at the policy level.

 The "step change" scenario is roughly equivalent to what Hansen is arguing for:

Here we envisaged massive climate disasters around the world in 2010 and 2011 causing a sudden increase in the sense of urgency surrounding global warming. Energised, world leaders ditch Kyoto, abandoning efforts to regulate emissions at a national level. Instead, they focus on the companies that produce fossil fuels in the first place - from oil and gas wells and coal mines - with the UN setting a global "upstream" production cap and auctioning tradable permits to carbon producers. 

Tax and 100% dividend can drive innovation and economic growth with a snowballing effect. Carbon emissions will plummet far faster than in top-down or Manhattan projects. A clean environment that supports all life on the planet can be restored.

“Carbon tax and 100% dividend” is spurred by the recent “carbon cap” discussion of Peter Barnes and others. Principles must be crystal clear and adhered to rigorously. A tax on coal, oil and gas is simple. It can be collected at the first point of sale within the country or at the last (e.g., at the gas pump), but it can be collected easily and reliably. You cannot hide coal in your purse; it travels in railroad cars that are easy to spot. “Cap,” in addition, is a euphemism that may do as much harm as good. The public is not stupid.

The entire carbon tax should be returned to the public, with a monthly deposit to their bank accounts, an equal share to each person

Dr. James Hansen thinks that taxing carbon and giving the tax collected back to people is a good way of moving people away from their carbon addiction. A great idea, who would like a dividend from every ton of coal exported or every litre of petrol sold?

It is one way of making a carbon tax more palatable: every time the tax was increased the money raised would be divided equally among the population, putting money into our pockets to help us reduce our use of carbon and also increasing the cost of coal to the countries we export to. Making coal more expensive world wide would encourage other nations to move to alternative energy sources.

A new generation of ultra-cheap cars is about to hit the streets, allowing millions of would-be drivers to dream of personal mobility for themselves and their families.

"A totally new market is opening up - the way we are receiving comments and inquiries is quite mind-boggling," said Ravi Kant, the managing director of Tata Motors.

International car manufacturers are also scrambling to establish a firm foothold in India, which is set to become the fastest growing car market in the world.

"You just do not have the space in Indian cities where you can motorise and meet the needs of everyone. There's a big equity issue here."

The response from the motor industry is robust.

"I'm all for a clean environment," declared Rahul Bajaj. "But if you want a real clean environment, go back to the cave age."

The rapid increase in demand for cars is closely linked to soaring economic growth, and Indians are understandably sensitive to suggestions that they shouldn't be able to enjoy freedoms people in the West take for granted.

But that still leaves India grappling with a familiar challenge on a massive scale: How to meet the demand for private cars and personal mobility in a way that works.

For a billion people, and counting.

With the Tata Nano selling for about $2,500 nearly every one in India is looking to buy their first car. This is similar to what is happening in China. No wonder the price of oil is soaring. It seems we have to choose between a clean environment or move back to the "cave age".

Has the human race gone mad? Where are all these new cars going to be garaged? Who is going to pay for the new roads? This is a nightmare scenario. It seems every one in the developing world wants to have a lifestyle similar to those of us who live in the developed world. How are we going to stop climate change? What happens to all these cars when oil is at $10 or $20 a litre? How much energy and resources are being poured into car manufacturers to produce cars that may be unusable in ten years time because of the price of petrol?

It is an equity issue: those of us in the developed world have to lead by example. We have to show that we can build cities that are environmentally friendly. We can reduce our dependence on the car. If we don't act now we may all end up back in the stone age.

On some thread recently I wrote that it was time the US got into Hills Hoists to dry clothes and today in the Herald I see the celebs are getting behind the promotion of the Hills Hoist in the US. I did not know however that there was a rule or regulation or whatever that disallowed drying clothes outdoors over there due to the belief that it lowered property values. How silly. And I note clothes dryers are said to be the second highest energy guzzling appliances in the home after the fridge. So happily now there is a move to promote the right to dry as they are calling it. Celebs do have their uses as no one listens to me.

If this takes off it would be a good time to get into shares in any company that makes the good old Hills Hoist. How many Webdiarists living in the city have one? If not I strongly recommend them. And you do not need a huge one like the six family one we inherited on buying the house and which took up a prominent and large space in our yard. - it was 6 metres in diameter. After our overlooking neighbours made friendly overtures we got rid of it to improve their view and put in a much smaller one in a more secluded spot. We thought it would mean less capacity but in fact found in the new small models that you can get just as much, if not more on it . You do not need lines a foot apart.

Even here in cold old Canberra I can hang the washing out and have it dry in if not one day, then at least in two. Given that it only rains on about six days of the year in Canberra these days one simply does not need a dryer at all. I have a second hand one but rarely if ever use it. Maybe three times a year when the babies are in town and mum is out of clean baby gear. On the farm up north we have never had a dryer and the clothes most days of the year dry within about ten minutes in summer and two hours at most in winter. It only rains on about six days a year there too, if that. It has rained once in the past four months and then only 60 points. So who needs a dryer up there?

So with so little rain in this country these days clothes dryers should be discouraged.

Have just seen a Sydney visitor off and wiped her car windows of dew for her. Was surprised to see the wipe come off pitch black. A reminder of just what is being poured into the air in Sydney. I never find the cloth turns black here and Sydney visitors inhale and sigh at the beautiful clean air. Since I only go to Sydney once every two or three years, if that, I had forgotten how polluted it can be. Reminded me of the old steam train days.

So, time to hoist the Hills and get behind the right to dry campaign. Paul Morrella, over to you over there. Have you got a Hills me lad?

David Roffey, yes, it's a stupid plan for something that may not even be a problem. No more stupid, though, than changing the color of the sky by polluting the atmosphere with sulphur.

When did the world decide to take seriously a room full of Dr Evils (Austin Powers fame)?

... they don't work:

Earth sunshade would not rewind the climate

ANYONE clinging to the notion that we can wipe the slate clean of all our climate mistakes by deflecting the sun's rays with space mirrors is in for a disappointment.

Dan Lunt of the University of Bristol, UK, and colleagues carried out the most detailed climate-modelling study to date on the impact of a sunshade. They simulated Earth's climate under three scenarios: pre-industrial times; a future climate with atmospheric carbon dioxide at an extreme level of four times pre-industrial values; and a sunshaded geo-engineered climate with the same high CO₂ levels but solar radiation reduced by 4 per cent - similar to Cambrian times, 500 million years ago.

They found that Earth under a sunshade would not simply revert to its pre-industrial climate. Instead the tropics would be cooler than pre-industrial times by 1.5 °C, while high latitudes would be warmer by 1.5 °C, leading to less sea ice - bad news for animals that fish from the ice. Average precipitation would also drop by 5 per cent, according to the model. The work will appear in Geophysical Research Letters.

The findings could be the final straw, as there are other drawbacks to building a sunshade. "It would be expensive, disastrous if the mirrors ever failed and leaves other issues un-addressed such as ocean acidification," Lunt says.

"Ice loss is really happening," said Simon Belt, professor of chemistry at the University of Plymouth. He went on a Canadian ship through a largely ice-free Northwest Passage last September to see the changes for himself.

"It is very serious and has implications not just for mineral exploration. Ice acts as a heat shield for the planet by reflecting UV radiation, and without it the Gulf Stream would also not be what it is today. There is significant ice loss.

"In September 2005 the reduction in sea ice compared to a 30-year average was 10 times the size of the UK. In September 2007 it was 15 times the size of the UK. This is entirely due to global warming."

While our political leaders continue to argue about the price of fuel, the Arctic ice cap continues to melt. Anyone who doubts the effects of climate change need only look north. As more land becomes available to oil drilling several nations are claiming sovereignty over the Arctic region. This could lead to oil wars. When will we admit that oil is causing a problem and that we need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels? We are acting like drug addicts willing to feed our habit no matter what harm it causes.

Extract from   A Question of Balance: Weighing the Options on Global Warming Policies

  by William Nordhaus

Yale University Press, 234 pp., $28.00

Whether someone is serious about tackling the global-warming problem can be readily gauged by listening to what he or she says about the carbon price. Suppose you hear a public figure who speaks eloquently of the perils of global warming and proposes that the nation should move urgently to slow climate change. Suppose that person proposes regulating the fuel efficiency of cars, or requiring high-efficiency lightbulbs, or subsidizing ethanol, or providing research support for solar power—but nowhere does the proposal raise the price of carbon. You should conclude that the proposal is not really serious and does not recognize the central economic message about how to slow climate change. To a first approximation, raising the price of carbon is a necessary and sufficient step for tackling global warming. The rest is at best rhetoric and may actually be harmful in inducing economic inefficiencies. 

William Nordhaus says all we have to do to tackle climate change is to raise the price of carbon. It is simple and if we price carbon correctly alternative energy technologies will quickly replace energies that emit CO2. We can tell if our politicians are serious about climate change if they have the courage to talk about increasing the price of fossil fuels such as petrol and coal. It seems Nelson and Rudd are either lacking the courage or the wisdom to tackle climate change.

Scientists conducting a major survey of the North American Pacific coast have found significant increases in acidity that could have a profound effect on sealife.

Rising ocean acidity has been predicted by scientists as a consequence of increased CO2 emissions, but the new research suggests that in some parts of the ocean these increases are happening much faster than predicted. The change seen in the surveys was not expected until 2050.

Experts predict that the changes could have a catastrophic effect on marine life. More acidic seawater means that species such as shellfish, plankton and coral will have much more difficulty making their shells and hard skeletons. That will seriously reduce the productivity of the entire food chain, changing ocean ecology and leading potentially to drastic reductions in fish stocks.

Our addiction to fossil fuels is threatening to destroy our coral reefs and will have a catastrophic effect on all marine life. While our politicians argue about the tax on petrol, the reality is that we should be increasing the price of petrol to force us to move to other energy sources.

We urgently need a carbon tax on all fossil fuels, and the revenue generated should be used to encourage the move to renewable energy. It is not just global warming that demands we act, it is the future of all ocean life, and in the end the future of all life on earth. We are gambling with the future of the planet. Are you willing to risk your grandchildren and their children's children?

Most of the recent science is showing us that changes are happening faster than expected and might be more catastrophic.

Dramatic evidence of the break-up of the Arctic ice-cap has emerged from research during an expedition by the Canadian military.

Scientists travelling with the troops found major new fractures during an assessment of the state of giant ice shelves in Canada's far north.

The team found a network of cracks that stretched for more than 10 miles (16km) on Ward Hunt, the area's largest shelf.

The fate of the vast ice blocks is seen as a key indicator of climate change.

For those of us who believe the world is cooling, we now have dramatic evidence of the break-up of Arctic ice -- surely hard evidence that global warming is still a scientific reality and needs our urgent action.

There is also clear geological evidence for polar melting and sea level rise accompanying higher temperatures. Three million years ago, when the Earth was 2-3 degrees hotter, sea level was 15-35 meters higher. This is roughly consistent with evidence from the last glacial maximum and from a warm period 40 million years ago that around 20 meters of sea level change occurs for each degree of temperature change. We are likely to experience at least 2 degrees of warming. The complete melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets would contribute about 7 meters each to sea level, so evidently even more ice was lost three million years ago under not dissimilar conditions. Professor Aitkin’s discussion of potential sea level rise is quite deficient.

He notes that the IPCC forecasts a sea level rise of around 30 cm this century, but says this is no reason for concern because, for example, the low-lying Tuvalu islands already experience sea level fluctuations because of El Nino. But of course the natural fluctuations would be added to the global rise. Damage occurs during peaks in the natural fluctuations, such as king tides and storm surges, as New Orleans found out. This is a superficial and irresponsible dismissal of concern for the livelihoods, communities and lives of millions of people.

Three million years ago the planet was 2-3 degrees hotter and sea levels were 15 to 35 meters higher. This month we have seen untold thousands killed by a storm surge in Burma. The threat of a storm surge threatens many low lying areas of Australia's north. Including Cairns.

The whole of coastal Queensland is at risk of cyclones and storm surge, with some areas more vulnerable than others.

Destructive storm surges don't happen very often, but as our coastal population grows the risk increases.

In 1899 at Bathurst (near Cape York) a massive storm surge killed over 300 people.

In 1918 a storm surge inundated Mackay, drowning 13 people and damaging or destroying as many as 1000 homes.

Do we have to lose thousands of Australian lives before we take climate change seriously?

Greenhouse-gas concentrations are higher today than they have been at any point in hundreds of millennia, according to researchers who have analysed tiny air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice that dates back 800,000 years.

Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are now more than 28% higher than at any other point in the time period covered by the samples, according to Thomas Stocker, one of the authors of two studies in this week's Nature ^1,2 and a climate scientist at the University of Bern in Switzerland. Levels of methane, another major contributor to climate change, are now 134% above prehistoric highs.

"It is clear that we have disturbed the atmospheric balance of greenhouse gases to an extent that will have consequences," Stocker says.

As humans continue to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere we are upsetting nature's balance. Is the huge death toll caused by recent cyclones caused by climate change?

A top Indian advocacy group that monitors climate change in South Asia has warned that the cyclone that devasted Burma's Irrawady delta over a week ago, could become more commonplace in future.

India's Centre for Science and Environment has warned that destructive cyclones are likely to occur more often, unless nations increased efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Hundreds of thousands of people are at risk and still we pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Instead of sending millions in aid we should be spending billions to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years.

The figures, published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on its website, also confirm that carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than expected. The annual mean growth rate for 2007 was 2.14ppm - the fourth year in the last six to see an annual rise greater than 2ppm. From 1970 to 2000, the concentration rose by about 1.5ppm each year, but since 2000 the annual rise has leapt to an average 2.1ppm.

With C02 levels now at 387 ppm and rising faster than expected, the chance of avoiding catastrophic disasters due to global warming is rapidly diminishing. Kevin Rudd has missed an opportunity to move Australia in the right direction with this week's budget. How many disasters will it take before we are moved to action?

Mass transit systems around the country are seeing standing-room-only crowds on bus lines where seats were once easy to come by. Parking lots at many bus and light rail stations are suddenly overflowing, with commuters in some towns risking a ticket or tow by parking on nearby grassy areas and in vacant lots........

“It’s very clear that a significant portion of the increase in transit use is directly caused by people who are looking for alternatives to paying $3.50 a gallon for gas.”

Some cities with long-established public transit systems, like New York and Boston, have seen increases in ridership of 5 percent or more so far this year. But the biggest surges — of 10 to 15 percent or more over last year — are occurring in many metropolitan areas in the South and West where the driving culture is strongest and bus and rail lines are more limited.

Here in Denver, for example, ridership was up 8 percent in the first three months of the year compared with last year, despite a fare increase in January and a slowing economy, which usually means fewer commuters. Several routes on the system have reached capacity, particularly at rush hour, for the first time.

“We are at a tipping point,” said Clarence W. Marsella, chief executive of the Denver Regional Transportation District, referring to gasoline prices.

The upside to high fuel prices is the increase in the use of public transport, as people look for alternatives to the car. The result has to be a reduction in greenhouse gases. The sooner we introduce a tax on carbon emissions the better. Governments around the world need to plan for better and more efficient public transport.

Sergei Zimov waded through knee-deep snow to reach a frozen lake where so much methane belches out of the melting permafrost that it spews from the ice like small geysers.

In the frigid twilight, the Russian scientist struck a match to make a jet of the greenhouse gas visible. The sudden plume of fire threw him backward. Zimov stood up, brushed the snow off his parka and beamed.

"Sometimes a big explosion happens, because the gas comes out like a bomb," Zimov said. "There are a million lakes like this in northern Siberia."

In a country where many scientists scoff at the existence of global warming, Zimov has been waging a lonely campaign to warn the world about Russia's melting permafrost and its nexus with climate change.

There are still people who deny that the planet is warming. Forget the discussion on whether we are in a cooling period or a warming period, just look at the physical facts. Look at what is happening to Russia's permafrost. As the million or so lakes melt they spew methane into the atmosphere a greenhouse gas

Methane levels rose last year for the first time since 1998. Methane is 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but there’s far less of it in the atmosphere—about 1,800 parts per billion. When related climate affects are taken into account, methane’s overall climate impact is nearly half that of carbon dioxide.

Melting of the Arctic permafrost is a "wild card" that could dramatically worsen global warming by releasing massive amounts of greenhouse gases, warned the U.N. on Wednesday at a meeting in Monaco.

John Pratt: "Greenhouse gases rose sharply last year, and now the methane level is starting to increase as the Arctic soils begin to thaw. This will lead to more rapid climate change."

Greenhouse gases must be responsible for the "climate cooling". The climate change people need to get themselves another angle. The current hysteria is fast coming to an end.

The amount of two key greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere rose sharply in 2007, and carbon dioxide levels this year are literally off the chart, the US government reported today.

In its annual index of greenhouse gas emissions, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found atmospheric carbon dioxide, the primary driver of global climate change, rose by 0.6 per cent, or 19 billion tonnes last year.The amount of methane increased by 0.5 per cent, or 27 million tonnes, after nearly a decade of little or no change, according preliminary figures to scientists at the government's Earth System Research Laboratory in Colorado.Methane's greenhouse effect is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide's, but there is far less of it in the atmosphere.Overall, methane has about half the climate impact of carbon dioxide.

Greenhouse gases rose sharply last year, and now the methane level is starting to increase as the Arctic soils begin to thaw. This will lead to more rapid climate change.

Methane in the Arctic soils is produced by bacteria in the anaerobic zone of the active layer (the uppermost layer of permafrost affected by seasonal thawing) underneath the water table. It is then transported to the atmosphere by bubble emission and diffusion through water as well as through the vascular system of plants.

The United Nations has launched what it is calling an "international climate index" to make governments more accountable on climate change.

Under the plan, countries will be asked to detail how they are preparing their economies to cut pollution and tackle global warming.

The indicators declared could include tax incentives for business, introducing carbon efficiencies, or government investment in scientific research.

Achim Steiner from the UN's environment program says it is a constructive way to make countries take more action and make them more accountable.

"It's not the big stick approach, it is more an information approach," he said.

"It is creating transparency in the global market place.

Now this is a good idea. At last we will be able to see who the real global bad guys are.

John Pratt: "Does the human species have a death wish?"

It's okay. We've signed Kyoto.

 "Australia accounts for about half the world's annual production of coking coal (for making steel) and about a fifth of the world's production of steaming coal (for generating electricity) and iron ore."

Over the next five years, Italy will increase its reliance on coal to 33 percent from 14 percent. Power generated by Enel from coal will rise to 50 percent.

And Italy is not alone in its return to coal. Driven by rising demand, record high oil and natural gas prices, concerns over energy security and an aversion to nuclear energy, European countries are slated to put into operation about 50 coal-fired plants over the next five years, plants that will be in use for the next five decades.

Does the human species have a death wish?

What is the logic is rejecting nuclear energy which may be dangerous and building coal fired power stations which we know are dangerous because of global warming and ocean acidity?

With the number of coal fired power stations being brought on line in the next year or so not only will our C02 emissions soar so will the price of coal.

What will the price of coal be when we also price in a carbon tax?

“Human activity could be putting the fishing industry at risk around the world. “

The world fishing industries are already in a state of collapse, it's just city people can't see beyond the neon lights for eyes. I live in a fishing community. In the last five years we have seen the elimination of shark fishing, and many other species have disappeared. Except for cray fishing fishermen have to travel way down south for a viable catch and even then the species variety is limited as we have fished out the breeding grounds of the world. So no fish, no fresh water, no crops, diminishing oil supplies, incompetent government and business, ignorant city dwellers and it's easy to see we passed the tipping point 30 years ago and now we are probably facing the passing of the current ideologically driven human society and its masses.

CLIMATE change is a core issue on the Rudd Government's agenda. But there's another carbon problem that has been avoided and is largely independent of global warming.

In a speech to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute last week on Australia's focus on the Pacific, parliamentary secretary for Pacific Island affairs Duncan Kerr pointed to the effect of marine acidity on coral reefs, the backbone of economic activity for many islander communities. Kerr noted that if land drowns and coral reefs die, the Pacific faces mass movements of people, presenting strategic and humanitarian challenges for Australia.

Confronting the profound problem of acid oceans that could devastate ocean life would demonstrate the Government's commitment to communities dependent on coastal resources in Australia, the Indian Ocean and South Pacific, as well as dealing with long-term global change.

Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the Southern Ocean are alarming scientists concerned about the productivity of oceans. As human activity introduces increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the ocean becomes more acidic.

The Southern Ocean is particularly important, because it is efficient at absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere: it is here that the first effects are being felt.

Under conditions of increasing acidification, parts of the oceans will progressively become uninhabitable for certain types of plankton, the earth's most important life forms, and coral structures.

Total production of raw black coal in Australia in calendar year 2006 exceeded the 400 million tonnes (Mt) mark for the first time. The 405 Mt produced represented a small increase of 1.6% over the calendar year 2005 figure of 399 Mt.

However, burning coal produces about 9 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year which is released to the atmosphere, about 70% of this being from power generation. Other estimates put carbon dioxide emissions from power generation at one third of the world total of over 25 billion tonnes of CO₂ emissions

Even if you believe that putting 9 billion tonnes of C02 into the atmosphere is not causing climate change, what about marine acidity?

Human activity could be putting the fishing industry at risk around the world.

Last April, the NSW state government approved plans for a new coal export terminal at the port of Newcastle, where severe congestion has hurt exports.

The terminal, planned to start operations in 2009, will add nearly two-thirds to the port's current capacity of 102 million tonnes a year. The NSW government also approved a plan to expand an existing coal terminal at Newcastle.

The announcement came as queues at the port, the world's biggest coal export terminal, reached a record level of 72 ships a month, with an average waiting time of 28 days.

The delays, caused by infrastructure constraints and maintenance work, have hurt exports of coal just as demand has soared on world markets. Australia is the world's largest producer of thermal coal and the delays cost the industry more than $A1 million a day in compensation to shipping firms.

Further north, on the Queensland coast, the Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal is also being expanded from around 59 million tonnes per year to 85 million tonnes capacity.

Over 100 million people are already at risk of starvation and global warming is putting the world's agricultural output at risk through droughts, floods and a possible ice age. Yet we continue business as usual to export millions of tons of coal. Every ton is a nail in their coffins. If we are serious about reducing the world's C02 emissions we must put and end to this madness. We spend money expanding our coal industry, money that could be spent on building alternative energy sources. Money we make out of coal mining is blood money worse than the money made from blood diamonds.

Hansen says the EU target of 550 parts per million of C02 - the most stringent in the world - should be slashed to 350ppm. He argues the cut is needed if "humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed". A final version of the paper Hansen co-authored with eight other climate scientists, is posted today on the arXiv.org website. Instead of using theoretical models to estimate the sensitivity of the climate, his team turned to evidence from the Earth's history, which they say gives a much more accurate picture.

The team studied core samples taken from the bottom of the ocean, which allow C02 levels to be tracked millions of years ago. They show that when the world began to glaciate at the start of the Ice age about 35m years ago, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere stood at about 450ppm.

"If you leave us at 450ppm for long enough it will probably melt all the ice - that's a sea rise of 75 metres. What we have found is that the target we have all been aiming for is a disaster - a guaranteed disaster," Hansen told the Guardian.

At levels as high as 550ppm, the world would warm by 6C, the paper finds. Previous estimates had suggested warming would be just 3C at that point.

Dr Hansen has published more data that shows that we are aiming for CO2 levels that will lead to a global disaster. How much more evidence do we need before we take real action, such as closing down all coal mines and dramatically increasing our funding for research into alternative energies?

FOOD prices are soaring as the world faces a food shortage.

Around the globe, people are protesting and governments are responding with often counterproductive controls on prices and exports — a new politics of scarcity as ensuring food supplies becomes a major challenge.

Plundered by severe weather in producing countries and by a boom in demand from fast-developing nations, the world's wheat stocks are at 30-year lows. Grain prices have been on the rise for five years, ending decades of cheap food.

Drought, a declining US dollar, a shift of investment money into commodities and use of farm land to grow fuel have all contributed to food woes. But population growth and the growing wealth of China and other emerging countries are more enduring factors.

In 2007 alone, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's world food index, dairy prices rose nearly 80% and grain 42%.

"The recent rise in global food commodity prices is more than just a short-term blip," British think tank Chatham House said in January. "Society will have to decide the value to be placed on food and how … market forces can be reconciled with domestic policy objectives."

Many countries are already facing these choices.

After long opposition, Mexico's Government is considering lifting a ban on genetically modified crops to allow its farmers to compete with the US, where high-yield, genetically modified corn is the norm.

A number of governments, including those of Egypt, Argentina, Kazakhstan and China, are limiting grain exports to keep more of their food at home.

This response can result in farmers producing less food and threatens to undermine efforts to open up international trade.

In the next decade, the price of corn could rise by 27%, oilseeds such as soybeans by 23% and rice 9%, according to forecasts by the OECD and UN.

The emergence of China's middle class is adding hugely to demand for corn, soybeans and wheat, and also for meat, milk and other high-protein foods.

The Chinese ate 20 kilograms of meat per capita in 1985. They now eat 50 kilograms a year.

Each kilogram of beef takes about seven kilograms of grain to produce.

The world is already facing food shortages. To think another 3 billion people may be added to the human population by 2050 is absurd. It is time to put a cap on population and to scrap such policies as a baby bonus.

The conversation around climate largely focuses on carbon dioxide, the invisible greenhouse gas building in the atmosphere mainly from the burning of fuels and forests. But there’s another emission from human activities that would be easier to curb in the short run – and that also contributes to enormous conventional pollution problems as well as the warming of the climate.

It’s good old fashioned black carbon soot – a visible pollutant with measurable effects on human health both in poor places, where it comes from cooking or heating using coal, firewood or dung, and rich countries, where it is produced mainly through the combustion of diesel and similar fuels and from some industries.

James E. Hansen of NASA first drew attention to soot as a climate influence in 2000. He and others have also proposed that soot, by darkening Arctic ice and snow, could be accelerating the boreal melt well beyond what would happen only under natural climate variability or the growing warming influence from greenhouse gases.

Now a new study by V. Ramanathan of the University of California, San Diego, published online this week in Nature Geoscience, finds that soot may be more than twice as potent a warming influence as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated last year. The study, co-authored by Greg Carmichael of the University of Iowa, also proposes that regional emissions of dark carbon particulates in south Asia could be contributing to the melting of the ice locked in the Himalayas.

One reason for black carbon’s potent warming effect, according to the paper, is that most of it is forming vast “brown clouds” around the tropics where the sun is also at its strongest.

This report from Dot Earth a New York Times blog indicates that soot is playing a much larger role in global warming than previously thought. It is yet another reason while we must wean ourself from fossil fuels.

Professor Vaughan, who in 1993 predicted that the northern part of Wilkins Ice Shelf was likely to be lost within 30 years if climate warming on the Peninsula were to continue at the same rate, says,

"Wilkins is the largest ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula yet to be threatened. I didn't expect to see things happen this quickly. The ice shelf is hanging by a thread – we'll know in the next few days or weeks what its fate will be."

Jim Elliott was onboard the BAS Twin Otter to capture video of the breakout for Vaughan and colleagues. He says,

"I've never seen anything like this before – it was awesome. We flew along the main crack and observed the sheer scale of movement from the breakage. Big hefty chunks of ice, the size of small houses, look as though they've been thrown around like rubble – it's like an explosion."

Again scientists are being surprised by the speed of change. It is yet another warning that predictions made by scientists tend to be on the conservative side. Global warming is a reality and already we may be past the tipping point.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m just looking at a piece in the New York Times from a few days ago by Andrew Revkin that said, “Dr. Hansen “and eight co-authors have drafted a fresh paper arguing that the world has already shot past a safe eventual atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, which they say would be around 350 parts per million, a level passed 20 years ago,” Andrew Revkin writes. This is controversial. “Some longtime champions of Dr. Hansen, including the Climate Progress blogger Joe Romm, see some significant gaps in the paper”—still in draft form—“and part ways with Dr. Hansen over whether such a goal is remotely feasible.”

DR. JAMES HANSEN: Well, yeah. Unfortunately, Joe feels that we have to talk about what’s practical. I think we have to look at the science and tell us exactly what it—and tell the people exactly what it is pointing to. And the history of the earth tells us that even 385 parts per million is too much. And we can still go backwards. The ocean does take up carbon dioxide. If we would phase out the use of coal, except to recapture the CO2, then it is feasible to get back below 350 parts per million. But we’re going to have to put a stop on new coal-fired power plants until we have the technology to capture the CO2.

As Dr Hansen says we have to put a stop to coal fired power stations. Australia could play a big role in the international use of coal by phasing out its coal export industry. 

By 2025, fully a third of the planet's growing population could find itself scavenging for safe drinking water, the United Nations has warned ahead of World Water Day on Saturday.

More than two million people in developing countries -- the vast majority children -- die every year from diseases associated with unsanitary water.

There are a number of interlocking causes for this scourge.

Global economic growth, population pressures and the rise of mega-cities have all driven water use to record levels.

Mexico City, Jakarta and Bangkok, to name a few, have underground water sources -- some of them nonrenewable -- depleting at alarming rates.

In Beijing, home to 16 million, aquifers have fallen by more than a dozen metres (40 feet) in 30 years, forcing the government to earmark tens of billions of US dollars for a scheme to ferry water from the Yangzte River in the south to the country's parched north.

Aggravating the shortages are pathogen and chemical pollution, which have transformed many primary sources of water in the developing world into toxic repositories of disease.

Desperation forces people to consume these contaminated waters.

"In the coming decades, water scarcity may be a watchword that prompts action ranging from wholesale population migration to war, unless new ways to supply clean water are found," comment a team of researchers in a review of water purification technology published Thursday in the British journal Nature.

But even as scientists and governments look for ways to satisfy a thirsty world, another threat looms on the horizon: global warming.

Rising sea levels are already forcing salt water into aquifers beneath megadeltas that are home to tens of millions, and changing weather patterns are set to intensify droughts in large swathes of Africa, southern Europe and Asia, according to UN's Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC).

Experts and policy makers point to three broad categories of initiatives to ease the shortage of clean, drinkable water, especially in the world's poorest regions: sanitation, purification, and water management.

"Poor sanitation combines with a lack of safe drinking water and inadequate hygiene to contribute to the terrible global death toll," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said earlier this month.

"Every 20 seconds, a child dies as a result of the abysmal sanitation conditions endured by some 2.6 billion people globally," he said in launching the International Year of Sanitation.

Every 20 seconds a child dies due to a lack of sanitation and clean drinking water. In Australia we pay a baby bonus. This is absurd. We cannot provide for the world's population and we are encouraging more population growth. How many of these Australian kids will be cannon fodder in the coming water wars? We should be using our wealth to improve conditions in the third world, not adding more people to an already overcrowded planet.

The Chinook salmon that swim upstream to spawn in the fall, the most robust run in the Sacramento River, have disappeared. The almost complete collapse of the richest and most dependable source of Chinook salmon south of Alaska left gloomy fisheries experts struggling for reliable explanations — and coming up dry.

Whatever the cause, there was widespread agreement among those attending a five-day meeting of the Pacific Fisheries Management Council here last week that the regional $150 million fishery, which usually opens for the four-month season on May 1, is almost certain to remain closed this year from northern Oregon to the Mexican border. A final decision on salmon fishing in the area is expected next month.

As a result, Chinook, or king salmon, the most prized species of Pacific wild salmon, will be hard to come by until the Alaskan season opens in July. Even then, wild Chinook are likely to be very expensive in markets and restaurants nationwide.

“It’s unprecedented that this fishery is in this kind of shape,” said Donald McIsaac, executive director of the council, which is organized under the auspices of the Commerce Department.

Fragmentary evidence about salmon mortality in the Sacramento River in recent years, as well as more robust but still inconclusive data about ocean conditions in 2005, indicates that the fall Chinook smolts, or baby fish, of 2005 may have lost out on both counts. But biologists, fishermen and fishery managers all emphasize that no one yet knows anything for sure.

Bill Petersen, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s research center in Newport, Ore., said other stocks of anadromous Pacific fish — those that migrate from freshwater to saltwater and back — had been anemic this year, leading him to suspect ocean changes.

Ocean changes due to climate change look like being the cause of the collapse, and still we continue to pump C02 into the atmosphere.

The rate at which some of the world's glaciers are melting has more than doubled, data from the United Nations Environment Programme has shown.

Average glacial shrinkage has risen from 30 centimetres per year between 1980 and 1999, to 1.5 metres in 2006.

Some of the biggest losses have occurred in the Alps and Pyrenees mountain ranges in Europe.

Experts have called for "immediate action" to reverse the trend, which is seen as a key climate change indicator.

Estimates for 2006 indicate shrinkage of 1.4 metres of 'water equivalent' compared to half a metre in 2005.

Achim Steiner, Under-Secretary General of the UN and executive director of its environment programme (UNEP), said: "Millions if not billions of people depend directly or indirectly on these natural water storage facilities for drinking water, agriculture, industry and power generation during key parts of the year.

"There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine. The glaciers are perhaps among those making the most noise and it is absolutely essential that everyone sits up and takes notice.

Still Australia has a least two years to wait before we take action.

AUSTRALIAN businesses would have just two years to adjust to the biggest structural change to the economy in a quarter of a century, the climate change minister says.

Releasing the first detailed timetable for the implementation of carbon emissions trading in Australia, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the Government would consult widely, but warned that no one should underestimate how big a change the system would bring.

"The introduction of emissions trading will constitute the most significant economic and structural reform undertaken in Australia since the trade liberalisation of the 1980s," Senator Wong said.

The timetable includes immediate consultation with business.

Do we really have to wait two years before we decide just what we will do? 

Dot Earth a New York Times blog has this interesting post.

Optimists cite plunging fertility rates in some countries as evidence that Earth’s human passenger list will not reach 9 billion. Pessimists see a chance of zooming well past that mark, and they add that with all the signs of strained resources (what’s the price of oil today?), this trajectory will lead to some hard knocks. Some say we’ve already shot over the edge of the cliff and, like Wile E. Coyote in the old cartoons, simply haven’t noticed.

Now the Worldwatch Institute, a nonpartisan Washington research group studying the issue for many years, has come out with a fresh analysis concluding that there is so much variability in fertility rates that we can’t know with any confidence how many people the future holds. The study notes, for example, that the fertility rate is rising in the United States, violating the age-old dictum that rich countries don’t make lots of babies. The group sees hints that global numbers could well go higher.

The thought of adding another 3 billion or so people to the the planet in the next 40 years is a nightmare. To actively encourage people to have more children by paying a baby bonus is criminal.

As pressure mounts on the Rudd Government to find billions of dollars in savings in the May budget, economists have called for a review of the current "mishmash" of family payments - two different Family Tax Benefits, two types of childcare payment and the baby bonus - to ensure the $17billion a year serves a more coherent policy purpose.

Griffith University's Ross Guest, supported by influential economists Bob Gregory and Chris Richardson, said failing to means-test some family payments was creating too much middle-class welfare. The programs also led to inefficient and costly churning between tax receipts and welfare payments.

Parents having a baby today receive a one-off $4187 payment, regardless of household income, increasing to $5000 after July 1.

Southern Baptist leaders have decided to back a declaration calling for more action on climate change, saying its previous position on the issue was “too timid.”

The largest denomination in the United States after the Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, with more than 16 million members, is politically and theologically conservative.

Yet its current president, the Rev. Frank Page, signed the initiative, “A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change.” Two past presidents of the convention, the Rev. Jack Graham and the Rev. James Merritt, also signed.

“We believe our current denominational engagement with these issues has often been too timid, failing to produce a unified moral voice,” the church leaders wrote in their new declaration.

“I learned that God reveals himself through Scripture and in general through his creation, and when we destroy God’s creation, it’s similar to ripping pages from the Bible,” Mr. Merritt said.

First the Baptists now the Catholics.

Thou shall not pollute the Earth. Thou shall beware genetic manipulation.

Modern times bring with them modern sins. So the Vatican has told the faithful that they should be aware of "new" sins such as causing environmental blight.

The guidance came at the weekend when Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the Vatican's number two man in the sometimes murky area of sins and penance, spoke of modern evils.

The church has joined the call for action on climate change, declaring that polluting the Earth is a sin. About twenty or thirty years too late, the church is meant to lead not follow but it is great to have them on board at last. Perhaps now the God bothers will join the push for immediate action on Climate Change. It must now be a sin to drive a 4WD.

The World’s oceans play a crucial role for life on the planet. Healthy seas and the services they provide are key to the future development of mankind. Our seas are highly dynamic, structured and complex systems. The seafloor consists of vast shelves and plains with huge mountains, canyons and trenches which dwarf similar structures on land. Ocean currents transport water masses many times larger than all rivers on Earth combined. In this report, the locations of the most productive fishing grounds in the World – from shallow, coastal waters to the deep and high seas – are compared to projected scenarios of climate change, ocean acidification, coral bleaching, intensity of fisheries, land-based pollution, increase of invasive species infestations and growth in coastal development.Climate change, with its potential effects on ocean thermohaline circulation and a potential future decline in natural ‘flushing and cleaning’ mechanisms, shifts in the distributions of marine life, coral bleaching, acidification and stressed ecosystems will compound the impacts of other stressors like overharvest, bottom trawling, coastal pollution and introduced species. The combined actions of climate change and other human pressures will increase the vulnerability of the world’s most productive fishing grounds – with serious ecological, economic and social implications. The potential effects are likely to be most pronounced for developing countries where fish are an increasingly important and valuable export product, and there is limited scope for mitigation or adaptation.

Sensible moves forward start with doing what needs to be done to get the 12 Wedges that David Roffey pointed out in Wedging the Climate:

• three Wedges from more efficient homes, buildings, cars and appliances
• five Wedges from clean coal, gas, wind, solar, geothermal and carbon capture (and we've got all the power we need while removing nuclear power from the planet)
• a Wedge and a half from efficient agriculture, biofuels and carbon offsets in plantations
• an optimistic Wedge from unspecified technological wonders that are to come
• half a Wedge from reducing local wood and dried dung burning in the third world
• and the last two Wedges requiring us to sacrifice some of the economic growth of the BAU scenario.

Now remember, the BAU scenario assumes that, for example, there are four times as many cars in 2050 as there are now (which isn't necessarily a good thing), so if can do with only twice as many cars as we have now, we get one of what could be called the "sustainable and smart growth" Wedges.

And the other "sustainable and smart growth" Wedge by not acquiring quite as many airconditoners as we would otherwise do (thanks to smarter building designs) nor as many new appliances (that aren't always that useful--like the ice-cream maker that sits right at the back of my kitchen cupboard?) . Another option, as David pointed out, would be to substitute vegetable protein for meat in a substantial part of our diet (and though I'd have trouble making that adjustment myself, I sure can encourage my children to eat smarter).

Craig Rowley: "There's a fatal flaw in this line of argument taken by Alan Curran, Paul Morrella and others. Their argument implicitly acknowledges that there is a climate change problem and that something needs to be done to solve it, but then they argue we should do nothing and by doing nothing we'll be alright (as if there were no problem)."

No, I never wrote we should do nothing. What I have wrote is that things are being done every single day. That we are even writing about the issue should be half a guide in. There is no need to hurt people's wealth or way of life to achieve a better environment. There is no need to be pushing rafts of Gestapo type lifestyle laws to improve the environment. There is no need to go on some fools war footing (what does that mean anyway? Rednecks running about with torches burning anything V6 and above or something?) to achieve a better environment. All that needs be achieved is progressive market sensible moves forward - that not only allows people wealth but also creates more of it.

Craig Rowley: "Dylan Kissane: "Do you imagine that if you build a large enough group of people who point things out you'll change Alan's mind?""

Why would anyone wish to change Alan's mind? He is not a climate change denier or even a doomsayer from my reading - that is just a standard approach to people that don't follow the standard line. Alan merely pointed out a very relevant and obvious fact. If China doesn't sign on and Australia does, China will be directly taking wealth from Australian working and middle class people.

Not only will this situation do nothing at all to help the climate change situation it will probably make pollution levels even worse (direct transfer of industry thus pollution problems without the safe guards). In the wealth stakes the direct beneficiaries will be Chinese business and wealthy international carpetbaggers and investors. Alan seems to have much experience with China, and business in this region; he should be somebody people are taking some notice of.