US Adminstration Manipulated Copenhagen Climate Change Accord - Wikileaks

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"Secret diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks have revealed new details about how the United States manipulated last year’s climate talks in Copenhagen. The cables show how the United States sought dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming, how financial and other aid was used by countries to gain political backing, and how the United States mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the Copenhagen Accord."

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Related articles

• "Report: WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord" and related posts (hyscience.com)
• WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord (guardian.co.uk)
• An Inconvenient Wikileak (wtpotus.wordpress.com)

Shrinking Arctic Ice Drives Walrus to Land

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God, The Ash and the Business Backlash

It's noticeable that elements within the business community are starting to increase their efforts to have Europe's flying ban lifted as soon as possible. This is understandable, of course, since the airline industry is losing millions of pounds through its forced inactivity this week.

BBC business editor Robert "Good-in-a-Crisis" Peston is quoted today as saying that the disruption to airlines risks becoming a "major business and economic disaster" which may place several European airlines in financial difficulty.

The International Air Transport Association, meanwhile, has warned that airlines will lose at least £130m each day that they cannot fly.

It is no surprise, therefore, to find KLM and Lufthansa trying out "test flights" this weekend in order to see if it is safe for planes to fly. No doubt, they hope to convince the various authorities of their case.

For the thinking Christian, the disruption caused by the eruption of the Eyjafjallajoekull volcano raises a number of important issues, questions and opportunities:

1. Since they serve a God about whom the Psalms declare, "stormy winds do his bidding", they must conclude that God has either decreed or permitted the prevailing jet stream to blow the volcanic ash over Europe, as opposed to into the Atlantic or the Arctic.
2. In ascribing this act to God, they may discern within it both his mercy and his judgement. Examples of the former quality are numerous. Firstly, they can be grateful that, so far, no human life has been lost through this powerful display of nature and that destruction to the towns and villages in the immediate area of the Icelandic volcano and glacier has been minimal; secondly, they can be thankful for the technology that enables human beings to predict and anticipate the impact of the ash upon aircraft. Much better to suffer the current disruption than to have woken two days ago to stories of numerous planes falling out of the sky without warning.
   
3. On the issue of God's judgement, Christians should recognise the biblical reality of judgement in this age, as well as in the age to come. This huge topic cannot be explored adequately in this post - and no doubt the usual suspects will soon be making sweeping and ridiculous statements about the issue before too long. To say nothing about the reality of judgement in this age, however, only hands the subject over to the extremists. It is a topic that must be addressed. The portrayal in the Bible of God's judgement on the city of Babylon - the graphic symbol of a society in every age obsessed with greed, sex and godlessness - does include judgement upon her commercial activity:

"The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no-one buys their cargoes any more—

cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls ... of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep .... and bodies and souls of men.

......

The merchants who sold these things and gained their wealth from her will stand far off, terrified at her torment. They will weep and mourn and cry out:

'Woe! Woe, O great city, dressed in fine linen, purple and scarlet, and glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls!

In one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin!' "

(Revelation 18)

It would be ridiculous, of course, to claim that the current airline disruption is an exact fulfillment of this ancient biblical prophecy! Indeed, the final reality will, if the passage is read in full, be much worse.

However, it is possible to identify within the judgement passages of both the old and new testaments, themes which can inform our understanding of the nature, extent and purpose of divine judgement in every age.

If it true that global warming is happening, and that it is largely caused by human activity, and if it is true that the world's poorest are those most affected by climate change, then surely it is not too far-fetched to see behind the current forced grounding of European flights the activity of a sovereign God, who "secures justice for the poor".

Specifically, can we discern a voice from heaven saying, "Enough of your greed; enough of your luxury" and within that, a call to Europe (and elsewhere) to build more sustainable economies - ones that do not contribute to environmental and economic degradation among the poorest in the world?

It is to be hoped that, over the silence of the runways in this early summer, human beings are able to hear and respond to this still, small voice.

Image credit Sverrir Thor.

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Some Thoughts on the Volcano-Airline Story

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The war against warming : article : Nature Reports Climate Change

The war against warming : article : Nature Reports Climate Change

It seems that military minds on both sides of the Atlantic are becoming increasingly concerned about the security implications of climate change.

e.g.

"The rapidly melting glaciers in the Himalayas are most worrisome. Goodman, a former deputy undersecretary of defense in the Clinton administration, says that flooding from glacial melt and loss of vital clean water source will probably 'exacerbate instability in Pakistan, a country where the United States has a key strategic interest'."

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Greenland: Future Frontline of the Environmental Crisis?

Today, Greenland moves from being a dependency of Denmark to becoming a semi-independent state.

As the world's second largest island (after Australia) begins to exercising a greater amount of self-rule, the quasi-country is likely to become an increasingly important symbol in battles over climate change. What the Amazon basin was in the 1980's and 90's, Greenland may become in the coming decade.

Beneath it, and in its seas, Greenland is believed to contain large amounts of untapped oil and gas. Exact quantities have been difficult to predict because of the vast Greenland Ice Sheet which covers 80% of the island to a depth of 2-3km. On a global scale, The Greenland Ice Sheet is second in area to that of the Antarctic.

Needless to say, many within the oil and gas industries are looking longingly at the prospects of future extraction from Greenland - a prospect which is ironically only now possible as a result of global warming. American Oil giant ConocoPhillips, for instance, has been prospecting in Greenland since at least 2000. (2003 annual report, p. 54). Along with others, ConocoPhilips has been active in oil exploration in Peru's Amazon region, which has resulted in significant conflict with indigenous tribal groups, as previously reported on this blog.

Rising temperatures are resulting in a thaw of the ice sheet and of the seas surrounding Greenland and other Arctic islands. Average year-round temperatures in the Arctic have, over the last 100 years, doubled that of the global average, according to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Predictions of future temperature changes continue to see the Arctic region becoming warm at twice the rate of the world's average. Sea ice in the region has decreased by between 5 and 8 % since 1979 and some climatologists are predicting an Arctic with virtually ice-free oceans by the middle of the twenty-first century.

Although some are seeing in these predictions the potential for a real estate or tourist boom - the North East Greenland National Park, for instance is the largest in the world - others are taking a longer term view.

Ruth Curry, who has studied the climate of Greenland in detail, explains that the melting of the island's ice sheet is unlikely to be a gentle affair. Melting surface water trends to trickle to the base of the ice through existing fissures and crevices, creating a liquid base to the ice sheet. This in turn destabilises the ice and can result in huge "slip-and-slide" events when vast areas of ice hurtle from the land into the sea.

The ice sheet, says Curry, contains enough water to raise the global sea level by 23 feet - a height similar to that of the Indian Ocean tsunami that hit Indonesia in 2004.

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