global warming

The climate is changing. The earth is warming up, and there is now overwhelming scientific consensus that it is happening, and human-induced. With global warming on the increase and species and their habitats on the decrease, chances for ecosystems to adapt naturally are diminishing. Many are agreed that climate change may be one of the greatest threats facing the planet. Recent years show increasing temperatures in various regions, and/or increasing extremities in weather patterns. This section looks at what causes climate change, what the impacts are and where scientific consensus currently is. Last updated Tuesday, January 01, 2008.
Read article: Climate Change and Global Warming Introduction

Research has shown that air pollutants from fossil fuel use make clouds reflect more of the sun’s rays back into space. This leads to an effect known as global dimming whereby less heat and energy reaches the earth. At first, it sounds like an ironic savior to climate change problems. However, it is believed that global dimming caused the droughts in Ethiopia in the 1970s and 80s where millions died, because the northern hemisphere oceans were not warm enough to allow rain formation. Global dimming is also hiding the true power of global warming. By cleaning up global dimming-causing pollutants without tackling greenhouse gas emissions, rapid warming has been observed, and various human health and ecological disasters have resulted, as witnessed during the European heat wave in 2003, which saw thousands of people die. Posted Saturday, January 15, 2005.
Read article: Global Dimming

The world mostly agrees that something needs to be done about global warming and climate change. The first stumbling block, however, has been trying to get an agreement on a framework. In 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meterological Organization (WMO) to assess the scientific knowledge on global warming. The IPCC concluded in 1990 that there was broad international consensus that climate change was human-induced. That report led way to an international convention for climate change, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), signed by over 150 countries at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. This section looks at this Convention and some of the main principles in it. Last updated Saturday, December 25, 2004.
Read article: UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

The United States plus a few other countries, and many large corporations have been against climate change treaties due to the fear of the threat to their economy and profits if they have to make substantial changes, as well as the fear of realizing that perhaps their methods have been the primary contributors to the problem. This section explores some of those fears to see if they are justified or not. Last updated Wednesday, February 14, 2007.
Read article: Reactions to Climate Change Negotiations and Action

For many years, large, influential businesses and governments have been against the idea of global warming. Many have poured a lot of resources into discrediting what has generally been accepted for a long time as real. Now, the mainstream is generally worried about climate change impacts and the discourse seems to have shifted accordingly. Even some businesses that once engaged in disinformation campaigns have changed their opinions, some even requesting governments for regulation and direction on this issue. However, a few influential companies and organizations are still attempting to undermine climate change action and concerns. Will all this mean a different type of spin and propaganda with attempts at “green washing” and misleading information becoming the norm, or will there now be major shift in attitudes to see concrete solutions being proposed and implemented? Last updated Sunday, March 18, 2007.

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