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- Quote:The people of northern highland Lai Chau Province are worried about bird flu infection from birds smuggled across the border from their neighbour, China. They remain anxious despite the work of inspectors at provincial gates and assurances that most of the illicit fowls are confiscated. Lai Chau Animal Health Department officials say 23 attempts to traffick or trade livestock, including poultry, of unknown origin have been detected since early this year. But it is estimated that the amount totals only a third or fourth of the illicit poultry that enters the province. Almost all the animal and poultry produce consumed in Lai Chau Province is imported. Lai Chau town has ten households that slaughter poultry and most of this is believed to have been smuggled. Customers cannot distinguish between illicit and local poultry. Most of poultry sold at restaurants and markets is also said to be from illicit birds.
George Monbiot, writing in the Guardian, figures the sulphate idea is risky; sulphates could have adverse impacts on rainfall patterns, as happened over North Africa (where main rainfall bands shifted southwards, causing massive impacts):
We can’t reverse global warming by triggering another catastropheSulphate pollution killed hundreds of thousands of Africans. A plan to use sulphur to fight climate change risks the same
Quote:By Chris BuckleyBEIJING (Reuters) – Storms, floods, heat and drought that have killed more than 2,000 people in China this year are a prelude to weather patterns likely to become more extreme due to global warming, the head of the Beijing Climate Center said.
China was braced for further hardship as rising temperatures worldwide trigger increasingly extreme weather, Dong Wenjie, director-general of the climate center, said.
“The precise causes of these phenomena aren’t easy to determine on their own,” Dong told Reuters of meteorological disasters that have caused 160 billion yuan (10.58 billion pounds) worth of damage this year.
“But we know the broad background is global warming. That’s clear. It’s a reminder that global warming will bring about increasingly extreme weather events more often.”
…– and yet, the article notes, China remains unwilling to join international “action” in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as it’s “a developing country”.
Add more disasters, and it won’t be developing too well.
Disaster-prone China takes heed of global warmingPost edited by: Martin, at: 2006/12/24 03:35
Commentary in Washington Times, by MICHAEL PRAVICA, Assistant Professor of Physics, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Quote:… Whether it’s the fact that 9 out of 10 of the warmest years on record occurred in this past decade or that 2006 (just the first half) was the warmest year for the United States, or that average global temperatures have been rising (by about 1 degree during the last century), evidence abounds of warming. Despite many claims to the contrary, natural and human activity can alter the Earth’s atmosphere and modify our environment. All the oxygen we breathe (21 percent of our atmosphere) was produced by life via photosynthesis. Smog is a more direct effect of human/industrially induced atmospheric alteration.Indeed, many past societal catastrophes such as the Dust Bowl mass migrations of the 1930s were likely caused by over-farming. With our great potential to create and learn, we also have great potential to cause our own self-destruction. Our atmosphere is comparable to a rubber glove stretched over a bowling ball — it is very thin. Due to our atmosphere, we don’t suffer the extremes of temperature of Mercury and our moon. In the opposite extreme, since our atmosphere isn’t as thick or dense as Venus, we don’t suffer from oppressive heat (850 Kelvin) due to greenhouse warming that prevents water from condensing there. …
Unfortunately for humans, there is no politics in nature but absolute natural laws. We cannot go on pretending these laws of nature don’t exist and can be violated without disastrous consequences. Whether it is warming, pollution, dwindling natural resources, pestilence and disease or overpopulation, the human race is on a collision course with reality and only science can avoid likely catastrophes ahead. In that spirit, I encourage all members of the public and their leaders to first of all learn the science behind the phenomenon of global warming and engage scientists in the debate so we can all decide together on the future course of action to tackle and prepare for global warming for the survival of the human race.
Forum: Physicist examines global warming
Quote:By Jonathan BrownScientists claim to have produced the first conclusive proof that spring is arriving earlier as a result of global warming.
In Britain trees are coming into leaf 10 days earlier than they did 30 years ago while in countries with more pronounced warming, such as Spain, they are doing so by a fortnight. On average spring has advanced by between six and eight days across Europe.
According to the study, the biggest of its kind, the extended growing season has resulted in autumn being delayed by three days.
..
Spain, which is growing hotter more quickly than any other European country, has experienced the most pronounced change, the report found.Countries to the east and north are warming relatively slowly and had changed the least. In Slovakia, spring was arriving only three days earlier.
Dr Sparks said that the study was particularly effective because it used species that grow across all countries in Europe. Scientists examined the date that beech trees (fagus sylvatica) and wild cherries (prunus avium) came into leaf to measure the changes, giving a consistent picture of the effect of warming, the authors said.
Annette Menzel, of the Technical University Munich, who co-wrote the study, said the findings had profound implications. “Unlike some studies that record individual species, this is the first comprehensive examination of all available data at the continental scale, and the timing of change is clear, very clear,” she said….
Animals and plants ‘prove’ that spring arrives earlier every year
Here in Hong Kong, too, seems to me to be tendency towards earlier springs.
When I arrived in 1980s, was told Asian Koel didn’t sing till March, yet I’ve recently heard as early as the beginning of January. Winters seeming warmer; frost-intolerant plants are now advancing up highest slopes of HK’s highest mountain (957-metre Tai Mo Shan): might be reflection of climate change.
In northeast China, changes are more pronounced. Some resident birds that were once rare/scarce on coast at Beidaihe – such as Vinous-throated Parrotbill – have become more common, I think as winters less severe; Chinese Bulbul has spread north, to breed at Beidaihe (becoming fairly common in the area), where the species was unknown before 1986.Quote:By Robert S. BoydMcClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON – It was one of the greatest calamities of all time: Something turned up the Earth’s thermostat, touching off a monstrous heat wave that killed many animals and drove others far from their homes to seek cooler climes.
This catastrophe occurred 55 million years ago, after the age of the dinosaurs and long before humans appeared. But scientists warn that today’s global warming means that it could be happening again.
The ancient hot spell, which lasted 50,000 to 100,000 years, goes by the unwieldy name of Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. It was caused by a sudden – in geological terms – doubling or tripling of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Climate scientists say the result was a massive increase of 10 to 12 degrees Fahrenheit – even higher near the poles – above the prevailing temperature.
“In certain regards, the PETM is very similar to what is happening right now,” said Gerald Dickens, an earth scientist at Rice University in Houston. “Just like now, a huge amount of carbon rapidly entered the ocean or atmosphere. The most notable difference is the rate. Things are happening much faster now than during the PETM.”
Most scientists attribute much of today’s global warming to the burning of carbon-rich fossil fuels in factories, cars and trucks. If the present trend continues, Dickens said, the world will add as much carbon to the atmosphere in 500 years – from 1800 to 2300 – as the PETM did over 10,000 years.
…Global warming may be an accelerated version of ancient heat wave
Post edited by: martin, at: 2006/08/26 13:26
Quote:Marwaan Macan-MarkarBANGKOK, Aug 25 (IPS) – When new strains of the deadly bird flu virus were recently detected in poultry in Thailand and Laos, wildlife enthusiasts had reason to feel vindicated. The prevailing hot weather was off season for migratory birds, often blamed for spreading avian influenza.
By the time ducks in Cambodia showed signs of being infected, the theory that wild birds carry the H5N1 strain of the virus across international boarders was further discredited. This view had first gained hold in this region in 2004 when the current outbreak of the lethal virus began and rapidly spread across a broad sweep of countries.
”There has never been any conclusive, properly documented evidence that wild birds are carriers of the virus,” Richard Thomas, editor of ‘World Birdwatch,’ said in an e-mail interview.
…This summer reprieve for the wild birds is consequently throwing more weight behind the view of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) that the unchecked trade and movement of infected poultry is the main trigger behind the spread of the lethal virus.
…”FAO recognises that poultry trade across borders is continuing in South-east Asia and East Asia despite well-known risks to the governments and people in the region,” the U.N. agency adds.
The new H5N1 strains in Thailand and Laos have distinct genetic make up that betray their origin. ”There are three broad clusters of the virus and sub-clusters,” says Gleeson. ”The new virus strain in Nakhon Phanom was different to the strain that has been circulating in Thailand since 2004.”
Gleeson attributes human activity, rather than migratory birds, to the spread of bird flu in Indonesia, which has suffered the highest number of human fatalities due to avian influenza. ”It is pretty clear the virus spread in Indonesia is because of poultry products being moved and not because of wild birds.”
…Some years ago, I worked on an article about acid rain in Taiwan; found that at least some of the island’s air pollution could be traced to Shanghai area. Here, findings show pollution from China travels much further – not that China unique in this, what with PCBs in polar bears etc.
Quote:By TERENCE CHEA Associated Press Writer MOUNT TAMALPAIS STATE PARK, Calif. (AP) – On a mountaintop overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Steven Cliff collects evidence of an industrial revolution taking place thousands of miles away. The tiny, airborne particles Cliff gathers at an air monitoring station just north of San Francisco drifted over the ocean from coal-fired power plants, smelters, dust storms and diesel trucks in China and other Asian countries. Researchers say the environmental impact of China’s breakneck economic growth is being felt well beyond its borders. They worry that as China consumes more fossil fuels to feed its energy-hungry economy, the U.S. could see a sharp increase in trans-Pacific pollution that could affect human health, worsen air quality and alter climate patterns. … The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that on certain days nearly 25 percent of the particulate matter in the skies above Los Angeles can be traced to China. Some experts predict China could one day account for a third of all California’s air pollution. … . If current trends continue, China will surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the next decade, said Barbara Finamore, who heads the Natural Resources Defense Council’s China Clean Energy program, which is helping the country boost its energy efficiency. “China’s staggering economic growth is an environmental time bomb that, unless defused, threatens to convulse the entire planet regardless of progress in all other nations,” Finamore said. Even Chinese environmental officials warn that pollution levels could quadruple over the next 15 years if the country doesn’t curb energy use and emissions. Beijing plans to spend $162 billion on environmental cleanup over the next five years, but the scale of the country’s pollution problems is immense. … China’s environmental challenges are daunting, but the country is taking action to reduce its energy use and air pollution, said NRDC’s Finamore. Beijing has set ambitious goals for increasing energy efficiency, fuel economy standards and use of renewable power sources such as wind and solar, she said. “There are tremendous opportunities for China to slow the amount of pollution it pumps in the air,” Finamore said.China’s Air Pollution Reaches U.S. Skies
Commentary on Delaware Online is a further demonstration of how notions there is a "debate" about whether global warming is real are just plain wrong.
Quote:By NAOMI ORESKESAn op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal a month ago claimed that a published study affirming the existence of a scientific consensus on the reality of global warming had been refuted. This charge was repeated again in a hearing of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. I am the author of that study, which appeared two years ago in the journal Science, and I’m here to tell you that the consensus stands. The argument put forward in the Wall Street Journal was based on an Internet posting; it has not appeared in a peer-reviewed journal — the normal way to challenge an academic finding. (The Wall Street Journal didn’t even get my name right!) My study demonstrated that there is no significant disagreement within the scientific community that the Earth is warming and that human activities are the principal cause. Papers that continue to rehash arguments that have already been addressed and questions that have already been answered will, of course, be rejected by scientific journals, and this explains my findings. Not a single paper in a large sample of peer-reviewed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 refuted the consensus position, summarized by the National Academy of Sciences, that "most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations." …
To be sure, there are a handful of scientists, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Richard Lindzen, the author of the Wall Street Journal editorial, who disagree with the rest of the scientific community. To a historian of science like me, this is not surprising. In any scientific community, there are always some individuals who simply refuse to accept new ideas and evidence. This is especially true when the new evidence strikes at their core beliefs and values. … Climate-change deniers can imagine all the hypotheses they like, but it will not change the facts nor "the general induction from the phenomena."
Global warming: Signed, sealed and delivered
Strong article in the Washington Post:
Quote:…
These traffickers haul more than 1,000 contraband chickens a day into Lang Son, one of six Vietnamese provinces along the Chinese border, flouting a chicken import ban. In doing so, heath experts say, they have also repeatedly smuggled the highly lethal bird flu virus from its source in southern China into Vietnam, where the disease has taken a devastating toll on farm birds and killed at least 42 people since 2003.As bird flu continues to spread across the Eastern Hemisphere, international health experts warn that illegal trade in poultry, poultry products and other birds is often the primary cause.
“Both between and within countries, commerce is an incredibly important factor,” said Juan Lubroth, chief of infectious animal disease for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. “We try to press with governments that it has to be controlled or managed better. But like trafficking in humans, weapons and drugs, with poultry it’s not any easier.”
…
Do Van Duoc, director of animal health in Lang Son, explained that the huge difference in prices on opposite sides of the border makes for a flourishing business despite the ban on poultry imports from China. Prices fluctuate, but on average, chicken that sells for 30 cents per pound or less in China can fetch a dollar or more in Vietnam.Duoc said the high cost of poultry in Vietnam also reflects the expense of importing vaccines and other medicine to combat bird flu. Chinese farmers are able to keep costs down because of the vast scale of their poultry industry and the inexpensive supply of feed and domestically produced vaccines, he said.
Moreover, Duoc alleged that Chinese farmers unload chickens from areas struck by bird flu at bargain prices. In some cases, he said, the farmers tell Chinese authorities they have culled their flocks to earn government compensation and then peddle the birds to smugglers.
“They try to get as much money as they can,” he said. “They are selling sick chickens because of the outbreak.”
– Some time ago, on a forum, I suggested such things were happening; got pilloried by idiots
Worldwide, the trade in illegal poultry and other birds is extensive, said Lubroth of the U.N. agriculture agency, though the specific scope is unknown.
– millions of dollars spent in quest for the Tooth Fairy Bird, yet how much being spent on investigating this real problem?Quote:As long as high prices in Vietnam make the illicit chicken trade lucrative, it will continue, said Jeffrey Gilbert, an animal health specialist in the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s Vietnam office. “You can put helicopters up there, really mobilize the army and put all kinds of resources in, and it would still go on,” he said. “It’s like the Ho Chi Minh Trail.”In Vietnam, a Gateway for Bird Flu
Post edited by: martin, at: 2006/07/31 03:57
We’re not just seeing heatwaves here and there this summer; instead, seems typical that places are warmer than usual.
Here in Hong Kong, had some even hotter than usual weather lately, with neighbouring Guangdong province warning of heatwave.from a couple of news items:
Quote:Northern California, withering under last week’s punishing heat, wasn’t the only hot spot in the world this year — thermometers have spiked throughout much of the United States, Canada and Europe, and scientists are predicting more intense, longer and more frequent heat waves in the future.While leading climate scientists have been reluctant to link regional heat waves with rising temperatures in the world’s atmosphere and oceans, they say the recent weather patterns are consistent with computer projections for global warming.
In the United States, the first six months of 2006 were the hottest recorded in more than a century, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center. Canada reported the hottest winter and spring since it started keeping track about a half-century ago, while England, Germany and France are sweltering, and the Netherlands is recording the hottest month since temperatures were first measured 300 years ago.
“The current heat waves throughout much of North America and Europe are consistent with the predictions of our global climate models,” said physicist John Harte, a professor and researcher in UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group and the Ecosystem Sciences Division.
…
The warming has been the greatest in the Arctic regions, particularly Alaska, Siberia and Scandinavia, as melting ice and snow reflect less sunlight back into the atmosphere and expose more land to heat and warmth. Antarctica also has warmed. Within the United States, the warming is greater in the West than in the East.“This is expected,” said James Hansen, director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The subtropics, which include the American Southwest and the Mediterranean regions, become hotter and drier with increasing greenhouse gases, he said.
“Weather will fluctuate a lot from year to year. But the situation this year is of the nature of the expected trend. So get used to it,” Hansen said….
Yes, the planet is heating up
Hottest year on record; more to comeQuote:IT looks like being the hottest July [for UK] on record but Britain is not alone in experiencing extreme conditions, write Jonathan Leake and Alex Delmar- Morgan.
Hot, arid weather is afflicting millions in America and in dozens of countries across Europe and parts of east Asia.The phenomenon has surprised meteorologists who are used to seeing drought as a regional, not global, problem. This weekend they said early analysis of the hot weather, together with the size of the areas affected, suggested it was linked to global climate change.
“Greenhouse gas emissions raise the likelihood of heatwaves like this one,” said Dave Griggs, a Met Office representative on the Joint Scientific Committee for the World Climate Research Programme. “By 2040 this will be just an average summer and by 2060 it will be a relatively cool one.”
N95 masks used during SARS (a virus) and effective, unless – say – someone push up the mask to scratch itchy nose.
I tried one, once, during the outbreak: horribly unconfortable; hot n humid air, even worse than normal hot n humid air in HK. Tried the nigh-on useless (unless you happen to have a disease yourself and don’t want to pass it on) paper masks. Otherwise, with SARS mainly in hospitals, went mask free.
Can’t imagine more than tiny number of people in areas actually affected by H5N1 virus (rather than by bird flu fearmongering) will use masks; and those that do perhaps in factory farms, where masks etc should be supplied by companies, or veterinary support etc, also supplied with masks.
Otherwise, these masks surely beyond reach of people in areas really affected by bird flu; and unlikely to be worn anyway.
While if aiming for sales to the paranoid: well, shame on viraldefender.com.See also this summarised paper on CDC site, about making masks from t-shirts; not ideal, but judged effective:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol12no06/05-1468.htmMore evidence that the global warming "sceptics" are receiving some juicy support from industries involved in producing greenhouse gases:
Quote:NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Colorado electricity cooperative is urging other power groups to support global warming skeptics and has donated $100,000 to a climatologist who has labeled some of his colleagues "alarmists." The Intermountain Rural Electric Association’s general manager wrote in a letter to other energy cooperatives that it also helped raise contributions from others for Dr. Patrick Michaels, a climatologist at the University of Virginia and a fellow at the CATO Institute in Washington D.C. … "I would say it’s smoking gun evidence that industry is trying to buy science to back its anti-environmental propaganda on global warming," said Frank O’Donnell, president of Washington D.C.-environmental group Clean Air Watch. "Something coming from a Patrick Michaels should carry a warning label," he said. "’Caution: this commentary bought with industry money."’Power group promoting global warming skeptic
from Washington Post:
Quote:Lewandowski [of power company], who said he believes global warming is real just not as big a problem as scientists claim, acknowledged this is a special interest issue. He said the bigger concern is his 130,000 customers, who want to keep rates low, so coal-dependent utilities need to prevent any taxes or programs that penalize fossil fuel use. He said his effort is more aimed at stopping carbon dioxide emission taxes and limits from Congress, something he believes won’t happen during the Bush administration.Utilities Give Warming Skeptic Big Bucks – ah yes, the Bush administration…
Birdlife International has expressed some hopes biofuels can indeed help the environment; but is also highly concerned that growing crops for energy could lead to major negative impacts on biodiversity. For instance, farmland birds in Europe are under pressure; and plans to increase oil palmcultivation in se Asia threaten rainforest wildlife.
Brief info, and links to a Birdlife article and some info on a conference:
Unsustainable biofuels threaten the environmentI'd never heard of U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (a scary thought!), but doesn't look like he'll join the pantheon of great intellectuals of our time. Seems he earlier claimed global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." Now, more wackiness in an interview with Tulsa World. Includes:
Quote:It kind of reminds . . . I could use the Third Reich, the big lie," Inhofe said. … While declining to watch either the Gore movie or the Brokaw documentary, the senator said he armed himself with the statements used in both. "I know the text, and I know they are using old stuff that has been totally discredited," Inhofe said. "Everything on which they based their story, in terms of the facts, has been refuted scientifically."He offered his point-by-point response to both. They include such claims as that polar bear populations are shrinking along with their food supplies, and the glaciers in Glacier National Park are disappearing. Inhofe insists that the number of polar bears is not dropping and that some of the glaciers in the national park are actually getting bigger. [err, scientific references if you please, Senator]
As for the Kilimanjaro glacier, which reportedly is disappearing, Inhofe said the loss can be blamed on the cutting of trees, which once held the moisture. "One by one, you can refute everything they are saying," Inhofe said.
Heat wave has senator sticking to beliefs
Looks like if you don't bother with actual science, with bothersome things like peer-reviewed papers and suchlike, you can indeed refute everything "they"are saying. Much as you could claim, say, that genetics is a hoax, or that humans and dinosaurs co-existed (latter cited in an Esquire article:
Greetings from Idiot America; the senator may wish to read this sometime, including,
Quote:"In the place of expertise, we have elevated the Gut, and the Gut is a moron").I remember David Bellamy as an iconic figure of natural history tv; up to his thighs in bogs, he’d expound on plantlife in the big booming voice beloved of mimics – who also took to his immense beard. He even lectured at my first univ, tho I never saw him around there (I wasn’t in botany dept).
Later, when he came to Hong Kong, Bellamy pronounced that China could use 100 cities like Hong Kong, which to me seemed odd, as would hold over 600 million people, and Hong Kong is no model of sustainability. Wondered: has the chap been given too many meals by folk connected to big business.
Recently, come across Bellamy pronouncing on global warming as being “poppycock”. Turns out this was two years ago, in Britain’s Daily Mail, in an article that included:
Quote:Global warming – at least the modern nightmare version – is a myth. I am sure of it and so are a growing number of scientists. But what is really worrying is that the world’s politicians and policy makers are not.Instead, they have an unshakeable in what has, unfortunately, become one of the central credos of the environmental movement. Humans burn fossil fuels, which release increased levels of carbon dioxide – the principal so-called greenhouse gas – into the atmosphere, causing the atmosphere to heat up.
They say this is global warming: I say this is poppycock.
you can read the full text of the article on the site called (I’m not making this up) junk science:
Global Warming? What a load of poppycock!
– and maybe note that Junk Science has a major aim of debunking environmental science, and is linked to Exxon funding: googlefightI tried googling for refutations of Bellamy’s baloney; at first unsuccessul, but today come across guff from UK journalist George Monbiot; entertaining, including an exchange of letters, and Bellamy’s points re warming – even his ill-founded and since retracted idea that glaciers are on the whole advancing – indeed refuted.
Monbiot had a go at Bellamy in Goodbye, Kind World:Quote:Like almost all the climate change deniers, he based his claim on a petition produced in 1998 by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine and “signed by over 18,000 scientists”. Had Bellamy studied the signatories, he would have discovered that the “scientists” include Ginger Spice and the cast of MASH.(10) The Oregon Institute is run by a fundamentalist Christian called Arthur Robinson. Its petition was attached to what purported to be a scientific paper, printed in the font and format of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In fact, the paper had not been peer-reviewed or published in any scientific journal.(11) Anyone could sign the petition, and anyone did: only a handful of the signatories are experts in climatology,(12) and quite a few of them appear to have believed that they were signing a genuine paper.(13) And yet, six years later, this petition is still being wheeled out to suggest that climatologists say global warming isn’t happening.this prompted letter from Bellamy, and letter from Monbiot, then letter from Bellamy, another from Monbiot; Bellamy for some reason mainly covering pros and cons of wind power and not much re global warming:
Correspondence with David Bellamy
Monbiot followed up with another article:
Junk Science
Climate change denial, as David Bellamy’s claims show, is based on pure hocus pocus
this begins:For the past three weeks, a set of figures has been working a hole in my mind. On April 16th, New Scientist published a letter from the famous botanist David Bellamy. Many of the world’s glaciers, he claimed, “are not shrinking but in fact are growing. … 555 of all the 625 glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich, Switzerland, have been growing since 1980.”(1) His letter was instantly taken up by climate change deniers. And it began to worry me. What if Bellamy was right?
He is a scientist, formerly a senior lecturer at the University of Durham. He knows, in other words, that you cannot credibly cite data unless it is well-sourced. Could it be that one of the main lines of evidence of the impacts of global warming – the retreat of the world’s glaciers – was wrong?
includes:Quote:So last week I telephoned the World Glacier Monitoring Service and read out Bellamy’s letter. I don’t think the response would have been published in Nature, but it had the scientific virtue of clarity. “This is complete bullshit.”(3) A few hours later, they sent me an email.“Despite his scientific reputation, he makes all the mistakes that are possible”. He had cited data which was simply false, failed to provide references, completely misunderstood the scientific context and neglected current scientific literature.(4) The latest studies show unequivocally that most of the world’s glaciers are retreating.(5)
Post edited by: martin, at: 2006/07/24 10:41
Quote:Scientists worldwide are watching temperatures rise, the land turn dry and vast forests go up in flames.In the Siberian taiga and Canadian Rockies, in Southern California and Australia, researchers find growing evidence tying an upsurge in wildfires to climate change, an impact long predicted by global-warming forecasters.
A team at California’s Scripps Institution, in a headline-making report this month, found that warmer temperatures, causing earlier snow runoff and consequently drier summer conditions, were the key factor in an explosion of big wildfires in the U.S. West over three decades, including fires now rampaging east of Los Angeles.
Researchers previously reached similar conclusions in Canada, where fire is destroying an average of 6.4 million acres a year, compared with 2.5 million in the early 1970s. And an upcoming U.S.-Russian-Canadian scientific paper points to links between warming and wildfires in Siberia, where 2006 already qualifies as an extreme fire season, sixth in the past eight years. Far to the south in drought-stricken Australia, meanwhile, 2005 was the hottest year on record, and the dangerous bush fire season is growing longer.
“Temperature increases are intimately linked with increases in area burned in Canada, and I would expect the same worldwide,” said Mike Flannigan, a veteran Canadian Forest Service researcher….
Global warming, fire upsurge linked
INCREASED TEMPERATURES CAUSING DRIER SUMMERSSmuggled China poultry tracked after Mich. raid
Quote:DETROIT (Reuters) – Michigan health officials said on Wednesday they
were working to track frozen Chinese poultry smuggled into the United
States and found in a Detroit-area warehouse in a series of raids
over the past month.Officials said there was no sign the frozen chicken, duck and pigeon
carcasses — some packed with entrails intact — had been
contaminated with the deadly avian influenza virus.But state officials also said no testing for bird flu had been
carried out by the federal food safety regulators who had taken the
lead in an investigation that began in early June but was not made
public until this week.The contraband poultry, some labeled as tilapia in an apparent bid to
skirt an import ban, appears to have been imported in New York or New
Jersey, state officials said.At least 2,000 pounds of illegally imported food was seized in late
June and early July, state officials said…a following report:
Goose Parts From Bird Flu-Ridden China Lost in U.S. (Update1)
includes:Quote:July 14 (Bloomberg) — U.S. inspectors are probing the disappearance of four boxes of goose intestines smuggled from China, where bird flu is spreading.The Department of Agriculture had tagged about 100 pounds of goose guts, a delicacy used in some Chinese recipes, for destruction before they disappeared last week from a Troy, Michigan, warehouse, officials said today. Agency inspectors previously found about 2,000 pounds of frozen poultry shipped illegally from China at the same warehouse.
Smuggling of poultry products poses a risk for avian influenza, which has infected 230 people in 10 countries in Asia and the Middle East, killing 132. Frozen products pose less risk because they aren’t likely to spread virus to other birds, said Joseph Domenech, chief veterinary officer for the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, based in Rome.
“Nothing can be sure and everything can happen,” Domenech said in a telephone interview late yesterday. “This is smuggling and it’s totally uncontrolled.”
…Thousands of domesticated birds, including chickens, ducks and geese, are shipped illegally in airports in Europe every year, and health officials have said they are also concerned about H5N1 bird flu in smuggled poultry in Africa, Domenech said. Restrictions and surveillance in the U.S. probably keep the risk lower, he said.
…The Michigan warehouse case shows why health officials say arrival of the virus in the U.S. is inevitable, said Steve Brozak, an analyst with WBB Securities Inc. in New Jersey. He previously worked as a military liaison to the United Nations.
`Troubling Trend’
“It’s a troubling trend when you’re looking at the smuggling of any kind of livestock that might be vulnerable to H5N1,” he said in a telephone interview today. “This verifies that the arrival of H5N1 in America is a certainty. It’s just a matter of time.”
Post edited by: martin, at: 2006/07/15 11:45
Post edited by: Martin, at: 2007/01/04 19:36
Thanks, Coleman.
Yes, more details would be useful, but I doubt we’ll be given all info.Even if late May, timing odd for migratory birds.
Martin
Who cares re poultry trade, when you can be stupid and slipshod and blame wild birds, as in a new Nature paper suggesting migratory birds behind spread to Nigeria.
As noted by Richard Thomas of Birdlife:
Quote:The crucial sentence in this paper is in the next paragraph “The
poultry farming industry is second only to oil production in Nigeria
and is particularly vulnerable to the introduction of infectious
agents because chickens are imported from all over the world
without rigorous biosecurity safeguards.”We know Nigeria was suffering a shortage of day-old chicks, and to
meet this demand day-old chicks were being flown from Egypt to the
Niger Republic via Kano airport. The Nigerian Minister of Agriculture
publicly stated that chickens were being flown into Nigeria from
China on a daily basis.I find it astonishing these authors apparently consider the
coincidence of waterfowl migration routes of more significance than
trade routes. I wonder how many migrant waterfowl they have seen
inside closed, “biosecure” commerical poultry farms?It’s rather like claiming the recent UK Foot-and-Mouth outbreak
(first detected on a commerical pig farm) was introduced by flying
pigs, not trade.We’re never going to tackle the spread of the virus if crucial
evidence implicating the powerful global poultry industry as the
major vector is ignored.– to which, not a lot to add, tho:
“It’s not clear which species of migratory birds” said Osterhaus (in NY Times item). Well, we can tell them it’s clearly the Tooth Fairy Bird.
– and can wonder at these researchers evidently lacking access to info on situation in east Asia.What’s with so readily ignoring evidence right in front of our eyes (day-old chick smuggling such a prime suspect that even blamed by Nigerian officials, and belatedly FAO/OIE)?
What were funding sources for the paper, researchers, I wonder.Now comes an article suggesting that marine life such as coral not only threatened by warming, but also by more acidic oceans.
Article including:Quote:Current carbon dioxide levels are higher than they have been for at least 650,000 years, according to ice core data from the Arctic and Antarctic.Ocean acidity has already increased 30 percent since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century, said Richard Feely, an oceanographer at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle.
Just come across webpage that rightly notes:
Quote:Many right wing web sites, and rightwingers trolling around other web sites, make much of the “economic interest” of mainstream scientists in finding that global warming exists and is man-made. Missing from their oddly similar (virtually identical) statements environmentalist bias is any concern at all with who makes up the movement opposing man-made global warming, and where they get their money.– continues with info on ExxonMobil funding various global warming sceptics and their organizations.
Who makes up (& funds) the “opposition” to global warming?Gives link to a site ExposeExxon which says:
Quote:As one of the world’s most profitable companies, ExxonMobil has the power to move the world toward a more sustainable energy future. Instead, ExxonMobil has acted consistently to move our country backward on energy policy by opposing efforts to stop global warming, lobbying to drill in America’s most pristine wilderness areas, and failing to promote renewable energy and fuel efficiency.– and in turn has a link to a site by Greenpeace:
ExxonSecrets.org – which has a list of global warming sceptic organizations receiving funding from Exxon, plus more info such as on personnel. Whew! – a long, long list, and some such as Greening Earth Society sound like they might be greenies [info says “A project of the Western Fuels Association founded to promote the idea that global warming is beneficial to the planet.”!!]
. World Climate Report sounds very grand; but mainly Pat Michaels and some buddies, not all of whom seem too worldly, and with further links to Western Fuels.Post edited by: martin, at: 2006/07/05 16:28
Letter on a US news site includes:
Quote:… most of the anti-warming folks you see on TV have their degrees in health or environmental policy, as opposed to being research scientists.Then they treat the various speakers’ opinions equally despite the fact that they don’t have equal resumes. How ironic from the network that decries celebrity pundits for their lack of subject-matter expertise.
The problem with the “Earth is fine” folks is that they give this issue scientific latitude that they would not give any other topic.
If you were suffering from angina and you saw a team of 10 doctors, nine of whom were heart specialists who told you that you needed a heart operation immediately or you might die, and one chiropractor who told you that it was unnecessary and you were just suffering from gas, you would go with the opinion of the nine heart specialists.
Profoundly stupid conclusion to a rambling, babbling piece on global warming:
Quote:Because the truth is – however unbelievable and inconvenient it may be to some – that God controls the Earth’s fate, even when we do our worst to it.Are warnings of global warming the new Tower of Babel?
– so if this guy’s house were to catch fire, he wouldn’t do anything, just leaving its fate to God? Trouble is, here we’re talking of the planet, not this guy’s house. Deeply troubling that my future, my family’s future – and your future – depends partly on idiots like this.
from the Independent – evidence supporting ideas that even as planet warmer overall, Britain [and elsewhere in nw Europe] could experience colder winters than have been the norm of late.
Quote:By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 30 June 2006
Greenland’s melting glaciers have the power to change Britain’s climate because of the way they can interfere with the Gulf Stream of the North Atlantic, which keeps winters relatively mild.Scientists have found the first hard evidence to show that this actually happened 8,200 years ago, when the climate in parts of the northern hemisphere cooled dramatically after a period of global warming.
Paradoxically, a warmer world could lead to harsher winters in Britain because of the way that melting freshwater from the Greenland ice cap can interfere with the saltwater engine that drives the Gulf Stream
Has seemed many Americans have been happy to drive around in SUVs and so on, and if the US of A weather seemed ok, never mind about the rest of the world, they’d just keep on truckin. Recent hurricanes, now these rainstorms, plus a few other oddities weather-wise, may now give a few more of the gung-ho gas-guzzlers pause for thought. (Not all, of course; saw one article labelling Gore and others who are concerned re warming as "Marxists". Duh, not much thought there, and not for a thoughtful audience either.)
Quote:By Jason Szep BOSTON, June 29 (Reuters) – Images of swamped homes in the U.S. Northeast deepened suspicions over global warming, giving ammunition to scientists and others who say greenhouse gas-spewing cars and factories are fueling extreme weather. Meteorologists cautioned that no one should read too much into one storm. But the Atlantic Ocean is unusually warm for this time of year, they said, creating excess moisture in the atmosphere that can swiftly build a powerful rainstorm.Paul Epstein, associate director of Harvard Medical School’s Center for Health and the Global Environment, said the Atlantic is warming faster than scientists projected even a decade ago, and he expects such storms as the one seen this week from Virginia to New York to become common.
"Scientists and climatologists are looking at one another and we’re just stunned because no one, even in the 1990s, projected the magnitude of the storms and degree of warming in the Arctic that we are seeing," he said. Epstein sees a clear pattern: rain has increased in the United States by 7 percent in three decades; heavy rain events of more than 2 inches (5 cm) a day are up 14 percent and storms dumping more than 4 inches (10 cm) a day rose 20 percent.
Northeast U.S. floods stir global warming debate
Union of Concerned Scientists’ site has list of some global warming skeptics organizations – which may have fancy names, like Global Cimate Coalition, Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine, but are sometimes just pipsqueak groups, and/or backed by conservatives coupled with energy industry.
Responding to Global Warming Skeptics
—Prominent Skeptics OrganizationsFor debunking of several of notions put forward to suggest global warming isn’t real, or isn’t a problem if it is, see this page by US Environmental Defense Fund:
Global Warming: Fact vs. Mythlest you figure the skeptics are all unbiased folk, also check out the fund’s page on (US) global warming skeptics, and their funding; notice Exxon Mobil’s name keeps cropping up for funding research:
Global Warming Skeptics: A Primer
Guess Who’s Funding the Global Warming Doubt Shops?Post edited by: martin, at: 2006/07/28 01:55
"Ghana: Bird flu smugglers too smart for Authorities" Security agencies in the Brong-Ahafo Region have been called upon to help the bird flu monitoring teams check smugglers and importers of poultry products from La Cote d’Ivoire. The smugglers are said to be outwitting the monitoring teams who lack the logistics to effectively enforce the ban on the importation of poultry products from that country. During a press conference organised by the National Task Force on the bird flu in collaboration with United States International Development Agency (USAID), the Chairman of the Dormaa District Poultry Farmers Association, Kwabena Asamoah Asare disclosed that most of the culprits are poultry farmers in Dormaa who have resorted to the smuggling of eggs into Ghana on a large scale. He said that the smugglers were not likely to give up their diabolical trade, and appealed to the security agencies to lend their support to the task force in the monitoring operations. Last Tuesday, about 1 500 crates of smuggled eggs were seized and destroyed by a task force set up by the Dormaa District Assembly to monitor the importation of poultry products from neighbouring countries. The eggs were seized and destroyed not because they were infected by the bird flu virus but because they were smuggled in defiance of the ban against all poultry products from that country….
Australian Academy of Science believes that, with changing rainfall patterns, higher temperatures, global warming is set to impact many Australian species. Especially montane species such as pygmy possum and alpine plants.
Impact of global warming on biodiversity
