Tag Archives: Global warming

Britain, Climate Change, Environment, Global warming, Government, Medical, Politics, Science, Society

BMJ says global warming should be declared a public health emergency…

GLOBAL WARMING

Intro: The BMJ, a top medical journal, has been accused by critics of being ‘alarmist’ as it joins the green agenda…

A leading medical journal has warned that global warming is a ‘public health emergency’ that will cause thousands of deaths worldwide.

The BMJ claims that the ‘mayhem’ it will inflict on future generations will make deaths from the ebola outbreak ‘pale into insignificance’.

In an unusual move, the journal has set aside 11 pages of this week’s issue to warn doctors of the dire consequences of global warming – without any obvious relevance to medicine.

Critics described the article as ‘alarmist’ and ‘desperate’.

But in a separate commentary, the BMJ’s editor Dr Fiona Godlee defends the piece by saying doctors must understand the problem if they are to help tackle it. It is not the first time the publication – formerly known as the British Medical Journal – and its editor have spoken out on such a highly charged issue.

In July, it carried a piece calling for doctors to be allowed to help the terminally ill to die – prompting concern among medics.

In her most recent comments, Dr Godlee warns that seven million people die worldwide every year due to pollution and this will only increase if greenhouse gas emissions – which cause global warming – rise further. She points out that reducing these emissions by walking rather than using the car will have added benefits of reducing obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

And she calls on the World Health Organisation (WHO) to declare the issue a public health emergency – putting it on a par with the current ebola outbreak in West Africa which has claimed 3,000 lives since February.

‘Deaths from ebola infection, tragic and frightening though they are, will pale into insignificance when compared with the mayhem we can expect for our children and grandchildren if the world does nothing to check its carbon emissions.

‘And action is needed now,’ the article concludes.

Last year, experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that the average global temperature had risen by 0.5C in 50 years. They predicted that over the next century temperatures will increase by 3C causing a rise in sea levels, flooding, disease outbreaks and, as a result, mass migration of refugees. Politicians are striving to reach an international agreement by December next year on legally-binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It would aim to limit global warming to just 2C, and will replace the Kyoto Protocol which came into effect in 2005.

However the last attempt at a deal, at the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009, ended in disaster, and many politicians are worried about a similar result this time.

Dr Benny Peiser, of the Global Warming Policy Forum, a think-tank founded by the climate-change denier and former Chancellor Lord Lawson, accused the BMJ report of being needlessly alarmist.

He said: ‘The World Health Organisation would become a global laughing stock if they were to follow the ridiculously over-the-top demands of a green alarmist editor. There is a real disconnect between what they are saying and the reality.’

He added that the article was ‘just desperate’, saying: ‘The smaller the chance of an international agreement, the more desperate they get.’

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Arts, Environment, Puzzle, Science

Conundrum: ‘A statement issued at a conference on global warming’…

Conundrum

This is a statement which was made at a conference on global warming:

‘I can prove that all this fuss about greenhouse gas is nonsense,’ stated the scientist boldly.

‘Every year the global temperature rises slightly and this is followed about five months later by a rise in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Therefore the carbon dioxide cannot be responsible for the rise in temperature.’

Was his logic correct?

No. He was confusing himself by thinking in terms of years (a purely arbitrary measure of time). What was happening was that the carbon dioxide level rose and then, some months later, so did the temperature.

 

 

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Climate Change, Economic, Environment, Government, Politics, Science, Society, United Nations

Delivering a comprehensive global agreement on climate change is urgent…

CLIMATE CHANGE

Intro: Our environment is incontestably heating up and that it is now beyond reasonable doubt that human activities are the cause

The fifth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is being delivered in stages. The first of those instalments was delivered last autumn, and stated that our environment is incontestably heating up and that it is now beyond reasonable doubt that human activities are the cause. The second tranche was delivered last week, which concluded that global warming is already taking worldwide effect and is threatening everything from crop yields to social cohesion. The third and final part of the IPCC’s report, which is due for publication later this month, seems likely to focus on the stark vision and scale of the challenge ahead.

If global warming is to remain below the 2C threshold – above which changes becomes catastrophic – the wealthy nations of the world, including the sceptical US, will need to halve their carbon emissions by 2030. Indicative, too, will be fast-growing economies, including India and China, making significant reductions to their carbon emission footprints. In the context of the global picture, cuts in emissions will need to go far beyond any existing targets. This is hampered when we consider that many of the commitments already placed on many countries around the world are far from being met and guaranteed.

All of this only adds to concern at the slow progress that has been made so far. In the UK, anxieties over energy security and economic sustainability continue to put pressure on green and renewable goals; indeed, the fourth-phase of the so-called ‘carbon budget’, which is due to run from 2023-2027, is under review by the Treasury. Its aim is to slow the pace of change. It must be stressed that even if the UK were to meet all of its self-imposed obligations, the net-effect in global terms would have little impact beyond the setting of a fine example.

A comprehensive global agreement is urgently needed, and one that includes a resolution of the difficult question of how to share and mitigate the high costs of climate-change between developed countries. In the past, the richest nations polluted heavily: a moral obligation exists, making it incumbent in helping developing nations to invest in new renewable technologies. This is needed if they are to ever have any chance of meeting their renewable obligation targets. The prospects of meaningful advances, though, are slim when we consider that it is now developing countries which are more polluting. Sharing the associated costs of climate change and how it should be done is a politically vexed question.

The last of the serial UN Conventions on Climate Change, in Warsaw at the end of 2013, made no material progress. The crucial meeting, however, at which any new treaty on global warming would need to be signed, is not until the UN reconvenes in Paris in 2015. We can only hope, then, that the IPCC’s blunt appraisal will focus and concentrate minds in how best a more comprehensive agreement can be delivered.

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