National Geographic Says Global Warming is Real

[kidicarus20]

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0409/index.html

There's no question that the Earth is getting hotter—and fast. The real questions are: How much of the warming is our fault, and are we willing to slow the meltdown by curbing our insatiable appetite for fossil fuels?


Get a taste of what awaits you in print from this compelling excerpt.

Global warming can seem too remote to worry about, or too uncertain—something projected by the same computer techniques that often can't get next week's weather right. On a raw winter day you might think that a few degrees of warming wouldn't be such a bad thing anyway. And no doubt about it: Warnings about climate change can sound like an environmentalist scare tactic, meant to force us out of our cars and cramp our lifestyles.

Comforting thoughts, perhaps. But turn to "GeoSigns," the first chapter in our report on the changing planet. The Earth has some unsettling news.

From Alaska to the snowy peaks of the Andes the world is heating up right now, and fast. Globally, the temperature is up 1°F (.5°C) over the past century, but some of the coldest, most remote spots have warmed much more. The results aren't pretty. Ice is melting, rivers are running dry, and coasts are eroding, threatening communities. Flora and fauna are feeling the heat too, as you'll read in "EcoSigns." These aren't projections; they are facts on the ground.

The changes are happening largely out of sight. But they shouldn't be out of mind, because they are omens of what's in store for the rest of the planet.

Wait a minute, some doubters say. Climate is notoriously fickle. A thousand years ago Europe was balmy and wine grapes grew in England; by 400 years ago the climate had turned chilly and the Thames froze repeatedly. Maybe the current warming is another natural vagary, just a passing thing?

Don't bet on it, say climate experts. Sure, the natural rhythms of climate might explain a few of the warming signs you'll read about in the following pages. But something else is driving the planet-wide fever.

For centuries we've been clearing forests and burning coal, oil, and gas, pouring carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere faster than plants and oceans can soak them up (see "The Case of the Missing Carbon," February 2004). The atmosphere's level of carbon dioxide now is higher than it has been for hundreds of thousands of years. "We're now geological agents, capable of affecting the processes that determine climate," says George Philander, a climate expert at Princeton University. In effect, we're piling extra blankets on our planet.

Human activity almost certainly drove most of the past century's warming, a landmark report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared in 2001. Global temperatures are shooting up faster than at any other time in the past thousand years. And climate models show that natural forces, such as volcanic eruptions and the slow flickers of the sun, can't explain all that warming.

As carbon dioxide continues to rise, so will the mercury—another 3°F to 10°F (1.6°C to 5.5°C) by the end of the century, the IPCC projects. But the warming may not be gradual. The records of ancient climate described in "TimeSigns" suggest that the planet has a sticky thermostat. Some experts fear today's temperature rise could accelerate into a devastating climate lurch. Continuing to fiddle with the global thermostat, says Philander, "is just not a wise thing to do."

Get the whole story in the pages of National Geographic magazine.

Geo Signs



Iceberg Factory
Photograph by Peter Essick

The Marr Ice Piedmont, a glacier that ends near Palmer Station on the Antarctic Peninsula, crumbles into the sea. Elsewhere on the peninsula, a section of ice shelf larger than the state of Rhode Island broke apart in early 2002. The suspected culprit for such events? Climate warming, which has hit hardest in some of Earth's coldest climes. Average winter temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula have risen nearly 9°F (-13°C) since 1950.



Goodbye Glacier
Photograph by Peter Essick

Runoff from the Bockkogel Glacier in the Tirol region of Austria plunges down a waterfall during the Alpine summer. Throughout the Alps, glaciers have been in decline for 150 years, a result of rising global temperatures. Most scientists who study the phenomenon attribute it in part to greenhouse gases that humans have pumped into Earth's atmosphere.

Retreating glaciers, rising seas, and shrinking lakes are some of the global changes already under way.



Get a taste of what awaits you in print from this compelling excerpt.

"If we don't have it, we don't need it," pronounces Daniel Fagre as we throw on our backpacks. We're armed with crampons, ice axes, rope, GPS receivers, and bear spray to ward off grizzlies, and we're trudging toward Sperry Glacier in Glacier National Park, Montana. I fall in step with Fagre and two other research scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey Global Change Research Program. They're doing what they've been doing for more than a decade: measuring how the park's storied glaciers are melting.

So far, the results have been positively chilling. When President Taft created Glacier National Park in 1910, it was home to an estimated 150 glaciers. Since then the number has decreased to fewer than 30, and most of those remaining have shrunk in area by two-thirds. Fagre predicts that within 30 years most if not all of the park's namesake glaciers will disappear.

"Things that normally happen in geologic time are happening during the span of a human lifetime," says Fagre. "It's like watching the Statue of Liberty melt."

Scientists who assess the planet's health see indisputable evidence that Earth has been getting warmer, in some cases rapidly. Most believe that human activity, in particular the burning of fossil fuels and the resulting buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, have influenced this warming trend. In the past decade scientists have documented record-high average annual surface temperatures and have been observing other signs of change all over the planet: in the distribution of ice, and in the salinity, levels, and temperatures of the oceans.

"This glacier used to be closer," Fagre declares as we crest a steep section, his glasses fogged from exertion. He's only half joking. A trailside sign notes that since 1901, Sperry Glacier has shrunk from more than 800 acres to 300 acres (330 hectares to 120 hectares). "That's out of date," Fagre says, stopping to catch his breath. "It's now less than 250 acres (100 hectares)."

Everywhere on Earth ice is changing. The famed snows of Kilimanjaro have melted more than 80 percent since 1912. Glaciers in the Garhwal Himalaya in India are retreating so fast that researchers believe that most central and eastern Himalayan glaciers could virtually disappear by 2035. Arctic sea ice has thinned significantly over the past half century, and its extent has declined by about 10 percent in the past 30 years. NASA's repeated laser altimeter readings show the edges of Greenland's ice sheet shrinking. Spring freshwater ice breakup in the Northern Hemisphere now occurs nine days earlier than it did 150 years ago, and autumn freeze-up ten days later. Thawing permafrost has caused the ground to subside more than 15 feet (4.5 meters) in parts of Alaska. From the Arctic to Peru, from Switzerland to the equatorial glaciers of Irian Jaya in Indonesia, massive ice fields, monstrous glaciers, and sea ice are disappearing, fast.

Eco Signs



In Heat's Clutches
Photograph by Peter Essick

Two hawksbill turtles emerge from their eggs into the cradling palms of biologist Zandy Hillis-Starr on Buck Island near St. Croix in the Caribbean. Climate change is turning up the burners on the world's diverse ecosystems. In the case of hawksbills, higher temperatures are yielding larger percentages of female hatchlings, a phenomenon that applies to many types of reptiles. Scientists wonder what long-term effect such skewed gender numbers will have on endangered hawksbills and other sea turtle species worldwide.





High and Dry
Photograph by Peter Essick

Parched corn stalks surround Kela Gelo, a farmer in the southern Ethiopian village of Buya. His field barely produced any ears this year, and none last year. Recent studies project that while climate change may increase agricultural yield in countries at high latitudes, it will hamper crops in nations like Ethiopia that lie closer to the Equator. In such countries—many of them poor—forecasts for hotter weather and increased drought suggest a rocky future.

From penguins to alpine flowers, animals and plants are coping with the heat—or they're not.



Get a taste of what awaits you in print from this compelling excerpt.

Standing on the fringes of an Adélie colony on Humble Island, Fraser surveyed more than a hundred nine-pound (four-kilogram), knee-high spheres of solid muscle. Packed tightly together, the penguins pecked at neighbors that infringed upon their territory. An incessant honking and trumpeting rose from the colony. Smeared with a gumbo of urine and guano, pear-shaped gray chicks hovered close to their nests, awaiting the arrival of a parent that would regurgitate several ounces of krill down their throats.

I remarked on the overpowering stench, but Fraser—tall and slender, dressed in a sun-bleached green parka, beige baseball cap, and black rain pants spattered white and red with bird excrement—seemed to take no notice.

"Smells like life," he said.

Fraser was searching for a penguin on which to affix a satellite transmitter, a three-inch (eight-centimeter), water-proof device that would let him know where the Adélies were foraging. Crouching, he took a few steps into the colony, setting off a frantic chorus of alarm. He snatched a bird by the flipper and brought it, flailing and squawking, to the waiting lap of biologist Cindy Anderson, who taped the transmitter to its back.

The transmitter would tell Fraser and Anderson that the Adélies were feeding within ten miles (16 kilometers), as there was an abundance of krill close to shore this year. Such foraging information is an important part of the ecological puzzle Fraser and his colleagues are piecing together about the Antarctic Peninsula. Sea ice is a nursery for krill, and krill are the key link in a food chain that supports penguins, whales, and many other animals. If sea ice keeps retreating, then krill—and everything that eats them—could be in trouble.


Fraser first came to Antarctica in 1974 as a graduate student at the University of Minnesota. He was based at Palmer Station, on the west side of the peninsula. Palmer is accessible only by boat, and back then almost nothing was known about the wildlife there. So Fraser began censusing seals and seabirds, noting the dates of their arrival, hatching, and fledging. He gave scant thought to global warming, but the data he steadily compiled would eventually prove crucial to his future work on climate change.

"I fell in love with the sheer wildness that existed here," recalls Fraser, who is now president of the nonprofit Polar Oceans Research Group in Montana. "This was virgin territory. It was the sheer power of the Earth—ice and rock. It was a place where you could still feel inconsequential. You were part of a working natural system that paid you no mind."

Indian Renassiance



In Step With the Past
Photograph by Maggie Steber

Keeping the rituals of their ancestors alive, male members of the Indian Club at Alchesay High School in Whiteriver, Arizona, rehearse the White Mountain Apache crown dance, in which mountain spirits banish evil and bring good fortune. Rosalind Armstrong-Garcia, the group's sponsor, believes the club fills a gap. "Some of these kids come from Christian homes, go to church, and learn those traditions, but not the Apache traditions," she says. "This is our heritage, and we have to keep it going."




Keeping the Faith
Photograph by Maggie Steber

His drum piercing the wintry silence of Green Grass, South Dakota, Chief Arvol Looking Horse prays over the land of his Lakota people. At the age of 12 he acquired the title of 19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe, a position that brings with it the duty of spiritual adviser. In addition to conducting rites for his fellow Lakota, Looking Horse travels the world to take part in prayer services for world peace. In March Chief Looking Horse joined other spiritual leaders on a prayer mission to Iraq.

Growing in numbers, cultural awareness, and economic clout, American Indians—honored with a new museum on the National Mall—are reclaiming their place on the national stage.



Get a taste of what awaits you in print from this compelling excerpt.

I was on a train clattering south along the Hudson River, heading toward a place as Indian as anywhere in the United States: New York City. Famously traded to (or stolen by) the Dutch in 1626, New York today is home to more than 85,000 Native Americans. About 85 percent of Indians in the United States now live off the reservation, and every large city in the U.S. has its own Indian community. This is partly due to a government relocation program, begun in 1952, that sent thousands of Indians around the country in search of work.

Brad Bonaparte is one of these urban Indians, a 42-year-old Mohawk artist and ironworker whose father and grandfather walked the high steel with wrenches and welding torches, making the city's skyline. Every workday he puts on a brown hard hat bearing the insignia of an eagle feather, a potent symbol of blessing and protection worn by many Mohawk ironworkers.

Brad remembers admiring the World Trade Center from his apartment in Jersey City. "I used to see those towers at night, and always thought how cool it would be to have the job of changing the lightbulbs on the antenna." After the towers came down on 9/11, Brad was one of the many Mohawks who worked to clear the debris and search for remains, putting in 12-hour days for three and a half months. And like everyone else working in the ruins, Brad's crew soon carried burdens heavier than concrete and steel.

"Every kind of priest was there, from the Catholics to the Buddhists, but there was no one for us Indians. One day we heard there was a tobacco burning ceremony a few blocks away, at the New York branch of the National Museum of the American Indian, so we all just walked off the job and went there." It helped. A few days later Brad's crew found the radio tower he'd dreamed about. "I ended up standing on it," he says, "but not in the way I thought."

For Brad and many thousands of other Indians, Native identity is a growing source of strength that helps them cope with the mainstream America that flows all around them. Yet it can also be a source of turmoil. I speak from personal experience: Like many Native Americans today, my heritage is mixed. My mother was Abenaki, my father was Slovak, and it didn't really dawn on me that I was Indian until I was in my teens. Even then, it took a long time for my own mother to accept that I was the first of my family in three generations to go "public," to seek out relatives and elders who could teach me the stories and language my Abenaki grandfather never shared with me. For a while my mother referred to me as, "My son, the Indian," until my younger sister Margaret asked, "But Mom, what does that make you and me?"
Get the whole story in the pages of National Geographic magazine.

[zhongjiezhe]

YES。 BUT ，TELL ME WHAT IS “US LIFE STELY”？

[redstar2000]

Some experts fear today's temperature rise could accelerate into a devastating climate lurch.

There's the key sentence in your massive post, kidicarus20.

All the rest is "old news".

But why do "some experts" "fear" this? What do they mean by "devastating"?

Is it (drumroll) the end of the world?

That's also "old news". *yawns*

In March Chief Looking Horse joined other spiritual leaders on a prayer mission to Iraq.

Just what the Iraqis needed, no doubt. Things have been "so much better" there since March.

You know, this part of your post is really irrelevant to the thread you started...if I wanted to be a hard-ass about it, I'd delete it.

But that phrase "spiritual leader" (social parasite) is not one to be lightly dismissed.

Has it occurred to you to wonder why a mainstream and supposedly "scientific" publication treats that garbage with respect?

Meanwhile, I think it's a real shame the Iraqis didn't greet those "spiritual leaders" with the headman's ax!



The Redstar2000 Papers
A site about communist ideas

[monkeydust]

All the rest is "old news".

But why do "some experts" "fear" this? What do they mean by "devastating"?

Just out of interest Redstar, do you deny climate change outright, do you believe current claims are widely exaggerated, or do you merely think that global warming,as we see it now, is a natural and inevitable phenomenom?

[Individual]

Of course global warming is real, who is denying that?

I think the biggest threat of global warming is nature itself. I think the only logical solution to the problem would be to get rid of everything besides humans, problem solved right? No nature, no problems.

I mean hell, hundreds of thousands of years ago nature globally warmed itself, and all without the help of us evil beings. You know, I never really liked the sound of an ice age either, a little chilly for my comfort.

Of course our temperatures are warming, this is a given cycle in nature; shit happens I guess.

I find it funny that what humans pollute in todays society is no where near as bad as the pollution during the Industrial revolution (1800's). No where near as bad.

Yet don't you find it funny that in the 1960's scientific studies found that the globe was actually in a stage of global cooling; yes cooling. This means that only forty years ago we were on the death ride into another ice age. Now just forty years later, with major decreases in our pollution rates, we are on a death ride into global WARMING (echoes).

Can't we make up our mind? We're cooling, no wait, we're warming. Butter is bad for you, no wait no it's margarine. No wait, now it's butter again.

Throw me a fucking bone here, but I'll be damned if we are creating the Apocolypse.

If you would like me to bring up all of the statistics in comparison to man made pollution versus the eruption of one volcano, erupting only one time, I'd love to.

How about the extreme amount of carbon being let out of our oceans each and every day? Should we start a ban and drain the water from our oceans so that we can literally get to the bottom of the carbon problem?

I do not deny the effect of global warming. In fact I fully support the idea that we are in fact truly going through a phase of global warming. But honestly here, you don't really think that our hair dryers, cans of whipping cream, and lawn mower exhaust are the only and major factors do you?

Global warming existed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years before one human soul even existed.

And now all of this sudden we are to blame for natures fury?

What's next; we all need to stop walking as the mass vibrations cause the plates underground to shift causing earthquakes?

Actually, I anticipate that day. I'll have even more excuse to sit on my ass all day polluting with my smoke, EZ Cheese can, and the electricity used for my comfort.

What do you suppose the solution is? All of society stops?

Wait, here's the common liberal answer: We all need fuel-efficent-battery-operated-super-shnazzy-electric-fancy-hybrid cars.

That'd sure do the trick wouldn't it?

Well how do you think electricity is made? Burning fossil fuels.

What do you do with all of those toxic batteries used to run that hybrid car? Should we just throw them all in a ditch and forget about?

Yeah, good idea.

[Fidelbrand]

I don't know, but i just tend to blame it all on capitalism. The fucking sacred word of "P.r.o.g.r.e.s.s." ~

[Individual]

I don't know, but i just tend to blame it all on capitalism

If that isn't the most ignorant thing I've heard all day..

..because in a Marxist society nature will suddenly change itself.

[Fidelbrand]

Originally posted by AlwaysQuestion@Sep 4 2004, 04:10 AM
I don't know, but i just tend to blame it all on capitalism

If that isn't the most ignorant thing I've heard all day..

..because in a Marxist society nature will suddenly change itself.

AQ,

I hope that doesn't ignorant.

In Marxist societies (the one I aspire) will have full and effective propaganda on enviromental awreneess, as a country, collective action deter indusrial pollution to a manageable extent. Produecion will rationalise itself with sustainable development , just like China's "Green GNP" policy right now. ..... Ithis is what i wanna say.

I didn't mean to say that the NATURE will feel the roaring of Leftism and adjust itself well to suit these noble people. h34r:
As regards to nature's spontaneity, I am no scientist, and even I am, it is something that can only be studied, but not remedied if there are already culminated dangerous potentials. My stress would lie on deterring those man-made affects that our habitat is suffocating from.

[monkeydust]

Of course global warming is real, who is denying that?

David Bellamy for starters!

But, more seriously, a group of folks in the UK recently put together a list of some 3,000 or so "scientists" who, so they say, consider Global Warming to be a nothing short of a myth. Admittedly these "scientists" did include the likes of Geri Haliwell (and a few others of that ilk), it's at least clear, however, that some respected scientists are willing to deny Global Warming outright. Despite the fact that fish from the Med now occasionally are beginning to frequent the coast of the British midlands.


Aside from your comic pseudo-suggestions and implicit accusations that people who give a damn about climate change are just a bunch of Liberals, there are some ways to actually solve the problem (however bad it will eventually turn out to be). Among them, of course, more rigorous adoption of renewable energy, wind energy in particular.

[truthaddict11]

there are already some threads where I have argued against the myth of "global warming" so i wont argue anymore here but go to envirotruth.org for info on this "threat" is really nothing.

[FatFreeMilk]

How can people say that global warming isn't a threat (or is only a myth&#33 when you see the devastation that comes as a result of it? Take for exapmle the melting permafrost in Alaska which supposrts roads, bulidings and shit like that. Nevermind those melting glaciers that make the sea level rise each year.

If you would like me to bring up all of the statistics in comparison to man made pollution versus the eruption of one volcano, erupting only one time, I'd love to.

Will you please?

[redstar2000]

Just out of interest Redstar, do you deny climate change outright, do you believe current claims are widely exaggerated, or do you merely think that global warming,as we see it now, is a natural and inevitable phenomenon?

My crystal ball is still out for repair. :P

Meanwhile, I do think that "end of the world" scenarios are reactionary.

They actually encourage passivity and an attitude of "nothing matters, we're all fucked!"

Why bother to develop more efficient solar cells or build more wind-power generators or design truly fuel-efficient autos? We might just as well be as reckless as we can...since "doom" is "just around the corner no matter what we do".

In addition, I also think "doom scenarios" are created and/or exaggerated by some "scientists" because that's where the money is. The "worse" they can make things look, the better their chances for a grant-renewal to further research the "problem".

If some scientist actually discovered a real "doom scenario", why wouldn't he retire and spend the rest of his life hanging out at topless bars? I mean, what would be the point of science since humanity "is about to descend into savagery or become extinct"?

And finally there's this: if Marx was right, the working class in the advanced capitalist countries is going to see a sharp decline in its standard-of-living over the rest of this century.

That has obvious revolutionary implications and the capitalist class "needs" "explanations" that will get it "off the hook".

What better excuse than the "environment"? The reason you can't drive your car anymore or heat your house or even have enough to eat is "environmental catastrophe". It has "nothing" to do with capitalism.

Sure it doesn't.



The Redstar2000 Papers
A site about communist ideas

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Global warming, if real, is no threat to us. We will adapt.

[CorporationsRule]

Originally posted by NoXion@Sep 4 2004, 04:03 AM
Global warming, if real, is no threat to us. We will adapt.

You are the most bourgeois thinker I've ever encountered in my entire life.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

More abuse from the primitivist? I expected nothing more.

[apathy maybe]

Global warming is real. The extent is what really is the issue.

Scientists who actually work in the area (physicist don't count for some reason) generally agree that it is happening, it is a problem, and we can do something about it before it gets worse.

So the reason scientists aren&#39;t hanging out in topless bars is because they think we can do something to slow or even reverse the process, such as cut the huge amount of CO<subscript>2</subscript> being put in the air every year by such things as
1) man made forest fires in areas such as South-East Asia and South America.
2) coal burning power stations
3) cars, trucks, planes and ships
4) etc.
5) natural events

1 is hard, 2 is easy (use solar, small scale hydro, wind, gas even (which while still producing CO<subscript>2</subscript> doesn&#39;t produce as much)), 3 is easy (use trains and buses, sail ships) and 4 is hard depending on what it is. We can of course ignore 5 (we have to). (Also scientists generally keep looking for a solution right up until the end.)

How we know the globe is warming?
The reefs are dying. Coral Reef bleaching is caused by an increase in the sea temperature.
The glaciers are melting. It is hard to explain this one with out pointing to an increase in the temperature around these areas.
And a few other points that should point out to even non scientists in the field that something is happening, and it isn&#39;t nice.

http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/climate/
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopic...climatefaq.jsp
http://www.climatehotmap.org/

[monkeydust]

Meanwhile, I do think that "end of the world" scenarios are reactionary.

I wouldn&#39;t use the term "reactionary" myself. I prefer the word "pointless".

If, as many "end of the world" theorists say, we are "doomed", then we might as well get on with life until we are all inevitably wiped out. In fact, to ignore the problem for the time being might even be the most srationally sensible thing to do.

On the other hand, whilst climate change may not kill us all, I think it could potentially cause enough damage for us to be noticeably less "well off" in general. As such, to ignore the problem altogether, is folly.

That has obvious revolutionary implications and the capitalist class "needs" "explanations" that will get it "off the hook".

Perhaps you&#39;re right. But there are at least some scientists who are not in the pocket of big business, yet are still warning of climate change and its damaging consequences.

I don&#39;t think anyone can reasonably attribute all theories surrounding global warming to "corporate propaganda".

[Raisa]

Originally posted by AlwaysQuestion@Sep 3 2004, 08:10 PM
I don&#39;t know, but i just tend to blame it all on capitalism

If that isn&#39;t the most ignorant thing I&#39;ve heard all day..

..because in a Marxist society nature will suddenly change itself.

In a communist society there is more time to pay attention to the enviromen, making it more of a priority. As opposed to now, when everyone is too buisy to really care about each other, much less the enviroment.

[Vinny Rafarino]

Of course global warming is real, who is denying that?

Of course it&#39;s real.

It&#39;s been real since the last ice age.

At the rate the oceans are presently rising, we will have wiped out the worst parts of the Jersey Shore in around one or two hundred thousand years.

That&#39;s not good enough; if we try real hard, we should be able to knock out Hoboken in only one hundred thousand years or so.

Keep those CFC&#39;s flowing people; no one needs Hoboken anyway.

All of you "global warming" people really need to get your facts in order.