Statement on climate change from 18 scientific associations "Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver." (2009)2 American Association for the Advancement of Science "The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society." (2006)3 American Chemical Society "Comprehensive scientific assessments of our current and potential future climates clearly indicate that climate change is real, largely attributable to emissions from human activities, and potentially a very serious problem." (2004)4 American Geophysical Union "Human‐induced climate change requires urgent action. Humanity is the major influence on the global climate change observed over the past 50 years. Rapid societal responses can significantly lessen negative outcomes." (Adopted 2003, revised and reaffirmed 2007, 2012, 2013)5 American Medical Association "Our AMA ... supports the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fourth assessment report and concurs with the scientific consensus that the Earth is undergoing adverse global climate change and that anthropogenic contributions are significant." (2013)6 American Meteorological Society "It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide." (2012)7 American Physical Society "The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now." (2007)8 The Geological Society of America "The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2006), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) that global climate has warmed and that human activities (mainly greenhouse‐gas emissions) account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s." (2006; revised 2010)9
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Pacific walrus that can't find sea ice for resting in Arctic waters are coming ashore in record numbers on a beach in northwest Alaska. An estimated 35,000 walrus were photographed Saturday about 5 miles north of Point Lay, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Point Lay is an Inupiat Eskimo village 300 miles southwest of Barrow and 700 miles northwest of Anchorage. The enormous gathering was spotted during NOAA's annual arctic marine mammal aerial survey, spokeswoman Julie Speegle said by email. The survey is conducted with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the agency that oversees offshore lease sales. Andrea Medeiros, spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said walrus were first spotted Sept. 13 and have been moving on and off shore. Observers last week saw about 50 carcasses on the beach from animals that may have been killed in a stampede, and the agency was assembly a necropsy team to determine their cause of death. "They're going to get them out there next week," she said. The gathering of walrus on shore is a phenomenon that has accompanied the loss of summer sea ice as the climate has warmed. Pacific walrus spend winters in the Bering Sea. Females give birth on sea ice and use ice as a diving platform to reach snails, clams and worms on the shallow continental shelf. Unlike seals, walrus cannot swim indefinitely and must rest. They use their tusks to "haul out," or pull themselves onto ice or rocks. As temperatures warm in summer, the edge of the sea ice recedes north. Females and their young ride the edge of the sea ice into the Chukchi Sea, the body of water north of the Bering Strait. In recent years, sea ice has receded north beyond shallow continental shelf waters and into Arctic Ocean water, where depths exceed 2 miles and walrus cannot dive to the bottom. Walrus in large numbers were first spotted on the U.S. side of the Chukchi Sea in 2007. They returned in 2009, and in 2011, scientists estimated 30,000 walruses along 1 kilometer of beach near Point Lay. Young animals are vulnerable to stampedes when a group gathers nearly shoulder-to-shoulder on a beach. Stampedes can be triggered by a polar bear, human hunter or low-flying airplane. The carcasses of more than 130 mostly young walruses were counted after a stampede in September 2009 at Alaska's Icy Cape. The World Wildlife Fund said walrus have also been gathering in large groups on the Russian side of the Chukchi Sea. "It's another remarkable sign of the dramatic environmental conditions changing as the result of sea ice loss," said Margaret Williams, managing director of the group's Arctic program, by phone from Washington, D.C. "The walruses are telling us what the polar bears have told us and what many indigenous people have told us in the high Arctic, and that is that the Arctic environment is changing extremely rapidly and it is time for the rest of the world to take notice and also to take action to address the root causes of climate change." This summer, the sea ice's annual low point was the sixth smallest since satellite monitoring began in 1979.
The savage heat waves that struck Australia last year were almost certainly a direct consequence of greenhouse gases released by human activity, researchers said Monday. It is perhaps the most definitive statement climate scientists have made tying a specific weather event to global warming. Five groups of researchers, using distinct methods, analyzed the heat that baked Australia for much of 2013 and continued into 2014, briefly shutting down the Australian Open tennis tournament in January when the temperature climbed to 111 degrees Fahrenheit. All five research groups came to the conclusion that last year’s heat waves could not have been as severe without the long-term climatic warming caused by human emissions. “When we look at the heat across the whole of Australia and the whole 12 months of 2013, we can say that this was virtually impossible without climate change,” said David Karoly, a climate scientist at the University of Melbourne who led some of the research.
On Tuesday, Obama and visiting India Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an important agreement in Washington that would do two things: First, greatly increase India’s use of renewable fuels – including solar power. Second, gradually reduce global emissions of hydrofluorocarbons, which are industrial chemicals that emit heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. As part of the deal, the U.S. Export-Import Bank (under attack by Republicans in Congress) and the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency will provide $1 billion of financing for India to purchase U.S-made solar panels and other clean energy technology. “Recognizing the critical importance of increasing energy access, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and improving resilience in the face of climate change, President Obama and Prime Minister Modi agreed to a new and enhanced strategic partnership on energy security, clean energy, and climate change,” according to a summary from the White House. more . . .
These climate articles flood the popular press. They are based mostly on supposition and guesses by the "experts". But behind the scenes real progress has been made. The satellite data has unequivocally disproved the Hansen Hypothesis. We can now be quite certain that none of the CO2 abatement measures already implemented or proposed will have any discernible affect on climate, other than to possibly reduce mean temperature by a negligible amount over a few centuries. We will, nevertheless, reap some peripheral benefits from these measures, but it will be for the wrong reasons. The cost/benefit ratio will be hugely skewed against us. Of course the driving force behind this modern day Lysenkoism are the profits to be made by dipping indirectly into the public pockets that's made possible by politicizing and popularizing science as a "means of authority". Only when there is an immediate economic impact can such fervor be drummed up by those who will profit. They are unconsciously innocent. The greed in human nature destroys objectivity. Hansen is unwittingly our modern day Lysenko, but he can't be exonerated because of his continued insistence that the models incorporating positive feedback are right despite recent observations to the contrary, including the satellite data. There are strong parallels between the present-day climate change fiasco and the politically dominant Lysenko movement in the Soviet Union. We have seen it all before right down to hyperpoliticizing to the point that even the expert community is somewhat split along ideological lines. The global nature of the present fiasco makes it far more dangerous than Lysenkoism. Sometime within this or the next few centuries the Earth will enter a cooling cycle and the temperature will decline by a deg or two. This will be taken as a sign that the measures to reduce CO2 emissions have successfully avoided a disaster, and the talk will then shift to warnings of a dangerous, approaching ice age. If we continue acting like fools it will be a pity. ________________________________ * Please do me the favor of not attempting to read between the lines of my remarks. They are what they are, nothing more, nothing less.