Jan 29 2010

Climate Changes

Posted by: Kory Raftery

Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:

The Pentagon will release its quadrennial defense review on Monday and early accounts claim the U.S. military will list global warming as a threat to national security. The writers are expected to call the issue an “instability accelerant” that could pose great danger to American troops on foreign soil. "Climate change is a factor that interacts with other trends, principally weak governance, poor economies and population growth, to drive states toward instability, which can, in turn, spawn a range of security challenges," the researchers said in the paper.

President Obama formally embraced the Copenhagen Accord, stating the U.S. will aim for a 17 percent emissions cut in carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming by 2020. But the president warned that the goal was conditional on other countries also submitting their pollution-cutting targets to the United Nations. The condition was likely aimed at fence-sitters in Congress who do not want to see the United States commit to steps on fighting global warming unless other major polluters like China and India go along.

Scientists say rising seawaters are causing the lifeline of the ancient Egyptians to expand, raising havoc in Egypt by turning the Nile Delta into a salty marsh and forcing farmers off their lands. To combat rising sea levels, the farmers who have decided to stay and fight are importing sand to stave off the salty sea in an effort to protect their land and their crops. Experts claim even a small rise to sea levels over the next 15 years would flood 200 square kilometers and displace 500,000 people, effectively killing 70,000 agricultural jobs.

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