Dump at small Russian arctic town attracts 50 polar bears

Dwindling sea ice and a garbage dump buffet are probably two causes of a huge influx of polar bears to towns in the Russian arctic. The situation is risky for both polar bears and humans as their proximity increases the potential for conflict.

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Over fifty bears enter small town

The Washington Post reports:

Fences have risen around kindergartens. Special vehicles transport military personnel to their work sites. Residents of the island settlement are afraid to leave their homes. Novaya Zemlya is a Russian archipelago stretching into the Arctic Ocean..Officials in the Arkhangelsk region, where the archipelago lies, declared a state of emergency Saturday because of the marauding mammals. Polar bears are typically born on land but live mostly on sea ice, where they hunt and feed on seals. But as Arctic ice thins, an occurrence linked to the acceleration of climate change, the animals move ashore, ravenous. They scavenge, sometimes coming into contact with human populations.

The town of Belushya Guba on Novaya Zemlya islands in the Russian Arctic has seen an invasion of at least 52 polar bears during the last few months. The town of about two thousand is the main settlement on the islands. The bears are not only at the dump but come into town invading homes and office buildings. The appended video shows the bears at the dump and in town. The invasion is a prelude of things to come as the sea ice melts driving polar bears into settlements with their garbage dumps.

Geoff York, senior director of the non-profit Polar Bears International said that polar bear attics are relatively rare but he notes that when polar bears and humans exist close together the risk of conflict will increase. Human food is a major attraction to bears of all kinds At many campgrounds trash is thrown into bear proof containers. However, in the arctic towns open dump, the bears have an outdoor buffet.

Anatoly Kochnev, a senior scientist at the Russian Academy of Science noted that its hard work for a polar bear to catch a seal but the dump is like a free luxurious restaurant. They will no doubt stay in town until they have eaten everything they can. Bears tend to return to wherever they have found food before, so they are likely to return again to the dump. Kochnev says that getting rids of trash in the settlements on Novaya Zemlya will be key. He said everything needs to be destroyed that attracts polar bears.

The Churchill Manitoba solution

The northern Manitoba community of Churchill on Hudson's Bay was also concerned about polar bears at the town dump some of whom would occasionally wander into town. In 2006 they decided to close down the dump and bury the garbage. The garbage will be stored in an old shipping and receiving hub left at a former military base. Shawn Bobier, district supervisor with the provincial Conservation Department said: "It's a big building with a concrete floor. All the windows and doors have been covered up with metal bars to keep all the animals out." Tourism officials hope the dump closure will help the image of the town as tourists will no longer see bears at the dump surrounded by burning trash.

The Siberia town may not have such an old building available although it is possible. Meanwhile even an electric fence could help and burning or burying trash when possible. As it is now everything is out in plain view and accessible.

Previously published in Digital Journal

Just a rise of 3 degrees Celsius in world temperatures could inundate many cities with water

A recent analysis of data from the Climate Central group of scientists by the Guardian showed that if the world warms by just 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 F) as the UN predicts is happening, many cities around the world will be inundated by rising waters.

The 3 degree Celsius rise in temperature would result in an irreversible rise in sea levels of perhaps two meters.

Cities in Asia such as Shanghai in China and Osaka in Japan would be negatively affected. However the damage would be widespread globally, with Alexandria in Egypt also badly flooded. In South America Rio de Janeiro would be hard hit.

In the United States, Miami would be inundated, as would the entire bottom third of Florida state.

The Guardian found that local preparations for such an increase in temperature were very patchy as were international efforts to stop it from happening. In six of the coastal regions most likely to suffer significant harm, government planners were very slow in coming to come to grips with the enormity of the task confronting them. In some cases nothing at all has been done.

Next week, there are climate talks scheduled to take place in Bonn Germany that are designed to increase national commitments to reduce carbon dioxide levels so that the temperature will rise only between 1.5 and 2 degrees C, the goal of the 215 Paris agreement. President Trump is withdrawing the US from the Paris agreement.

A recent report by the UN Environment Programmes showed that government commitments were only a third of what was needed. Cities, companies, and citizens could help fill this gap but global warming appears still on track to rise by 3 degrees Celsius or even more by the end of this century according to the report.

Erik Solheim, UN environment chief said that progress since the 2015 Paris agreement has not been adequate: “We still find ourselves in a situation where we are not doing nearly enough to save hundreds of millions of people from a miserable future,”

Just recently, the World Meteorological Organisation claimed that carbon dioxide concentrations in the stratosphere rose at a record speed reaching 403.3 parts per million. Such high levels have not happened since three to five million years ago during the Pliocene era.

Some cities are doing little as they have no cash and there is little sense of urgency. Although in Rio de Janeiro, the city would lose its famous beaches such as Copacabana, and many of its Olympic sites a report compiled for the Brazilian presidency found "situations in which climate changes are not within the scope of planning."

The changes could hurt agricultural land and food production as well. Even in the UK there are swaths of agricultural land in Lincolnshire that could be lost to the rising sea.

Allison Baptiste, director of strategy and investment at the UK Environment Agency said that measures in place could protect most communities in the near and medium term : “We’re conscious that climate change is happening and perhaps faster than expected so we are trying to mitigate and adapt to protect people and property. We can’t stop it, but we can reduce the risk. If climate change projections are accurate, we’re going to have to make some difficult decisions.”

Effects on Miami

An article in the Guardian shows the effects of the global warming on several cities around the globe in some detail. I will just cite some of the negative effects on the Florida city of Miami.

Up to 2.7 million people could be affected in the Miami area. The metropolitan area of Miami would simply cease to exist if the temperature rises 3 degrees Celsius.

Even with just a two degree rise the area south of Lake Okeechobee in Florida that is now home to more than 7 million people will be submerged. In Miami-Dade county alone about $15 billion of coastal property faces the risk of flooding within the next 15 years.

Miami officials realize the urgency of the situation and have asked voters to approve a "Miami Forever " bond in a ballot this month that will include $192 million in upgrading pumping stations, improving drainage and raising sea walls.

Ken Russell, the vice-chair of the city's commission said:“We have a really precious city that many people love and are willing to invest in right now, but it’s going to take some funds to protect it."

Sea-rise expert Jane Gilbert has been tasked with creating a robust storm-water management program. Storm surge such as that from hurricane Irma brought significant flooding to downtown Brickell and the nearby Coconut Grove.

Proposals include elevating roads and even abandoning some neighborhoods to protect others. Gilbert said: “We need universal recognition that we’re all in this together, to protect this amazing global city that we’ve become,”

US scientists at odds with government policies

Just this Friday 13 US federal agencies released an exhaustive scientific report which claims that humans are the dominant cause of a global temperature rise that has created the warmest period in the history of civilization. This directly contradicts the Trump administration's position on climate change.

The report claims that over the past 115 years the average global temperature has risen by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. The long term trend the report argues is unambiguous. There is no convincing alternative explanation to the view that the change is mostly caused by human intervention.

Many scientists who worked on the report were surprised that none of the 13 agencies who reviewed the report tried to undermine its findings or change the wording.

Philip Duffy, president of the Woods Hole Research Center said: “This report has some very powerful, hard-hitting statements that are totally at odds with senior administration folks and at odds with their policies. It begs the question, where are members of the administration getting their information from? They’re obviously not getting it from their own scientists.”

Man spends 40 years as only inhabitant of Colorado ghost town

bill barr who insists on spelling his name with lower case letters has lived by himself in Gothic Colorado for 40 years now. Gothic is a ghost town abandoned since the 1920's.

To pass the time, barr has recorded all kinds of data including daily snowfall in the winter, temperature, snow melting, and animal sightings. Barr never imagined that scientists studying global warming would find his data useful in understanding global warming and even earn him a special title The Snow Guardian.

Barr had first come to Gothic in 1972, when he was a Rutgers University environmental science student doing research on water chemistry. He fell in love with the town and the quiet life there. When he finished his degree he became a permanent resident of the cold ghost town nestled in the mountains. Although he had grown up in New Jersey barr never liked being surrounded by many people. Barr said: “I grew up in the city. It was too much for me". Barr is now 65 years old.

In 1974 barr began his first winter in Gothic camping in a tent. Depth of snow in Gothic can reach up to 25 feet. Fortunately, the owner of an abandoned mining shack let barr move in. It became his home for eight years. His sole goal he claims in keeping the records was to fight boredom. For something to do barr began monitoring daily snowfalls, snow density, temperature, and much else. Barr claimed: “I didn’t have anything else to do. It was simple curiosity."

barr's observations show warming in the area during the time he has spent there. Barr says: “The trend I see is that we’re getting permanent snow pack later, and we get to bare ground sooner. We’ll have years where there was a lot of snow on the ground, and then we lose snow sooner than years that had a lot less snow just because it’s a lot warmer now.” While some climate change deniers have already criticized his measurements as biased, barr insists there is no reason for him to be biased. He says that he started his project long before global warming was even a trendy topic and just because he wanted to have something to do.

Barr travels four miles to Crested Butte about twice a month using skis to buy supplies. Crested Butte is a town of about 1500 people. He has bought a house in a nearby town for when he will be too old to survive on his own in Gothic. He does not suggest that other people quit cities and town and strike out for the wilderness: "Everyone has this idea, sitting in a comfortable chair in your cabin, reading a book, with the snow falling softly outside. The truth is, it’s boring as shit. But I like it.” " Gothic life is not for everyone only for eccentrics such as barr. National Geographic has a video on barr found here. The same video is embedded above.

How to profit from Global Warming

This is the perfect Xmas gift for your environmentalist friends!



A holiday at the end of the Earth: tourists paying to see global warming in action

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor

Published: 03 May 2007




Bored with your usual holiday? Try watching bits of the world as they start to heat up!

The effects of climate change are leading to a distinctive new form of 21st-century travel: global-warming tourism.

A US tour company will be running a special trip this summer to view Warming Island, the remarkable new feature of the Greenland coast produced by the melting of the Greenland ice sheet and featured on the front page of The Independent last week.

Betchart Expeditions of Cupertino, California, a company specialising in natural history tours and safaris all over the world, is mounting a 12-day voyage to the new island, 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle, led by the man who discovered it in 2005, the veteran American explorer Dennis Schmitt.

Travellers will set out in September from Reykjavik in Iceland and sail in comfort on board the 50-passenger expedition ship, MVAleksey Maryshev across the Denmark Strait to the island’s location half-way up Greenland’s remote east coast.

Betchart has already produced a detailed four-page brochure promoting the trip, which you can join for a minimum price of US$4,995 (£2,500). This buys you, at the bottom end, a cabin with shared bathroom facilities, plus all meals, lectures and excursions. For $6,995 you get a superior cabin with private facilities. The brochure promises: “Our voyage will pass through an area rich in marine life. Blue whales, the largest animal that has ever lived on Earth, feed in the rich waters, and orcas [killer whales], white-beaked dolphins, and many sea birds may be seen.”

It adds: “We will have a full day to explore the area around Warming Island and to learn from Dennis [Schmitt] about his team’s discoveries. En route, we will have a complete lecture programme on board ship.”

Betchart’s Bob Nansen said the trip was primarily aimed at scientists but members of the public were also perfectly welcome. About a third of the 48 places had already been sold, he said, and he expected that the tour would be full.

But Greenland’s new coastal feature is not the only climate change phenomenon you could visit this year. The Arctic sea ice, which like the Greenland ice sheet is rapidly melting, will be one of the destinations featured by a British package holiday firm better known for offering trips to Mallorca.

The company First Choice will sell Arctic cruises to intrepid travellers after buying the Canadian firm Quark Expeditions for £8.8m. The group is hoping the deal will help it tap into the growing market for holidays in the polar region.

Quark Expeditions, which is the only firm in the world to offer polar trips on ice-breaker ships designed specifically to navigate through ice sheets, has carried more than 30,000 passengers since its launch in 1991, suggesting holidaymakers are increasingly looking for more than just sun, sea and sand when they take a break.

The author Mark Lynas, who has a strong claim to be the world’s first global-warming tourist - he wrote the first book about its effects around the world, High Tide - agrees that people are looking for such different trips that global-warming tourism will probably be an inevitable development.

“The way things are going, people want new experiences not had by 10,000 people the previous week,” he said. “But there’s no such thing as the lonely planet any more. You’re facing hundreds of other people seeking a lonely planet wherever you go, so we are getting all sorts of new tourism. It’s broadening out more thematically, becoming issue tourism.”

In his 2004 book Mr Lynas reported on the melting of the permafrost in Alaska, the increase in dust storms in China, sea level rise in the Pacific islands and melting glaciers in Peru.

“The idea of global-warming tourism is full of ironies,” he said. “If enough people expend enough fossil fuels to visit one Warming Island, they will ensure that there will be many more.”

Worst effects of global warming will be on the poor

Of course the poor in richer countries may also be worst affected and the rich in the poorer countries will be able to manage.


How the worst effects of climate change will be felt by the poorest

By Michael McCarthy and Stephen Castle






Humanity will be divided as never before by climate change, with the world’s poor its disproportionate victims, the latest United Nations report on the coming effects of global warming made clear yesterday.

Existing divisions between rich and poor countries will be sharply exacerbated by the pattern of climate-change impacts in the coming years, predicted in the study from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Increased drought, crop failure, disease, extreme weather events and sea level rise are all likely to fall much more heavily on struggling populations in Africa, Asia and South America than on the rich industrial societies of Europe, North America and Australia - who have done most to cause global warming through greenhouse gas emissions in the past, and who are best able to afford counter-measures to limit its consequences.

This picture of great inequity and a great climate divide was seized on by aid agencies and environmental pressure groups. “Governments must act now to stop a catastrophe for the world’s poor,” said Benedict Southworth, director of the anti-poverty charity the World Development Movement. “Climate change is no longer just an environmental issue, it is a looming humanitarian catastrophe,” said Friends of the Earth International’s climate campaigner, Catherine Pearce.

The IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, said in launching the report: “The poorest of the poor in the world - and this includes poor people in prosperous societies - are going to be the worst hit. People who are poor are least able to adapt to climate change.”

The study, endorsed by all the major UN member states, was the second part of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, or AR4. The first part, released in Paris two months ago, dealt with the science of climate change and likely future temperature rises. Yesterday’s report goes on to detail the potential impacts of those rises on the natural world and on human society.

It was released in Brussels only after an all-night argument in which some countries responsible for increasingly high greenhouse gas emissions, led by China, the US and Saudi Arabia, succeeded in watering down the text from its initial draft.

However, the picture painted by the final consensus document was stark enough, setting out the dire consequences of global warming, sector by sector and region by region, if strong action is not taken to limit its effects.

The impacts are already visible, the report said, with significant changes due to rising temperatures now apparent in ice masses, water bodies, agriculture and ecosystems. Changes consistent with higher temperatures have been noted in 29,000 sets of data and 75 separate studies; they range from melting permafrost in Arctic regions to shifting distributions of fish populations, and earlier timing of spring events such as leaf-unfolding, bird-migration and egg-laying.

But it is the future impacts that are potentially catastrophic. The report sets out changes likely in the years to come in freshwater resources, food, coastal systems, communities, health and natural ecosystems.

In the last-named, they are quite extraordinary. Up to 30 per cent of plant and animal species so far assessed are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global temperature exceed 1.5-2.5C, the report says.

A picture of a great climate-change divide between rich and poor countries becomes startlingly visible in the report. Africa is the worst case. Some of the projected changes are horrifying - and only just around the corner. “By 2020, between 75 and 250 million people [in Africa] are projected to be exposed to an increase of water stress due to climate change,” the report says.

African agricultural production is projected to be “severely compromised by climate variability and change,” with decreases likely in the area suitable for agriculture, the length of the growing season and yield potential. “In some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 20 per cent by 2020,” the report says.

Asia is not far behind, with many negative impacts expected. They include a water “double whammy” as Himalayan glaciers irreversibly melt - first, increased flooding in glacier-fed rivers from the meltwater, then decreased water resources as the glaciers disappear.

Asian coastal areas, especially the big cities in the seven “mega-deltas” from India’s Ganges to China’s Yangtze, will be at greatly increased risk of flooding, with an associated increase in death to due to diarrhoeal disease, while by 2050, crop yields in central and south Asia may drop by 30 per cent.

In Latin America, water supplies available for human consumption, agriculture and energy generation are predicted to be “significantly affected” by changes in rainfall patterns and the disappearance of Andean glaciers. Parts of the Amazon rainforest are likely to turn into semi-arid savannah.

In the richer continents the effects, at least in the short term, will not be as severe, and will be easier to defend against. Indeed, some may be beneficial for a time: in the warming atmosphere, crop yields in North America may rise by up to 20 per cent, and there may be some agricultural benefits for Australasia. Europe will have to deal with the likely disappearance of skiing, more heatwaves and an increase in flash flooding - but not starvation.

However, in the long term, the report says, any temporary benefits will be overwhelmed by the damage rising temperatures will wreak all over the globe.

The children who will pay the price for climate change

Ziaul Islam, BANGLADESH

Catastrophic flooding, associated waterborne diseases and shortages of drinking water, all caused by climate change, are likely to figure increasingly strongly in the life of Ziaul as he grows up in Bangladesh.

Ernestina, MOZAMBIQUE

Hunger is likely to play an increasingly distressing role in the life of Ernestina as she comes of age in Mozambique, with much of Africa’s agriculture becoming unviable because of the rising temperatures.

Raul Bucardo, NICARAGUA

Extreme weather events, such as Hurricane Mitch which devastated his country’s capital Tegucigalpa in 1998, may become an increasingly regular and hazardous fact of life in Nicaragua where Raul lives.

Luke Telos, SOLOMON ISLANDS

The violence of the sea may loom ever larger in the life of Luke from the Solomon Islands, as rises in sea levels threaten small islands with bigger storm-surges.

Wanted ungreen oily environmentalists: good pay

Scientists Offered Cash to Dispute Climate Study
By Ian Sample
The Guardian UK

Friday 02 February 2007

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.

The UN report was written by international experts and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science. It will underpin international negotiations on new emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft last year and invited to comment.

The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.

The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".

Climate scientists described the move yesterday as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on global warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims," said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

"The IPCC process is probably the most thorough and open review undertaken in any discipline. This undermines the confidence of the public in the scientific community and the ability of governments to take on sound scientific advice," he said.

The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting scholar at AEI, who confirmed that the organisation had approached scientists, economists and policy analysts to write articles for an independent review that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC report.

"Right now, the whole debate is polarised," he said. "One group says that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the other group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We don't think that approach has a lot of utility for intelligent policy."

One American scientist turned down the offer, citing fears that the report could easily be misused for political gain. "You wouldn't know if some of the other authors might say nothing's going to happen, that we should ignore it, or that it's not our fault," said Steve Schroeder, a professor at Texas A&M university.

The contents of the IPCC report have been an open secret since the Bush administration posted its draft copy on the internet in April. It says there is a 90% chance that human activity is warming the planet, and that global average temperatures will rise by another 1.5 to 5.8C this century, depending on emissions.

Lord Rees of Ludlow, the president of the Royal Society, Britain's most prestigious scientific institute, said: "The IPCC is the world's leading authority on climate change and its latest report will provide a comprehensive picture of the latest scientific understanding on the issue. It is expected to stress, more convincingly than ever before, that our planet is already warming due to human actions, and that 'business as usual' would lead to unacceptable risks, underscoring the urgent need for concerted international action to reduce the worst impacts of climate change. However, yet again, there will be a vocal minority with their own agendas who will try to suggest otherwise."

Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said: "The AEI is more than just a thinktank, it functions as the Bush administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the last throes of their campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the science; they lost on the moral case for action. All they've got left is a suitcase full of cash."

On Monday, another Exxon-funded organisation based in Canada will launch a review in London which casts doubt on the IPCC report. Among its authors are Tad Murty, a former scientist who believes human activity makes no contribution to global warming. Confirmed VIPs attending include Nigel Lawson and David Bellamy, who believes there is no link between burning fossil fuels and global warming.

More Food for the US Oil Monster

Just in case things continue badly in the Middle East Plan B is to drain Canada's natural resources--to the applause of Stephen Harper and countless others no doubt. The governments concern about the environment obviously takes a back seat to resource development. Canadians obviously are not hewers of wood and drawers of water we are a country of Albertan oil sheiks.
The oil sands is a very costly and polluting source of oil compared to the Middle East.


U.S. urges 'fivefold expansion' in Alberta oilsands production
Last Updated: Thursday, January 18, 2007 6:31 AM ET
CBC News
The U.S. wants Canada to dramatically expand its oil exports from the Alberta oilsands, a move that could have major implications on the environment.
U.S.and Canadian oil executives and government officials met for a two-day oil summit in Houston in January 2006 and made plans for a "fivefold expansion" in oilsands production in a relatively "short time span," according to minutes of the meeting obtained by the CBC's French-language network, Radio-Canada.
The meeting was organized by Natural Resources Canada and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Canada is already the top exporter of oil to the American market, exporting the equivalent of one million barrels a day — the exact amount that the oilsands industry in Alberta currently produces.
A fivefold increase would mean the exportation of five million barrels a day, which would supply a quarter of current American consumption and add up to almost half of all U.S. imports.
But the current extraction of oil from the tarsands results in the spewing of millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere: it's already the biggest source of new greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.


The news of the call for the massive boost in oil production comes as Prime Minister Stephen Harper has pledged to make the environment one of his top priorities, vowing that Canadians deserve more action on climate change. Polls show the environment is the number one concern of Canadians.
Yet, according to the minutes of the Houston meeting, to multiply its output by five and to do it quickly, Canada would have to "streamline" its environmental regulations for new energy projects.
"We need to look at additional pipelines from Canada to the U.S. as a new source of supplier, a growing source of supply," said Bob Greco of the American Petroleum Institute.
In his state of the union address in 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush set out a goal to drastically reduce oil imports from the Middle East and make American dependence on Middle Eastern oil "a thing of the past."
"America is addicted to oil which is often imported from unstable parts of the world," Bush said then.
Paul Michael Weaby, a Washington insider and an expert on the geo-strategic aspect of the oil industry, said Bush is counting on Canada to help wean the United States off Middle Eastern oil — a goal now defined as a national security objective.
"He wanted to have a reduction of 1.5 million barrels a day by 2015 from the Middle East. Although he did not mention Canada, that is in fact where the replacement supply will come from."