Coffee has been the cash crop king of Rwenzori for generations but climate change is tilting the crown, they argue. Less rain in the hills means the rivers now run slower, which leaves three hydroelectric plants in the region short of water and therefore unable to generate electricity all the year. Increased poverty down below leads to more people coming up the mountain in search of land, food and work.

Below we see the river Mobuku. Only 30 years ago, the bridge across it had to span a massive flood plain which was under water every year. These days the river is a relative trickle and the flood plain has barely been wet in years.

A local official says the trend is worrisome: "In the 1980s Rwenzori produved 15,000 tonnes of coffee. Now it's about 5,000 tonnes. The decline is not only because of climate change, because war has ravaged the estates, land has been sub-divided as populations have soared, and there was no investment for years. But now we face new challenges".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/nov/22/uganda-coffee-climate-change

Meanwhile at the coalface of global warming data gathering:

The "Climategate" dispute over global warming science was reignited yesterday when thousands more hacked emails from climate researchers, some of them potentially damaging, were released online on the eve of a vital UN climate conference.

The private messages between senior scientists in Britain and America, hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA), were released five days before delegates from nearly 200 countries meet in Durban, South Africa, in an effort to agree a new international global warming treaty to replace the Kyoto protocol, which runs out next year.

The emails' release was widely seen as an effort to destabilise the Durban meeting, as they were part of the same batch of emails originally hacked from the CRU's computers in November 2009 and released in an effort to damage the UN climate conference in Copenhagen the following month.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climategate-erupts-again-ahead-of-key-summit-6266361.html

Weather bureau staff have called off industrial action after the Federal Government approved a pay rise.

Bureau of Meteorology management and staff had negotiated a new deal, but a delay in the Government signing off on the agreement provoked threats of industrial action.

The new deal provides pay rises of more than 10 per cent over three years.

The Community and Public Sector Union was initially calling for a 13 per cent rise.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-24/weather-bureau-staff-call-off-strike/3690452

Global warming has become perhaps the most complicated issue facing world leaders. On the one hand, warnings from the scientific community are becoming louder, as an increasing body of science points to rising dangers from the ongoing buildup of human-related greenhouse gases — produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and forests. On the other, the technological, economic and political issues that have to be resolved before a concerted worldwide effort to reduce emissions can begin have gotten no simpler, particularly in the face of a global economic slowdown.

Global talks on climate change opened in Cancún, Mexico in late 2010 with the toughest issues unresolved, and the conference produced modest agreements. But while the measures adopted in Cancún under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are likely to have scant near-term impact on the warming of the planet, the international process for dealing with the issue got a significant vote of confidence. The next round of talks will take place in December 2011 in Durban, South Africa.

The Cancún agreement fell well short of the broad changes scientists say are needed to avoid dangerous climate change in coming decades. But it laid the groundwork for stronger measures in the future, if nations are able to overcome the emotional arguments that have crippled climate change negotiations in recent years. The package, known as the Cancún Agreements, gave the more than 190 countries participating in the conference until December 2011 to decide whether to extend the frayed Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 agreement that requires most wealthy nations to trim their emissions while providing assistance to developing countries to pursue a cleaner energy future.

At the heart of the international debate is a momentous tussle between rich and poor countries over who steps up first and who pays most for changed energy menus.

In the United States, in January 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency began imposing regulations related to greenhouse gas emissions. The immediate effect on utilities, refiners and major manufacturers was minor, with the new rules applying only to those planning to build large new facilities or make major modifications to existing plants. Over the next decade, however, the agency plans to regulate virtually all sources of greenhouse gases, imposing efficiency and emissions requirements on nearly every industry and every region.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html

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Anyone who has seen "The Frozen Planet" narrated by Sir David would know that we're in trouble... The poles are melting much faster than "anticipated"... But this melting is somehow retarding the effect of warming in other places... Yes we are living precariously on the DEFROSTING PLANET... You've heard about the DEFROSTING PLANET first on this site, as far back as 2005.

Presently the weather in Sydney is crap... More rain, rain, rain. 17 degrees Celsius... while in Hobart, more than 800 miles south, it's sunny and 21 C... Meanwhile in Perth, 3,000 kms to the west, it's approaching 37 C.

Weather is a resultant of climate... Climate change is modifying weather patterns ever so slightly, yet very noticeably... Only the US is holding out on doing anything worthwhile against climate change... Yankees are quite good with guns, money and stuff but quite thick in the head when the real sauce comes in.

THE PLANET IS DEFROSTING due to (y)our use of EXTRA carbon that creates mostly CO2 and methane. OK? What are you going to do about it?

Environment reports by some of the world's biggest companies are routinely including wrong statistics and leaving out vital information, according to the most comprehensive study yet carried out.

The examination of more than 4,000 corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports and company surveys by a team at Leeds University found "irrelevant data, unsubstantiated claims, gaps in data and inaccurate figures" – a finding that will cast serious doubt over the burgeoning sector.

Among the most colourful mistakes and omissions made by some of the world's biggest corporations were a company whose carbon footprint was four times that for the whole world, and a carmaker and power group which both, entirely legally, managed to excise a huge coal plant from their pollution record.

More regular problems included companies ignoring data from individual countries or subsidiaries in their group – including many in China and Brazil – two of the world's biggest economies

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/24/howlers-and-mistakes-in-company-csr-reports

High levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may have less of an impact on the rate of global warming than feared, a new study suggests.

The authors of the study stress that global warming is real and that increases in atmospheric CO2, which has doubled from pre-industrial standards, will have multiple serious impacts.

But more severe estimates that predict temperatures could rise up to an average of 10 degrees Celsius are unlikely, the researchers report in the journal Science.

The 2007 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report estimates that surface temperatures could rise by as much as an average of 3 degrees with a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from pre-industrial standards.

The new study suggests temperatures will rise on average 2.3 degrees under the same conditions.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-25/global-warming-rate-could-be-less-than-feared/3694896

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Very well, but in my own guestimates, there is a small tiny bug in this new study... Though it is very difficult to "predict" what is going to happen, the last big melt, 12,000-10,000 years ago, was from an ice age, with a starting point of around 10 degrees C average temperature for the whole planet surface — towards about 15 degrees C average at present.

As temperature increases in the lower atmosphere, as methane and CO2 increase there as well, the differential effect of these increases is from a different starting point. This 5 degrees C difference between then and now, strongly changes the increase of water vapor content in the atmosphere which in itself compounds the effect of CO2, between then and now... Thus using 1850 as a starting point makes more sense at this stage.

Allowing for this now differential would actually make at least the full 3 degrees C (or quite more due to increase in "clear" water vapor content, up to 10 degrees C) rather than the 2.3 degrees C with a doubling of CO2...

The dark horses here are WATER VAPOR content and METHANE gas in an increasingly warming atmospheric surface... This is why we have to prepare for greater increase of temperature and of more extreme climatic events.

Beware...

Britain and other rich countries are using aid money as a lever to bully developing countries over climate change, according to a new report by an anti-poverty pressure group.

With international climate change negotiations beginning in South Africa tomorrow, a report by the World Development Movement reveals that threats and bribery are often attached to aid packages.

The report also highlights how wealthy nations use secret meetings to produce last-minute deals – presenting poorer countries with a fait accompli, as happened in Copenhagen two years ago, when delegates had an hour to read the final document drawn up by 26 countries.

The negotiations in Durban are the last chance to set binding targets on greenhouse gas emissions before the Kyoto agreement expires next year.

Murray Worthy, of the World Development Movement, said: "The US, UK and EU are using the same strong-arm tactics to bribe developing countries that we saw at Copenhagen. Abandoning their previous commitments to provide finance to help developing countries deal with climate change, they are now saying finance will only be available to countries that agree to a new deal that effectively abandons the Kyoto treaty."

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/rich-nations-accused-of-climatechange-bullying-6268679.html

"Had enough of ski resorts with no snow?" asks an ad in the current easyJet inflight magazine. It was placed by the resort of Val Thorens in the confident expectation it would open on the third weekend of November. But that was postponed because the resort – like much of the Alps – has experienced the warmest and driest autumn for decades.

From the Pyrenees to the Balkans, the unseasonably warm autumn means many mountains are bare. Rosemary Leonard, a British skier in Switzerland, reported with only slight exaggeration: "No snow anywhere in the Alps – bad news for early-season skiers."

Resorts in the Alps are looking much the same as when last season ended, with patches of green, brown and raw rock rather than a coating of snow. The upmarket French resort of Val d'Isere has no snow on the lower pistes, and at higher altitudes the last snowfall was just three inches on 9 November.

Resorts across Andorra were due to open last Saturday, but that has been postponed by at least a week; the country, which has Europe's highest average altitude, had two inches of snow three weeks ago, and nothing since.

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/skiing/snow-joke-mild-weather-brings-chaos-to-start-of-ski-season-6268883.html

see picture and story at top...

New research shows the Southern Ocean is storing more heat than any other ocean in the world.

The study, carried out by Tasmania's Antarctic Climate and Ecosystem centre, has found that carbon dioxide levels in the Southern Ocean will be corrosive to some shellfish by 2030 if current trends continue.

Scientists say deep moving currents around Antarctica are the reason why the Southern Ocean is warming faster than other oceans.

"The Southern Ocean occupies about 22 per cent of the area of the total ocean, and yet it absorbs about 40 per cent of the carbon dioxide that's stored by the ocean and about half the heat that's stored by the ocean," climate scientist Steve Rintoul says.

Dr Rintoul says the warming extends for four kilometres, from the ocean surface to the sea floor.

He says satellite measurements show the Southern Ocean has been warming by about 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade.

"One of the impacts of a warming ocean may be that the ice that flows off Antarctica into the ocean may melt more rapidly," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-29/southern-ocean-waters-warming/3700532

See picture and story at top... then press the panic button or tell your Liberal/National (straw-chewing conservative) to ease off and start understanding the proper mechanics of this little planet, away from the vagaries of church fetes...

This is the wrongly written headline used by the ABC to talk about a new report that may or may not have a point.

This headline STATES categorically what is only a weak conjecture. Unforgivable...

The ABC also did not mention anything about the Berkeley report as well, in which skeptic scientists have conceded that the globe is warming up....

The ABC is thus biased against the science of global warming, which for all intent and porposes is quite conservative in its assessment. Yet most serious scientists know that the planet is in trouble from our use of EXTRA carbon...

Whoever write these headlines should be sacked from the ABC for starters.

Thirteen of the warmest years recorded have occurred within the last decade and a half, the United Nations' World Meteorological Organisation said.

The year 2011 caps a decade that ties the record as the hottest ever measured, the WMO says in its annual report on climate trends and extreme weather events, unveiled at UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa.

"Our science is solid and it proves unequivocally that the world is warming and that this warming is due to human activities," WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud said in a statement, adding policy makers should take note of the findings.

"Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached new highs and are very rapidly approaching levels consistent with a two to 2.4 Celsius rise in average global temperatures."

Scientists believe any rise above the 2.0 threshold could trigger far-reaching and irreversible changes on Earth over land and in the seas.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-29/past-15-years-warmest3a-un/3702564

A new report is warning more Australians face dying in heatwaves and catching infectious diseases as a result of climate change.

A Climate Commission report out today, titled The Critical Decade, says climate change-related injury, disease and deaths will continue to grow in decades to come unless sustained action is taken.

The Climate Commission report says climbing temperatures will lead to more natural disasters and changing rainfall patterns, which will have an impact on people's health as much as on the environment.

It includes a worst-case scenario where deaths from hotter temperatures in Queensland and the Northern Territory could multiply tenfold by 2100.

Report co-author Professor Lesley Hughes says even a small rise in temperature can be detrimental to people's health.

"A small rise in average temperature actually means a fairly large rise in the number of days, for example, over 35 degrees [Celsius] every year," he said.

"So as average temperatures go up, the number of extremely hot days go up in a disproportionate way. So what we're concerned about with climate change, amongst other impacts, is the impact on heatwaves."

Professor Hughes concedes Australia already experiences killer heatwaves.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-30/climate-change-to-kill-australians2c-report-says/3703062?WT.svl=news2

This report is the one the ABC (see above) claims categorically to tell us that global warming will not be as fierce as predicted...

Most proper scientists are dismissing this report on reasonable grounds:

1) the study done by the unversity of Oregon is based mostly on areas above the oceans not above the land...

2) the study tends to make a large allowance for the water vapors to become "opaque" (reflector of temperature) while with heat increase, water vapor will have much clear vapor as well (strong conductor of temperature).

3) other conservative assessments of the problem have given an increase of around 5 degrees C by 2100, while other peer reviewed assessments have placed the level of global warming at 11 degrees C by 2100, all due to the compounding effect. Whichever it is, we're in the throngs of an increase of at least 5 degrees C by 2100... Fanciful? It is mostl likely that as la Nina receedes next year (2012), the heat increase will hit the roof.

From Stephan Lewandowsky...

In fact, we avoid risks precisely because the outcome is uncertain. If we knew for sure that we won't die in a car crash, why not speed down the freeway at 160 kilometres per hour? Laws aside, it's precisely because we don't know for sure whether we'll live that we slow down.

This obvious fact is studiously ignored by the ideologues and demagogues and their enablers in the media who wish to delay action on climate change.

This ignorance of simple facts about risk is particularly pernicious in the case of climate change, because we know something about what we don't know about the climate.

Let us examine uncertainty about the climate.

Uncertainty means we lack precision.

But lack of precision is not ignorance. Quite on the contrary, scientists understand the climate remarkably well, as confirmed by the fact that predictions made decades ago are now being confirmed with every additional extreme weather event. Climate scientists also know how much warming to expect if atmospheric CO2 doubles - but that estimate comes with a range of considerable uncertainty.

The crucial fact is this: The greater that uncertainty, the greater the risk and hence the greater the need to mitigate climate change.

Why?

There are two factors. First, notwithstanding any imprecision of our expectation, we know that there are amplifying feedbacks lurking in the future. Simple high school physics tells us that as the Arctic melts, less sunlight is reflected and the darker oceans trap more heat than ice ever would, thus causing more ice to melt, and so on. We also know that huge supplies of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, are currently trapped in the Arctic permafrost, waiting to be released by further warming.

Climate scientists don't know for sure when this will happen, and how quickly those feedbacks operate. But they know that it probably won't be pretty.

Uncertainty means things could be worse than anticipated, rather than better.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3707928.html?WT.svl=theDrum

Scientists have linked a dramatic fall in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere with the formation of the Antarctic ice cap, 34 million years ago.

The new findings, reported in the journal Science, show how closely carbon dioxide levels are linked to major climatic changes.

Dr Willem Sijp of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, says their research found atmospheric CO2 levels plunged by 40 per cent over a three million year period before and during the formation of the Antarctic ice sheet.

"The new report contradicts earlier work based on rock samples from the Southern Ocean apparently showing carbon dioxide levels were climbing while Antarctica was freezing over," says Sijp.

He says the new research factored in continental drift, which changed wind and ocean currents, as well as changes in the Earth's orbit.

"Earlier temperature estimates didn't take these into account, leading to inflated numbers showing increasing levels of carbon dioxide when in reality they were actually decreasing," says Sijp.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/12/02/3381495.htm?site=science&topic=enviro

The traditional start of Switzerland's ski season has been marred by a shortage of snow across the Alps.

The autumn has been the driest on record in the country.

Correspondents say the continuing drought is bad news for the country's tourism industry which is already suffering from the strong Swiss franc.

Big resorts such as Davos or St Moritz have been able to open a few runs with the help of snow cannons. Others have delayed the start of the season.

The franc has risen sharply this year against the euro, the dollar and the British pound, making a skiing holiday in Switzerland far more expensive than in France, Italy or Austria.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16018453

My moles in yourp are telling me about the drought and of the warmish weather overthere in DECEMBER... No water for farmers and so far a mild season.

Chanting "Amandla," the rallying cry of the South African anti-apartheid movement, thousands of people have marched through the streets of Durban calling for "climate justice".

Their appeal was aimed at diplomats locked in negotiations under the 194-nation UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is tasked with beating back the ever-mounting threat of global warming.

The crowd of around 6,500 snaked through the coastal city's downtown area shouting and singing against a backdrop of drums and vuvuzelas, the high-decibel plastic trumpets that gained worldwide notoriety when South Africa hosted the football World Cup.

Many in the crowd lashed out at the UN talks, which end next Friday, saying that they were moving too slowly in the face of potentially catastrophic impacts of climate change, and that many of the solutions proposed lean too heavily on the market.

"Climate Justice, not Climate Apartheid," read one hand-written banner, flanked by others saying "Stop Killing Earth" or simply, "Justice!"

"We want them to stop the boring texts they are drafting and become as lively this march," said Leo Saldanha, a climate activist from India.

"I don't think that can save the world, it's really movements and people that will force governments to change, not bureaucrats."

Sande Wycliffe, a 24-year-old Kenyan, said it was time to make Africa's voice heard.

"I am here to say to the world leaders that the time to act is now," he said.

"They need to honour their promise of giving Africa resources that we need ... so we can make our environment secure for the future."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-04/thousands-march-in-durban-for-climate-justice/3711454

"Climate and Catastrophe: The World Crisis of the Seventeenth Century"

Geoffrey Parker, Andreas Dorpalen Professor of History at Ohio State University, is a renowned scholar of early modern European social, political, and military history. A Fellow of the British Academy (the highest honor bestowed on a scholar of the humanities in Great Britain),
he is the author of many books, including The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800 (1988) and The Grand Strategy of Philip II (1998). In 1992 the King of Spain named him Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella for his contributions to Spanish history. Parker has also received two Guggenheim Fellowships to support research on his forthcoming book, Climate and Catastrophe: The World Crisis of the 17th Century (Oxford 2007).

Climate and Catastrophe will bring new global and environmental perspectives to bear on the history of early modern Europe. Parker analyses the historical records and traces the ways in which dramatic climate changes of the 1640s precipitated a cascading series of violent social, economic, and political crises around the globe—from China to Europe to the New World colonies. Acutely relevant to current concerns about the human, economic, and political
consequences of global warming, Parker’s research brings historical perspective to bear on current discussions and debates about environmental policies, international politics, and globalization. In his Katz Lecture, Parker will recount this history and probe its meaning for the present.

This talk was delivered on April 19, 2007 at the University of Washington. This file is made available courtesy of the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington.

http://arcade.stanford.edu/geoffrey-parker-climate-and-catastrophe-world-crisis-of-17th-century

'I just think it's a great privilege to combine work with things I feel strongly and passionately about,'' said Jamieson, who is working on the live show How To Train Your Dragon.

''Good theatre doesn't need to be boring or preaching. It can be spectacular, emotional funny and witty.''

Jamieson will also speak at the Sydney Festival talkfest Hope 2012: Citizens Seizing the Day at Eugene Goossens Hall on January 9.

Jamieson, who lives in a straw-bale house he built in Wollombi in the Hunter Valley, said an environmentally friendly lifestyle was not that difficult to lead.

''We've done much harder things,'' he said. ''We just need to see in Australia that we have the most amazing opportunity to lead the world in the next cycle of the industrial revolution.''

...

All of it — the struggling polar bears, the collapsing ice shelves — is shown in stunning high definition. It is accompanied by the voice of Alec Baldwin, who narrates the series and says categorically, “The ends of the earth are changing.”

What the series never assesses, however, is why.

The vast majority of scientists agree that human activities are influencing changes to the climate — especially at the poles — and believe that the situation requires serious attention. That scientific consensus is absent from “Frozen Planet,” for reasons that shed light on the dilemma of commercial television, where the pursuit of ratings can sometimes clash with the quest for environmental and scientific education, particularly in issues, like global warming, that involve vociferous debate.

Including the scientific theories “would have undermined the strength of an objective documentary, and would then have become utilized by people with political agendas,” Vanessa Berlowitz, the series producer, said in an interview.        

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/21/business/media/discoverys-frozen-planet-is-silent-on-causes-of-climate-change.html?_r=1&hp

See the same program with David Attenborough doing the narration, with a bit more zest...