Climate Change Affects East Antarctica

Research published in Nature uses declassified satellite photography over a period of 50 years to conclude that the world's largest ice sheet in East Antarctica may be more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought.

Zero Wage Growth

A report from the Economic Policy Institute shows that real hourly wages have not increased for the typical worker for more than a decade.  This is despite a 27 percent growth in productivity since 2000.

5 Degrees Celsius

A leaked draft of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) mainly reflects even greater confidence that human activities are responsible for most of the warming since the 1950s.  If greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced, the world is on track for 5 degrees Celsius of warming by sometime around the end of the century.

Update (August 19):  It's interesting to note that while the upcoming AR5 makes an effort to explain why land surface temperatures have been steady for the past ten years, research not included in the assessment demonstrates that warming in the oceans has accelerated over the past 15 years.  90 percent of overall warming of the planet goes into heating the oceans.

Update (September 23):  As the IPCC gets closer to publishing AR5, the climate change deniers are coming out in force.

Update (September 27):  The Summary for Policymakers is now available with more to come.

Update (January 16, 2014):  Further leaks of the IPCC report suggest that, in the worst case, the cost of preventing climate change could exceed the cost of adapting to it.

Wrecked World

A speech by Noam Chomsky takes a long look at "really existing capitalist democracy" (RECD). It's a system that pays lip service to genuine democracy but in fact the vast majority have no influence on policy. This shows up in polls where public opinion diverges from policies that benefit the elite.

Chomsky sees grim prospects for the future under RECD.  He highlights the environment and the possibility of nuclear war.  There's a skewed rationality that seeks to exploit every last source of fossil fuel.  He happens to mention Ecuador as a place that sought to stop that exploitation, but which now seems to have changed course.

Chomsky also makes clear the role of the press in keeping us in the dark.  For example, Iran's nuclear program is constantly touted as a threat, but there's no mention of a cancelled international conference that would have addressed efforts to create a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East.  The conference was cancelled by the Obama Administration after Iran agreed to attend.

And yet, Chomsky ends optimistically:

The general picture is pretty grim, I think. But there are shafts of light. As always through history, there are two trajectories. One leads towards oppression and destruction. The other leads towards freedom and justice. And as always - to adapt Martin Luther King's famous phrase - there are ways to bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice and freedom - and by now even towards survival.

Water for Oil

Drought (enhanced by climate change), decades of overuse, and now fracking are leading to a water crisis in places like Texas where 30 towns may run out of water by the end of this year.

Update (February 5, 2014):  More about the water problems related to fracking.

The Speed of Climate Change

A report from Stanford University says the rate of change for global temperatures is now larger than at any time in the past 65 million years.  Previous warming periods amounted to a change of 3 to 5 degrees Celsius over 20,000 years.  If the earth experiences that kind of warming by the end of this century, it will be at a rate that's about 100 times as fast.  Another way to visualize this change is to picture an ecosystem needing to move a yard per day to maintain similar conditions.  Many species would not be able to adapt to such rapid change.

Update (August 7):  State of the Climate 2012 from NOAA.

Update (August 10):  Michael T. Klare says the energy industry is not making any significant investment into renewable sources--the effort is going into developing unconventional oil and gas reserves.