1.Climate change to reduce US West water supply-report
Scarce water supplies in the western US will probably dwindle further as a result of climate change, causing problems for millions in the region, a government report has said.
Climate change could cut water flow in several of the American West's largest river basins by up to 20% this century, the interior departmentreport said.
Those rivers provide water to eight US states, from Texas to California.
The West and South West are among the fastest-growing regions in the US.
The Colorado, the Rio Grande and the San Joaquin are three of the rivers mentioned in the report, which said an 8% to 20% decrease in average annual stream flow is expected.
"Impacts to water are on the leading edge of global climate change," said Mike Connor, commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, a US agency that helps provide water to more than 31 million people in 17 Western states.
'Stretched' suppliesThe report, prepared in response to the Secure Water Act of 2009, outlines increased risks to water resources in the American West for the 21st Century.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar called water the region's "lifeblood" and said reduced amounts could have a severe impact on the West and South West, which continue to see dramatic increases in population.
Nevada, Arizona and Texas, three of the driest states in the US, are among the fastest growing.
"These changes will directly affect the West's water supplies, which are already stretched in meeting demands for drinking, irrigating crops, generating electricity and filling our lakes and aquifers for activities like fishing, boating and to power our economy," Mr Salazar told Reuters news agency.
The report, released on Monday, will help officials understand the long-term impacts of climate change on Western water supplies and will help develop strategies for sustainable water resource management, Mr Salazar said in a statement.
Other specific projections included in the report are:
- A temperature increase of 5-7 degrees Fahrenheit (2.8-3.9 degrees Celsius)
- A precipitation increase over the north-western and north-central portions of the western US and a decrease over the south-western and south-central areas
- A decrease for almost all of the 1 April snowpack, a standard benchmark measurement used to project river basin run-off
Changes in climate could affect water supplies to a range of users, from farms and cities to hydropower plants, fish, wildlife and recreation, the report said.
"As climate change adds to the challenges we face in managing our water supply, meaningful engagement between the river basin states and the Department of the Interior will continue to be essential," said Anne Castle, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Water and Science.
Source:(http://www.bbc.co.uk)
2.UK maps climate change forecasts |
UK maps climate change forecasts | |
  The government hopes the project will lead to better protective measures such as sea walls Detailed forecasts of how climate change may affect the UK during this century are to be released by the government later. The report will predict how temperature and rainfall are likely to change at regional and local scales. Scientists believe winters will be wetter, particularly in the north, and summers drier, especially in the south. The projected impacts are "worse than the government had feared," according to a source familiar with the project. The government hopes the UK Climate Projections 2009 report (UKCP09) will allow citizens, local authorities and businesses to plan better for future decades. | |
Using a range of online tools including a "weather generator", people will be able to enter their postcodes and see projections of how conditions are likely to change within 25 sq km grid squares at different points in the future.
"[This is] the most comprehensive set of probabilistic climate projections at the regional scale compiled anywhere in the world," said John Mitchell, director of climate science at the UK Met Office, which has taken charge of the computer modelling of climate used in the report.
'Serious impact'
The previous report - UKCIP2002 - is now seven years old, and included projections from just one computer model.
By contrast, UKCP09 has collated data from 400 variations of the model developed by the Hadley Centre, part of the Met Office.
Each variant has been checked to see how well it predicted the climate of past decades; and the numbers have been compared with projections of other computer models.
This allowed scientists to assign probabilities to various forecasts.
The idea of the impact assessment has been well received by environment groups.
"It's great that the government has decided to put together such a scientifically robust analysis of the potential impacts of climate change in the UK, but the picture it paints is an alarming one," said Keith Allott, head of climate change at WWF-UK.
"This research confirms that not only is climate change already having a serious impact in Britain, but that we are also locked into further impacts, and that these impacts will get much worse unless we act now to tackle the problem."
Campaigners say that the UK impacts are likely to be minor compared to other parts of the world.
Last month a report from the Global Humanitarian Forum, the think tank chaired by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, said that the UK was among the 12 countries likely to be least affected by climate change.
On Friday, the Environment Agency will release an assessment of how the changing climate will affect the risk of impacts such as flooding in England and Wales.
(source:http://news.bbc.co.uk)3.Canada’s Climate Change Report Card
How does Canada measure up on climate change? We are of course an economically developed country, and what with all our snow, our beavers and our wilderness one would think we’re doing pretty good, right? Wrong. Maybe there are a few other criteria in the fight against climate change, besides the beavers.
EPI Ranking Map. Highest scores are yellow, and scores lower as the colour gets darker.
On Yale’s EPI (Environmental Performance Index) Canada ranks 46th out of 163 countries, including currently developing countries such as China and places recently hit by climate-change spurred natural disasters like The Maldives and Haiti. Coming out on top are countries like Switzerland, which ranked second, and Sweden which ranked fourth. So how does Canada compare to such high ranked countries?
Based on Yale’s EPI website we can draw some basic conclusions about quality of life in Sweden, Switzerland and Canada. The average GDP per capita of the three countries is just upwards of $34,000. 100% of citizens in all three of the countries also have access to basic needs, such as sanitation and clean water. The countries are also very similar in terms of local climate, which also plays a key role in quality of life, and emissions in terms of heating and cooling. In other words, Sweden, Switzerland and Canada are all developed nations with a great quality of life.
So, if Canada has such a great quality of life, we shouldn’t have any problems setting up environmental reforms and becoming leaders in the fight against climate change! How, then, are we ranked 46th?
The problem seems to lie in policy and practice. In an article by David Richard Boyd, a well-known environmental lawyer and Canadian, he compares Sweden and Canada on ten different environmental criteria. The reason why Canada falls behind is directly linked to their policies. While Sweden has used “innovative economic policies to reduce pressure on the environment” and produced “a bold national strategy to achieve sustainability within a generation”, Canada has taken a different approach. Canada is described in the article as a country which puts emphasis on voluntary contributions to fighting climate change, instead of enforcing policies. They also favour environmental education, which I agree is necessary, but education without action and the support of local government officials will have little effect.
Boyd also seems to cite a lot of the same key issues with Canada’s policy as The Conference Board of Canada. The Conference Board of Canada is an independent and non-profit organization what provides research studies on a wide range of Canada’s economic and political policies. In the board’s article on environment Canada is ranked 15th out of 17 of it’s peer countries, and given a C grade. Below is a list of some of the important issues mentioned by both Boyd and The Conference Board of Canada:
Key Issues
- Canada needs to clean up it’s act on reducing it’s GHGs, which have increased 32% in the past 15 years.
- Water is also an issue. Most of Canada’s water is used in production, and little effort to conserve is made. As well, over 90 of our cities and towns haven’t got the facilities to properly treat their sewage.
- Total municipal waste increased by more than 17% since 1980, and continues to rise. Per person we create more than 791 kg of waste per year!
Population density also plays a big role in climate change, according to a study by Christopher Kennedy, Professor at the University of Toronto. This is largely due to the fact that ground transportation (such as cars, trucks, and buses) contributes a lot to the GHGs we send into the atmosphere. The chart below compares the ten different cities in Kennedy’s study in terms of their population density and GHG output.
Unlike Switzerland and Sweden, Canada is huge! We have a mix of rural and urban areas, but even within our urban centers, such as Toronto, we’re nowhere near as densely populated as most European cities. This means we have to travel a lot more from the suburbs to the down town core. Toronto’s Public Transit has a system length of 70km and 69 stations, Montreal’s Metro is nearly the same, with a length of 69km and 68 stations. Not only is it the distance, but it’s the service area of the transit that affects us. In both cases of Toronto and Montreal there are only four different subway lines, which means the service area is very restricted. We can compare this to Sweden’s Public Transit, the Stockholm Metro, which has 7 different lines, and although it covers about the same distance (105km) it serves 100 different stations. Public transit is then more accessible for those living within the city. In essence, because of our lack of population density and inadequate public transportation, Canada has become a car-oriented country.
The good news is, there’s still room for improvement! Canada can make changes to its policies to make climate change an issue of its government and its citizens as a whole, not just the select few. We can take examples from those countries ranked 1st through 45th and build upon and improve our society in order to ease pressure off of the earth. The goal should be to bring every country to the number one spot, and there’s no reason why a country which has the means and the will cannot change.
source:(http://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/?p=2254)
