An Inconvenient Truth originally posted by Pipin

[warriorwitch]

Al Gore's campaign to warn of the dangers of climate changes steps up another gear with this weekend's Live Earth concerts.

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Yet while global warming is widely thought to be the biggest crisis facing mankind, a new survey suggests more than half of us believe global warming threat has been over-hyped.

The poll of more than two thousand people discovered 56 percent believe scientists are still questioning climate change.

It also found that terrorism, graffiti and crime were all greater concerns.

As such the former US Vice President turned environmental campaigner , who arrived in Britain for this weekend's Live Earth concerts, is facing an uphill battle to win hearts and minds in his environmental battle.

Yet despite the doubts about the events' message, thousands of music fans will attend concerts across the world to see a stellar line-up of artists.

Artists set to perform include Madonna, The Police, Lenny Kravitz and Bon Jovi to name but a few.

[warriorwitch]

Poll: Public unconvinced on climate
Press Association
Tuesday July 3, 2007 1:43 PM


The public remains unconvinced about warnings that the climate is being affected by global warming, according to a new poll.

Findings by Ipsos Mori show Britons believe that the issue is not as bad as the scientists and politicians claim.

There is also scepticism about "greenspin" and a feeling that the situation is being overstated in order to raise revenue rather than save the planet.

In fact climate change is not a priority for most people in the UK - terrorism, crime, graffiti and even dog mess are of more concern.

Ipsos Mori interviewed 2,031 adults in their homes between June 14 and 20, and found that 56% believe scientists themselves are still questioning climate change and believe there is a live debate going on, when in fact there is virtual scientific consensus.

Phil Downing, head of environmental research at Ipsos Mori, said: "There is still a lot to do to win the public over on climate change and encourage low-carbon lifestyles. We are alive to climate change and very few people actually reject out of hand the idea the climate is changing or that humans have had at least some part to play in this. However, a significant number have many doubts about exactly how serious it really is and believe it has been over-hyped.

"They are influenced by the counter arguments which partly explains why 40% agree that the climate is too complex to model and 56% that many leading scientists still question if human activity is contributing to climate change. For this section of the public, then the debate is anything but over.

"On behaviour, we're taking some action, but only around the margins of our lifestyles and when it suits us - most of us remain fair weather environmentalists. We do care about the environment but we simply enjoy behaviours such as flying, driving and owning a plasma TV too much to countenance giving them up. The Government needs to find new ways to sell low-carbon lifestyles to the public and that any changes they make will be matched by others as part of a collective solution."

Former US vice president Al Gore said he was not surprised by the findings and pointed the finger at firms trying to protect profits. He said: "There's money in pollution and some of the carbon polluters that are not among the responsible companies - the ones that don't want any change to damage their profits - have been spending a fair bit of money to sow this confusion," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

Mr Gore - in London to promote the Wembley Stadium part of Saturday's global Live Earth concerts - said: "There's a clock ticking. The scientists warn us we could actually have as little as 10 years in which to make some very significant changes, lest we give to our children a planet so seriously degraded that the chances of retrieving the favourable climate balance would be lost. Building awareness not only of the crisis but also of the solutions to it is the urgent task at hand."

www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6754485,00.html

[warriorwitch]

Sun is not to blame for global warming
« Thread Started Today at 3:42pm »

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Sun is not to blame for global warming: study
AFP - Wednesday, July 11 10:25 amPARIS (AFP) - Scientists on Wednesday said that the rise in global temperatures that has been detected over the past two decades cannot be blamed on the Sun, a theory espoused by climate-change sceptics.


British and Swiss researchers looked at data for radiation from the Sun, levels of which can cool or warm our planet's atmosphere.

They factored in a cycle which solar radiation goes through peaks and troughs of activity over a period of about 11 years.

Writing in Proceedings of the Royal Society A, a journal of Britain's de-facto academy of sciences, the team said that the Sun had been less active since 1985, even though global temperatures have continued to rise.

"Over the past 20 years, all the trends in the Sun that could have had an influence on the Earth's climate have been in the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rise in global mean temperatures," they write.

The study is co-authored by Mike Lockwood of Britain's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Claus Froehlich of the World Radiation Centre in Switzerland.

The overwhelming consensus among scientists is that human activity is to blame for the rise in global temperatures. In its latest report, issued this year, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that this warming is already affecting the climate system.

Since 1900, the mean global atmospheric temperature has risen by 0.8 C (1.44 F), and the sea level by 10-20 centimetres (four to eight inches).

Levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, have risen by around a third since the Industrial Revolution and are now at their highest in 650,000 years. Eleven of the past 12 years rank among the dozen warmest years on record.

In the past few years, glaciers and snow and ice cover have fallen back sharply in alpine regions, the edges of the Greenland icesheet and on the Antarctic peninsula have shrunk, Arctic summer sea ice has thinned and retreated and Siberian and Canadian permafrost have shown signs of thaw and fallback.

[warriorwitch]

APEC leaders to sign climate change pact
By Jalil Hamid Reuters - 2 hours 7 minutes agoSYDNEY (Reuters) - Asia-Pacific leaders were set to sign a declaration on climate change on Saturday that aims to eventually reverse the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, but sets no binding targets for that goal.

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The 21 leaders of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum met behind a tight security cordon at Sydney Opera House, as thousands of protesters marched nearby against U.S. President George W. Bush, the Iraq war, global warming and a hodgepodge of other causes.

The so-called "Sydney Declaration" on climate change was to be signed on the first day of the two-day summit to accommodate Bush, who heads back to Washington on Saturday night to prepare for a crucial report on the Iraq war.

The leaders emerged at midday for the annual "funny shirts photo op", this time dressed in Australian stockmen's raincoats on a brisk, overcast early spring day before returning to their Sydney Opera House redoubt to work on the climate change statement.

The final photo-shoot of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum has always provided a flamboyant sidelight to the usually dry summit affairs, when presidents, prime ministers and even a sultan don the host country's national dress with varying degrees of aplomb.

Bush has had a whirlwind round of meetings with other leaders on his four-day visit, including Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Japanese premier Shinzo Abe, Australia's John Howard and leaders of Southeast Asian countries.

On Saturday, he met Abe and Howard for a trilateral summit, after which they had been expected to publicly urge China to be more transparent about its military build-up.

But a senior Japanese government official said the three leaders agreed to deal "constructively" with Beijing, which had cast a wary eye on the meeting, fearing it could turn into an alliance aimed at containing China.

The official said details of the talks would not be disclosed and stressed there were no plans at present to make the three-way talks a regular gathering.

POST-KYOTO

Howard placed climate change at the top of the APEC agenda, to the consternation of some members, in search of a consensus on what should happen when the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol, the main global treaty on climate change, runs out in 2012.

Asia-Pacific officials agreed on Friday to a draft climate statement that reaffirms the United Nations convention as the primary vehicle for fighting global warming, while setting non-binding, "aspirational targets" for themselves to reduce greenhouse gas reductions.

"The world needs to slow, stop and then reverse the growth of global greenhouse gas emissions," the declaration states.

Green groups were hardly impressed.

"The aspirational targets are 'business as usual' for developed nations as it does nothing about cutting emissions," said Cindy Baxter, spokeswoman for Greenpeace. "Nobody has to do anything. They can walk away from APEC and forget about it."

The pact, however, does set the stage for the U.N. climate convention's annual summit in Bali, Indonesia in December, which is looking for a successor to the existing U.N. pact, known as the Kyoto Protocol, due to expire in 2012.

Police had feared the protest march near Sydney Opera House would become a flashpoint for a full-scale riot, but in the end Saturday's anti-APEC march was a peaceful, kaleidoscope of protests.

Now Sydneysiders are questioning whether the $140 million operation featuring 5,000 police and troops, a mine sweeper in Sydney Harbour, the security fence cutting the city in half and the purchase of a water cannon, may have been a little excessive.

"The biggest reason we're all here is to protest at just how much is being spent on security," Sydney community worker Bridget Hennessey said at Saturday's march.

A week of protests have been non-violent and even farcical. About 50 people turned up in a city park on Friday to bare their buttocks in a "21-bum salute" to Bush.

Earlier this week, a television comedy troupe, posing as the Canadian delegation, drove their motorcade through two checkpoints to within metres of Bush's hotel -- with one of them made up to look like Osama bin Laden sitting in the back, and the designation "Insecurity" written on their convention passes.

Bush told reporters after meeting Abe on Saturday a video of bin Laden, released ahead of the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States, underscored the need to show resolve in Iraq.

"I found it interesting that on the tape, Iraq was mentioned, which is a reminder that Iraq is a part of this war against extremists," he said.

[warriorwitch]

Global majority wants action on climate change
Reuters - Tuesday, September 25 01:15 amLONDON (Reuters) - Almost two-thirds of the world's people say there must be urgent action to tackle global warming, a poll for the BBC World Service showed on Tuesday.

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Overall, 65 percent of the 22,000 people polled in 21 countries said there was a need "to take major steps very soon" ranging from 91 percent in Spain to 37 percent in India.

In the United States, the world's biggest emitter of climate changing carbon gases, 59 percent called for urgent action and in China, which builds a coal-fired power station every five days to feed its booming economy, it was 70 percent.

The poll showed nine out of 10 people want some action on climate change, and 79 percent said human activity was contributing significantly to the problem that scientists say will cause major hardship worldwide.

The poll surveyed people in 14 of the 16 nations invited to a meeting of major world carbon emitters in Washington this week by George W. Bush, who has rejected calls for the United States to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol on cutting emissions.

Washington is still opposed to timetables or targets and argues technology holds the answers.

The poll showed 73 percent of people on average agreed developing states should limit their emissions in return for financial aid and technological transfer from developed nations.

Support for this ranged from 90 percent in China to 47 percent in India. It was 70 percent in the United States, 81 percent in Britain and 78 percent in France.

Knowledge of climate change varied widely across the world, with 62 percent in France but just 5 percent in Russia saying they had heard or read a great deal about it, while in Indonesia 47 percent said they knew little about it.

The poll was conducted for the BBC by PIPA, the Programme on International Policy Attitudes, at the University of Maryland, using a combination of face-to-face and telephone interviews.

[cerridwen]

Will the governments in those countries listen to the opinions of the people though?