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Saving the Earth from Ourselves + IPCC report: Human-caused warming is ‘unequivocal’

Ents admiring themselves - 6523

Image by Tim J Keegan via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

UN: Greenland ice melting six times faster than previous decades

TheRealNews on Sep 27, 2013

Environmental expert Subhankar Banerjee breaks down the latest UN climate change report.

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Saving the Earth from Ourselves

Transcript: Moyers & Company


http://vimeo.com/75550361
September 27, 2013

[…]

On this week’s broadcast Bill Moyers talked with the executive director of Greenpeace International, Kumi Naidoo, about the fate of the Arctic Sunrise and the charges of piracy brought against the crew of 30. Naidoo tells Bill, “If there’s injustice in the world, those of us that have the ability to witness it and to record it, document it and tell the world what is happening have a moral responsibility to do that. Then, of course, it’s left up to those that are receiving that knowledge to make the moral choice about whether they want to stand up against the injustice or observe it.”

In an essay following the conversation, Moyers links Naidoo’s courage in speaking truth to power with an account of the recent visit by Pope Francis to Sardinia, the Mediterranean island known for its beautifully beaches and palatial homes owned by the richest of the rich. Sardinia is now blighted by widespread joblessness – 51 percent of its young people are out of work — and as the pope heard the stories of desperation and deprivation, he threw away his prepared speech and decried a global economic system “that does us so much harm.” The story leads Bill to conclude that unless we “dethrone our present system of financial capitalism that rewards those at the top” while everyone else is struggling, “it will consume us” and democracy will be finished.

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IPCC report: Human-caused warming is ‘unequivocal’

Climate & Capitalism

Sept. 27, 2013

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released its Fifth Assessment Report on the Physical Science Basis for Climate Change. It summarizes what scientists now know about the causes and extent of climate change.

It concludes that it is “extremely likely” that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century, and that the observed changes “ are unprecedented over decades to millennia.”

“Global surface temperature change for the end of the 21st century is projected to be likely to exceed 1.5°C relative to 1850 to 1900 in all but the lowest scenario considered, and likely to exceed 2°C for the two high scenarios,” said Co-Chair Thomas Stocker. “Heat waves are very likely to occur more frequently and last longer. As the Earth warms, we expect to see currently wet regions receiving more rainfall, and dry regions receiving less, although there will be exceptions.”

The report finds with high confidence that ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010.

[…]

via http://climateandcapitalism.com/2013/09/27/ipcc-report-human-caused-warming-unequivocal/

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As IPCC Warns of Climate Disaster, Will Scientific Consensus Spark Action on Global Warming?

democracynow on Sep 26, 2013

http://www.democracynow.org – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is set to issue its strongest warning yet that climate change is caused by humans, and that the world will cause more heat waves, droughts and floods unless governments take action to drastically reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses. The IPCC report, released every six years, incorporates the key findings from thousands of articles published in scientific journals, concluding with at least 95 percent certainty that human activities have caused most of Earth’s temperature rise since 1950, and will continue to do so in the future. “Drought is the number one threat we face from climate change because it affects the two things we need to live: food and water,” says Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Weather Underground. We also speak to Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo.

See also:

http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/

From the archives:

Why Labor Unions Need to Join the Climate Fight by Naomi Klein

Extreme weather, more extreme greenhouse gas emissions beckon urgent activism by Patrick Bond

The Seeds of Hope by Tristan A. Shaw

Shift — Beyond the Numbers of the Climate Crisis + Coalition Of The Willing

Global Heat Emergency by Alex Smith