Global warming 'irreversible' for next 1000 years: study

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Climate change is "largely

irreversible" for the next 1,000 years even if carbon

dioxide (CO2) emissions could be abruptly halted,

according to a new study led by the US National Oceanic

and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The study's authors said there was "no going back" after

the report showed that changes in surface temperature,

rainfall and sea level are "largely irreversible for more

than 1,000 years after CO2 emissions are completely

stopped."

NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon said the study,

published in this week's Proceedings of the National

Academy of Sciences journal, showed that current human

choices on carbon dioxide emissions are set to

"irreversibly change the planet."

Researchers examined the consequences of CO2

building up beyond present-day concentrations of 385

parts per million, and then completely stopping emissions

after the peak. Before the industrial age CO2 in Earth's

atmosphere amounted to only 280 parts per million.

The study found that CO2 levels are irreversibly impacting

climate change, which will contribute to global sea level

rise and rainfall changes in certain regions.

The authors emphasized that increases in CO2 that occur

from 2000 to 2100 are set to "lock in" a sea level rise

over the next 1,000 years.

Rising sea levels would cause "irreversible commitments

to future changes in the geography of the Earth, since

many coastal and island features would ultimately become

submerged," the study said.

Decreases in rainfall that last for centuries can be

expected to have a range of impacts, said the authors.

Regional impacts include -- but are not limited to --

decreased human water supplies, increased fire

frequency, ecosystem change and expanded deserts.

轉貼自︰

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090127/sc_afp/uswarmingenvironmentclimate;_ylt=AivCsd9lX0A4lI3ewd1JVcsbr7sF

Mass migrations and war: Dire climate scenario

CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – If we don't deal with climate

change decisively, "what we're talking about then is

extended world war," the eminent economist said.

His audience Saturday, small and elite, had been stranded

here by bad weather and were talking climate. They

couldn't do much about the one, but the other was

squarely in their hands. And so, Lord Nicholas Stern was

telling them, was the potential for mass migrations setting

off mass conflict.

"Somehow we have to explain to people just how worrying

that is," the British economic thinker said.

Stern, author of a major British government report

detailing the cost of climate change, was one of a select

group of two dozen — environment ministers, climate

negotiators and experts from 16 nations — scheduled to

fly to Antarctica to learn firsthand how global warming

might melt its ice into the sea, raising ocean levels

worldwide.

...

"International diplomacy is all about personal relations,"

Solheim said. "The more people know each other, the less

likely there will be misunderstandings."

Understandings will be vital in this "year of climate," as the

world's nations and their negotiators count down toward a

U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen in December,

target date for concluding a grand new deal to replace the

Kyoto Protocol — the 1997 agreement, expiring in 2012,

to reduce carbon dioxide and other global-warming

emissions by industrial nations.

Solheim drew together key players for the planned brief

visit to Norway's Troll Research Station in East

Antarctica.

Trying on polar outfits for size on Friday were China's

chief climate negotiator Xie Zhenhua, veteran U.S.

climate envoy Dan Reifsnyder, and environment ministers

Hilary Benn of Britain and Carlos Minc Baumfeld of Brazil.

Later, at dinner, the heavyweights heard from smaller or

poorer nations about the trials they face as warming

disrupts climate, turns some regions drier, threatens food

production in poor African nations.

Jose Endundo, environment minister of Congo, said he

recently visited huge Lake Victoria in nearby Uganda, at

80,000 square kilometers (31,000 square miles) a vital

source for the Nile River, and learned the lake level had

dropped 3 meters (10 feet) in the past six years — a loss

blamed in part on warmer temperatures and diminishing

rains.

In the face of such threats, "the rich countries have to

give us a helping hand," the African minister said.

But it was Stern, former chief World Bank economist, who

on Saturday laid out a case to his stranded companions in

sobering PowerPoint detail.

If the world's nations act responsibly, Stern said, they will

achieve "zero-carbon" electricity production and zero-

carbon road transport by 2050 — by replacing coal power

plants with wind, solar or other energy sources that emit

no carbon dioxide, and fossil fuel-burning vehicles with

cars running on electric or other "clean" energy.

Then warming could be contained to a 2-degree-Celsius

(3.4-degree-Fahrenheit) rise this century, he said.

But if negotiators falter, if emissions reductions are not

made soon and deep, the severe climate shifts and sea-

level rises projected by scientists would be "disastrous."

It would "transform where people can live," Stern said.

"People would move on a massive scale. Hundreds of

millions, probably billions of people would have to move if

you talk about 4-, 5-, 6-degree increases" — 7 to 10

degrees Fahrenheit. And that would mean extended global

conflict, "because there's no way the world can handle

that kind of population move in the time period in which it

would take place."

Melting ice, rising seas, dwindling lakes and war — the

stranded ministers had a lot to consider. But many

worried, too, that the current global economic crisis will

keep governments from transforming carbon-dependent

economies just now. For them, Stern offered a vision of

working today on energy-efficient economies that would

be more "sustainable" in the future.

"The unemployed builders of Europe should be insulating

all the houses of Europe," he said.

After he spoke, Norwegian organizers announced that the

forecast looked good for Stern and the rest to fly south on

Sunday to further ponder the future while meeting with

scientists in the forbidding vastness of Antarctica.

轉貼自︰       

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090221/ap_on_sc/af_climate_stranded;_ylt=AkgjI2JCoCJB4P2DetlSH6Mbr7sF

本文於 修改第 5 次

「聯合國去年12月1日在波蘭開會，”決議”全球暖化是事實（這個..應該是科學上不能證實，所以要用決議的）。」(http://blog.udn.com/martinique/2561315)

我將你上文中「決議」一詞所連接的報導轉貼於下，並將其第一段翻譯成中文。

我看不出全文中有任何一段文字可以被合理性的詮釋或解讀成：

「『決議』全球暖化是事實。」

由於你的詮釋和所詮釋現實不相容或不登對，我合理懷疑你的觀點可能是被某些「意識型態」洗腦所致。

我曾說過：

「... 這是當前任何一個國家的經濟政策(包括美國、北韓、和古巴)都只能以『混合經濟』來描述的原因。今天並沒有，歷史上也從來沒有，『純種』的資本主義、社會主義、或任何『XX主義』。」

你的評論常以「資本主義」和「社會主義」這種簡單的二分法做論述基礎或修詞性的表達。就我的了解，客氣的說，這種思考方式已經過時(麥加錫時代？)；嚴格的說，這種思考方式是一種「意識型態」，或被「意識型態」洗腦所致，也就是一種「虛偽意識」或「宰制論述」。

在金融風暴搞得全球經濟衰退和失業人數暴增後，還抱著「『純種』(？)資本主義」或「傳統基金會」的論述不放，不亦不識時務或過於偏執乎？

不論高爾的主張如何，我相信沒有一個理性的人會稱他為社會主義者、有社會主義背景、或「社會主義」的代言人。

****************************

在波茲南舉行的聯合國氣候改變討論會，於12月13日(星期六)獲得與會政府代表就氣候改變議題的明確承諾。此承諾的要點包括：

1.  各國政府將於2009年就氣候改變議題進行積極的協商以形成針對氣候改變的全面及有效的國際性應付方案。

2.  此方案預定於2009年年底在哥本哈根由與會者討論通過。

3.  方案的第一個具體草案應於2009年六月在波昂召開的UNFCCC會議時完成。

*****************************

The United Nations Climate Change Conference in

Poznań on Saturday 13 December with a clear

commitment from governments to shift into full negotiating

mode next year in order to shape an ambitious and

effective international response to climate change, to be

agreed in Copenhagen at the end of 2009. Parties agreed

that the first draft of a concrete negotiating text would be

available at a UNFCCC gathering in Bonn in June of 2009.

At Poznań, the finishing touches were put to the Kyoto

Protocol’s Adaptation Fund, with Parties agreeing that the

Fund would be a legal entity granting direct access to

developing countries. Progress was also made on a

number of important ongoing issues that are particularly

important for developing countries, including: adaptation;

finance; technology; reducing emissions from

deforestation and forest degradation (REDD); and

disaster management.

A key event at the Conference was a ministerial round

table on a shared vision on long-term cooperative action

on climate change. The round table provided the

opportunity to lay the foundations for further work on the

components of an agreed outcome at COP 15 in

Copenhagen. Further, it sent a clear message regarding

the need to continue to build momentum on the many

points of convergence among all nations. The next major

UNFCCC gathering will take place from 29 March to 8

April 2009 in Bonn, Germany.

本文於 修改第 4 次