Climate change: Copenhagen fudge and disappointment

The climate change summit ended in a mess with nothing much of substance coming out of it. Let us hope that a legal binding international agreement can be forged next year, although I have my doubts. The full text of the agreement (can you call it that even?) is available for view.

Whatever your views on the reasons for  rising global temperatures, and the scientific evidence for man's influence on this is now overwhelming, we do need to take steps to put the breaks on further rises. My biggest worry is the risk of the tundra's permafrost melting releasing huge quantities of methane. This would make the CO2 problem seem like a walk in the park. If this happens we could be looking at human life in deep deep crisis. We MUST, and can, take steps to avoid this if the data is made clear to people and we take collective action.

Rising sea levels - what would happen?

Whatever your views on the causes of climate change, it is a FACT that the Earth is currently warming and sea levels are rising. This interactive map allows you to put in the likely sea level rise, in 1m steps, to see how the coastline would change. Some places are little changed but others are e.g. The Netherlands and the Fens in the UK.

A draft text for an agreement on climate change reduction has been released today in Copenhagen. It needs a lot of work.

Climate change - Copenhagen

A binding agreement in Copenhagen next month seems to be slipping away because no-one wants to make firm commitments on the reduction of harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Personally, I think it would be a tragedy if our leaders came away with just a "wishy washy" set of political statements and nothing concrete. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8345343.stm . For the sake of our children and grandchildren we need ACTION from our statesmen, not words.