A Critical Conversation on Climate Change ... - Green Choices

introduction – a new fossil fuel crisis 27Occurring Multi-Decadal Climate Variability’, NOAAMagazine, 29 November 2005, http://www.magazine.noaa.gov.20 David Cyranoski, ‘The Long Range Forecast’ and T. P.Barnett et al., ‘Potential Impacts of a Warming Climateon Water Availability in Snow-Dominated Regions’Nature 438, 17 November 2005, pp. 303-310; ‘OceanWarmth Tied to African Drought’, New York Times, 24May 2005.21 Paul R. Epstein, ‘Climate Change and Human Health’,New England Journal of Medicine 353, 14, 6 October2005, pp.1433-1436.22 Jonathan A. Patz et al., ‘Impact of Regional ClimateChange on Human Health’, Nature 438, 17 November2005, pp. 310-318. See also Working Group on ClimateChange and Development, Africa – Up in Smoke?, NewEconomics Foundation, London, 2005.23 Jenny Hogan, ‘Antarctic Ice Sheet is an ‘AwakenedGiant’’, New Scientist, 2 February 2005. Sea levelchanges will be complicated if the North Atlanticthermohaline circulation shuts down. The “plugholeeffect” of salty North Atlantic surface water sinkingtoward the ocean bottom will abate, resulting in evenhigher sea levels in Northern Europe, Greenland andCanada, while there will be compensating loweringeffect on sea levels in other regions of the globe. SeeStephen Battersby, ‘Deep Trouble’, New Scientist 2547,15 April 2006, pp. 42-46.24 Richard A. Kerr, ‘A Bit of Icy Antarctica is Sliding towardthe Sea,’ Science 305, 24 September 2004, p. 1897.25 J. T. Houghton, op. cit. supra note 1.26 Satellite measurements analysed by the US NationalSnow and Ice Data Center show 20 per cent less icethan when NASA took the first pictures in 1978 (FredPearce, ‘Climate Going Crazy’, New Scientist 2531, 24December 2005). Levels of Arctic ice are now at theirlowest levels in more than a century, prompting Inuithunters who depend on the region’s game to file ahuman rights complaint against the US government forhuman rights violations (Reuters, 29 September 2005).27 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, op. cit. supra note 14.28 John Pickrell, ‘Soil May Spoil UK’s Climate Efforts’,New Scientist 2516, 7 September 2005. See also DavidPowlson, ‘Will Soil Amplify Climate Change?’, Nature433, 20 January 2005, pp. 204-5.29 Fred Pearce, ‘Climate Warning as Siberia Melts’, NewScientist 2512, 11 August 2005, p. 12.30 Leggett, op. cit. supra note 13.31 Ibid.32 Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research,‘An Update of Recent Research from the HadleyCentre’, UK, November 2000; Richard B. Alley, TheTwo-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt ClimateChange and Our Future, Princeton University Press,Princeton, 2002 and ‘Abrupt Climate Change’,Scientific American, November 2004, pp. 62-69;National Research Council, Abrupt Climate Change:Inevitable SurprisesI, National Academy Press,Washington, 2002; Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory,‘Abrupt Climate Change’, Columbia University, http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/arch/; Richard A. Kerr,‘Confronting the Bogeyman of the Climate System,Science 310, 21 October 2005, pp. 432-33.33 Fred Pearce, ‘Violent Future’, New Scientist 2300, 21July 2001. See also Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange, Third Assessment Report, 2001, WorkingGroup II, Section 2.6; A. A. J. Williams, D. J. Karoly andN. Tapper, ‘The Sensitivity of Australian Fire Danger toClimate Change’, Climatic Change 49, 2001, p. 171.34 Fred Pearce, ‘Faltering Currents Trigger Freeze Fear’,New Scientist 2528, 3 December 2005.35 Alley, ‘Abrupt Climate Change’, op.cit. supra note 32;Brian Fagan, The Long Summer: How Climate ChangedCivilization, Granta, London, 2004.36 Kohlert, op. cit. supra note 14.37 W. S. Broecker, ‘Does the Trigger for Abrupt ClimateChange Reside in the Oceans or in the Atmosphere?’,Science 300, 6 June 2003, pp. 1519-1522.38 Allison L. Perry et al., ‘Climate Change and DistributionShifts in Marine Fishes’, Science 308, 24 June 2005,pp. 1912-16; Fred Pearce, ‘Dark Future Looms for ArcticTundra’, New Scientist 2535, 21 January 2006; ‘LakeAlgae Confirm Global Warming Link’, New Scientist2523, 29 October 2005, p. 19.39 Peter Schwartz et al., ‘An Abrupt Climate ChangeScenario and Its Implications for US National Security’,Department of Defense, Washington, October 2003;Eugene Linden, op. cit. supra note 8.40 National Research Council, op. cit. supra note 32.41 Douglas A. Kysar, ‘Climate Change, CulturalTransformation and Comprehensive Rationality’,Environmental Affairs Law Review 31, 2004, pp. 555-590, pp. 563-570.42 See, for instance, Jonathan Kohler et al., ‘New Lessonsfor Technology Policy and Climate Change Investmentfor Innovation’, Tyndall Centre for Climate ChangeResearch, Norwich, 2005, http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications/briefing_notes/note13.pdf.43 See, for example, Deutsche Gesellschaft furTechnische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) et al., ‘North-SouthDialogue on Equity in the Greenhouse: A Proposalfor an Adequate and Equitable Global ClimateAgreement’, GTZ, Berlin, 2004. For another argumenton discount rates, see also Kysar, op. cit. supra note 41,pp. 578-85.44 Kysar, op. cit. supra note 41, pp. 564-566.