Vardaman Virtual Forestry Company
FRIDAY REPORT OF 02/09/07
The Most Direct, Frequent Link to Knowledge Workers in the Eastern Forest Economy
“BRANCHING OUT
Timber as a growing asset class"
To read the complete article in The Economist of 02/05/07, click on: http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/greenview/PrinterFriendly.cfm? story_id=8653021
“GLOBAL WARMING ‘VERY LIKELY’ CAUSED BY HUMANS, WORLD CLIMATE EXPERTS SAY”
Portions of an article from 02/02/07 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC NEWS
“Global warming is here, it’s human-caused, and it will continue for centuries even if greenhouse-gas emissions are stabilized, an international panel of climate experts said in a report issued today. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) used its strongest language yet to link human activity to Earth’s warming temperatures, rising seas, more intense storms, and a host of other environmental maladies. ‘Fossil fuel use, agriculture, and land-use change are fundamentally affecting the systems of our planet,’ Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said at a press briefing in Paris, France…
“Hundreds of climate experts and government representatives from 113 countries labored all week in Paris to reach unanimous agreement on the wording of each sentence in the 20-page summary for policymakers. ‘Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperature since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic [human-caused] greenhouse gas concentrations,’ the report reads. The phrase ‘very likely’ translates to a 90 percent probability, the report’s authors note. This is a significant departure from previous reports…
“Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chair, said at the briefing that the report’s broad participation gives it ‘the stamp of acceptance of all the governments of the world…that really provides the credibility of this massive scientific undertaking.’
“Among the findings in the summary report:
*Global temperatures will increase between 2 and 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius) by the end of this century over pre-industrial levels.
*A best-guess temperature rise is between 3.2 and 7.1 degrees Fahrenheit (1.8 and 4 degrees Celsius), though the high end remains possible.
*Sea levels are projected to rise between 7 and 23 inches (18 and 59 centimeters) by the end of the century.
*If recent melting in Greenland and Antarctica continues, sea levels could rise an additional 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters)…
“It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves, and heavy rains will continue to become more frequent…
“For example, he said, rapid population growth along the coasts is the greatest cause of losses from hurricanes over the past century, not warming…”
To read the complete article, click on http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/.
“HOT TOPIC”
Portions of an article in the 07/02/12 issue of THE NEW YORKER:
“…the release last week of the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change represents an important, perhaps even historic, event. Founded in 1988, the I.P.C.C. is a joint venture of the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization. Every four or five years, it conducts an exhaustive survey of the available data and issues a multi-volume assessment of the state of the climate. By the time the I.P.C.C. publishes an assessment, it has been vetted by thousands of scientists, as well as by the organization’s hundred and ninety-odd participating governments. The process guarantees that I.P.C.C. reports are conservative – indeed, frequently out of date – since every statement has had to pass review not just in Paris and London but also in Riyadh and Washington…Last week’s assessment, the fourth, put the likelihood that human beings are the cause of global warming – now evident from ‘increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level’ – at ninety per cent. It went on to note that temperatures will continue to climb for decades, that heat waves and floods will become more frequent, and that the last time the Arctic and the Antarctic were warmer than they are today for an extended period – before the start of the last Ice Age – global sea levels were at least thirteen feet higher….
“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has gone a step further, creating a Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming…‘The science of global warming and its impact is overwhelming and unequivocal,’ Pelosi said, announcing the committee’s formation last month. ‘Now is the time to act.’
…“Four days after Pelosi labelled the science of global warming ‘unequivocal,’ James Rogers, the chairman of Duke Energy, one of the nation’s largest electric-power companies, said much the same thing at the National Press Club. Duke Energy is part of a new coalition, the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, whose members include Alcoa, DuPont, G.E., and Lehman Brothers, along with groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council and the World Resources Institute. At the press club, the coalition called on the federal government to enact a mandatory ‘cap and trade’ system that would first stabilize and then begin to reduce CO2 emissions. ‘We know enough to act now,’ Rogers said. ‘We must act now...’
“Carbon dioxide is a by-product of just about every aspect of contemporary life – from driving and flying to farming and manufacturing and watching videos on YouTube. To reduce emissions by sixty per cent – or eighty per cent, as Senator Boxer advocates, by two-thirds, as the McCain-Lieberman-Obama bill calls for – will thus require significant, and doubtless also disruptive, changes at every level of society. This may not seem an attractive prospect, but, as the latest I.P.C.C. report makes clear, change is not something that anyone at this point has a choice about. All that is at issue –and it is critically at issue- is how disastrous the change will be. Already enough CO2 has been pumped into the air to alter life on earth for thousands of years to come. To continue on our current path because the alternative seems like too much effort is not just shortsighted. It’s suicidal.”
To read the complete article, click on http://www.newyorker.com/printables/talk/070212ta_talk_kolbert
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