20 July 2016, Carbon Brief, In the latter half of the 20th century, the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula was among the fastest warming places on Earth. But since the late 1990s, this fast-paced warming has been tempered by extreme natural forces, according to new research. So much so, that some parts have switched to cooling. In many ways, the results are unsurprising. Scientists know that natural variability superimposes temporary ups and downs on top of greenhouse gas-induced warming everywhere on Earth. Prof Robert Mulvaney, part of the team of British Antarctic Survey scientists who carried out the research, tells Carbon Brief: “The results are as we would expect.” The authors of the study, published today in Nature, also stress their findings are restricted to a small part of the Antarctic Peninsula, and do not imply cooling across the ice sheet as a whole. Read More here
Monthly Archives: July 2016
20 July 2016, Climate News Network, Humans play high-risk ecological roulette. Analysis of millions of records by thousands of scientists across the world shows that human impacts have helped push the planet’s vital biodiversity into the danger zone. Humans have reduced biodiversity – the teeming variety of plant and animal life that competes and co-operates in every ecosystem – tobelow safe levels across more than 58% of the planet’s land surface. This is ultimately bad news for human food security because biological diversity underwrites what naturalists call the resilient ecosystem services on which humans and all higher animals depend – crop pollination and pest control, nutrient decomposition and recycling, water and air purification − and because that 58% of the terrestrial planet is home to 71% of all humans, That humans are reducing biodiversity − and at a cost to the disturbed ecosystems − is not news. Separate research teams have repeatedly warned of thedangers of extinction of species. Biggest picture But Tim Newbold, a bioscience research associate at University College London, and colleagues report in Science journal that instead of drawing conclusions from one or a series of studies, they looked at the biggest picture available. The research, which is part of a British partnership study called PREDICTS, analysed 2.38 million records made by other scientists of 39,123 species at 18,659 places. Read More here
20 July 2016, Renew Economy, ACT opens solar scheme to low-income households. The ACT’s $2 million low-income solar scheme has opened for registrations of interest from eligible households, wishing to install rooftop PV but unable to afford the upfront investment. ACT environment minister Simon Corbell said on Wednesday that people living in low-income households in the Territory could now put their hands up to take part in the pilot program, which will run for the next four years. The program, which is expected to start installing systems in late 2016 or early 2017, will be run as a pilot, initially, to determine the best approach for future delivery, and will be developed in conjunction with key stakeholders including ACT Housing, community welfare organisations, and low-income loan groups. The opening of the renewables scheme – one of many being successfully rolled out in the ACT – comes at a time where rooftop solar and wind energy are being accused of driving up power prices in some parts of Australia. But as we have noted on various separate occasions, the accusations, coming mainly from conservative politicians and media outlets, are ill-informed and misdirected, and ignore the many benefits solar and wind have brought to the national electricity market. ACT’s Corbell, who is the mastermind behind the territory’s ambitious 100 per cent renewable energy target, has demonstrated these benefits very well, and is poised to deliver massive savings to consumers in the nation’s capital, as this article explains. Read More here
19 July 2016, Climate News Network, Climate change’s costs are still escalating. Scientific reports released for a conference today on disaster risk reduction warn that people are already dying and economies being hit by climate change − and that the dangers are growing. The massive economic and health losses that climate change is already causing across the world are detailed in six scientific papers published today. Perhaps most striking is the warning about large productivity losses already being experienced due to heat stress, which can already be calculated for 43 countries. The paper estimates that in South-East Asia alone “as much as 15% to 20% of annual work hours may already be lost in heat-exposed jobs”. And that figure may double by 2030 as the planet continues warming − with poor manual labourers who work outdoors being the worst affected. The release of the papers coincides with the start of a conference on disaster risk reduction, held in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, and jointly sponsored by the International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH) and the UN Development Programme. The aim is to alert delegates to the already pressing scale of the problem and the need to take measures to protect the health of people, and to outline the economic costs of not taking action. Read More here