Patch Blog: One Week of Worldwide Climate Change Impacts in the News

Dear Eagle Rock,

In my last blog I claimed that almost every day there are media reports of serious problems on our way regarding Climate Change (“CC” for short). These changes will make terrorism seem mild in comparison, even though there have been more than 18,000 terrorist attacks worldwide since 9/11.

So I decided to take a look. For one week.

I collected news articles of changes attributed to a changing climate, as reported to me by the non-partisan Internet news finder, Google Alerts.

I focused on impacts alone.

Many other issues surrounding the climate were in the news as well. I avoided these in the interests of brevity, but here’s a brief list: Politics of CC; legal challenges; adaptations to CC; skeptic claims; denial in the classroom; conferences. If you are interested in knowing more about climate change, sign up for Google Alerts and list "climate change" as a topic to follow. If you are a skeptic, you may want to do the same (use “climate change” as your search term on Google Alerts). If you find evidence that supports your views (published evidence, not just criticism of the work of others), please blog about it.

I collected news of any impacts, whether they support the theory of catastrophic CC or not. The article on grassland soils (March 3) is actually the one article that indicates “things might not be so bad.”

Also, many relevant science research articles were published as well, but were not reported in Google news sources for us, the lay audience. With a mere B.A. in Chemistry and grad study in Biochem, I don’t have the necessary science background to summarize the research, so I didn’t include these and kept it simple.

For example, I didn't include:

A paleoecological perspective on 1450 years of human impacts from a lake in southern Greenland - Perren et al. (2012)

Abstract: "A multiproxy sedimentary record from Lake Igaliku in southern Greenland documents 1450 years of human impacts on the landscape. Diatoms, scaled chrysophytes, and C and N geochemistry show perturbations consistent with recent agricultural activities (post-AD 1980), superimposed upon long-term environmental variability. While the response to Norse agriculture (~AD 986–1450) is weak, the biological response to the last 30 years of modern sheep farming is marked, with drastic changes in diatom taxa, δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N isotopic ratios, and a sharp increase in scaled chrysophytes. Etc.

Got it?

Okay, let's have a look. Here are the Google Alerts articles:

March 1

Climate change or not, weather hurt tech

Computerworld: Scientists expect that climate change will increase the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, and last fall's flooding in Thailand fit the definition of extreme.

Climate change to cost Bangladesh $5.7bn

Gulf Times: The cost of managing the increased risk of cyclones and inland monsoon floods due to changing climate will be approximately $5.7 billion by 2050, according to a World Bank estimate.

Climate change could wreak havoc on maple syrup industry

Kawartha Media Group: The group, a unit of the Ontario Maple Syrup Producer's Association, hosted agroforestry specialist Todd Leuty of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to speak about the impact of climate change on the maple syrup industry.

Region to pay hefty price of climate change

Tico Times: Central American countries currently emit only about 0.3 percent of the world's net global carbon emissions, but the region will be disproportionately affected by climate change.

Indigenous peoples at forefront of climate change offer lessons on plant biodiversity

Physorg.com: Humans are frequently blamed for deforestation and the destruction of environments, yet there are also examples of peoples and cultures around the world that ...

March 2

Climate Change: Insurers Confirm Growing Risks, Costs

Insurance Networking News: The politics of global warming have typically involved much debate as to the role climate change plays in growing weather-related risk. Yesterday, however, at a Capitol Hill a press conference on the cost of climate change, debate was not on the agenda ...

March 3

Syria: Climate Change, Drought and Social Unrest

Climate Progress: Syria’s current social unrest is, in the most direct sense, a reaction to a brutal and out-of-touch regime and a response to the political wave of change that began in Tunisia early last year. However, that’s not the whole story. The past few years have seen a number of significant social, economic, environmental and climatic changes in Syria that have eroded the social contract between citizen and government in the country, have strengthened the case for the opposition movement, and irreparably damaged the legitimacy of the al-Assad regime. If the international community, and future policy-makers in Syria, are to address and resolve the drivers of unrest in the country, these changes will have to be better explored and exposed.

Bromine Explosions Being Driven By Climate Change

RedOrbit: According to a new study, Arctic sea ice reductions may be intensifying the chemical release of bromine into the atmosphere, causing ground-level ozone depletion and the deposit of mercury in the Arctic.

Study: Climate change threatens life in oceans with extinction

Albany Times Union: Greenhouse gases that drive man-made climate change are also dangerously changing ocean chemistry, likely faster than at any other time in the past 300 million years, according to research coordinated between New York state and the United Kingdom.

Grasslands Soils Offer Some Insurance Against Climate Change

ScienceDaily: The earth beneath our feet plays an important role in carbon storage—a key factor in climate change – and new research published in Nature Climate Change this week shows that in times of drought some types of soil perform better than others.

March 4

Climate change could make Canada's traditional street hockey extinct

The Guardian: A quintessentially Canadian winter tradition—outdoor street hockey—could be facing extinction within decades because of climate change, a new study says.

Changing Asian monsoon would adversely impact kharif yield: Study

Times of India: Recent research indicates that climate change has affected monsoon rainfall in India, making it less frequent but more intense. These departures are beginning to negatively impact kharif (monsoon season) crops, especially rice.

Climate change is a geopolitical "threat multiplier"

KPCC: A senior official in the British Royal Navy said climate change can affect geopolitics. He also said California's military bases are planning for a warming climate, too.

The Role of Climate Change in Chemical Weathering of Rocks

SciTechDaily: A new study suggests that this weathering process could play a significant role in future climate change models.

March 5

Climate Change Could Cause 900 Tropical Bird Species to go Extinct

International Business Times: Up to 900 species of tropical birds could go extinct by the year 2100 because of climate change, according to a new study.

Tornadoes & Climate Change

PlanetSave.com: We covered the link between tornadoes and climate change a few times last year in the midst of the US’ record-breaking tornado outbreaks. …

March 6

Researchers: Climate change will stress water supplies

UPI.com: U.S. scientists say climate change may bring unsustainable demands on the world's groundwater supply for agriculture, industry and drinking water.

March 7

Die Klimazwiebel: Will climate change trigger mighty earthquakes?

Bill McGuire, a volcanologist from University College London, claims that climate change will lead to more, and more violent earthquakes.

'Super sherpa' says climate change may make Mount Everest Unclimbable

Agence France-Presse: Climate change is altering the face of the Himalayas, devastating farming communities and making Mount Everest increasingly treacherous to climb, some of the world's top mountaineers have warned.

Climate change having impact on wine industry

Radio Australia: Now scientists say you can add climate change to the list of problems that need to be overcome before winemakers can make a good living from the humble grape.

Study points to earlier ripening of wine grapes

ABC Online: A report says winemakers will have to change the way they manage their vineyards to deal with climate change.

Climate change will shake the Earth

The Guardian: The idea that a changing climate can persuade the ground to shake, volcanoes to rumble and tsunamis to crash on to unsuspecting coastlines seems, at first, to be bordering on the insane.

So, that is one week of articles found by Google Alerts. Explore them and decide where you stand.

I respectfully ask that you—and not the politicians—decide. Politicians are no more expert than you. Sadly, they sometimes represent other interests than yours. You may be less biased than they are.

To repeat, this is just seven days’ worth of impacts reported. Multiply the number by 52—that’s one year. How about 520 weeks’ worth? One decade. What part of our planet do you expect to be untouched by climate change? Your children will live in that world, too. May they, and their children, thank you for your efforts.