We’ve Reached a New Record For CO2 Levels in the Atmosphere, and it’s Not Good!

Charges Against Environmentalists Dropped Since Climate Change Is a “Crisis”

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/charges-against-environmentalists-dropped-since-climate-change-is-a-crisis.html#ixzz3D14jkzUp

Time and time again, we’ve seen eco-activists suffer losses in court and sentenced to prison. While their acts of civil disobedience are honorable, the laws defend the rights of corporations to destroy the planet. Finally, this infuriating trend has seen a surprisingly different outcome in Massachusetts this week.

Last year, Ken Ward and Jay O’Hara, a duo concerned with climate change, captained a small fishing boat and managed to block a coal shipment to Brayton Point Power Station for a full day before authorities were able to clear their obstruction. Though legal precedent suggested that the environmentalists would wind up spending time in prison, the district attorney had a last minute change of heart and dropped the charges just before the trial was to start this week.

Perhaps even better than clearing the charges, the district attorney, Sam Sutter, publicly gave credence to Ward and O’Hara’s plight. “Climate change is one of the gravest crises our planet has ever faced,” he said. “In my humble opinion, the political leadership on this issue has been sorely lacking.”

The defendants had intended to use the “necessity defense” in the trial, an old but not too successful argument that would contend that the threat of climate change is too dangerous for the environmentalists not to try to act. Sutter acknowledged that he could probably scuttle their “necessity” argument in court, but claimed he couldn’t in good conscience do that.

“Because of my sympathy with their position, I was in a dilemma,” said Sutter. “I have a duty to go forward to some extent with this case and to follow the applicable case law, but they were looking for a forum to present their very compelling case about climate change.”

Ward and O’Hara expressed excitement not just at the dropped charges, but at Sutter’s pro-environment sentiment. “I had a feeling of goodness in my heart that there are others in a position of authority that truly understand the magnitude of what we’re facing,” said O’Hara. “This is the response we need to be getting from elected and appointed officials if we’re going to change our trajectory on the planet.”

Although they were enthusiastic with the symbolic gesture that kept them out of prison, the activists reminded the press that their initial goal of shutting down the Brayton Point Power Station was not yet complete. The pair did not indicate whether it would try once again to muck up operations for one of the community’s largest polluters. It is also far from certain that a repeated attempt would be met with similar leniency.

Facing criticism that he essentially gave law-breaking environmentalists a free pass, Sutter clarified that the decision to drop charges was specific to this particular set of circumstances and not an open season on civil disobedience. In that respect, would-be activists should tread lightly since jail time is not off the table for comparably defiant actions in the name of the environment. Unless, of course, they have a fire in their hearts and find the cause important enough to risk the potential repercussions.

Meanwhile, Sutter promised that his motives were pure, but also admitted that he did aspire to political endeavors beyond district attorney. Notably, he is currently seeking reelection as district attorney, so some have criticized the dropped charges as trying to win favor with the public. Then again, even if Sutter were intentionally pandering to future voters by giving credence to the threat of global warming and not automatically siding with corporations, that’s hardly a bad thing. We’re going to need more activists and political leaders doing their part if we’re ever going to adequately address this epidemic.

No We’ve NOT Reached a New Record For CO2 Levels in the Atmosphere.

As your premise is incorrect anything after is suspect. Your mindset appears to be WHEN IN DANGER, WHEN IN DOUBT, RUN IN CIRCLES, SCREAM AND SHOUT !

Well, you'd better submit that prehistoric data to the the World Meteorological Organization since they obviously don't know what they are talking about.
Guess you haven't seen any changes in climate where you liive.

Mds9,

I will give you one cookie - at least you admitted the Earth was more than 10,000 years old and there actually are eras in which "dinosaurs" may have "roamed" our planet, rather than being buried as fossils by some practical-joker of a higher power just to test our faith.

Where'd you get that graph, though - American Thinker? You should read the Onion just to balance out the tricks you can parrot out.

After that, assuming we don't want a repeat of pre-Cambrian mega volcanoes everywhere and super-acidic rain, as our planet was still evolving into what it is now, go find some other graphs that actually reflect the past, oh, half a million years or so. Your graph conveniently provides very little resolution at that scale. Start somewhere a little smarter, where the home page doesn't have fifty "articles" about Obama's failings. Like, http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=238

By the way, there are still pages online that believe the Earth is flat [all the photos show a circle - not a sphere!!] or that aliens took down the WTC, but you DON'T need to believe them!!

Mds9,

I will give you one cookie - at least you admitted the Earth was more than 10,000 years old and there actually are eras in which "dinosaurs" may have "roamed" our planet, rather than being buried as fossils by some practical-joker of a higher power just to test our faith.

Where'd you get that graph, though - American Thinker? You should read the Onion just to balance out the tricks you can parrot out.

After that, assuming we don't want a repeat of pre-Cambrian mega volcanoes everywhere and super-acidic rain, as our planet was still evolving into what it is now, go find some other graphs that actually reflect the past, oh, half a million years or so. Your graph conveniently provides very little resolution at that scale. Start somewhere a little smarter, where the home page doesn't have fifty "articles" about Obama's failings. Like, http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=238

By the way, there are still pages online that believe the Earth is flat [all the photos show a circle - not a sphere!!] or that aliens took down the WTC, but you DON'T need to believe them!!

You embarrass yourself.
You do not need my help.
Thanks for playing!

Guess you haven't seen any changes in climate where you liive.

And I guess you don't know what a logical Fallacy is? (this one is refered to as: Correlation does not imply causation)

This is the main logical fallacy used to try and fool people into believing in anthropomorphic climate change.

and THIS:

We know without any doubt that our climate is changing and our weather is becoming more extreme due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.

Is probably the boldest lie I've seen come from the government since the Gulf of Tonkin incident....

if you like/want to self hate, go pick another topic, this one is pathetically easy to see through.

Go ahead and continue to stick your head in the sand and rely on prehistoric data.

Go ahead and continue to stick your head in the sand and rely on prehistoric data.

I prefer data and logic, that seems to work best.

Here's another interesting article:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=65ScX7kNR_g

The Weather Report From the Year 2050 Is In, and It's Terrifying

Alaska will be hosting the Summer Olympics, and the Arctic Circle will be the hottest vacation destination.

That’s the weather going to be like on Sept. 23, 2050? Ridiculous, according to a forecast by the Weather Channel.

The cable station teamed up with the World Meteorological Organization to produce an online video series forecasting the weather of the future. It’s based on the dire predictions of scientific findings, including a 2013 report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The latest installment, posted on Wednesday, shows Weather Channel anchor Sam Champion forecasting the weather on Sept. 23, 2050: The evening’s Chicago Cubs game will be held in 93-degree heat at Wrigley Field. Meanwhile, an Arizona city will become the fourth municipality to dry up in the last five years, with others soon to follow, thanks to a five-decade mega-drought in the Southwest. In one segment, meteorologist Jim Cantore, knee-deep in water, reports about an approaching hurricane in a submerged South Beach, Miami Beach, Fla.

All of which is not so far-fetched.

According to a National Climate Assessment released this year, average temperatures in the Midwest spiked by more than 1.5 degrees between 1900 and 2010. The drought in the West has been drying up lakes and putting skiing resorts out of business over the past decade. The Southeast Florida Regional Climate Compact predicts that by 2060, water levels around southeast Florida will increase by two feet.

The video was released ahead of the U.N. Climate Summit, which on Sept. 23 will gather 100 national leaders in New York to come up with a concrete plan to battle climate change worldwide.

“Climate change is affecting the weather everywhere,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who’s heading the summit, says at the end of the Weather Channel video. “That means more disasters, more uncertainty.”

His message brings the clip to a sobering conclusion. Think Summer Olympics in Anchorage, Alaska, sounds crazy? Champion previews another segment, titled “The Arctic Circle: Why It’s Becoming the Place to Go.” Just like the rest of this forecast, it’s almost funny—until you realize that it’s already happening.

If your the type of person that blindly follows "authority" then I guess the school system and government did a great job.

However, if you are able to critically think and look into the data sets used for these reports you will QUICKLY find that the IPC is a propaganda outlet and that the "science" and "scientists" are basically given a script and then told to "prove it's true".

summer Olympics in alaska and in 35 years from now is just plain ridiculous.

Did you know that the ice sheets in antartica have been GROWING for 30+ years?

The sea ice coverage around Antarctica over the weekend marked a record high, with the ice surrounding the continent measuring at 2.07 million square kilometers, according to an environmentalist and author who says the ice there has actually been increasing since 1979 despite continued warnings of global warming.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.Newsmax.com/Newsfront/antarctic-sea-ice-growing/2014/06/29/id/579853/#ixzz3DCrOjemY

Anything coming out of the IPC is easily dismissable.

5 Consumer Products Linked to Rainforest Deforestation

Tropical rainforests are home to rich indigenous cultures and amazing biodiversity. They also play an important role in stabilizing the climate and sequestering carbon. However, tropical deforestation continues to happen around the world at an alarming rate. This loss generates almost 50 percent more greenhouse gases than the world’s entire transportation sector, according to the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

A large amount of tropical deforestation is driven by the creation of agricultural land, but a new report from Forest Trends finds that nearly half of all conversion from primary rainforest to agricultural use happens illegally. A few key agricultural products drive most of the deforestation, and are largely produced for export.

1. Beef
Rising demand for beef is driven in part by a growing global population and also an expanding middle class, particularly in the East Asia and China. Beef and leather production are both drivers of illegal deforestation in Brazil, although the country has had considerable success in slowing the rate of forest loss.

2. Soy
Sam Lawson, the lead author of the Forest Trends report, said that soy is linked to the rising demand for meat. “Most of the soy is used as feed for cattle and chickens and pigs.” Soy farming drives deforestation in Brazil, as well as Paraguay and Bolivia.

3. Palm oil
Palm oil is the most efficient source of vegetable oil, and also one of the most profitable. The deforestation associated with palm oil is vast, particularly in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Malaysia. “You can drive through large areas of Malaysia and see nothing but oil palm plantations,” said Lawson. “And yet the projections are that the world is going to need another Malaysia’s worth of oil palm plantations to be planted to meet growing demand.”

4. Wood pulp
Deforestation for wood pulp plantations is a major problem in Indonesia. The pulp used to create paper products, or to make textiles like rayon.

5. Cocoa
In many countries, some of the agricultural products grown on illegally converted land are sold domestically. However, in Papua New Guinea, 100 percent of the these products (including both cocoa and soy) are exported, according to Forest Trends. The good news is that ethically-sourced chocolate is one product that’s relatively easy to find.

What can be done
A number of companies are taking steps to establish more traceable supply chains, with help of third-party verifications systems like the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.

However, Forest Trends suggests that governments of consumer countries can also play an important role. “The problem is that the efforts by the tropical forest countries to prevent deforestation for these commodities are being undermined by the fact that the importing countries are basically undiscerning,” said Lawson. Importing countries could create penalties for importing goods not produced on legally created plantations, thereby lowering the incentives to continue illegally clearing forests for these commodities.

Changing consumer behavior might have some positive impact, but with products like wood pulp and palm oil it can be extremely difficult to discern between the good and the bad.

“What individual consumers could probably more effectively do is to lobby their politicians, lobby the companies that produce these goods, and give to NGOs and charities that are campaigning on these issues,” said Lawson. “I think that would probably be more effective than changing your own purchasing practices.”

Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/5-consumer-products-linked-to-rainforest-deforestation.html#ixzz3DIwtzLQQ

Also see: http://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/stopping-tropical-deforestation-even-more-important-we-thought.html

Extent of Antarctic sea ice
reaches record levels,
scientists say.
Scientists have declared a
new record has been set for
the extent of Antarctic sea
ice since records began.

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-14/record-coverage-of-antarctic-sea-ice/5742668

Michael, that is just an effect of the weather. The climate is in jeopardy, and it is shown in the high levels of CO2 in the oceans and seas. All you have to do is go for a snorkel to see what it has done to the coral in the VI.

‘Vanishing World’ Explores the Realities of Climate Refugees
by EcoWatch
September 14, 2014 9:00 am

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/vanishing-world-explores-the-realities-of-climate-refugees.html#ixzz3DO2s5JEP

Marianne Hougen-Moraga from Denmark explores in her short film Vanishing World—part of the Action4Climate video competition—how people from the remote Alaskan village of Newtok are directly affected by climate change. Their village is literally sinking and now they are starting to build America’s first climate-change refugee camp.

The film uses the native storytelling technique of stream of consciousness where members of the community share their fears of the changing land beneath their feet and the need to relocate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=B7Dc-Nb-y9M

Unfortunately, Alaska is not alone as many other communities are facing relocation due to climate change. Villages in Fiji are being forced to relocate because of rising seas. Last year there was a court case in New Zealand where an immigrant from the Pacific Island of Kiribati fought—and failed—for climate refugee status, arguing that sea level rises made it too dangerous to return home.

The World Bank painted a stark picture of our warming world in its Turn Down the Heat report last year. They warned that millions would be left trapped in poverty as temperatures rise, with two degree Celsius and four degrees Celsius of warming expected to put serious strain on agricultural production, water resources and coastal communities.

With more than 230 entries from 70 countries, the Action4Climate video competition clearly inspired young directors to share their climate change stories. To watch other Action4Climate videos, click here: https://apps.facebook.com/actionforclimate/

The Top 5 Most Polluted Countries in the World

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/the-top-5-most-polluted-countries-in-the-world.html#ixzz3DO3iepCU

The WHO has released a new study ranking countries with the worst air pollution. When we consider air pollution most of us will automatically think of China. However, it was nowhere to be found in the top 10 offenders. This, by the way, is not because they’ve suddenly cleaned up their act, but rather because this study ranked countries as a whole, rather than cities.

So here are the top 5 countries with the worst air pollution, and what they are trying to do to combat it.

1. Pakistan

Pakistan made #1 on the list with a PM 2.5 pollution level of 101 ug/m3. Now, that might not make sense so let me break it down: PM 2.5 stands for the size of the particles of pollution. The size (2.5) is frequently cited as the most detrimental because it can travel deep into lungs and cause a variety of ailments. Good examples of these particles are smoke, mold and dust. The ug/m3 part stands for micrograms per unit meter of air. So Pakistan has 101 micrograms of PM 2.5 pollutants per unit meter of air.

This level of pollution can be fatal to certain people with compromised respiratory systems and is blamed for killing thousands each year. Such pollutants also cause at least 80,000 hospitalizations in Pakistan alone. Although Pakistan has hosted a number of green air initiatives, and Coca-Cola has even led the fight in establishing better air quality, the country continues to suffer from some of the worst pollution on the planet.

Part of this is because Pakistan is dealing with crippling security threats on an everyday basis. Recent attacks on Karachi’s International Airport and Taliban offenses from the Afghan border mean that much of the government budget is devoted to security rather than health and the environment. Because of this, Pakistanis will continue to suffer a host of complications due to pollution.

2. Qatar

Qatar ranks in as the second worst country with 92 units of PM 2.5 micrograms per unit meter of air. Heavy construction in a relatively small area, combined with one of the biggest growing international airports have converged to create truly terrible air quality. However, Qatar is doing something about this.

The Sahara Forest Project, which is somewhat oddly named as the desert in Qatar is not the Sahara (not even close), is using state of the art techniques to plant trees, bushes, and bring sustainable water and energy designs to the miles of desert that surround the city’s countryside. Further, by trapping seawater and evaporating it into the air, they are looking to reduce desert temperatures to create a more humid climate. If it is successful, it could help bring down the pollution levels in Qatar substantially.

Although some flinch at the idea of removing a desert ecosystem that has existed for thousands of years, projects such as these have been accomplished before, in desertification areas of Northern Africa. The results have actually been positive, showing little impact on overall environmental stability.

3. Afghanistan

Afghanistan comes in just after Qatar with a PM 2.5 level of 84 micrograms per unit meter of air. Part of this naturally has to do with the recent war. Rubble, creating a mix of toxic building materials in the air, along with bombs, smoke, generators which run on diesel, and air travel in and out of the country have come together in a disastrous mix of toxic pollutants.

Sadly, not a whole lot is planned for invigorating the air quality of the country. Although Afghanistan does have a Green Club, a lot of the activities are simply raising awareness for the problem as actual funds to institute programs are near impossible to find.

4. Bangladesh

This is one of the few nations where air quality has fallen steadily over the past few years, the air here has a PM 2.5 level of 79 micrograms per unit meter of air. Air quality is something which sends thousands of Bangladeshis to hospitals every year, especially in urban areas where massive factories have sprung up.

Part of this is because the country provides very cheap labor and industry, which has led to a deregulation of sorts in the country. Because of loose standards for the environment, companies can save labor money but create a large environmental impact.

Enter the Bangladesh Green Roof Movement. Started by local groups, this is a movement which could have a great impact on the country. By planting gardens they not only help with food sustainability, but help reduce the pollution levels inside the country. While Bangladesh has a long way to go, it’s heartening to see that the citizens are taking it upon themselves to try to create a greener future.

5. Iran

Iran rounds out the top five most polluted countries with a PM 2.5 level of 76 micrograms per unit meter of air. Part of the reason for this is simply a lack of quality products. The gasoline used is often poor quality, the building materials used contain asbestos, and overcrowding and a large youth population has led to congested streets.

However, with such a large youth population, Iran has also started championing some interesting environmental movements. Demonstrations where people line up inside of public parks with breathing masks on have spread on social media. Although environmental issues are often the bastion of upper-middle class people in developing nations, in Iran’s case citizens from all walks of life have gotten involved. This includes villagers renouncing poor cooking methods and poaching.

Although the current president of Iran has remained fairly mum on the environment, most agree he is far more open to it than Iran’s former president. This has given the Iranian youth hope that environmental consciousness improves as their country moves forward.

St. Croix’s National Parks Enter Climate Friendly Parks Program

By Source Staff — September 15, 2014

Read entire article: http://stcroixsource.com/content/community/national-park/2014/09/15/st-croix-s-national-parks-enter-climate-friendly-parks-pr

NPS hopes that through its monthly lecture series and training programs it can offer up to date information to the community on the effects of climate change and local actions that can provide for the future. (www.nps.gov)