climate change •

Climate Change G-7 Agreement

May 16, 2016 By Ryan Harris

Paris agreement tackles climate change.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – The representatives and environment ministers from the Group of Seven nations (G-7) found the answer to improve and preserve the climate situation concerning everyone.

After two days of discussions in Toyama, all the participants decided to adopt the Paris climate accord and presented their ideas and plans to win against the climate change effect before the 2020 deadline.

According to the Environment Minister, Tamayo Marukawa, the G-7 will immediately take action against climate change regarding the Paris Agreement. This gathering was possible after in December, 200 nations complied at the U.N. conference that every country should bring its contribution in restricting the greenhouse gas emission.

Plus, over 170 countries signed the agreement together with the G-7 promise to take measures and be efficient in curbing heat-trapping gas emissions. The agreement was signed by all G-7 members, such as the United States, Italy, Japan, Germany, France, Canada, Britain, the European Union, and China. More precisely, 55 nations accounting for 55 percent of global emissions will be part of this agreement.

Moreover, the G-7 ministers not only promised, but vowed to make every possible effort to come up with long-term strategies to curb emissions and to hand this plan to the United Nations. The target of every country is to lower the temperature by 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels to prevent severe consequences of climate change.

In addition to that, they must succeed until 2020 and communicate the results to the United Nations about the strategies they used concerning the long-term low greenhouse gas emission.

According to the G-7 members, the residents of every city play the most important role in this fight against climate change. Why? Because the population continues to grow, meaning that citizens must become more responsible, have a more ecological perspective and act in a way that will protect the environment.

To increase the efficiency of this task, governments are the ones that should provide everyone with the adequate information regarding this issue. This information must be conveyed into methods that will pay off.

The other important issue is food waste. The United Nations statistics showed that one-third of the entire amount of food produced, more precisely 1.3 billion tons worth $1 trillion, go straight in the bins of consumers.

The next part of the plan against climate change will be another G-7 summit on May 26 and 27 in Mie Prefecture.

Image Source:Youtube

Climate Change Trumped Trump

March 25, 2016 By Joe Hennessey Leave a Comment

The billionaire Republican candidate believes climate change is the same thing as seasonal weather.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – When it comes to giving lengthy answers that say nothing, the presidential candidate is a lead authority. But that might be his only area of expertise because recently climate change trumped Trump.

In the last paragraph of the transcript published by the Washington Post, Trump was asked his opinion on climate change. The answer given by the Republican candidate is as rhetorical as always, but it’s also very wrong.

The billionaire showed that he was oblivious to everything related to climate change, even the very definition of the theory. Climate change trumped Trump, but the presidential candidate is not worried about anything because, according to the statistics, his followers share his belief system.

“I think there’s a change in weather. I am not a great believer in man-made climate change. I’m not a great believer.”

This is how his answer begun. Naturally, he made used of his signature rhetorical style. The beginning is promising. It sounds like he is informed about the subject but chose to ignore it because it stands against his beliefs. But then he proceeded on saying that

“There is certainly a change in weather that goes – if you look, they had global cooling in the 1920s, and now they have global warming, although now they don’t know if they have global warming.”

Apparently, Trump is not that informed as he first appeared to be. He makes three mistakes in just one phrase.

For starters, climate change is not what he thinks it is. Because judging from his answer, for him, a rainy morning followed by a sunny afternoon is equal to climate change. But that’s just how weather works.

Secondly, he is a bit off in his timeline. In the 1970s, a significant number of climate change researchers believed that the Earth is heading towards a new ice age. But their theories were short lived, and the fuss died out as abruptly as it began.

And third, global warming and global cooling theories make up climate change. But after this, he keeps on saying that

“They call [climate change] all sort of things; now they’re using “extreme weather” I guess more than any other phrase.”

It seems that climate change trumped Trump completely. The term “extreme weather” is usually used when a meteorological phenomenon is more violent than usual. Take El Nino for instance. In the past year, the occurrence was even more powerful, and it contributed to the disappearance of a large Bolivian lake. Climate change is what causes extreme weather.

But the billionaire presidential candidate cannot be swayed.

“Perhaps there’s a minor effect, but I’m not a big believer in man-made climate change.”

Image source: Flickr

It’s Bye-Bye Bananas If African Agriculture Isn’t Revolutionized

March 8, 2016 By Tara Hamilton Leave a Comment

West and South African banana crops have approximately one more decade of prosperity.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – Climate change is seriously affecting the agriculture in the sub-Saharan region of Africa. According to the researchers, it’s bye-bye bananas if African agriculture isn’t revolutionized and global warming continues to wreak havoc on the planet’s temperatures.

Farmers from the sub-Saharan regions of Africa must take drastic measures soon or else they are going to have to face the fact that they will not be able to grow food on their crops.

A researcher from the CGIAR Agriculture Climate Change Research Program and Food Security, Julian Ramirez, analyzed nine crops from the African region. That is approximately half of the total number of fertile ground crops.

According to his results, more than sixty percent of the beans-producing areas will lose their viability by 2100. The same fate awaits roughly thirty percent of the bananas and maize crops.

Ramirez stated that scientists are aware of the problem, and they have also come up with a solution. And they must implement it as soon as possible because time is ticking and the farmers could lose their only source of income, and a large portion of the population could lose its primary source of food.

Climate change, or global warming, has increased the levels of temperatures. Crops die because the water is even scarcer than it was before. And if the heat continues to rise, farmers will either have to plant millet or sorghum (that are resistant to the drought) or abandon their crops altogether.

Corn, bananas, and beans will no longer be available for farming. And the time is passing rapidly. According to the estimates, the entire banana growing region of West Africa will no longer be viable for farming by 2025.

The estimates are shorter in this region of the continent because the western parts of Africa are the most vulnerable to global warming. These are also the areas that will require the most extreme measures in order to adapt to the changing climate.

The situation is not pretty in the southern parts of the continent, either. It’s bye-bye bananas if African agriculture isn’t revolutionized. The inhabitants of these regions have roughly one more decade before the crops start fading.

According to a statement made by a Leeds University professor, Andy Challinor, farmers will have to learn to be flexible when it comes to agriculture. The key is planning ahead and meeting the changes in climate head-on unless they want to abandon the practice altogether.

Image source: www.wikipedia.org

Climate Change Was Tamed in the Early 2000s

February 26, 2016 By Matthew Slotkin Leave a Comment

Global warming is a very sensible subject because there are still a lot of skeptics out there.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – There have been talks recently that climate change was tamed in the early 2000s and then it started wreaking havoc on the planet, once again. The 2015 studies disproved the theory altogether, but it seems that new evidence surfaced and the scientific community is not sure that climate change was tamed in the Early 2000s.

Climate change or global warming has been a subject of debate since the very first time that the theory was presented in front of the scientific community and the general public. There are still people who believe it doesn’t exist at all. Unfortunately, it is a very real phenomenon that is affecting our planet and damaging entire ecosystems.

But it seems that global warming can be battled as scientist found proof that climate change was tamed in the early 2000s. The so-called “taming” means that the rate in which the levels of global temperature increased was slower than previously recorded.

The present climate models showed that the temperature should have increased more in that period. This means that something generated a delay in global warming.

Of course, the skeptics used this hiatus in the pattern to claim that the entire theory is a hoax.

John Fyfe, the lead author of the study that claims that climate change was tamed in the early 2000s says that the mathematical patterns do not match the actual observations that were made in that time.

According to Fyfe, there was a period between the 50s and the 70s when temperatures were flat. That led to a lower emission of greenhouse gasses, sulfate aerosols, and all other polluting industrial waste.

The lower the emissions, the more heat got bounced back into space, leading to a general cooling down of the planet. But Fyfe discovered that from 1972 up until 2001 the temperature levels spiked with 0.170 degrees.

Fyfe declared that his study is more accurate than the one performed in 2015 by the NOAA (National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration) because it takes into account certain variables that affected the general levels of global temperatures.

The scientist also added that the climate models that NOAA used in its study were too modest in the sense that they minimized the impact of volcano eruptions on the planet’s temperature. Also, he said that the previous study put too much focus on the solar radiation powered heat effect that took place at the beginning of the 21^st century.

Image source: www.pixabay.com

Forests in Madagascar Were Destroyed By Human Settlers

February 21, 2016 By Tara Hamilton Leave a Comment

Researchers believe that the settlers burned the forests in order to make room for cattle pastures.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – According to the latest study, a large part of the forests in Madagascar were destroyed by human settlers. Contrary to popular belief, humans were destroying our planet’s forests long before they started the Industrial Revolution. It seems that the oxygen producing trees were standing in the way of the settlers which needed broader spaces for cattle grazing more than 1000 years ago.

A team of researchers from the Massachusetts University and MIT found a link between human settlers and the permanent loss of large forest areas in Madagascar. According to the evidence they found, the settlers actually burned down the forests in order to make room for their cattle.

The team reached these conclusions after analyzing the composition shift in carbon and calcium in the stalagmites from the Madagascar region. In just a century, the ratios of carbon isotopes typical for shrubs and trees changed to those that are consistent with the presence of wide areas of grasslands.

The researchers stated that the transformation was too sudden to be attributed to climate change or any natural occurring phenomenon. This means that the changes were more than probably made by the human settlers.

Madagascar was colonized approximately 3,000 years in the past. For the first 2,000 years, the human tribes were the hunter-gatherer type. But then they slightly began to introduce cattle into their diet. As the herds grew, they needed more space and more pastures to feed upon.

That is probably the moment in which the settlers decided that the forests should be replaced with grasslands. According to the researchers, the most probable deforestation techniques that they used were slashing and burning.

This new evidence bears great significance not only for anthropologists who have new and exciting evidence on how the tribes of settlers in Madagascar evolved over the years but also for climate change researchers who are now able to draw a more precise timeline of the human intervention upon the environment.

A great part of the forests in Madagascar were destroyed by human settlers more than a thousand years ago. This means that the human race didn’t start massively affecting the environment at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, but far earlier in the past.

With such clues about human interference, climate change researchers could draw up a more precise timeline for the moment in which massive interferences took place and up until the present moment.

Image source: www.pixabay.com

Earth Will Have a Climate Sensitivity Map

February 19, 2016 By John Birks Leave a Comment

The new climate sensitivity map is trading the traditional blue with a more fashionable green.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – According to the Biology department at the Bergen University, Earth will have a climate sensitivity map. The method that will be used to identify the more sensitive areas is called the VSI (Index of Vegetation Sensitivity).

Earth will have a climate sensitivity map that will allow scientists to better understand the biology behind areas that suffer the most because of sudden climate changes.

By analyzing satellite images for 14 years, the team or researchers from Bergen University managed to create a new map of the Earth. And it seems that green is the new blue when it comes to Earth’s climate change sensible spots.

The team lead by Alistair Seddon, a professor at the Biology department from the Bergen University managed to identify the vegetation productivity triggers. In order to do so, they used monthly timescales applied to the satellite imagery.

According to the paper that they published in Nature on-line journal, there are plenty of regions on Earth that are ecologically sensitive. For example the tropical rainforest, the Arctic tundra, the Canadian tundra, certain steppe and prairie regions, worldwide alpine regions, the South American sylvan areas and a few parts of Australia.

With the aid of the VSI method, the researchers were able to map a climate change response in that area that was actually quantifiable.

Earth will have a climate sensitivity map that will also feature the reaction of sensitive areas to short-term temperature or climate anomalies. For example a significant drop in the average December temperature or a serious heat spike in the middle of the summer. Or vice-versa.

By creating the climate sensitivity map and the VSI method, scientists will now have a more accurate evaluating and monitoring system. They will be able to track the condition and eventual changes in all of the ecosystems in the world.

The variables that were quantified using the Index of Vegetation Sensitivity are temperature, cloudiness and water availability. All of these elements are crucial to the vegetation productivity in a certain area.

The method devised by the Bergen University team of scientists can be of help to climate researchers. By using the VSI, they could analyze any anomalies that appear in the climate of a certain ecosystem and the impact that these strange occurrences have on the ecosystem itself.

Earth will have a climate sensitivity map and this tool will only help the climate researchers convince the world of the devastating effects that global warming has on different ecosystems around the world.

Image source: www.wikimedia.org

Giant Birds Roamed the Arctic Millions of Years Ago

February 19, 2016 By Matthew Slotkin Leave a Comment

"Museum arrangement depicting a giant arctic bird that lived millions of years ago"

Giant birds roamed the Arctic millions of years ago, and our flightless companions might return.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – There is evidence that points out the fact that giant birds roamed the arctic millions of years ago. This means that the vast reach of ice and cold was once a hospitable environment for the Gastornis.

Recent digging in the Arctic Circle revealed some bone fragments belonging to the Gastornis, a giant bird that did not have the ability to fly.

According to the estimates made by the scientists, the Gastornis similar in size with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnsons, meaning it stood around 6 feet tall and weighed a couple hundred pounds. Only the head of the enormous bird would have equaled the one of a modern-day horse.

A new study that was published last Friday in the “Scientific Reports” on-line journal, revealed the fact that the Artic was not a deserted icy wasteland around fifty million years ago, but rather a balmy swamp. This means that the Gastornis giant bird had a pretty big hunting territory.

Speaking of hunting, scientists believe that although the bird was massive in size, there is no further evidence to suggest that it had a meat-based diet. From what the researchers gather, the incredibly large bird fed on plants and fruits.

Giant birds roamed the Arctic millions of years ago, and they might come back. It seems that the climate change from the last decades significantly reduced the ice quantities from the Arctic Circle. The researchers have calculated that there will come a day, not in the distant future, when the Arctic landscape will change significantly and life could thrive again in the now arid desert of ice and cold.

But a bigger concentration of Gastornis fossils was also encountered in Wyoming, North America. This leads the scientists to believe that the bird actually migrated towards the Arctic in the summer, and returned in what we call Wyoming in the present day.

The migration theory is not that far-fetched seeing as there are a couple of species of ducks that migrate towards the icy landscapes in the summer. They come back when the long Arctic night sets it along the unbearable cold temperatures.

One of the authors of the study and researcher at the Colorado University, Jaelyn Eberle, stated that they have found additional bones in the Ellesmere Island. The other fossils belonged to another species of prehistoric bird, the Presbyornis. But it seems that this particular bird had more in common with present-day ducks or geese than with the giant Gastornis.

Giant birds roamed the Arctic millions of years ago and with the intense global warming, our winged contemporaries could have a chance at returning to the icy planes.

The complete cited study can be found here.

Image source: www.wikimedia.org

Children Are Learning About Climate Change from the Wrong People

February 12, 2016 By Tara Hamilton Leave a Comment

"One third of the American middle and high school teachers don't believe in the existence of climate change."

One third of the American middle and high school teachers don’t believe in the climate change.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – Climate Change is a serious issue and awareness should be raised among every inhabitant of the planet. But sadly children are learning about climate change from the wrong people in the US.

According to a study conducted by the Pew Center for Research only a stunning 45 percent of Americans consider climate change to be a real and serious issue. And this is not due to the fact that Americans are not taught climate change in schools, it’s rather because most of the people teaching it are incapable of wrapping their heads around the idea.

Eric Plutzer, a political sciences professor at the State University of Pennsylvania along with contributors from the State University of Wright and the Science Education National Center (NCSE) conducted a study based on a survey that comprised more than 1,500 teachers from the entire country. The teachers that were included in the survey taught middle and high schools science.

The results are a bit overwhelming. On one side approximately 70 percent teachers from middle school and 87 percent biology teachers from high school taught climate change to their study.

The bad part of these results is not the act that 30, respectively 13 percent out of the total 1,500 represent huge numbers of teacher that refuse to teach actual world problems to unknown and unformed minds, but that the majority of those who do teach it do it wrongly.

According to Plutzer one in three teachers tell the children that climate change is not real. More shocking than that is the fact that more than half of the teachers let the children debate the existence of the meteorological phenomenon without providing real data.

It seems that the idea of climate change being a natural phenomenon is very common among the people who are in charge of the education of the future generation. More than half don’t even discuss the causes that lead to climate change.

Plutzer believes that this is due to the fact that the teachers are not informed themselves. Most of them (and we are talking science and biology teachers) have no idea about the latest measurements of carbon dioxide from ice cores or how a climate change model works.

A total of 4.4 percent out of the 1,500 that were surveyed declared that they had to deal with pressure from school administrators and parents that were insisting on them not teaching climate change in their classroom.

Teachers may not be responsible for the entire half of the country that lives in ignorance, but some of them are a part of a bigger problem when they should actually represent a solution. Sadly, our children are learning about climate change from the wrong people.

Image source: www.pixabay.com

Planting Trees Actually Causes Global Warming

February 6, 2016 By John Birks Leave a Comment

"A conifer forest on the side of a mountain"

Conifer forests have a tendency to release heat into the environment causing as much damage as fossil fuel burning.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – According to environmental scientists, planting trees actually causes global warming. This is due to the fact that most amateur environmentalists plant conifer trees instead of broadleaved trees that produce a much higher amount of oxygen and also retain a more significant amount of heat in their bodies, as opposed to conifers that eliminate more heat into the atmosphere.

According to the BBC report, the trees that have been planted in Europe since 1750 only increased the effects of climate change or global warming. This is mostly due to the fact that the people that planted the trees at that time preferred conifers over broadleaves.

While it is true that a conifer forest is green the entire year and they host a slightly broader fauna than their broadleaved counterparts, it seems that their overall effect on the environment is not that pleasant.

The European environmental scientists came to the conclusion that Europe’s citizens have been planting, for a couple of hundreds of years, the wrong type of trees. According to them, although conifer trees are green for the entire year, this does not necessarily mean that they are able to produce more oxygen than the broadleaved trees.

It seems that a spruce or pine can absorb more heat due to their darker shades than a broadleaf like a birch or an oak. This might be one of the factors that are encouraging global warming.

The researchers declared that Europe’s problem started during the industrial revolution, somewhere in the middle of the 18^th century and it latest until the middle of the 19^th century. The factories that were developed in those one hundred years needed raw material which usually consisted of wood and coal. The forested area of Europe was then diminished by 190,000 square kilometers of trees.

The increased usage of fossil fuels leads to a decrease in the demand of wood so Europe began replanting its forests. But it seems that even though and approximate of 386,000 square kilometers of forests have been regrown, they are the wrong type of forests.

Europeans cut down strong, old trees from broadleaved forests and replaced them with conifers that, while they are greener and grow faster, affect the environment as badly as the burning of fossil fuels because they emit a large quantity of heat into the atmosphere causing a rise in global temperature.

The conclusion of the scientists was not for the existing trees to be cut down, but rather a forestation plan is made before any further such actions are taken by “tree-huggers”. The researchers say that there is an imperative need of broadleaved forests.

And since planting trees actually causes global warming, environmentalists should do more thorough research before heading out, buying a Norway spruce or a Scots pine and planting it in the name of the fight against climate change.

Image source: www.wikimedia.org

Snow Is an Indicator of Global Warming

January 24, 2016 By Joe Hennessey Leave a Comment

The amounts of snow North America saw this year are a good indicator of climate change.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – For those of you out there who relished on the snow and starting using it as an example of why climate change theories are wrong, you should know that snow is an indicator of global warming.

The global warming theory has been as debated as the one with the vaccines that caused autism or, a couple of hundreds of years ago, the one which dictated the world is flat. No matter if you call it global warming, global cooling or climate change, unfortunately, the basic theory (the conditions on the planet are changing at an alarming rate which will lead to natural disasters of epic proportions) remains the same and it is as real as the mountains of snow that took over parts of the US this last week.

Once the weather took a change for the worst, after experiencing what has been the warmer winter in decades, certain theories of what is happening with the overall weather of the planet have started to emerge. There are a few in the scientific community that thinks global warming is not nearly as bad as global cooling.

The global warming theory dictates that burning fossil fuels lead to a higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. These gases, also called greenhouse gasses, attract more heat than others. This leads to a rise of the temperature worldwide. A warmer planets lead to the accelerated melting of the ice caps which can cause severe natural disasters as a very aggressive El Nino phenomenon or a sudden shift in the seasons, much warmer summers and much colder winters. So snow is an indicator of global warming.

The global cooling theory studies the sea levels and then compares them to those the Earth had when the last ice age took place. According to the numbers, sea levels are almost 400 feet higher than 8,000 years ago. Almost the same as when the last ice age cycle begun and winter came worldwide for a period of a couple thousands of years.

The ones who suffer the most from these changes are the animals. As the ice sheets shrink, the polar bears lose large amounts of their habitats. As the polar ice caps melt, a higher level of cold water travels south and causes environmental changes and extreme phenomena like El Nino, or an overall cooling of former warm waters. This translates into yet another loss of habitat for a wide variety of sea creatures.

Snow is an indicator of global warming as much as fever indicates an infection. People who don’t believe in climate change should only take a look at the numbers. 2014 was the hottest summer in history, and then 2015 was the hottest summer in history. A pattern is beginning to form and it doesn’t bring good news.

Image source: www.geograph.org.uk

Categories