FIRST IMPLOSIONS HEIGHTEN CLIMATE CHANGE CONCERNS

By Patrick Cusick
As expected the United Nations climate negotiations in Poznan, Poland fizzled into a no deal outcome, and country leaders and representatives returned home sweating over the latest meteorological evidence that shows weather patterns in turmoil.
Those who still doubt that climate change is real and happening should take note of what researcher Sheridan Bartlett (International Institute for Environment and Development) had to say in a report that examined the effects of climate change on children.
Bartlett's climate research, a hot topic at the Poznan talks, revealed that the frequency of heat waves and heavy precipitation is increasing bringing more frequent cyclones, droughts and floods. Furthermore, increasingly unpredictable weather now affects hundreds of millions of farmers, resulting in food and water shortages, more illnesses and water-borne diseases, malnutrition, soil erosion, and disruption to water supplies.
Climate scientist Kevin Anderson (Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at Manchester University) went further warning that the war against unfriendly climate change had already been lost, and that living conditions would go from bad to life threatening in the coming decades this century.
Anderson claims, with little rebuttal from his peers, that carbon emissions since 2000 have risen much faster than anyone thought possible due to the fossil burning economies of developing countries. In fact, he claims, that so much emissions had been pumped into Earth's thin layer of atmosphere that it's "improbable" CO2 particles could be restricted to less than 650 parts per million (ppm).
CO2 levels are now just over 380ppm, up from 280ppm at the time of the industrial revolution and rising by more than 2ppm each year. Most climate scientists assert that there is little to no chance of restricting rising temperatures to 2C because of the rising ppm. But according to Anderson's study, emissions from industrial chimneys, exhausts and jet engines would result in a species threatening 4C rise.
The only way out, according to Anderson, is for the rich countries to drastically reduce emission reductions within a decade, which would incur an enormous economic cost. The chances of this happening are unlikely, however, as the richer developed countries are holding their ground to set up global carbon trading, using financial markets to profit from climate change, while the developing nations continue to demand money from the richer nations so that their economies can adapt to the climate changes they claim they didn't cause. Poorer countries also want the West to hand over new green technologies so they can escape poverty and save their ecosystems and forests.
Most scientists and environmental groups are convinced that curbing a 2C temperature rise is already a lost cause and that the more likely 4C increase would result in severe food and water shortages, as well as extreme floods that would leave millions of people homeless.
A report by Ross Garnaut for the Australian government stated that the 450ppm goal was unrealistic and the world had to accept a greater amount of warming was inevitable. Failing to face up to this reality "would haunt humanity until the end of time".