Global warming will lead to food insecurity: IPCC

NEW DELHI: Unseasonal rains in India and excessive snowfall in the US all point to erratic weather patterns and climate change. Unchecked global warming will exacerbate fresh-water scarcity as well as hurt food production, driving up prices and increasing food insecurity and malnutrition, said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - the body tasked with assessing and processing scientific research on climate change, its risks and impacts. 

These are among the key conclusions of the IPCC's report released on Monday in Yokohama for governments to consider while formulating their policies to address global warming. The 30-volume report, Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, is the second installment of the IPCC's fifth assessment report. 

For India, it is not good news as the study points to the country being hit hard by global warming. Climate change is not a hot-button issue in the upcoming elections. However, India's quest to pull itself back on the path of 8% or faster growth is definitely on the agenda of all political parties and this makes it imperative to address the risks and threats posed by climate change. The IPCC's new report makes it clear that the new government, which will be in place by end-May, cannot ignore India's high vulnerability to climate change as it charts a path to pull the economy back onto to the path of fast growth.
For India, the issue of increasing water scarcity even in the Gangetic plain, lower wheatyields and increased incidence of heat waves pose a grave challenge, particularly to its poor and vulnerable population. "All aspects of food security are potentially affected by climate change including access and pricing," said Aromar Revi of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, who was one of the lead authors of the report. 

Given India's growth imperative and the risks that climate change presents, IPCC chairman RK Pachauri stressed that the new government should use "knowledge and objective information" available to prepare and implement an effective plan to adapt to and minimise the impact of global warming. "Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen. Policies are sometimes made in vacuum as far as knowledge and science are concerned," the IPCC chairman said. 

Pachauri suggested that the next government should prioritise addressing distortions in pricing of diesel and promote policy and schemes which have climate co-benefits, such as expanding solar energy generation. 

Pachauri, who is a member of the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change, said while the National Action Plan on Climate Change was formulated six years ago, it had not been properly implemented. "We need to modify or refine this plan in the light of new knowledge which is now available to us. This plan should be implemented properly. I think, this should be the first challenge (of the new government)," he said. 

Scientists are now more sure than ever before that climate change is being induced by human activity and stress that decisions taken over the next 15-30 years are critical. "We live in an era of man-made climate change...In many cases, we are not prepared for the climate-related risks that we already face. Investments in better preparation can pay dividends both for the present and for the future," said Vicente Barros, co-chair of Working Group II of the IPCC. 

According to the report, a global mean average temperature rise of 2 degrees may lead to global aggregated economic losses of between 0.2% and 2% of income, and the loss would be more keenly felt in developing countries.
SOURCE: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/cons-products/food/global-warming-will-lead-to-food-insecurity-ipcc/articleshow/33044675.cms

Let's chill out about global warming

he Hill, the newspaper that covers Congress, says this year, there will be a major policy battle over "climate change." Why?

We already waste billions on pointless gestures that make people think we're addressing global warming, but the earth doesn't notice or care. What exactly is "global warming" anyway?

That's really four questions:

1. Is the globe warming? Probably. Global temperatures have risen. Climate changes. Always has. Always will.

2. Is the warming caused by man? Maybe. There's decent evidence that at least some of it is.

We can love nature and still hate the tyranny of bureaucrats' rules.

3. But is global warming a crisis? Far from it. It's possible that it will become a crisis. Some computer models suggest big problems, but the models aren't very accurate. Some turned out to be utterly wrong. Clueless scaremongers like Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Cal., seize on weather disasters to blame man's carbon output. After Oklahoma's tragic tornadoes last year, Boxer stood on the floor of the Senate and shrieked, "Carbon could cost us the planet!" But there were actually fewer tornadoes last summer.

4. If the globe is warming, can America do anything about it?No. What we do now is pointless. I feel righteous riding my bike to work. That's just shallow. Even if all Americans replaced cars with bicycles, switched to fluorescent light bulbs, got solar water heaters, etc., it would have no discernible effect on the climate. China builds a new coal-fueled power plant almost every week; each one obliterates any carbon reduction from all our windmills and solar panels.

Weirdly, the only thing that's reduced America's carbon output has been our increased use of natural gas (it releases less greenhouse gas than oil and coal). But many environmentalists fight the fracking that produces it.   

Someday, we'll probably invent technology that could reduce man's greenhouse gas creation, but we're nowhere close to it now. Rather than punish poor people with higher taxes on carbon and award ludicrous subsidies to Al Gore's "green" investments, we should wait for the science to advance.

If serious warming happens, we can adjust, as we've adjusted to big changes throughout history.

It will be easier to adjust if America is not broke after wasting our resources on trendy gimmicks like windmills.

Environmental activists say that if we don't love their regulations, we "don't care about the earth." Bunk. We can love nature and still hate the tyranny of bureaucrats' rules. We do need some rules. It's good that government built sewage treatment plants.

Today, the rivers around Manhattan are so clean that I swim in them. It's good that we forced industry to stop polluting the air. Scrubbers in smokestacks and catalytic converters on cars made our lives better. 

The air gets cleaner every time someone replaces an old car with a new one. But those were measures against real pollution -- soot, particulates, sulfur, etc. 

What global warming hysterics want to fight is merely carbon dioxide. That's what plants breathe. CO2 may prove to be a problem, but we don't know that now.

The world has real problems, though: malaria, malnutrition, desperate poverty. Our own country, while relatively rich, is deep in debt. Obsessing about greenhouse gases makes it harder to address these more serious problems.   

Environmentalists assume that as people get richer and use more energy, they pollute more. The opposite is true. As nations industrialize, they pay more attention to pollution. Around the world, it's the most prosperous nations that now have the cleanest air and water.

Industrialization allows people to use fewer resources. Instead of burning trees for power, we make electricity from natural gas. We figure out how to get more food from smaller pieces of land. And one day we'll probably even invent energy sources more efficient than oil and gas.

We'll use them because they're cost-effective, not because government forces us to.  

So let's chill out about global warming. We don't need more micromanagement from government. We need less.

Then free people -- and rapidly increasing prosperity -- will create a better world.

John Stossel joined Fox Business Network (FBN) in 2009. He is the host of "Stossel" (Thursdays at 9 PM/ET), a weekly program highlighting current consumer issues with a libertarian viewpoint. Stossel also appears regularly on Fox News Channel (FNC) providing signature analysis.

SOURCE:http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/01/22/let-chill-out-about-global-warming/

The rise of the climate change denier: New figures find 23% of Americans do not believe global warming is happening

More Americans than ever before believe global warming isn't happening, a new study has found.

The Yale Project on Climate Change Communication study found the number has risen to 23 percent, up 7 percentage points since April 2013. 

The latest survey, taken in November 2013, finds that the majority of Americans — 63 percent — do believe in climate change, and 53 percent are 'somewhat' or 'very' worried about the consequences.

+2

Climate change protesters on Capitol Hill: Despite protests, more the number of Americans who do not believe in global warming is rising.

'The great majority of climate scientists have concluded that global warming is happening, mostly human caused and, if left unchecked, will have serious consequences for human societies and the natural world,' the report's authors said.

'Yet, over the years, there has been considerable confusion within the American public about the level of scientific agreement on the subject.'

The study, conducted in November, found About two in three Americans (63%) believe global warming is happening.

 

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'Relatively few – only 23 percent – believe it is not,' they said.

'The proportion who believe global warming is real has remained steady since Spring 2013. 

'However, the proportion who do not believe global warming is happening has increased 7 percentage points since Spring 2013. 

'The proportion of Americans who say they 'don’t know' whether or not global warming is happening has dropped 6 points – from 20 to 14 – since Spring of 2013.

The researchers also say Americans believe that even if it exists, global warming is not their problem.

'Over years of research, we have consistently found that, on average, Americans view global warming as a threat distant in space and time – a risk that will affect far away places, other species, or future generations more than people here and now,' the report says.

'We still find this same pattern, in which fewer than half of Americans (38%) believe they personally will be harmed a 'moderate amount' or a 'great deal' by global warming.

+2

Thick dark clouds hang over Jakarta: 23% of Americans do not believe global warming is happening, it has been revealed

'People who prior said don’t know are increasingly saying they don't believe it,' said Anthony Leiserowitz, who led the study.

He told Livescience media coverage surrounding the release of the IPCC report in September may be the explanation for the shift.

While the report made a strong case for human-caused climate change, the majority of global media coverage focused on the question of whether there has been a "pause" in global warming.

'Media frames can be really important in shaping the way people interpret the news,' he said.

The findings divide Americans into six distinct subsets. Sixteen percent are "alarmed," sure global warming is happening and concerned about it. 

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the "dismissive," who comprise about 15 percent of the public and who almost all see global warming as a conspiracy theory or hoax. 

Changing either of these two groups' opinions about climate change is nearly impossible, the report found.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2540926/The-rise-climate-change-denier-New-figures-23-Americans-not-believe-global-warming-happening.html#ixzz2qpAkLtyG
SOURCE:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2540926/The-rise-climate-change-denier-New-figures-23-Americans-not-believe-global-warming-happening.html