Climate news

  • Canadian athletes press for carbon neutral Olympics

    By Clare Ogilvie, Pique - Whistler's Newsmagazine

    More than 70 Canadian athletes have signed a letter to 2010 Olympic boss John Furlong urging him to make sure the Games are carbon neutral.

    "I think that would send a very powerful message to big organizations and big events that this is standard procedure," said Olympic cross-country silver medalist Sara Renner from Italy.

    http://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/pique/index.php?cat=C_News&content=Carbon+neutral+games+1607
  • CO2 hits new peaks, no sign global crisis causing dip

    OSLO (Reuters) - Atmospheric levels of the main greenhouse gas are hitting new highs, with no sign yet that the world economic downturn is curbing industrial emissions, a leading scientist said on Thursday.

    "The rise is in line with the long-term trend," Kim Holmen, research director at the Norwegian Polar Institute, said of the measurements taken by a Stockholm University project on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard off north Norway.

    http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/39308
  • Sea levels would rise unevenly as ice sheet melts, study says

    MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT, Globe and Mail, February 5, 2009

    The collapse of the massive ice sheet covering West Antarctica has always been one of the nightmare scenarios of global warming. So much water is locked away in the ice that if it were distributed evenly in the world's oceans, it would raise sea levels by an average of five metres.

    But a Canadian-led research team has made an unusual discovery about what will happen if the ice melts: Not all coastlines of the world will be affected equally.

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090205.wsealevel0205/EmailBNStory/Science/home
  • Some climate damage already irreversible

    RANDOLPH E. SCHMID

    Associated Press, January 26, 2009

    WASHINGTON — Many damaging effects of climate change are already basically irreversible, researchers declared Monday, warning that even if carbon emissions can somehow be halted temperatures around the globe will remain high until at least the year 3000.

    “People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 years – that's not true,” climate researcher Susan Solomon said in a teleconference.

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090126.wgreenhousedamage0126/EmailBNStory/Science/home
  • Global warming kills old-growth forests at stunning rate

    DAWN WALTON

    Globe and Mail Update, January 22, 2009

    CALGARY — The death of old-growth forests in the western United States and Canada is increasing at a stunning rate, a troubling trend linked directly to global warming that could soon transform forests into carbon dioxide emitters rather than much-needed carbon sinks, a new study warns.

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090122.wtrees0122/BNStory/Science/home
  • The Carbon Marketing Wars Have Begun

    By James Marshall, January 22, 2009

    Their logos and packaging are near clones—Lay's potato chips in the United States and Walkers crisps in the United Kingdom. The story behind the similarity is that both brands are owned by PepsiCo. But a subtle difference sets them apart. Each bag of Walkers crisps carries a label stating that 75.0 grams of carbon were emitted to produce a 34.5 gram bag of chips.

    http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/briefings/data/000100
  • Prentice signals co-operation with Obama on climate

    James Cowan

    National Post January 20

    Jim Prentice, the Environment Minister, committed on Tuesday to working with Barack Obama's administration to develop ways to tackle climate change.

  • Antarctica not as chilly as thought

    MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT Globe and Mail

    January 21, 2009

    For years, Antarctica has been considered the one part of the world that global warming has left untouched.

    Scientists thought the icy continent at the bottom of the world was experiencing stable temperatures or even cooling slightly. This was considered an unalloyed good thing because it meant Antarctica's massive ice sheets weren't in danger of melting, unlike the rapidly disappearing sea ice around the Arctic.

  • Sunday Times clarifies figures in Google carbon emissions debate

    The Sunday Times has today published a clarification to its story from last week about the carbon emissions of Google searches.

    Today's clarification centres on disputed claims about how much energy an average a Google internet search takes. It was posted online today and will also be printed in the letters pages of the Sunday Times this weekend.

  • Climate warming 'highly unusual' says new study - Findings counter argument that melt is part of climate cycle

    Randy Boswell, Vancouver Sun

    January 18, 2009

    A major U.S. government report on Arctic climate, prepared with information from eight Canadian scientists, has concluded that the recent rapid warming of polar temperatures and shrinking of multi-year Arctic sea ice are "highly unusual compared to events from previous thousands of years."

    http://www.vancouversun.com/Technology/Climate+warming+highly+unusual+says+study/1189018/story.html