Report Warns California to Prepare for Climate Change

As if the threat of massive recession busting budget cuts were not enough, California is now being warned of a more dangerous threat.

Climate change is threatening California, one of America’s biggest polluting States, as hotter weather will cause havoc and threaten low lying areas as sea levels rise, a new report claims. The report warns that rising temperatures over the next few decades will lead to more heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and floods. Over the last century in California, the sea level has risen by 7 inches, average temperatures have increased, spring snow melts earlier in the year, and there are hotter days and fewer cold nights.

Even if a global effort is made to curb carbon emissions, the report claims California needs to start preparing for rising sea levels, hotter weather and other effects of climate change. It encourages local communities to rethink future development in low-lying coastal areas, reinforce levees that protect flood prone areas and conserve already strapped water supplies in the most highly populated US state.

The report was compiled after the governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, directed agencies in November to devise a state climate strategy. It comes three years after the Republican governor signed California’s landmark global warming law requiring the state to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

Many states are facing similar problems caused by climate change over the coming decades, with water shortages set to be a major issue across the country. Most countries have focused on cutting greenhouse gases in the future, but researchers say those efforts will take decades to have an effect while the planet continues to warm. States have only recently begun to consider what steps they must take to minimise the damage expected from sea level rise, storm surges, droughts and water shortages because of the climate changes.

Kenya’s Flowers Diminish

Kenya’s leading crop export is feeling the heat of a changing climate and a global financial meltdown.

Fresh cut flowers are the flagship export of Kenya, making Billions of Shillings a year for the economy. But a global recession and climate chaos have started to diminish earnings. So far this year earnings from exports have fallen by 35 percent on last year according to the Fresh Produce Exporters Association of Kenya.

Most of the exported flowers, over 80 percent, are bought by Europe. Half of those are purchased by flower lovers in the UK. However demand for flowers in the recession has dipped by around 25 percent as the European market has reduced spending on luxury items. An unusually cold winter also kept flower lovers indoors as freezing temperatures swept throughout Europe.

“Statistics from Kenya Flower Council show earnings took a knock from 13.36 billion shillings (191.8 million dollars) in the first three months of the year to 10.76 billion shillings (13.68 million dollars).” According to Google

But credit crunch is not the only problem facing Kenya’s flowers exports. The flower sector is also feeling the heat of Global warming. A prolong dry spell last year caused rising concerns for the future as many farms suffered major water shortages. In some places rainfall was below 30 percent of its normal levels.

Around 1,200 jobs have already been lost so far this year as a result of the decline. There are fears a larger drop in flowers revenue would damage East Africa’s largest economy, as a massive 23 percent of its GDP comes from Horticulture exports.

Global Warming In Australia: A Climate Changing

Droughts and Fires. Severe Heatwaves and Epic Flooding. Not only a picture painted by climate scientists of a future climate changed by global warming, but a current trend worsening in Australia.

The LA Times recently reported that a warming Australian climate could be a “harbinger of change” to the rest of the world. What scientists say we have ahead of us if global warming is not prevented, such as Severe droughts and Fires, are already rife in Australia as climate change warms their already hot environment.

Climate scientists warn that Australia: condemned by prolonged drought and increasingly deadly bush fires in the south, monsoon flooding and mosquito inflicted fevers in the north, declining wildlife population, collapse of agriculture and killer heat waves, epitomizes the “accelerated climate crisis” that global warming models have forecast.

“Australia is the harbinger of change. The problems for us are going to be greater. The cost to Australia from climate change is going to be greater than for any developed country. We are already starting to see it. It’s tearing apart the life support system that gives us this world.” Claims paleontologist Tim Flannery, one of Australia’s most vocal climate spectators.

Many Australians feel they already have a death toll connected directly to climate change. 173 people died in the countries worst ever wildfires in February 2009. A royal commission has been called upon to decide weather global warming contributed to the savage bush fires that destroyed whole towns and a quarter of Victoria’s wildlife. A further 200 people died in a heatwave a week before the fires, that saw 4 days of temperatures at 110 degrees and higher as well as 100mph winds. The heat buckled the steel structure on a new 400 foot Ferris wheel and warped train tracks. On the hottest day, more than 4,000 gray headed flying foxes dropped dead out of trees in a Melbourne park.

“Something is happening in Australia. Global warming is no longer some future event that we don’t have to worry about for decades. What we have seen in the past two weeks moves Australia’s exposure to global warming to emergency status.” Said firefighter Dan Condon of the Melbourne Metropolitan Fire Brigade in an open letter.

Australia is not an innocent party on global warming. 80% of its electricity still comes from Coal power stations.  Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says climate change is high on his agenda, but many here are disappointed by his pledge to cut overall greenhouse gas emissions by only 5% by 2020. All eyes will be on Australia in the coming years. It may well show a bleak future for the rest of us, unless we act now to prevent further global warming.

Climate Change Making Huge Human Impact

The first comprehensive study into the human impact of climate change has revealed some scary statistics.

Climate change is already responsible for 300,000 deaths a year according to former UN secretary general Kofi Annan’s think tank, the Global Humanitarian Forum. The report also claims that a further 300 Million people a year are effected by climate change.

A warming climate means more energy. Energy that is released in events like heatwaves, forest fires and floods, making them more severe.

The Study projects that the increasing severity of events like flooding and storms will be responsible for around 500,000 deaths a year by 2030, making it the biggest humanitarian crisis the world faces. Climate change is currently causing losses of more than $125bn a year, more than the total of world aid last year. Projections say that by 2030, it could be costing up to $600bn a year.

Civil unrest may also increase because of weather-related events, the report says: “Four billion people are vulnerable now and 500m are now at extreme risk. Weather-related disasters bring hunger, disease, poverty and lost livelihoods. They pose a threat to social and political stability”.

If emissions are not brought under control, within 25 years, the report states that; 310m more people will suffer adverse health consequences related to temperature increases; 20m more people will fall into poverty and 5m extra people will be displaced by climate change. Water supplies are expected to see a severe impact. ”Shortages in future are likely to threaten food production, reduce sanitation, hinder economic development and damage ecosystems. It causes more violent swings between floods and droughts. Hundreds of millions of people are expected to become water stressed by climate change by the 2030. ”

The study says it is impossible to be certain who will be displaced by 2030, but that tens of millions of people “will be driven from their homelands by weather disasters or gradual environmental degradation. The problem is most severe in Africa, Bangladesh, Egypt, coastal zones and forest areas.”

Antarctic Ice Growing

The South Pole is a hot topic for climate change debate. Contrary to massive melting at the north pole, Ice in parts of the Antarctic are growing, despite global warming. John Turner and British Antarctic Survey may have discovered why.

It seems the hole in the O-Zone layer, created by CFCs and other ozone-depleting chemicals have given the South Pole respite from global warming. But only temporarily according to the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

In the North Pole, Arctic sea ice is decreasing fast, reaching a record low in 2007. But satellite images studied by John Turner and the BAS show that Antarctic sea ice is increasing in every month of the year expect January.

“By the end of the century we expect one third of Antarctic sea ice to disappear, So we’re trying to understand why it’s increasing now, at a time of global warming.”

In a new study, Turner and colleagues show how the ozone hole has changed weather patterns around Antarctica. These changes have drawn in warm air over the Antarctic Peninsula in West Antarctica and cooled the air above East Antarctica.

“Over the next 50 to 100 years, the ozone hole will heal, At the same time, greenhouse gases will rise. In next decade or so we should see sea ice plateauing and then decreasing massively if greenhouse gases continue to increase.”

Research earlier this year showed that temperatures in East Antarctica had dropped despite Antarctica as a whole seeing an increase of 0.5°C over the last 50 years. This has been used by Climate Change Deniers as “evidence” against global warming, and in fact claiming that we are experience “global cooling”. Unfortunately this new research marks another win for science over spin.