It's getting too hot for comfort

obmar · It's getting too hot for comfort

Kathirasen on Sunday: It's getting too hot for comfort
23 Apr 2006
By Kathirasen

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YESTERDAY was Earth Day, the 37th actually. It was supposed to be a day on which we reflected on our relationship with mother earth. Did you?

In several countries, conferences were held, or activities carried out, with global warming as the main focus.

Princeton University’s professor of geosciences and international affairs, Michael Oppenheimer, is reported as warning: "We’re headed towards a completely different world than the one we’re used to."

The scenario does not look bright, although not all scientists are agreed that global warming is as alarming as it is reported to be, or that the blame rests solely on humans.

But most scientists are agreed that global warming has contributed to the climate becoming erratic.

Some of the effects of global warming: An increase in the duration of heat waves in many countries, including Alaska, Canada and eastern Europe; a drop in rainfall in east Africa; the disappearance of Arctic ice; the melting of glaciers in Europe; more forest fires and oceans getting warmer.

Professor Tony McMichael and colleagues at the Australian National University, Canberra, forecast that world average temperatures will rise within the range of 1.4ºC to 5.8ºC by 2100.

This could not only affect our health but the food yield, too, and help infectious diseases spread faster.

We need only look at the world’s highest ski resort to get an idea of the situation: The 17,388-feet-above-sea-level resort in the Bolivian Andes is melting and scientists say it could be completely gone in five years.

Scientists say the area of the Arctic’s perennial polar ice cap is declining at the rate of nine per cent per decade.

Last year was the hottest year ever in the 150-year history of temperature recording, and the three warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998.

As oceans rise due to global warming, islands and low-lying coastal areas will disappear. The director of the British Antarctica Survey, Chris Rapley, reminds us that: "Half of the world’s population lives fairly close to sea level."

Research shows that human activities over the last 50 years are responsible for this mess.

A weapon of mass destruction for anyone who can guess which country is the world’s greatest polluter? Yes, it is that paragon of development, the US of A.

If you guessed correctly, a WMD will be sent to you as soon as President George W Bush’s boys find it in Iraq.

Or perhaps they may now want to extend their search into Iran?

Bush should pat himself on the back because in 2004, too, — the latest year for which full data is available — the US captured the top spot.

Figures released last Monday show it emitted more greenhouse gases in 2004 than at any time in history.

In Malaysia, too, the climate has been acting a little crazy.

The intensity of rains has increased and when it is hot, the heat is burningly intense.

There have been too many flash floods in recent years.

And in the past couple of weeks, there were at least three landslips or mudslides in the country, including at Genting Highlands, the Pos Slim-Lojing road in Perak and the Simpang Pulai-Cameron Highlands road.

To have an idea of what a mudslide or landslide can do, we have only to remember the mudslide which wiped out an entire village in the Philippines in February, claiming about 1,000 lives.

On April 12, the Meteorological Department warned we could expect more floods and "unusually strong winds" until the end of May as the La Nina weather pattern, which brings heavy rain to Malaysia, could last through May.

Now, some people I know swear the department always gets it wrong. I beg to differ.

Some 30 years ago, a few friends, including Kuna, Jamil, Seong Fook and Vasu, were gathered at my house on the eve of Deepavali.

Vasu was then working with the department. Asked the prediction for Deepavali day, Vasu said: "Isolated beer drops here and there."

From that day, I have had a sympathetic ear for the much maligned weatherman.

While we are getting more than our share of rain, about six million people are at risk of dying in east Africa because of drought, while another seven million are suffering in China for the same reason.

Most of us would have forgotten that in 2003 more than 20,000 people died in Europe due to extreme heat waves.

In India, the death toll exceeded 1,500.

Although most governments have declared their intention to work towards reducing global warming and ensuring sustainable development, it is the experience of the common man that these remain empty promises.

If measures are taken, they are often half-hearted. For the survival of our descendants, we should work to reverse the trend.

You and I have had a hand in this mess through the choices we have made, particularly in the fossil fuel that is burned in our never-ending hunger for more and more energy.

We can make a difference. Among the ways: Take public transport more often and drive less; plan ahead so that we don’t have to go shopping too frequently; cut down on electricity wastage; use fluorescent lights; and recycle.

Even our diets have an impact, according to University of Chicago assistant professors Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin.

They are reported to have examined the amount of fossil-fuel energy — and thus the level of production of greenhouse gases — required for five different diets.

The vegetarian diet, their study found, was the most energy efficient while a red meat diet was last on the list.

Climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism. — Sir David King (UK Government chief scientific

The Beat

Rewriting The Science - How the Bush Administration is Deceiving Americans on Global Warming

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/17/60minutes/main1415985.shtml

(CBS) As a government scientist, James Hansen is taking a risk. He says there are things the White House doesn't want you to hear but he's going to say them anyway.

Hansen is arguably the world's leading researcher on global warming. He's the head of NASA's top institute studying the climate. But this imminent scientist tells correspondent Scott Pelley that the Bush administration is restricting who he can talk to and editing what he can say. Politicians, he says, are rewriting the science.

But he didn't hold back speaking to Pelley, telling 60 Minutes what he knows.

Asked if he believes the administration is censoring what he can say to the public, Hansen says: "Or they're censoring whether or not I can say it. I mean, I say what I believe if I'm allowed to say it."

What James Hansen believes is that global warming is accelerating. He points to the melting arctic and to Antarctica, where new data show massive losses of ice to the sea.

Is it fair to say at this point that humans control the climate? Is that possible?

"There's no doubt about that, says Hansen. "The natural changes, the speed of the natural changes is now dwarfed by the changes that humans are making to the atmosphere and to the surface."

Those human changes, he says, are driven by burning fossil fuels that pump out greenhouse gases like CO2, carbon dioxide. Hansen says his research shows that man has just 10 years to reduce greenhouse gases before global warming reaches what he calls a tipping point and becomes unstoppable. He says the White House is blocking that message.

"In my more than three decades in the government I've never witnessed such restrictions on the ability of scientists to communicate with the public," says Hansen.