Climate Change Could Result in Certain Areas Becoming Uninhabitable Like Mars

Huffington Post - Michael Lazar



Climate change could impact the Middle East by the mid-century, say leading experts and scientists. Its wide-reaching effects could result in massive regions in the Middle East and in Africa being rendered uninhabitable.
According to researchers at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and The Cyprus Institute in Nicosia, extreme heat days in these areas have increased twofold since the 70s, and could become so hot in the years to come that human beings would be unable to inhabit them.
During the hotter days, these regions can routinely see temperatures that exceed 110 degrees Fahrenheit. But if climate change continues unabated, this could increase to 114 degrees by the year 2050, and peak at 122 degrees by the year 2100.
According to the study's lead author, Jos Lelieveld, who is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, "Prolonged heat waves and desert dust storms can render some regions uninhabitable, which will surely contribute to the pressure to migrate."
The heat waves could result in the displacement of more than 500 million people when all is said and done.
To create this dire prediction, the researchers studied data that goes all the way back the mid-80s. Using this technique, they were able to accurately predict modern day heat waves and temperature patterns.
The study compared what would happen if fossil fuels were reduced over the next 100 years, and what would happen if they were not, to create a predictive model.
From the years 1986 to 2005, heat waves in these areas were confined to 16 days on average.
But by the middle of the century, they could last as many as 80 days, and by the end of the century they could last over 100 days.
The study noted that these regions could experience 200 warm or hot days by the middle to end of the century if something is not done to curb climate change.
A hot topic for debate, there are arguments on both sides of the climate change topic. But the reality is that one way or another the world is heating up. Modern science, and the community at large believes that humans have helped speed up this process, at the very least, or are vast contributors to it.
If changes are not made soon, we could see hotspot regions that emulate Mars on our home planet.

The Growing Stress On The World’s Water

Washington Post - Editorial Board

A farmer carrying a hoe walks past a dried-up pond in Shilin Yi Autonomous County of Kunming, Yunnan province February 28, 2013. (STRINGER/CHINA/REUTERS)

THE WORLD Bank has warned countries that one of climate change's most significant impacts will be on a precious resource that many people, particularly in advanced nations, take for granted: water. The concerns go far beyond sea-level rise, which is perhaps the most predictable result of the planet's increasing temperature, or an uptick in extreme weather. Countries must worry about whether their people will have enough fresh water to farm, produce electricity, bathe and drink.
Global warming will not change the amount of water in the world, but it will affect water's distribution across countries, making some much worse off. The World Bank calculates that water strain from population growth and climate change could reduce growth in some major economies by an astonishing 6 percent by 2050. That would push some countries into "sustained negative growth," which would mean prolonged suffering for millions of people.
The countries most responsible for climate change are not most at risk; instead, a belt of nations from Africa through the Middle East to central and east Asia are in most danger, the World Bank concluded. And within those relatively poor countries, water stresses "are felt disproportionately by the poor, who are more likely to rely on rain-fed agriculture to feed their families, live on the most marginal lands which are more prone to floods, and are most at risk from contaminated water and inadequate sanitation."
About 4 billion people already live in areas suffering from water stress. By 2030, "the world may face a shortfall in water availability of approximately 2,700 billion cubic meters," the bank reports, "with demand exceeding current sustainable water supplies by 40 percent." Though the bank tamps down speculation that countries will fight with one another for water, it warns that water scarcity could encourage other sorts of conflict and dislocation, such as civil wars.
The first order of business is to limit the amount of warming humans will induce. That means slashing the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for driving up global temperatures. The world has started down this path, but the effectiveness of the global climate effort likely depends, in the first instance, on the results of this year's presidential election.
And limiting emissions will not be enough. Warming is happening, areas of the world are already experiencing significant water challenges, and population growth will place increasing demands on existing resources. Countries have to manage water use more rationally.
As California's drought exposed, the United States is hardly a great role model. Rather, the answer is to treat water like any other precious resource: Create a fair and transparent market for it, allowing supply to meet demand, which will let the water flow to its most efficient uses. Meanwhile, governments should invest in water storage and gird their infrastructure against floods and other extreme weather events.
Reforms that override the parochial arrangements that often govern water access will not be easy. But, as the World Bank made clear, the alternative may be widespread misery.

Now You See Them, Now You Don't

Crikey - Comment

While Australia's political leaders trade barbs on climate change, rising seas have swallowed five of the Solomon Islands.




The Coalition announced its big election agenda this week with nary a mention of climate change. Bill Shorten, whose party has finally committed to an actual plan to combat climate change and significantly reduce carbon emissions, capitalised on the omission.
"[Malcolm Turnbull] famously said that he did not want to lead a party that was not interested in climate change. Now he has airbrushed climate change out of his presentation altogether," Shorten said.
Turnbull hit back, claiming the Coalition's uninspiring target was enough, and that Labor's plan would cause electricity prices to rise.
And besides, he said, Australia had committed to the Paris agreement and would review its targets again later, in concert with the international community.
"The way these targets will rise in the future … is by mutual agreement. So one nation will say, 'We'll go up a bit more if you go up a bit more.' That is the way these agreements are put together."

Tell that to the Solomon Islands …

Election 2016: Real Climate Change Demands Real Solutions

Sydney Morning Herald - Editorial

The common link between Labor's plans and Direct Action shows Australia now has the seeds of a bipartisan approach. All that remains is for Malcolm Turnbull to silence the deniers and stop the scare campaigns. Mr Shorten should seek out like-minded Coalition partners, too.

The share of coal in our power generation is increasing. Photo: Michele Mossop

It suits Labor to keep climate change under the election radar, given the party's well-based fear of a 2013-style scare campaign. The Coalition has already wheeled out the "carbon tax mark II" and "massive energy tax" lines amid questionable claims that Labor's policy will hike electricity prices.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, however, doesn't want to focus on global warming either. He knows the issue reminds voters of the rift between his "climate science is settled" colleagues and the climate sceptics who coalesce around former leader Tony Abbott.
What's more, Mr Turnbull knows that the government's expensive Direct Action plan that uses taxpayer funds to pay polluters to reduce emissions will have to become a price-based scheme – akin to Labor's policy – to be a credible long-term solution.
But try as they might, neither party can avoid global warming.
Symbolically, the Cape Grim climate monitoring site in north-western Tasmania could record its first baseline reading of 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere within 10 days. Once that marker is passed, scientists say it is unlikely to go back. That would be a reliable indicator of the effect of burning of fossil fuels and clearing land.
Practically, disturbing photographs are emerging of coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef – in part due to the runoff from coal mines and warmer waters. The Solomon Islands is losing islands to rising sea levels and even the unseasonably warm autumnal days are a niggling reminder of the issue.
Yes, the Turnbull government has reversed some of Mr Abbott's attacks on climate agencies, and committed to the global fight. Mr Turnbull has also made Direct Action adaptable to higher targets.
Yet emissions from the eastern states electricity grid are still rising. The share of coal in our power generation is increasing. And even prominent officials at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are warning against any cuts to Australian research into climate change.
No-one outside the government believes Direct Action in its current form can meet our global commitments.
Labor's response is a 45 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030 based on 2005 levels. This is more than the government's 26-28 per cent promise in Paris in December and pledge to raise targets only in tandem with the global community.
Labor hopes to curb vehicle emissions and have cleaner power stations pay dirty brown-coal ones to shut down. For a few years big polluters across the economy would have to buy cheap international permits if they exceeded a cap on emissions. For the longer term, Labor would talk to unions and business about creating an economy-wide emissions trading scheme from 2020.
Yes, Labor would protect some local manufacturers and cut funds from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
But Labor also offers an ambitious, and some say risky, target of having 50 per cent of Australia's electricity generated from renewable sources by 2030, with the added bonus of more green jobs. The Coalition has reduced the renewable energy target to 23 per cent by 2020.
Given the hefty cost of shifting to more renewables, Labor needs to reduce the price risk for consumers. The solution is to force generators to operate more cleanly or pay a penalty – in effect ensuring the cleanest plants have an economic advantage.
Such a system is just like the safeguards mechanism in Mr Turnbull's Direct Action policy. To stop some polluters boosting emissions even as others are paid to reduce theirs, Direct Action sets a base level for pollution. The trick comes in 2017 when a review of the safeguards can gradually require the emitters to pollute less. If they cannot, they will need to buy permits off cleaner producers, thereby creating a price on Australian pollution without jacking up power bills. Liberal Party modelling assumes this shift to a market-based scheme like Labor's. The alternative is for Direct Action to pay polluters many billions more dollars to clean up their acts.
The common link between Labor's plans and Mr Turnbull's is crucial. Australia now has the seeds of a bipartisan approach to climate change. All that remains is for Mr Turnbull to silence the deniers and stop the scare campaigns. Mr Shorten should seek out like-minded Coalition partners, too. As we argued in December, this election must focus on finding the polices that work most efficiently to meet increasingly difficult and costly targets.