So, humans are the main agents of climate change. Now what?

The Economist explains:

ON NOVEMBER 2ND the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which represents mainstream scientific opinion, said that it was extremely likely that climate change is the product of human activity. Extremely likely in IPCC speak means having a probability of over 95%.

In the probabilistic world that we live, that 95 percent confidence or more is pretty darn good.  All the more reason to ignore that shrill minority in the Geriatrics Only Party who continue to deny climate change and the human causation.

The Scientific American chips in with this briefing:

What has changed is the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which have now touched 400 parts-per-million. Pollution in the first decade of the 21st century grew twice as fast as it did in the last few decades of the 20th century. The resulting global warming poses risks ranging from rising sea levels that drown inhabited coasts to crop failures from stronger heat waves and drought.

The IPCC has now offered a budget for how much pollution people can add to the atmosphere without too much climate change. Unfortunately, humanity has already used more than half of that budget.

So, what might be the effects if we continue along the same path?

In terms of impacts, such as heatwaves and extreme rain storms causing floods, the report concludes that the effects are already being felt: “In recent decades, changes in climate have caused impacts on natural and human systems on all continents and across the oceans.”
Droughts, coastal storm surges from the rising oceans and wildlife extinctions on land and in the seas will all worsen unless emissions are cut, the report states. This will have knock-on effects, according to the IPCC: “Climate change is projected to undermine food security.” The report also found the risk of wars could increase: “Climate change can indirectly increase risks of violent conflicts by amplifying well-documented drivers of these conflicts such as poverty and economic shocks.”

Emissions are a big problem, which is why:

The report also states that behavioural changes, such as dietary changes that could involve eating less meat, can have a role in cutting emissions.

A whole lot of behavioral changes will be needed.  Not easy to get that across.  For instance, imagine telling people that eating beef is way more harmful to the environment than it is to drive around in cars:

Beef’s environmental impact dwarfs that of other meat including chicken and pork, new research reveals, with one expert saying that eating less red meat would be a better way for people to cut carbon emissions than giving up their cars. ...
the message for the consumer is even stronger. Avoiding excessive meat consumption, especially beef, is good for the environment.

Think about what is coming up here in the US of A, which emits a seventh of the greenhouse gases.  This month end is the granddaddy of all eating occasions: Thanksgiving.  And, we would barely have time to loosen our belts before we dash out to buy a whole lot of stuff that we don't really need.  Almost four weeks of a buying binge.

You think such behavior, and more, will change?  And change soon?  Dream on!

On the other hand, one could use the season of Christmas to adopt behavioral changes of a less-is-better life, which will be consistent with that radical thinker from the Levant, right?

Ok, got to go--cheeseburger is ready!

The problem with Rajendra Pachauri is ....

not his IPCC stuff as much as his comb-over is :)

Oh, a close second is apparently his novel that is rather preoccupied with breasts. An excerpt from a piece in the Telegraph:

"She removed her gown, slipped off her nightie and slid under the quilt on his bed... Sanjay put his arms around her and kissed her, first with quick caresses and then the kisses becoming longer and more passionate.
"May slipped his clothes off one by one, removing her lips from his for no more than a second or two.
"Afterwards she held him close. ‘Sandy, I’ve learned something for the first time today. You are absolutely superb after meditation. Why don’t we make love every time immediately after you have meditated?’."
More follows, including Sanjay and friends queuing to have sexual encounters with Sajni, an impoverished but willing local: "Sanjay saw a shapely dark-skinned girl lying on Vinay’s bed. He was overcome by a lust that he had never known before ... He removed his clothes and began to feel Sajni’s body, caressing her voluptuous breasts."
Sadly for Sanjay, writes Dr Pachauri, "the excitement got the better of him, before he could even get started".

Science means never having to say you're sorry :)

A quick follow-up to the Himalayan glaciers controversy.
The IPCC chief formally regrets the error:

Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the panel, told reporters in New Delhi that he regretted including the forecast in the report but said the mistake should not obscure mounting evidence that climate change was a real threat.
"Our procedures are very robust, they are very solid," he said. "All we need to make sure about, is the fact that we adhere to implementing these procedures."
Pachauri brushed aside questions about whether the error would strengthen the hand of climate change sceptics and should prompt him to step down.
"Rational people ... see the larger the picture. They are not going to be distracted by this one error, which of course is regrettable," he said. "I have no intention of resigning from my position."

No word, yet, on whether he has apologized for his labeling of the counter-arguments as "voodoo science" :)

Climate change war heats up over the himalayan glaciers

First the news, and then the reaction.  The news is from the NY Times:

Leaders of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change apologized yesterday for making a "poorly substantiated" claim that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. .... Experts said the gaffes that came to light in recent weeks don't undermine the IPCC report's main conclusion -- that evidence for global warming is "unequivocal," and human activities are driving the climate shift.

Reaction #1:

IPCC Chairman R K Pachauri on Thursday declined to speak to the media on the Himalayan glacier goof-up issue amid questions being raised about the UN climate body’s credibility in the wake of the controversy.
“I would hold a press conference tomorrow on the issue.
This event is strictly confined to the energy security-related matter,” he said at an event organised by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) which is headed by him.
Despite a barrage of questions from the media who insisted that the issue was of global importance and his reaction could clear the air on the matter, Pachauri remained evasive and refused to budge.
“I do not want to speak on the issue (controversy) right now,” maintained Pachauri who had vociferously dismissed a report last year by India’s senior-most glaciologist V K Raina that questioned IPCC’s claim as “voodoo science”.

Reaction #2:

V.K. Raina, the former Deputy Director-General of the Geological Survey of India -- whose research document on the Himalayan glaciers debunked the claims of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that these glaciers would disappear by 2035 -- is not satisfied by the regret expressed by the United Nations agency.

“I want a personal apology from the IPCC chairperson R.K. Pachauri who had described my research as voodoo science,” Mr. Raina told The Hindu over phone from Panchkula. “Forget IPCC, Dr. Pachauri has not even expressed regret over what he said after my report -- Himalayan Glaciers: a state-of-art review of glacial studies, glacial retreat and climate change -- was released in November last year.”

With over 100 scientific papers and three books to his credit, Mr. Raina said he had not read the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC that made the prediction on melting of the Himalayan glaciers, but read the contents only from what was published in newspapers and magazine.

“But all along I knew that this was not based on facts. During my 50 years of research and several expeditions to the region, I never found anything as sensational as was predicted in the IPCC, but no one heard me then.”

It was only after he was asked by the Minister of Environment and Forests to come out with a report that a global debate was initiated on the issue.

So, who you gonna believe? Everyday something exciting, I tell ya :)

The graph "they" didn't want you to see

Several authors of the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the projected effects of global warming now say they regret not pushing harder to include an updated diagram of climate risks in the report. The diagram, known as “burning embers,” is an updated version of one that was a central feature of the panel’s preceding climate report in 2001. The main opposition to including the diagram in 2007, they say, came from officials representing the United States, China, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

That was from the NY Times, which quotes Stephen H. Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford University who has been involved in writing the I.P.C.C. reports since 1988,:

4 fossil fuel dependent countries accepted the text but refused the figure. Remember, at the UN, consensus means everybody, so a few countries constitute in effect a small successful filibuster. No matter how much New Zealand, small islands states, Canada, Germany, Belgium and the UK said this was an essential diagram, China, the U.S., Russia and the Saudis said it was too much of a “judgment”