Welcome ! As a young French Marketing professional with a Master's in International Management I have been selecting since January 2007 the latest headlines and best researches on sustainable development, climate change, cleantech and the world energy sector. Sounds great ? Don't hesitate to subscribe now !
I have previously written that the link between extreme weather events and climate change wasn’t clear. It isn’t the case anymore as the latest research from the IPCC proves. As Cleantechies notes :
” A new report says that an increase in heat waves is “virtually certain” as a result of global warming and that extreme weather events — including hurricanes, floods, and droughts — will likely become more intense in the next century. “
” The IPCC’s “special report on extreme weather,” (…) urges governments worldwide to draft plans to minimize the likely human and economic costs of these events. “
It seems global weirding is indeed taking place. While there are huge droughts in Texas, Thailand and its capital city, Bangkok are witnessing their largest floods in decades. As the Guardian reports :
” Thailand is used to floods in monsoon season, but this year’s are the worst for more than half a century. They have killed at least 366 people since July and affected almost 2.5 million. More than 113,000 are living in shelters. “
The floods have been ongoing ever since. To local authorities, the damages so far have exceeded five billion US dollars. (3.5 billion euros)
I have been a huge fan of Thomas L Friedman’s op-ed pieces in the New York Times for years. Here is another one that won’t change my mind about this brilliant journalist and author (See my review of his latest book)
I believe he is one of the best thinkers on our current economic, environmental and energy problems to date. Anyone who is willing to act on these issues should read him.
Indeed, Friedman believes America – and the world as a whole – should start as soon as possible a Green Revolution. I couldn’t agree more. Continue »
To Climate Progress : ” Is the “Global Weirding” of 2010 and 2011 the new normal? (…) Any one of the extreme weather events of 2010 or 2011 could have occurred naturally sometime during the past 1,000 years. “
” But it is highly improbable that the remarkable extreme weather events of 2010 and 2011 could have all happened in such a short period of time without some powerful climate-altering force at work.”
And as the English version of Al Jazeera notes : ” Severe weather events are wracking the planet, and experts warn of even greater consequences to come. ” (See the full article as it sums up the situation well.)
To the Huffington Post : ” Heavy rains, deep snowfalls, monster floods and killing droughts are signs of a “new normal” of extreme U.S. weather events fueled by climate change, scientists and government planners said on Wednesday.
“It’s a new normal and I really do think that global weirding is the best way to describe what we’re seeing, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University told reporters. ”
Meanwhile, the GOP – the Republicans – is still opposing action on climate change… It’s high time this changes as the country is behind more than a fifth of global greenhouse gases emissions…
Just a couple of weeks after I was writing about the catastrophic floods in Australia, similar dramatic events claimed the lives of more than 500 people in the Rio de Janeiro State of Brazil.
To the Telegraph, this makes it “ the country’s worst-ever natural disaster. “ What actually claimed most lives were mudslides as the equivalent of a month of rain fell in less than a day.
Brazil has been willing to cut its greenhouse gases emissions by slashing deforestation. I believe that after such events the new President, Dilma Rousseff, will be willing to do even more…
2010 saw horrific climate events with floods in Pakistan, wild fires in Russia and the Xynthia storm in France. It was also the hottest year ever recorded. Will 2011 be the same ?
It seems it could be the case as Australia is already facing floods of “biblical proportions” as 1.8 million square kilometers (more than France and Germany combined) have been affected.
Extreme weather events are now occurring more and more often and on all continents. It will get worse. But if we keep stalling greenhouse gases emissions reductions, it will get much much worse.
To the Huffington Post : ” A new report says India could be 2 degrees Celsius warmer than 1970s levels within 20 years – a change that would disrupt rain cycles and wreak havoc on the country’s agriculture and freshwater supplies.”
(…) ” More flooding, more drought and a spreading of malaria would occur, as the disease migrates northward into Kashmir and the Himalayas, according to the report by 220 Indian scientists and 120 research institutions.”
Heavily reliant on coal for its electricity, it is ready to invest no less than $2.3 trillion in low carbon technologies. Here is a country that understood how critical acting on climate change is. Continue »
It seems that Pakistan is a victim of what I called global weirding earlier this month. Indeed, to the Financial Times the country is suffering from both massive floods and dramatic droughts.
To many news sources up to 20 million people have been affected by the floods. To the local government quoted by the United Nations up to six million of them are in need of food, shelter, clean water and health care.
It seems we are seeing more and more climate refugees. Indeed, after Russia and China it seems that over a billion climate refugees in 2050 is not that pessimistic…
I heard that term before as extreme events are unfolding. But two contributors of the Huffington Post believe that what we are witnessing this summer - fires in Russia, floods in Pakistan, heat waves in America – is a sign of global weirding.
And they make quite a point as in a few weeks, so many weather extremes took and are taking place. Last week a glacier four times bigger than Manhattan broke off into the sea.
I send you to the complete article as I believe it is quite a must read for any responsible citizen. This shows once again it is high time to act !
