From the HSDL, see this new posting: EPA Adds New Indicators in Updated Climate Change Report
EPA’s Indicators of Climate Change
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Category Archives: Climate Change
Impacts of Climate Change on National Landmarks
From the Homeland Security Digital Library, see The impacts of climate change can be devastating to U.S. infrastructure
The natural disasters it induces (rising seas, floods, droughts, wildfires, etc.) can damage buildings, sever power lines, contaminate water, and destroy agriculture. Most of these assets are easily repaired or replaced, but what about damage done to infrastructure that holds sentimental value to the nation? Can the values and ideals they represent be as easily recovered? This “sentimental infrastructure” refers to the nation’s “iconic landmarks and heritage sites,” which the Union of Concerned Scientists argues are now being seriously threatened by the impacts of climate change.
Direct link to the report: National Landmarks At Risk Report. (84 pp.)
Just Out – White House National Climate Assessment
This morning CNN featured this article: White House sets out looming climate risks for U.S., calls for ‘urgent action’. The article links to this National Climate Assessment website. I am still working through the details but there does not seem to be one report; there are various component parts. Somewhere I read the full report is 1,100 pages, so clearly something had to be done to make it readable. The 12 page Summary is here; you have to download the pdf file and then open it.
Here is another info source; I got this one from the NY Times.
Cimate Action Needed – ASAP
U.N. Climate Panel Warns Speedier Action Is Needed to Avert Disaster. Intro begins:
The countries of the world have dragged their feet so long on global warming that the situation is now critical, experts appointed by the United Nations reported Sunday, and only an intensive worldwide push over the next 15 years can stave off potentially disastrous climatic changes later in the century.
Global Warming and Civil Strife
From the AP, this article about a new UN report: UN Report: Global Warming Worsens Security Woes
In an authoritative report due out Monday a United Nations climate panel for the first time is connecting hotter global temperatures to hotter global tempers. Top scientists are saying that climate change will complicate and worsen existing global security problems, such as civil wars, strife between nations and refugees.
They’re not saying it will cause violence, but will be an added factor making things even more dangerous. Fights over resources, like water and energy, hunger and extreme weather will all go into the mix to destabilize the world a bit more, says the report by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The main UN site for press info and the full report on Monday the 31st is here. Regarding the scientific base of the report, note this quote:
The report is based on more than 12,000 peer reviewed scientific studies. Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, a co-sponsor of the climate panel, said this report was “the most solid evidence you can get in any scientific discipline.”
Article from the Wash. Post on March 31; U.N. climate panel: Governments, businesses need to take action now against growing risks
Global warming is hurting the poor and may lead to more civil wars and amplified economic shocks as its effects grow more severe, a U.N. group says.
More on Climate Change
Scientists to climate change skeptics: Get real
Much of the extreme weather that wreaked havoc in Asia, Europe and the Pacific region last year can be blamed on human-induced climate change, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
The U.N. weather agency’s annual assessment Monday said 2013 was the sixth-warmest year on record. Thirteen of the 14 warmest years have occurred in the 21st century.
Rising sea levels has led to increasing damage from storm surges and coastal flooding, as demonstrated by Typhoon Haiyan, the agency’s Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said. The typhoon in November killed at least 6,100 people and caused $13 billion in damage to the Philippines and Vietnam.
Australia, meanwhile, had its hottest year on record.“Many of the extreme events of 2013 were consistent with what we would expect as a result of human-induced climate change,” Jarraud said.
As of March 28th, more new studies on climate change.
Two Major Scientists Face off on Climate Change
Mayor Bloomberg Has New Position at UN
New York City’s former mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has a new job. Bloomberg appointed U.N. envoy for cities, climate change
The billionaire media mogul has been appointed special envoy for cities and climate change, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced Friday.
Bloomberg will assist Ban in consultations with mayors and others “to raise political will and mobilize action among cities as part of his long-term strategy to advance efforts on climate change,” he added in a statement.
Those efforts include bringing solutions to the climate summit Ban is hosting in September in New York.
FEMA Is Not Dealing Adequately With Climate Change
From Bloomberg News: FEMA: Caught Between Climate Change and Congress . This is a complex issue, with many facets. and FEMA is only partly to blame. Please read the entire 5-page article for more details. Some excerpts:
Thanks to climate change, extreme weather disasters have hammered the United States with increasing frequency in recent years—from drought and wildfires to coastal storms and flooding. It is perhaps surprising, then, that the U.S. agency in charge of preparing for and responding to these disasters, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), doesn’t account for climate change in most of its budget planning and resource allocation or in the National Flood Insurance Program it administers.
“Climate change is affecting everything the agency does, and yet it isn’t given much consideration,” said Michael Crimmins, an environmental scientist at the University of Arizona who is leading a project to try to improve FEMA’s use of climate science data. “FEMA has to be climate literate in a way that many other agencies don’t have to be.”
A main problem, he and other experts say, is that FEMA doesn’t use short- or long-term climate science projections to determine how worsening global warming may affect its current operations and the communities it serves. Instead, FEMA continues to base its yearly budget and activities almost entirely on historical natural disaster records. That practice is exacerbated by the fact that the agency is at the mercy of economic and political pressures. In addition to having to deal with years of recession that ate into its budget, FEMA has repeatedly been caught in the crosshairs of partisan politics that forced funding cuts and blocked proposed increases.
New World Bank Report on Integrating Climate and Disaster Risk into Development
The World Bank has issued a two volume report on Building Resilience: Integrating Climate and Disaster Risk into Development. Main report is 58 pp. and Exec. Summary is 9 pp.
I especially like the graphic shown as Fig. B on page 10 of the report. This is a high quality publication, as is generally true of the World Bank.
Recovery Diva 