Heat is Online

[msfreeh]

I saw CHASING ICE in January 2013.
It stands alongside WACO:RULES OF ENGAGEMENT as the two best documentaries I have
ever seen. The Cinematographer captures incredible images of ice worth the price of the
ticket alone. But the kicker here is the "smoking gun" to show you climate change and global warming is real.
This is one film you will never forget. Watch a chunk of ice the size of Manhattan break off from the Glacier
that takes several minutes of a slow camera pan to complete.


CHASING ICE on The National Geographic Channel
April 19th at 8PM ET
------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Friends of Chasing Ice,

Chasing Ice will be airing across the United States on The National Geographic
Channel starting April 19th, 8pm EST
(http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/c ... asing-ice/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)
, and worldwide in 171 countries on April 20th. The film is part of A Night of
Exploration - one night each week throughout 2013 dedicated to the hot shots, the
mavericks, and the best in their field who have devoted their lives to exploring the
world around us and the ground-breaking discoveries that are making a difference.
Check your local listings for times and please help spread the word to your friends.

Chasing Ice will also begin playing in Australia on April 17th at Cinema Nova in
Melbourne. Showtimes and tickets are available here
(http://www.cinemanova.com.au/catalogue/513/chasingice" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) .

[msfreeh]

Toyota's hybrid vehicle sales pass 5 million
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
http://bostonherald.com/business/automo ... _5_million" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



TOKYO — Toyota's global sales of gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles have surpassed 5 million in a milestone for a technology that was initially greeted with skepticism.

The Japanese automaker, which said Wednesday it had sold 5.125 million hybrid vehicles as of the end of March, started selling the Prius, the world's first mass produced hybrid passenger car, in 1997. Gas-electric hybrids deliver fuel efficiency by switching back and forth between a gasoline engine and electric motor depending on speed and other driving conditions, and recharges as it travels.

"What an achievement for this technology to have grown this widespread," said Vice Chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada, known as "the father of the Prius" for having led the team that developed the hit model. "I believe there is a lot more room for this technology to grow," he told reporters at Toyota's Tokyo office Wednesday.

Toyota's hybrid vehicles now account for 14 percent of its global sales and 40 percent of its sales in Japan. Toyota Motor Corp. sells 19 hybrid passenger car models and one plug-in hybrid, and is promising 18 new hybrids from now through December 2015.

[msfreeh]

see link for full story
http://www.climatechange2013.com/project-overview/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Climate Change 2013
A Remote Viewing project to predict climate change between the years 2008 and 2013 across nine Earth locations.
Skip to content


Project Overview

2013 climate change remote viewing projectAs part of a large public experiment, in 2008 Remote Viewers from three Separate Remote Viewing schools participated in a joint Remote Viewing project to study climate and planetary change between the years 2008 and 2013.

The Remote Viewers were blindly tasked against nine locations both in the timezone of 2008 (as a baseline) and then against 2013 to see if this showed any changes in climate for these target zones.

Please note: When the Remote Viewers were Remote Viewing the targets – targets hadn’t even been assigned to locations yet. This was done after all the Remote Viewing had been completed and posted publicly, by a random process. The mechanism behind the project chose the locations and time zones by a random process and more detail on this can be found here.

The final predictive 2013 Remote viewing data seemed to indicate global climate changes across all nine target locations chosen for the project.



This project describes climate change events across nine geographical locations. The target locations are:

Fort Jesus, Mombasa Kenya
Kennedy Space Center, Merritt Island, Florida
Key West, Florida
KITV Building, Honolulu, Hawaii
Malé International Airport, Malé, Maldives
Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia
United States Congress Building, Washington, D.C.
Vaitupu, Tuvalu

“In general, these remote-viewing data suggest the following types of physical changes across many of the above geographical locations by mid-2013:

Impacts from what appear to be large meteors, tsunamis and possible volcanism
Extensive and forceful flooding of coastal areas
Excessive solar radiation
Storms and other severe weather”

Click the location links above for a summary of the Remote Viewing data for each of the four main locations. During 2013 we will post updates and any feedback data that occurs in the news & media for comparison.

[msfreeh]

see link for full story
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMa ... rynum=2389" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Extreme Drought to Extreme Flood: Weather Whiplash Hits the Midwest
Posted by: Dr. Jeff Masters, 2:42 PM GMT on April 19, 2013 +35
It seems like just a few months ago barges were scraping bottom on the Mississippi River, and the Army Corps of Engineers was blowing up rocks on the bottom of the river to allow shipping to continue. Wait, it was just a few months ago--less than four months ago! Water levels on the Mississippi River at St. Louis bottomed out at -4.57' on January 1 of 2013, the 9th lowest water level since record keeping began in 1861, and just 1.6' above the all-time low-water record set in 1940 (after the great Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s.) But according to National Weather Service, the exceptional April rains and snows over the Upper Mississippi River watershed will drive the river by Tuesday to a height 45 feet higher than on January 1. The latest forecast calls for the river to hit 39.4' on Tuesday, which would be the 8th greatest flood in history at St. Louis, where flood records date back to 1861. Damaging major flooding is expected along a 250-mile stretch of the Mississippi from Quincy, Illinois to Thebes, Illinois next week. At the Alton, Illinois gauge, upstream from St.Louis, a flood height of 34' is expected on Tuesday. This would be the 6th highest flood in Alton since 1844, and damages to commercial property in the town of Alton occur at this water level. In addition, record flooding is expected on at least five rivers in Illinois and Michigan over the next few days. A crest 1.5' above the all-time record has already occurred on the Des Plaines River in Chicago. This river has invasive Asian Carp that could make their way into Lake Michigan if a 13-mile barrier along the river fails during an extreme flood. Fortunately, NPR in Michigan is reporting today that U.S. Army Corps of Engineers crews stationed along the 13-mile Asian carp barrier have seen no evidence of the fish breaching the structure, and it would have taken a flood much larger than today's record flood to breach the structure. A crest on the Grand River in Grand Rapids, Michigan nearly 4' above the previous record (period of record: at least 113 years) is expected this weekend. At this flood level, major flooding of residential areas is expected, though the flood wall protecting downtown Grand Rapids will keep the commercial center of the city from flooding.

[msfreeh]

see link for full story
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/how- ... -new-15871" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



How the Old Amazon May Help Explain the New

Published: April 19th, 2013



By Jan Rocha, Climate News Network

SAO PAULO – What will be the effect of global warming on the Amazon rainforest? Over the last 30 years, forest fires, most of them deliberately started to clear land by cattle ranchers and soy farmers, have destroyed thousands of square miles of forest. This has increased carbon emissions, reduced rainfall and made the forest more vulnerable to drought.

In 2005 and 2010 unprecedented droughts occurred. Could the rainforest be reduced to a savannah? If the Amazon forest shrinks drastically or disappears altogether, how will this affect the world’s climate? Are valuable clues to how past populations coped with climate change being lost forever in the rush to dam the rivers for hydroelectric power?

Researching the fate of the forests in the Holocene may shed light on their future
Credit: Agência Brasil

The prolonged drought of 2005 caused widespread damage to the area and was seen as a possible indication that the rainforest is showing the first signs of large-scale degradation caused by climate change. A research team, led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has since analyzed nearly a decade of satellite data on the Amazon.

The team looked at rainfall measurements and the moisture content of the forest canopy and found that the drought caused widespread, observable damage to the canopy. The drought conditions were so severe that the rainforest was unable to fully recover before the next drought struck in 2010.

The study also found evidence that each year the amount of rainfall is reducing. Between 1970 and 1998 it fell nearly 3.2 percent per year, and this trend has continued. This prolonged period of below-average rain may have exacerbated the damage caused by the droughts.

Rainforests are sensitive ecosystems, and the reduced rainfall has had a noticeable impact on the region. Satellite and ground data have found an increase in wildfires and tree die-offs following droughts.

“Our results suggest that if droughts continue at five- to 10-year intervals or increase in frequency due to climate change, large areas of the Amazon forest are likely to be exposed to persistent effects of droughts and corresponding slow forest recovery”, said NASA scientist Sassan Saatchi, lead researcher of the study, published this year. “This may alter the structure and function of Amazonian rainforest ecosystems.”
Tracing the human tracks

An international group of scientists has now begun a project to find out what these changes could mean for the Amazon by studying the transformations undergone by the region’s mega-biodiversity (its abundance of species) over the last 20 million years. The joint project involves FAPESP, the São Paulo Research Foundation, the U.S.’s National Science Foundation (NSF) and the American space agency, NASA.

Speaking recently in São Paulo, one of the scientists involved, Frank Mayle of Edinburgh University, Scotland, explained the reasoning behind the project: “Looking at what happened to the Amazon forest in the Holocene period might give us an idea of what could happen to the region in the future. This is because the climatic conditions then were much drier than in other periods and there was already a human presence in the region, with actions like burning and forest fires.”

The study found evidence that each year the amount of rainfall is reducing. This prolonged period of below-average rain may have exacerbated the damage caused by the droughts.
Credit: flickr/Leonardo F. Freitas

The Holocene began approximately 12,000 years ago – we are still in it. But what interests the scientists is finding out what happened in the forest during and after the changes caused by the drier conditions of the mid-Holocene, about six thousand years ago, and the degree of human alterations to the environment in pre-Columbian times (before there was significant European influence).

Archaeologists are also looking to the past to find solutions to the question of how to combine economic development with protection of the environment.

Dr. Eduardo Neves, professor at the Archaeology and Ethnology Museum of USP, the University of São Paulo, has been studying archaeological sites in the Amazon for over 20 years. He believes that the indigenous societies who lived there before the Europeans arrived had created complex societies with a high degree of biodiversity, very different from modern Brazil’s proposals for the region – monoculture, vast cattle ranches, hydroelectric dams and mines, all with huge carbon footprints.

And they were not small bands of nomads either. Estimates place the population in the Amazon at approximately five and a half million people at the beginning of the 16th century (but diseases brought by the colonizers caused a catastrophic demographic collapse, with a population loss of up to 95 percent in the first 150 years following European conquest.) They had developed complex societies and their agriculture was based on diversity, not on deforestation or intensive farming.
Marked by diversity

Dr Neves says: “This notion of diversity is absolutely opposed to what is proposed today as a way of occupying the Amazon… all these activities, apparently complex, are in fact simplifying, because they reduce to a very small number the immense quantity of cultural and biological varieties which make up the traditional socio-environmental Amazon systems”.

He adds: “I am not proposing that we return to living as they did in the past, but it seems to me that what we have to offer is very limited. The greatest characteristic of the tropics is nature’s biodiversity.”

Scientists say climatic conditions then were much drier in Holocene period than in other periods and there was already a human presence in the region, with actions like burning and forest fires.
Credit: flickr/Threat to Democracy

Dr. Neves points out that two of the characteristic components of today’s Amazon forest – the dark earth sites and Brazil nut trees – are natural resources with a cultural origin. They result from human occupation based on the diversified exploration of resources and not on monoculture. (Dark earth sites were formed by generations of human occupation of the same site, with the accumulation of organic residues, while the seeds of Brazil nut trees were scattered by hand).

As more and more hydroelectric dams are planned for the Amazon basin – maybe up to 60 in the next decades – Brazilian archaeologists face a race against time to investigate sites before they are covered by the waters of the immense reservoirs formed to feed the turbines.

“The worst of it is that the destruction of archaeological heritage is definitive. There is no return. It is comparable to the disappearance of an indigenous language”, laments Professor Neves.

If the Brazilian authorities took more interest in understanding how the former inhabitants of the rainforest lived in it without destroying it, maybe they would replace the present aggressive policies of occupation and exploitation with one of greater respect for their ancestors’ knowledge of their environment, and thus avoid the destruction of one of the world’s great natural and cultural resources.

[msfreeh]

Monday, 22 April 2013 13:15
World’s largest Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Power Plant Planned for China

http://www.collapsenet.com/free-resourc ... -for-china" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

TWO STORIES

see link for full story

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMa ... rynum=2393" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog

Unusually cold spring in Europe and the Southeast U.S. due to the Arctic Oscillation
Posted by: Dr. Jeff Masters, 2:52 PM GMT on April 25, 2013 +37
During March 2013, residents of Europe and the Southeast U.S. must have wondered what happened to global warming. Repeated bitter blasts of bitter cold air invaded from the Arctic, bringing one of the coldest and snowiest Marches on record for much of northern Europe. In the U.K., only one March since 1910 was colder (1962), and parts of Eastern Europe had their coldest March since 1952. A series of exceptional snowstorms struck many European locations, including the remarkable blizzard of March 11 - 12, which dumped up to 25 cm (10”) of snow on the Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey in the U.K., and in the northern French provinces of Manche and Calvados. The entire Southeast U.S. experienced a top-ten coldest March on record, with several states experiencing a colder month than in January 2013. Despite all these remarkable cold weather events, global temperatures during March 2013 were the 9th warmest since 1880, said NASA. How, then, did such cold extremes occur in a month that was in the top 8% of warmest Marches in Earth's recorded history? The answer lies in the behavior of the jet stream. This band of strong high-altitude winds marks the boundary between cold, polar air and warm, subtropical air. The jet stream, on average, blows west to east. But there are always large ripples in the jet, called planetary waves (or Rossby waves.) In the Northern Hemisphere, cold air from the polar regions spills southward into the U-shaped troughs of these ripples, and warm air is drawn northwards into the upside-down U-shaped ridges. If these ripples attain unusually high amplitude, a large amount of cold polar air will spill southwards into the mid-latitudes, causing unusual cold extremes. This was the case in Europe and the Eastern U.S. in March 2013. These cold extremes were offset by unusually warm conditions where the jet stream bulged northwards--over the Atlantic, the Western U.S., and in China during March 2013. In fact, the amplitude of the ripples in the jet stream reached their most extreme value ever recorded in any March during 2013, as measured by an index called the Arctic Oscillation (AO).



see link for full story
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/from ... west-15904" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Drought to Floods For Some; Dryness Holds On To West

Published: April 25th, 2013


As the Midwest has lurched from severe drought conditions in late 2012 to record flooding during the past two weeks, the focus of the drought has shifted west, with drought conditions continuing to intensify in the West and Southwest, where many states are facing long-term rainfall deficits from up to three years of unusually dry conditions.

[msfreeh]

see link for full story
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/wild ... ange-15910" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Wild Weather Swings May Be a Sign of Climate Change

Published: April 26th, 2013 ,




For a political candidate, being labeled a “flip-flopper” can be a career killer. Just ask Secretary of State John Kerry, who lost his 2004 presidential race in part because of his reputation for voting against bills before he voted for them. Increasingly, though, the label also applies to North American weather, which has been lurching from one extreme to the next in a pattern that is consistent with global warming.

Flooding on Grand Avenue in Chicago after heavy rains struck the city in mid-April.
Credit: NWS via John Trillik.

Climate studies have warned us to expect more frequent and intense extreme events, such as heavy rain and snow storms, along with heat waves. While weather variability is nothing new, the wild swings in weather — termed "weather whiplash" and that have recently occurred across the Midwest and South Central states during the past few years, from record flood to record drought and back to record flood — may be an example of what’s in store as global warming continues to alter the atmosphere.

As exhibit A, consider what is going on right now in the nation’s heartland.

Chicago has already had its wettest April on record, with nearly 9 inches of precipitation, and its wettest start to the year, with a little more than 17 inches of precipitation so far. That compares to the 26.91 inches of precipitation that fell during all of 2012 (weather records in Chicago date back to 1871).

Chicago had a bout of especially heavy rainfall on April 17-18, which set a record for the heaviest two-day rainstorm there, and which led to major urban and river flooding.

The wet and cool conditions in Chicago this spring are a sharp reversal of fortune compared to last year, when the city experienced its warmest March on record, and severe drought conditions were taking hold starting in April.

“This year, of course, we cannot buy any spring warmth,” said a report from the National Weather Service in Chicago.

The heavy rains in the Midwest have helped to raise Great Lakes water levels from record lows set during last year’s drought to more average levels. According to WGN-TV meteorologist Tom Skilling, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has found that Lake Michigan's level had risen by 9 inches during April alone.

“Each inch increase on Lake Michigan is the equivalent of 390-billion gallons of water, so we're talking about a whole lot of water there,” Skilling wrote on his Facebook page. “We've more than halved the deficit in Lake Michigan's water level between this year and last. Lake Michigan — only a month ago 17 inches lower this year than last — is now just 7 inches lower than a year ago. And the other Great Lakes have posted water-level increases since April 1 as well,” Skilling wrote.

[msfreeh]

see link for full story

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/fires_burn ... warm/2643/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

25 Apr 2013: Report
Fires Burn More Fiercely
As Northern Forests Warm
From North America to Siberia, rising temperatures and drier woodlands are leading to a longer burning season and a significant increase in forest fires. Scientists warn that this trend is expected continue in the years ahead.
by dylan walsh

When the wildfire reached Jon Cummings’ backyard last summer, it had already traversed 50 miles of rugged terrain in Idaho’s Salmon-Challis National Forest. Thick smoke dimmed daylight and embers sailed on hot currents. While firefighters were able to preserve Cummings’ house and property, his neighbors up the river were less fortunate. “No houses burned, but when those folks came home it was a total moonscape,” he said.

Wildfires last summer burned more than 9 million acres across the U.S., predominantly in the West and Southwest. Only two other times in the past 50 years have fires burned so extensively: first in 2006, then again in 2007. Twice more in the last decade fires fell just short of claiming this much acreage.

[msfreeh]

As I mentioned before about 6 months ago I saw the just released documentary film
CHASING ICE on the big screen. I can only think of a couple of jaw dropping moments I have had in
life and this was one of them. I no longer need to convince people about the reality of Climate Change and Global Warming.
When I left the theatre on that cold snowy evening I was resolved more than ever to fight the good fight and end Global Warming.
I know I can count on you to cover my back. Watch the entire film for free on youtube Turn the sound up and shut off the lights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajFoSPgCtpw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

As I mentioned before about 6 months ago I saw the just released documentary film
CHASING ICE on the big screen. I can only think of a couple of jaw dropping moments I have had in
life and this was one of them. I no longer need to convince people about the reality of Climate Change and Global Warming.
When I left the theatre on that cold snowy evening I was resolved more than ever to fight the good fight and end Global Warming.
I know I can count on you to cover my back. Watch the entire film for free on youtube Turn the sound up and shut off the lights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajFoSPgCtpw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The full movie was pulled off youtube. Watch this 7 minute clip mind boggling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC3VTgIPoGU" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Also see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB4UEQzUmWc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
chasing ice youtube

[msfreeh]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... ide-levels" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Global carbon dioxide levels set to pass 400ppm milestone

The concentration of carbon in the atmosphere over the next few days is expected to hit record levels

John Vidal
The Guardian, Monday 29 April 2013 15.32 EDT

[msfreeh]

Tar Sands Will Be Piped to the Gulf Coast, With or Without the Northern Segment of Keystone XL
see link for full story
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/1605 ... eystone-xl" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



By Candice Bernd, Truth-out.org

Monday, 29 April 2013 09:23

"The Keystone I pipeline is already pumping Canadian crude across seven states and tar sands are already being stored in tanks in Cushing. Julia Trigg Crawford's farm is one of the only legal gray areas standing in the way of that tar sands crude getting to the Gulf to be refined and exported for profit.

The pipeline became a flashpoint in the climate justice movement after leading NASA climate scientist James Hansen called the project "the fuse to the largest carbon bomb on the planet." He stated that if all the carbon stored in the Alberta tar sands is released into the atmosphere, it would put us past the carbon parts-per-million tipping-point, calling it "game over" for the planet."

[msfreeh]

We brought Mike Ruppert to speak at Bates College in the spring of 2001.

http://robinwestenra.blogspot.com/2013/ ... -hour.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/wat ... onds-15469" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

also see

http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/04/ ... l#comments" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt ... Ag&dur=876" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

TWO READS
SEE LINK FOR FULL STORY
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/0 ... 04487.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


May Snow Storm Breaks Records; Dumps Over A Foot Across Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin

05/02/2013


By Brendan O'Brien

MILWAUKEE, May 2 (Reuters) - An unseasonable May storm system dropped more than a foot of snow across the central Plains and the upper Midwest on Thursday, closing roads and causing power outages in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The winter storm system has delivered about 18 inches (46 cm) of snow across parts of northwest Wisconsin and more than 15 inches in southern Minnesota, according to the National Weather Service.

"The northernmost areas have seen snow in May before, but not of this magnitude," said Jim Keeney, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

Temperatures fell close to 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 1 degree Celsius), making for a heavy, wet snow that downed trees and caused power outages and road closures. The snowfall will likely break seasonal records in portions of Wisconsin and Minnesota, Keeney said.

"We are getting pounded with a bunch of snow," said Gwen Rosengarten, a dispatcher for sheriff's department in Bayfield County, Wisconsin where about a foot of snow has fallen.



see link for full story
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/gm-u ... ange-15945" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

GM Urges Obama, Congress to Unite on Climate Change
May 5th, 2013



General Motors called on Barack Obama and Congress to work together on climate change, saying the effort would be good for business.

GM, which makes the plug-in Chevy Volt, was the first of the big three car makers to sign on to a new push from the business world for greater action on global warming from Washington, the Climate Declaration.

GM said in a statement: 'We want to be a change agent in the auto industry.'
Credit: flickr/harry_nl

"We want to be a change agent in the auto industry," Mike Robinson, GM vice-president of sustainability and global regulatory affairs, said in a statement.

The declaration, now endorsed by 40 companies, was launched in Washington last month with the aim of capitalizing on public concern about climate change after Hurricane Sandy and Obama's re-election in the hope of pushing a climate law through Congress.

More than half of Americans now blame climate change for the extreme weather of recent years, according to a study released on Wednesday by the Yale Project on Climate Change.

[msfreeh]

see link for full story
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22408341" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

6 May 2013

Arctic Ocean 'acidifying rapidly'
By Roger Harrabin Environment analyst, BBC News



The Arctic seas are being made rapidly more acidic by carbon-dioxide emissions, according to a new report.

Scientists from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) monitored widespread changes in ocean chemistry in the region.

They say even if CO2 emissions stopped now, it would take tens of thousands of years for Arctic Ocean chemistry to revert to pre-industrial levels.

Many creatures, including commercially valuable fish, could be affected.

They forecast major changes in the marine ecosystem, but say there is huge uncertainty over what those changes will be.

It is well known that CO2 warms the planet, but less well-known that it also makes the alkaline seas more acidic when it is absorbed from the air.

[msfreeh]

see link for full story
http://www.climatechange2013.com/news/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Extreme Weather Drove More Than 30 Million People from Their Homes in 2012
By DazdudeCc1 | May 16, 2013 |

In case you weren’t sure what climate change looks like, here’s a preview: It looks like millions of people displaced from their homes due to flooding. For example, in 2012, when 32.4 million people had to leave their homes due to disaster, the majority of whom were displaced by flooding from monsoons and typhoons in Asia.

The Norwegian Refugee Council operates the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, the focus of which is to track how and where such displacement occurs. Its estimates for 2012, released today, indicates that the year’s total comprises 22 percent of displacements since 2008. Sixty-eight percent of the displacement was as the result of what the IDMC calls a “mega event” — an event that displaces at least a million people. Ninety-eight percent of all displacement was due to climate- or weather-related events.

[msfreeh]

see link for full story
http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/05/stressed ... h-and-dry/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Stressed Ecosystems Leaving Humanity High and Dry
By Stephen Leahy Reprint

UXBRIDGE, Canada, May 21 2013 (IPS) - Everyone knows water is life. Far too few understand the role of trees, plants and other living things in ensuring we have clean, fresh water.

This dangerous ignorance results in destruction of wetlands that once cleaned water and prevented destructive and costly flooding, scientists and activists warn.
"We have accelerated major processes like erosion, applied massive quantities of nitrogen that leaks from soil to ground and surface waters and, sometimes, literally siphoned all water from rivers." -- GWSP's Anik Bhaduri

Around the world, politicians and others in power have made and continue to make decisions based on short-term economic interests without considering the long-term impact on the natural environment, said Anik Bhaduri, executive officer of the Global Water System Project (GWSP), a research institute based in Bonn, Germany.

“Humans are changing the character of the world water system in significant ways with inadequate knowledge of the system and the consequences of changes being imposed,” Bhaduri told IPS.

The list of human impacts on the world’s water – of which only 0.03percent is available as freshwater – is long and the scale of those impacts daunting.

“We have accelerated major pro

[msfreeh]

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/busines ... ummer.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

http://www.collapsenet.com/free-resourc ... disastrous" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

NOAA: This Year's Hurricane Season Could Be Disastrous

“In a press conference on May 23 they suggested there could be up to six major hurricanes formed during the Atlantic Hurricane season, which starts in June. They said that the season could be "an above normal and possible an extremely active season," Kathryn Sullivan, acting NOAA Administrator, said at the press conference.

"With the devastation of Sandy fresh in our minds, and another active season predicted, everyone at NOAA is committed to providing life-saving forecasts in the face of these storms and ensuring that Americans are prepared and ready ahead of time," Sullivan said.

They predicted that we will have 13 to 20 named storms forming in the Atlantic, and they predict that seven to 11 of those storms could become hurricanes, with wind speeds of at least 74 miles per hour.

They said that three to six could become major hurricanes — category 3, 4, or 5 — with winds of up to 111 miles per hour or greater.”

[msfreeh]

Trenberth: Global Warming Is Here To Stay, Whichever Way You Look At It

By Joe Romm on May 25, 2013


http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/0 ... mment_link" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

Keystone: What We Know
Posted: 05/24/2013


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-mcki ... 33505.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

Climate change linked to more pollen, allergies, asthma
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... a/2163893/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;