1. 
   Joseph Raglione27 February 2014 10:22

   Hello Gentle People:
   Did you know that a few years ago: Al Gore and John Kerry and Ted Kennedy and Michael Moore all contacted me? I am a nobody from Canada but I had something they needed...a powerful computer and a few million readers.They wanted me to write for their new young presidential candidate, a U.S. Senator by the name of Barack Obama.
   
   Millions of computer writers joined together to bring about an agenda of change and that change must continue today if we are going to survive global warming.
   
   Don't give up trying to find the facts because we have introduced informative and educational content well worth reading...especially the articles created by NASA and the information they distribute utilizing their spectacular satellites circling the Earth.  Instruments so well calibrated they can measure you inch by inch. Just joking folks but I do strongly suggest you pass on any article based on facts that helps to protect the environment. Greenpeace continues to be a great source of honest facts and the United Nations is excellent for understanding our human rights. Always try to discover what is educational and important and you do not have to be in school to learn new things!
   I am one of the many writers who today continue to use computers for social change and surprisingly, it is working! The new Electric Cars on the market would not have entered the market or even exist if we had not pushed hard for change. In order to create social changes within the United States and Canada and the World we must continue the struggle against selfish greed and industrial pollution. What makes me slightly different is the fact that I am willing to share my Blog space with other writers. I give them full credit for their work. Visit my human4us2blogspot...I use the space for publishing articles geared towards the world humanitarian peace and ecology movement. As a World Humanitarian I often link to: the United Nations, Green-Peace, the Sierra Club, the W.W.F, Amnesty International, the Campus Progress Report, and many many more including the office of the President of Russia, Senator Barbara Boxer, the Barack Obama campaign, the office of the Prime minister of Canada and I could go on for a while because I've been on the internet from the beginning. I also remember helping TIG or the "Taking it Global" kids with some surreptitious suggestions a few years ago and then I backed off and watched their progress. This brings me to an important point.
   If you want to change the world, don't ask for money and don't expect to be acknowledged or rewarded for your efforts. In fact expect the opposite because our specie: Homo Sapien, is an Omnivorous and territorial and often selfish creature and attempting to change our human nature using culture is a difficult task. You don't have to be any of the following: Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Solomon, Ghandi or the Dalai Lama; just do the work needed for change and stay as positive and happy as possible. Being a Vegetarian helps! Don't forget to plant hundreds if not thousands of Trees everywhere. Trees are desperately needed to slow global warming. After planting Trees, make more than one food growing garden where it is needed most. I suggest in your own back yard but there is always a need in the middle of poor city areas.  Roof tops are great places for gardens if they are strong enough to hold the soil. I suggest gardens are necessary anywhere the poor and desperate congregate on this small Blue Planet we call Earth.
     Always use the following Ethics in whatever you do. They include: Freedom with Honesty and Justice, Courage with Compassion and Dignity, Tolerance with Sharing and Caring and Humor, Kindness with Peace in Love and in Harmony with all living things. I challenge you to find as many more positive concepts as possible and include them in the list.
   P.S. For you tough kids out there, don't forget to protest injustice at every possibility even if it means going to jail. Simply don't forget to do it the way Ghandi did, with non violent protest. ;-)
   Have a great day and a wonderful life!
   Signed: Joseph Raglione
2. 
   

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February 27, 2014

Gentle People:

 I do not like being trained. In fact I dislike it intensely! However, if you must train people and animals, I suggest you follow the best guidelines.

 I will not be attending your training session but you can use this information as a basis for your new sessions.

  As a web based international journalist for human rights and the environment I believe in freedom with justice and courage, compassion with dignity and tolerance and humour, peace with love and harmony towards all life on Earth.

  I am excellent at what I do and if you want to win the next election, I strongly suggest you follow my example. Protecting and enhancing the natural environment along with human rights and human dignity, must always be a priority for you. Strong new consumer protection laws must be created with better and longer product guarantees. This will create work within your home nation and slow the importation of cheap junk from other countries.

  If you talk about creating environmentally friendly low income housing and public gardens within cities while banning gas burning cars and prioritizing all Electric vehicles: clean public transportation and Bicycle paths, you will win the attention and respect of the people. For example, President Obama espoused humanitarian and environmental concepts years ago and he won the White House! He began to lose public support when he was forced away from his original concepts by the Banks and the Oil and Coal industries and their Republican friends in Congress. Oil based Carbon must be removed from our atmosphere even if that means removing Oil and Coal from our economy. They must be replaced with clean energy creating alternatives which surprisingly, includes new and safer Nuclear Reactors.

 P.S. I can feel you shrugging your shoulders and getting ready to forget I exist. 

 That, I promise, will not work in your best interests. I am, however,  going to place your invitation on my Google blog and maybe it will create some interest for your Montreal NDP training session.

Joseph Raglione.

Executive Director: The World Humanitarian Peace and Ecology Movement. 

From: npd-qc@npd.ca
To: npd-qc@npd.ca
Subject: Formations NPD/NDP training sessions
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2014 16:14:05 +0000

Bonjour,

Après la dernière formation en mi-février à laquelle 60 membres ont participé,  l'équipe d'organisation de la section Québec offrira deux autres journées de formation (une en français et l’autre en anglais) aux membres du NPD de la grande région de Montréal. 

La formation en français aura lieu le dimanche 23 mars de 10h à 16h au bureau de la Section Québec.

L’adresse est le 4428, boulevard Saint-Laurent, bureau 300 (entre Marianne et Mont Royal), situé à 10 minutes à pied du métro Mont-Royal. 

Les sujets suivants seront abordés: 

1. L'historique du Nouveau parti démocratique et ses accomplissements
2. La structure de la section Québec et rôle d'une association
3. Le financement
4. La préparation électorale
5. Défis et priorités pour 2015

Du café et des viennoiseries seront offerts le matin. Les participants auront une heure pour diner. Vous pouvez apporter votre lunch, ou manger à l'extérieur. Plusieurs restaurants sont proches du bureau de la Section Québec.

Veuillez confirmer votre participation à la formation en français avant le 14 mars à Emilie Beauchesne emilie@npd.ca 

Merci de votre collaboration, 

L’équipe de l’organisation

Section Québec du NPD

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,

Following the mid-February training session in which 60 of our members participated, the Quebec organization team will be offering two more training sessions (one in French and one in English) for members from the greater Montreal area. 

The English training session will take place on Saturday, March 22, 2014, from 10am until about 4pm at the Quebec Section office.

The address is 4428 blvd Saint-Laurent, suite 300 (between Marianne and Mont Royal), about a 10 minute walk from Mont Royal metro station.

 The following topics will be covered:

1.       The NDP’s history and accomplishments

2.       The structure of the Quebec Section

3.       Fundraising

4.       Election preparedness

5.       Challenges and priorities for 2015

Coffee and snacks will be provided in the morning.  Participants will be given an hour to have lunch at one of the many restaurants located near the Quebec Section office. 

Please confirm your participation in the English training session before March 14 by writing to: dan@ndp.ca  

Thank you for your collaboration. 

The Org Team

NDP, Quebec Section

COPE225:JL /  SEPB225:JL
=================================================

North Carolina’s Moral Monday movement held a massive “Moral March” in Raleigh on Feb 10,2014, which began at Shaw University ... Tens of thousands of activists—from all backgrounds, races and causes—marched from Shaw to the North Carolina State Capitol, where they held an exuberant rally protesting the right-wing policies of the North Carolina government.
They're protesting the state's Republicans, who took over the legislature in 2010 and the governor's office in 2012 with the financial support of greedy billionaire Art Pope and with their marching orders written by ALEC.

Here's what they (the government)did:
*eliminated the earned-income tax credit for 900,000 North Carolinians;
*refused Medicaid coverage for 500,000;
*ended federal unemployment benefits for 170,000;
*cut pre-K for 30,000 kids while shifting $90 million from public education to voucher schools;
*slashed taxes for the top 5 percent while raising taxes on the bottom 95 percent;
*axed public financing of judicial races;
*prohibited death row inmates from challenging racially discriminatory verdicts;
*passed one of the country’s most draconian anti-choice laws;
*enacted the country’s worst voter suppression law which mandates strict voter ID, cuts early voting and eliminates same-day registration.

Writes Berman:
The fierce reaction against these policies led to the Moral Monday movement, when nearly 1,000 activists were arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience inside the North Carolina General Assembly. Rallies were held in more than thirty cities across the state and the approval ratings of North Carolina Republicans fell into the toilet. Sample signs at today’s rally: “OMG, GOP, WTF. It’s 2014, not 1954!!!” “Welcome to North Carolina. Turn Your Watch Back 50 Years!”...
The Moral Monday protests transformed North Carolina politics in 2013, building a multiracial, multi-issue movement centered around social justice such as the South hadn’t seen since the 1960s. “We have come to say to the extremists, who ignore the common good and have chosen the low road, your actions have worked in reverse,” said Reverend William Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP and the leader of the Moral Monday movement, in his boisterous keynote speech. “You may have thought you were going to discourage us, but instead you have encouraged us. The more you push us back, the more we will fight to go forward. The more you try to oppress us, the more you will inspire us.”
Here's what the Moral Monday protesters want:
1.Secure pro-labor, anti-poverty policies that insure economic sustainability;
2.Provide well-funded, quality public education for all;
3.Stand up for the health of every North Carolinian by promoting health care access and environmental justice across all the state's communities;
4.Address the continuing inequalities in the criminal justice system and ensure equality under the law for every person, regardless of race, class, creed, documentation or sexual preference;
5.Protect and expand voting rights for people of color, women, immigrants, the elderly and students to safeguard fair democratic representation.
Berman predicts the movement will continue to grow this year. Let's hope.
Posted by Teamster Power at 5:09 PM

------------------------------------------------------
In case you forgot: The Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group is the
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)

Read more about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)
Find more recipients of Koch foundation money
$525,858 received from Koch foundations 2005-2011 [Total Koch foundation grants 1997-2011: $858,858]
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is one-stop shopping for state elected officials interested in perusing the wares of an array of Koch-funded opposition organizations including IER, ACCF, Mercatus and other sources.The American Legislative Exchange Council is a member of the State Policy Network.

ALEC has successfully peddled corporate-written legislation to numerous states attacking the Kyoto Protocol, undermining climate science education in schools and numerous other anti-environmental legislation. ALEC has close ties to Koch Industries, which helped bail the organization out of financial troubles with a half-million dollar grant.

ALEC publishes its own materials as well, including a "Climate Change Overview for State Legislators" which downplays the science and risks of global warming and exaggerates the costs of addressing it. The Overview was written by Daniel Simmons, who moved from ALEC to become AEA's Director of State Affairs. Simmons was at the Mercatus Institute before ALEC and is a graduate of the George Mason University School of Law.

Charles G. Koch is a recipient of ALEC's 1994 "Adam Smith Award."

Read more about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) on ExxonSecrets.org

American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) on SourceWatch.org

Find more recipients of Koch foundation money
View "Koch's Web of Dirty Money and Influence"

Topics
global warming
Tags
american legislative exchange council, global warming, climate change, koch industries, denial, science, fossil fuel, funding, oil, billionaires, brothers, foundation, charles koch, david koch, claude r lambe, alec

The forest can't defend itself
The forest can’t defend itself

The forest can’t defend itself.

That’s why Greenpeace and two campaigners refuse to be silenced by a $7 million lawsuit by Resolute Forest Products for standing up to their reckless clear-cutting of Canada’s Boreal Forest. Sign the #StandForForests pledge now to help protect this critical habitat and add your name to the Guardian Tree as a symbol of our shared resolve to protect Canadian forests.

Yes, I stand with Greenpeace for forests.
Joseph Raglione

This has been a confusing week for me. For years I and my political activist friends voted against Nuclear fusion reactors. We were right to protest because the first reactors were commercial and dangerous and potential bomb makers. Yesterday, I discovered that the Coal and Oil industries were and continue to be also against Nuclear reactors; but for very different reasons. They are afraid of how today's clean and efficient and much safer reactors will create too much competition for them. In the past Oil companies actively supported anti-nuclear demonstrators. In the past nuclear bombs scared the living hell out of all of us. Hiroshima and Nagasaki along with thousands of above and underground Atom bomb tests terrified millions of people around the world and with good reason...we were staring death directly in the face!

Nuclear melt-downs entrenched the fear of nuclear energy deep into our souls. Mile-Island and Chernobyl and recently the Japanese disaster maintained that fear...but today there is proof that the cleanest energy creating systems on the planet belong to the Nuclear fusion industry. Nothing is fail safe but compared to Coal and Oil, nuclear energy has an extremely tiny risk, especially with the new reactors. A risk mitigated with modern day fail-safe systems which shut down the reactors the moment any problem is discovered. The modern day reactors even recycle and re-use their own nuclear waste.

Having learned to duck under a school desk during a nuclear bomb alert, I continue to fear nuclear fusion. The problem is that nuclear fusion is not killing us! Global warming created by Coal and Oil pollution, along with industrial by-products such as Plastic, are proving to be a lot more dangerous! If I were the president of the United States and I had a choice between the Oil industry and the Nuclear industry, I would choose the nuclear industry. They have cleaned up their act and the modern and safer reactors deserve another chance. As for the Oil and Gas industry, the C.B.C. has found new evidence of a cover up.

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A CBC News investigation has unearthed a critical report that the federal regulator effectively buried for several years about a rupture on a trouble-prone TransCanada natural gas pipeline.

On July 20, 2009, the Peace River Mainline in northern Alberta exploded, sending 50-metre-tall flames into the air and razing a two-hectare wooded area.

Few people ever learned of the rupture — one of the largest in the past decade — other than the Dene Tha’ First Nation, whose traditional territory it happened on.

In an early 2011 draft report about the incident, the National Energy Board criticized TransCanada, the operator of the line owned by its subsidiary NOVA Gas Transmission, for “inadequate” field inspections and “ineffective” management.

Final reports are typically published by the investigative bodies, either the NEB or the Transportation Safety Board, but this report wasn’t released until this January when the CBC obtained it through an access-to-information request.

The NEB said the delay was caused by an “administrative error” when an employee left without transferring the file over.

TransCanada did not respond to a CBC request for an interview.

Environmental policy expert Nathan Lemphers says he’s “deeply concerned” that the federal regulator kept the “fairly damning” report behind closed doors.

“It’s quite likely that there are other incidents like this that the public simply doesn’t know about,” said Lemphers, a former Pembina Institute analyst. “This one stands out simply because of its size and the timing and the company involved.”

Lemphers questions whether TransCanada’s contentious Keystone XL proposal, under environmental review in the U.S. at the same time, had a bearing on the regulator not publishing the Peace River Mainline draft report.

“It's hard to guess intentions,” said Lemphers. “It certainly seems fishy from the outside that this report was kept quiet due to an apparent administrative error. If the report came out it would have been, risen to immediate public attention.”

In January 2011, TransCanada was in the midst of negotiating dozens of U.S. safety requests on pipeline construction, operation and design on the controversial Keystone XL proposal. That was followed by several months of public comments in the States later that year.

The Keystone XL project, first proposed in 2008, is still in limbo. A crucial assessment released last week said there are no major environmental objections to the $7-billion mega-project, but a 90-day comment period still remains.

Members of Dene Tha’ First Nations community of Chateh, about 50 kilometres away from the site of the blast, also want to know why the report was not released until now.

“They should let the public know about these deficiencies that exist,” said Baptiste Metchooyeah, the former Dene Tha’ First Nation lands director. “We have to start saying something about these incidents, because the regulator is not there for us.”

According to the report, the pipeline spewed 1.45 million cubic metres of natural gas – equivalent to the volume of 580 Olympic-sized pools – over a period of hours before TransCanada stopped the flow and put out the fire.

Fabian Chonkolay, a local hunter who flew over the site, described the aftermath as looking like a “big ball of fire” had consumed the forest. “Just like when they drop a bomb,” he said.

Chateh residents fear that because the area is remote, it might be considered a low-risk area for pipeline operators, leading to fewer safety precautions. The pipeline runs under the community of Chateh, and hunters and trappers often travel in the area.

“It’s way in the bush, but there’s a lot of activities going on out there,” said Chonkolay.

The report reveals that the Peace River Mainline has a historically high rate of ruptures — six since the 1970s. The Alberta pipeline’s rupture rate is five times higher than Canada’s national rupture rate, reported in a 2004 study.

The pipeline had an uncommon problem: a bacteria that caused “particularly aggressive growth rates” of corrosion. But, as the NEB report notes, the bacteria was a known threat to the pipeline and caused a rupture in 2002.

The section of the pipeline that burst in 2009 was 95 per cent corroded. TransCanada’s own rules required that it physically inspect a pipeline when it reached 75 per cent corrosion, the report says.

The report notes the inline inspection tool failed to accurately assess the depth of the “corrosion within corrosion.”

Pipeline integrity experts say that given the pipeline’s high rate of ruptures and its known corrosion problems, the company ran along the “ragged edge” of the rules. Many operators use far lower thresholds, closer to 40 or 50 per cent corrosion, before inspecting.

The NEB says that since the incident, TransCanada changed criteria for identifying corrosion, while the NEB made changes to its management requirements for pipeline operators.

The report on the 2009 rupture sat in draft stage for nearly three years, only coming to light when CBC obtained a copy this January.

NEB spokesperson Rebecca Taylor wrote in an email that the investigation closed Jan. 19, 2011.

“The delay in publishing this report to our external website in no way compromised the safe operation of the Peace River Mainline,” said Taylor.

CBC asked for the report last October on at least four separate occasions. NEB refused to release the report to CBC News, saying that it could be requested through access-to-information.

When the report was released, the final report was dated November 2013. A one and a half page section on TransCanada’s field inspection was redacted in the 2011 draft and changed in the final report.

NEB says they asked CBC to request the document through access to information to meet “legal and confidentiality obligations associated with the release of the document.”

For the Dene Tha’ First Nations community that lives above the pipeline, the focus is on what happens in the future.

In 2010, TransCanada began signalling its intent to decommission a 266-kilometre southern section of the line, built in 1968. The NEB is holding public hearings soon to get input as it decides whether to approve the move and the conditions.

But the section under review for decommissioning doesn’t extend into the northern Alberta region where Chonkolay lives.

“It’s an old pipeline,” said Chonkolay. “Heaven knows how many more damage it’s going to do in the future. … How many more times is it going to rupture?”

----- Original Message ----- An open letter... To: Barack Obama From Joseph Raglione. Distributed: January 29, 2014. 12:58 PM Dear President Obama. On some days I am not sure if you are simply stringing us along! Do Oil Pipelines remain on your political agenda? If so, what happened to all those alternative energy systems people have created? For example: Water and Wind Mills and Rooftop Solar Panels. How about super insulated homes or underground apartments? How about those fourth generation nuclear power plants that shut down at the smallest hint of a problem and reuse their own waste material? They are proving to be cleaner than Coal and Oil and they do not create global warming.

To quickly change the subject... How can it be possible that hand guns and assault rifles are legally allowed in the hands of almost every person within the United States? If the second amendment is the problem, hold a national referendum utilizing Television and Telephone and ask the question, should we amend the second amendment to limit assault rifles and hand guns? Personally, I believe the second amendment was created to protect your American ancestors from invasion by the British. it was not intended to create an armed camp today where children and babies are murdered on a regular basis. What human being with any sense of moral or ethical judgement wants to see innocent children slaughtered like Cattle? What fools within your federal government want to allow this kind of mayhem to continue? My next question is aimed at your new Medicaid system? Are you winning or losing ground? Are U.S. citizens getting the help they need from hospitals and clinics? Are multi-national corporations and special interest groups continuing to dictate terms to Washington members of Congress? If so who are these organizations and why are they not exposed in the Media? How can so many members of the Republican party be so ignorant about the fact of global warming? There is pictorial evidence that Glaciers have melted more within the last ten years than any other time in recorded history! Arctic Ice is also going fast and above the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps, large Ozone holes have become a terrible reality! They are created by man made pollution. With pollution, fresh water has become a commodity for sale in toxic plastic bottles and not free for everybody! To once again change the subject, why are Television commercials filled with polluting internal combustion engine cars when alternative all Electric vehicles are now available? Everybody is aware that Carbon Monoxide is a deadly gas and it should be outlawed and certainly not pumped into the air we all breath! What is happening with the national Electric Grid and the promised alternative energy sources? Has that been allowed to fail and if so who is responsible? T.V. should be regulated and violence reduced. They are using violence to sell almost everything on television. Educational channels should proliferate as opposed to so-called reality channels where millions of T.V. viewers are forced to sit and passively watch a parade of low intelligence people doing basically foolish attention grabbing stunts. These waste of time programs have one purpose and that is to sell cheap time limited and pollution creating products to people with low incomes and low intelligence. Products which quickly end up in large garbage dumps all over the world and also within large circular Gyers within our Oceans. Television viewers are brain-washed from childhood to watch violence on television. Repeated exposure to violence does desensitize the human capacity for generosity and compassion. Adults brought up by violence in the Media are desensitized to the violence in real life. This allows gun merchants to continue making obscene profits while proliferating deadly international wars! Television has become a corporate controlled vehicle for selling gas burning vehicles in order to maintain their economic status. I suggest science programs like the Discovery Channel replace much of the garbage now paraded on television. I suggest a strong code of Ethics be applied to all potential commercials on television. Two Important questions must be asked before any product be granted television time. 1. Is this product safe for people to eat or use? 2. How will this product affect the environment? For example, these two minutes of education are brought to you by Tesla, the anti- pollution Electric Car company. Signed: Joseph Raglione Ex/Dir: The World Humanitarian Peace and Ecology Movement.

NASA Earth Observatory Home Images Global Maps Features News & Notes Global Warming By Holli Riebeek Design by Robert Simmon June 3, 2010 Throughout its long history, Earth has warmed and cooled time and again. Climate has changed when the planet received more or less sunlight due to subtle shifts in its orbit, as the atmosphere or surface changed, or when the Sun’s energy varied. But in the past century, another force has started to influence Earth’s climate: humanity Previous versions of this article were published in 2007 and 2002. Archived versions are available as PDF files. Photograph of sunglint and the Earth's limb from the Internation Space Station Expedition 22. (NASA astronaut photograph ISS022-E-6674.) What is Global Warming? Global warming is the unusually rapid increase in Earth’s average surface temperature over the past century primarily due to the greenhouse gases released by people burning fossil fuels. How Does Today’s Warming Compare to Past Climate Change? Earth has experienced climate change in the past without help from humanity. But the current climatic warming is occurring much more rapidly than past warming events. Why Do Scientists Think Current Warming Isn’t Natural? In Earth’s history before the Industrial Revolution, Earth’s climate changed due to natural causes unrelated to human activity. These natural causes are still in play today, but their influence is too small or they occur too slowly to explain the rapid warming seen in recent decades. How Much More Will Earth Warm? Models predict that as the world consumes ever more fossil fuel, greenhouse gas concentrations will continue to rise, and Earth’s average surface temperature will rise with them. Based on plausible emission scenarios, average surface temperatures could rise between 2°C and 6°C by the end of the 21st century. Some of this warming will occur even if future greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, because the Earth system has not yet fully adjusted to environmental changes we have already made. How Will Earth Respond to Warming Temperatures? The impact of global warming is far greater than just increasing temperatures. Warming modifies rainfall patterns, amplifies coastal erosion, lengthens the growing season in some regions, melts ice caps and glaciers, and alters the ranges of some infectious diseases. Some of these changes are already occurring. References and Related Resources Global Warming Throughout its long history, Earth has warmed and cooled time and again. Climate has changed when the planet received more or less sunlight due to subtle shifts in its orbit, as the atmosphere or surface changed, or when the Sun’s energy varied. But in the past century, another force has started to influence Earth’s climate: humanity How does this warming compare to previous changes in Earth’s climate? How can we be certain that human-released greenhouse gases are causing the warming? How much more will the Earth warm? How will Earth respond? Answering these questions is perhaps the most significant scientific challenge of our time. What is Global Warming? Global warming is the unusually rapid increase in Earth’s average surface temperature over the past century primarily due to the greenhouse gases released as people burn fossil fuels. The global average surface temperature rose 0.6 to 0.9 degrees Celsius (1.1 to 1.6° F) between 1906 and 2005, and the rate of temperature increase has nearly doubled in the last 50 years. Temperatures are certain to go up further. Graph of global mean temperature from 1880 to 2009. Despite ups and downs from year to year, global average surface temperature is rising. By the beginning of the 21st century, Earth’s temperature was roughly 0.5 degrees Celsius above the long-term (1951–1980) average. (NASA figure adapted from Goddard Institute for Space Studies Surface Temperature Analysis.) Earth’s natural greenhouse effect Earth’s temperature begins with the Sun. Roughly 30 percent of incoming sunlight is reflected back into space by bright surfaces like clouds and ice. Of the remaining 70 percent, most is absorbed by the land and ocean, and the rest is absorbed by the atmosphere. The absorbed solar energy heats our planet. As the rocks, the air, and the seas warm, they radiate “heat” energy (thermal infrared radiation). From the surface, this energy travels into the atmosphere where much of it is absorbed by water vapor and long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. When they absorb the energy radiating from Earth’s surface, microscopic water or greenhouse gas molecules turn into tiny heaters— like the bricks in a fireplace, they radiate heat even after the fire goes out. They radiate in all directions. The energy that radiates back toward Earth heats both the lower atmosphere and the surface, enhancing the heating they get from direct sunlight. This absorption and radiation of heat by the atmosphere—the natural greenhouse effect—is beneficial for life on Earth. If there were no greenhouse effect, the Earth’s average surface temperature would be a very chilly -18°C (0°F) instead of the comfortable 15°C (59°F) that it is today. See Climate and Earth’s Energy Budget to read more about how sunlight fuels Earth’s climate. The enhanced greenhouse effect What has scientists concerned now is that over the past 250 years, humans have been artificially raising the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at an ever-increasing rate, mostly by burning fossil fuels, but also from cutting down carbon-absorbing forests. Since the Industrial Revolution began in about 1750, carbon dioxide levels have increased nearly 38 percent as of 2009 and methane levels have increased 148 percent. Graphs of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane from 1750 to 2009. Increases in concentrations of carbon dioxide (top) and methane (bottom) coincided with the start of the Industrial Revolution in about 1750. Measurements from Antarctic ice cores (green lines) combined with direct atmospheric measurements (blue lines) show the increase of both gases over time. (NASA graphs by Robert Simmon, based on data from the NOAA Paleoclimatology and Earth System Research Laboratory.) The atmosphere today contains more greenhouse gas molecules, so more of the infrared energy emitted by the surface ends up being absorbed by the atmosphere. Since some of the extra energy from a warmer atmosphere radiates back down to the surface, Earth’s surface temperature rises. By increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases, we are making Earth’s atmosphere a more efficient greenhouse. How is Today’s Warming Different from the Past? Earth has experienced climate change in the past without help from humanity. We know about past climates because of evidence left in tree rings, layers of ice in glaciers, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. For example, bubbles of air in glacial ice trap tiny samples of Earth’s atmosphere, giving scientists a history of greenhouse gases that stretches back more than 800,000 years. The chemical make-up of the ice provides clues to the average global temperature. See the Earth Observatory’s series Paleoclimatology for details about how scientists study past climates. Photograph of a section of an ice core, with bubbles. Graph of temperature anomalies from the EPICA ice core, Antarctica. Glacial ice and air bubbles trapped in it (top) preserve an 800,000-year record of temperature & carbon dioxide. Earth has cycled between ice ages (low points, large negative anomalies) and warm interglacials (peaks). (Photograph courtesy National Snow & Ice Data Center. NASA graph by Robert Simmon, based on data from Jouzel et al., 2007.) Using this ancient evidence, scientists have built a record of Earth’s past climates, or “paleoclimates.” The paleoclimate record combined with global models shows past ice ages as well as periods even warmer than today. But the paleoclimate record also reveals that the current climatic warming is occurring much more rapidly than past warming events. As the Earth moved out of ice ages over the past million years, the global temperature rose a total of 4 to 7 degrees Celsius over about 5,000 years. In the past century alone, the temperature has climbed 0.7 degrees Celsius, roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming. Graph of multi-proxy global temperature reconstruction and instrumental records. Temperature histories from paleoclimate data (green line) compared to the history based on modern instruments (blue line) suggest that global temperature is warmer now than it has been in the past 1,000 years, and possibly longer. (Graph adapted from Mann et al., 2008.) Models predict that Earth will warm between 2 and 6 degrees Celsius in the next century. When global warming has happened at various times in the past two million years, it has taken the planet about 5,000 years to warm 5 degrees. The predicted rate of warming for the next century is at least 20 times faster. This rate of change is extremely unusual. Is Current Warming Natural? In Earth’s history before the Industrial Revolution, Earth’s climate changed due to natural causes not related to human activity. Most often, global climate has changed because of variations in sunlight. Tiny wobbles in Earth’s orbit altered when and where sunlight falls on Earth’s surface. Variations in the Sun itself have alternately increased and decreased the amount of solar energy reaching Earth. Volcanic eruptions have generated particles that reflect sunlight, brightening the planet and cooling the climate. Volcanic activity has also, in the deep past, increased greenhouse gases over millions of years, contributing to episodes of global warming. A biographical sketch of Milutin Milankovitch describes how changes in Earth’s orbit affects its climate. These natural causes are still in play today, but their influence is too small or they occur too slowly to explain the rapid warming seen in recent decades. We know this because scientists closely monitor the natural and human activities that influence climate with a fleet of satellites and surface instruments. Images of the Atmospheric Research Observatory and Polar Operational Environmental Satellite. Remote meteorological stations (left) and orbiting satellites (right) help scientists monitor the causes and effects of global warming. [Images courtesy NOAA Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (left) and Environmental Visualization Laboratory (right).] NASA satellites record a host of vital signs including atmospheric aerosols (particles from both natural sources and human activities, such as factories, fires, deserts, and erupting volcanoes), atmospheric gases (including greenhouse gases), energy radiated from Earth’s surface and the Sun, ocean surface temperature changes, global sea level, the extent of ice sheets, glaciers and sea ice, plant growth, rainfall, cloud structure, and more. On the ground, many agencies and nations support networks of weather and climate-monitoring stations that maintain temperature, rainfall, and snow depth records, and buoys that measure surface water and deep ocean temperatures. Taken together, these measurements provide an ever-improving record of both natural events and human activity for the past 150 years. Scientists integrate these measurements into climate models to recreate temperatures recorded over the past 150 years. Climate model simulations that consider only natural solar variability and volcanic aerosols since 1750—omitting observed increases in greenhouse gases—are able to fit the observations of global temperatures only up until about 1950. After that point, the decadal trend in global surface warming cannot be explained without including the contribution of the greenhouse gases added by humans. Though people have had the largest impact on our climate since 1950, natural changes to Earth’s climate have also occurred in recent times. For example, two major volcanic eruptions, El Chichon in 1982 and Pinatubo in 1991, pumped sulfur dioxide gas high into the atmosphere. The gas was converted into tiny particles that lingered for more than a year, reflecting sunlight and shading Earth’s surface. Temperatures across the globe dipped for two to three years. Graphs of the magnitudes of natural and anthropogenic influences on climate from 1889 to 2006. Although Earth’s temperature fluctuates naturally, human influence on climate has eclipsed the magnitude of natural temperature changes over the past 120 years. Natural influences on temperature—El Niño, solar variability, and volcanic aerosols—have varied approximately plus and minus 0.2° C (0.4° F), (averaging to about zero), while human influences have contributed roughly 0.8° C (1° F) of warming since 1889. (Graphs adapted from Lean et al., 2008.) Although volcanoes are active around the world, and continue to emit carbon dioxide as they did in the past, the amount of carbon dioxide they release is extremely small compared to human emissions. On average, volcanoes emit between 130 and 230 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. By burning fossil fuels, people release in excess of 100 times more, about 26 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere every year (as of 2005). As a result, human activity overshadows any contribution volcanoes may have made to recent global warming. Changes in the brightness of the Sun can influence the climate from decade to decade, but an increase in solar output falls short as an explanation for recent warming. NASA satellites have been measuring the Sun’s output since 1978. The total energy the Sun radiates varies over an 11-year cycle. During solar maxima, solar energy is approximately 0.1 percent higher on average than it is during solar minima. Extreme ultraviolet images of the sun during Solar Max and Solar Minimum. The transparent halo known as the solar corona changes between solar maximum (left) and solar minimum (right). (NASA Extreme Ultraviolet Telescope images from the SOHO Data Archive.) Each cycle exhibits subtle differences in intensity and duration. As of early 2010, the solar brightness since 2005 has been slightly lower, not higher, than it was during the previous 11-year minimum in solar activity, which occurred in the late 1990s. This implies that the Sun’s impact between 2005 and 2010 might have been to slightly decrease the warming that greenhouse emissions alone would have caused. Graph of total solar irradiance from 1978 to 2010. Satellite measurements of daily (light line) and monthly average (dark line) total solar irradiance since 1979 have not detected a clear long-term trend. (NASA graph by Robert Simmon, based on data from the ACRIM Science Team.) Scientists theorize that there may be a multi-decadal trend in solar output, though if one exists, it has not been observed as yet. Even if the Sun were getting brighter, however, the pattern of warming observed on Earth since 1950 does not match the type of warming the Sun alone would cause. When the Sun’s energy is at its peak (solar maxima), temperatures in both the lower atmosphere (troposphere) and the upper atmosphere (stratosphere) become warmer. Instead, observations show the pattern expected from greenhouse gas effects: Earth’s surface and troposphere have warmed, but the stratosphere has cooled. Graph of tropospheric and stratospheric temperatures from 1978 to 2010. Satellite measurements show warming in the troposphere (lower atmosphere, green line) but cooling in the stratosphere (upper atmosphere, red line). This vertical pattern is consistent with global warming due to increasing greenhouse gases, but inconsistent with warming from natural causes. (Graph by Robert Simmon, based on data from Remote Sensing Systems, sponsored by the NOAA Climate and Global Change Program.) The stratosphere gets warmer during solar maxima because the ozone layer absorbs ultraviolet light; more ultraviolet light during solar maxima means warmer temperatures. Ozone depletion explains the biggest part of the cooling of the stratosphere over recent decades, but it can’t account for all of it. Increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the troposphere and stratosphere together contribute to cooling in the stratosphere. How Much More Will Earth Warm? To further explore the causes and effects of global warming and to predict future warming, scientists build climate models—computer simulations of the climate system. Climate models are designed to simulate the responses and interactions of the oceans and atmosphere, and to account for changes to the land surface, both natural and human-induced. They comply with fundamental laws of physics—conservation of energy, mass, and momentum—and account for dozens of factors that influence Earth’s climate. Though the models are complicated, rigorous tests with real-world data hone them into powerful tools that allow scientists to explore our understanding of climate in ways not otherwise possible. By experimenting with the models—removing greenhouse gases emitted by the burning of fossil fuels or changing the intensity of the Sun to see how each influences the climate—scientists use the models to better understand Earth’s current climate and to predict future climate. The models predict that as the world consumes ever more fossil fuel, greenhouse gas concentrations will continue to rise, and Earth’s average surface temperature will rise with them. Based on a range of plausible emission scenarios, average surface temperatures could rise between 2°C and 6°C by the end of the 21st century. Graph of predicted temperature change based on 4 scenarios of carbon dioxide emissions. Model simulations by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimate that Earth will warm between two and six degrees Celsius over the next century, depending on how fast carbon dioxide emissions grow. Scenarios that assume that people will burn more and more fossil fuel provide the estimates in the top end of the temperature range, while scenarios that assume that greenhouse gas emissions will grow slowly give lower temperature predictions. The orange line provides an estimate of global temperatures if greenhouse gases stayed at year 2000 levels. (©2007 IPCC WG1 AR-4.) Climate Feedbacks Greenhouse gases are only part of the story when it comes to global warming. Changes to one part of the climate system can cause additional changes to the way the planet absorbs or reflects energy. These secondary changes are called climate feedbacks, and they could more than double the amount of warming caused by carbon dioxide alone. The primary feedbacks are due to snow and ice, water vapor, clouds, and the carbon cycle. Snow and ice Perhaps the most well known feedback comes from melting snow and ice in the Northern Hemisphere. Warming temperatures are already melting a growing percentage of Arctic sea ice, exposing dark ocean water during the perpetual sunlight of summer. Snow cover on land is also dwindling in many areas. In the absence of snow and ice, these areas go from having bright, sunlight-reflecting surfaces that cool the planet to having dark, sunlight-absorbing surfaces that bring more energy into the Earth system and cause more warming. Photograph of the retreating Athabasca Glacier, Jasper National Park, Canada. Canada’s Athabasca Glacier has been shrinking by about 15 meters per year. In the past 125 years, the glacier has lost half its volume and has retreated more than 1.5 kilometers. As glaciers retreat, sea ice disappears, and snow melts earlier in the spring, the Earth absorbs more sunlight than it would if the reflective snow and ice remained. (Photograph ©2005 Hugh Saxby.) Water Vapor The largest feedback is water vapor. Water vapor is a strong greenhouse gas. In fact, because of its abundance in the atmosphere, water vapor causes about two-thirds of greenhouse warming, a key factor in keeping temperatures in the habitable range on Earth. But as temperatures warm, more water vapor evaporates from the surface into the atmosphere, where it can cause temperatures to climb further. The question that scientists ask is, how much water vapor will be in the atmosphere in a warming world? The atmosphere currently has an average equilibrium or balance between water vapor concentration and temperature. As temperatures warm, the atmosphere becomes capable of containing more water vapor, and so water vapor concentrations go up to regain equilibrium. Will that trend hold as temperatures continue to warm? The amount of water vapor that enters the atmosphere ultimately determines how much additional warming will occur due to the water vapor feedback. The atmosphere responds quickly to the water vapor feedback. So far, most of the atmosphere has maintained a near constant balance between temperature and water vapor concentration as temperatures have gone up in recent decades. If this trend continues, and many models say that it will, water vapor has the capacity to double the warming caused by carbon dioxide alone. Clouds Closely related to the water vapor feedback is the cloud feedback. Clouds cause cooling by reflecting solar energy, but they also cause warming by absorbing infrared energy (like greenhouse gases) from the surface when they are over areas that are warmer than they are. In our current climate, clouds have a cooling effect overall, but that could change in a warmer environment. Astronaut photograph of clouds over Florida. Clouds can both cool the planet (by reflecting visible light from the sun) and warm the planet (by absorbing heat radiation emitted by the surface). On balance, clouds slightly cool the Earth. (NASA Astronaut Photograph STS31-E-9552 courtesy Johnson space Center Earth Observations Lab.) If clouds become brighter, or the geographical extent of bright clouds expands, they will tend to cool Earth’s surface. Clouds can become brighter if more moisture converges in a particular region or if more fine particles (aerosols) enter the air. If fewer bright clouds form, it will contribute to warming from the cloud feedback. See Ship Tracks South of Alaska to learn how aerosols can make clouds brighter. Clouds, like greenhouse gases, also absorb and re-emit infrared energy. Low, warm clouds emit more energy than high, cold clouds. However, in many parts of the world, energy emitted by low clouds can be absorbed by the abundant water vapor above them. Further, low clouds often have nearly the same temperatures as the Earth’s surface, and so emit similar amounts of infrared energy. In a world without low clouds, the amount of emitted infrared energy escaping to space would not be too different from a world with low clouds. Thermal infrared image of the Western Hemisphere from GOES. Clouds emit thermal infrared (heat) radiation in proportion to their temperature, which is related to altitude. This image shows the Western Hemisphere in the thermal infrared. Warm ocean and land surface areas are white and light gray; cool, low-level clouds are medium gray; and cold, high-altitude clouds are dark gray and black. (NASA image courtesy GOES Project Science.) High cold clouds, however, form in a part of the atmosphere where energy-absorbing water vapor is scarce. These clouds trap (absorb) energy coming from the lower atmosphere, and emit little energy to space because of their frigid temperatures. In a world with high clouds, a significant amount of energy that would otherwise escape to space is captured in the atmosphere. As a result, global temperatures are higher than in a world without high clouds. If warmer temperatures result in a greater amount of high clouds, then less infrared energy will be emitted to space. In other words, more high clouds would enhance the greenhouse effect, reducing the Earth’s capability to cool and causing temperatures to warm. See Clouds and Radiation for a more complete description. Scientists aren’t entirely sure where and to what degree clouds will end up amplifying or moderating warming, but most climate models predict a slight overall positive feedback or amplification of warming due to a reduction in low cloud cover. A recent observational study found that fewer low, dense clouds formed over a region in the Pacific Ocean when temperatures warmed, suggesting a positive cloud feedback in this region as the models predicted. Such direct observational evidence is limited, however, and clouds remain the biggest source of uncertainty--apart from human choices to control greenhouse gases—in predicting how much the climate will change. The Carbon Cycle Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and warming temperatures are causing changes in the Earth’s natural carbon cycle that also can feedback on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. For now, primarily ocean water, and to some extent ecosystems on land, are taking up about half of our fossil fuel and biomass burning emissions. This behavior slows global warming by decreasing the rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide increase, but that trend may not continue. Warmer ocean waters will hold less dissolved carbon, leaving more in the atmosphere. Map of anthropogenic carbon dissolved in the oceans. About half the carbon dioxide emitted into the air from burning fossil fuels dissolves in the ocean. This map shows the total amount of human-made carbon dioxide in ocean water from the surface to the sea floor. Blue areas have low amounts, while yellow regions are rich in anthropogenic carbon dioxide. High amounts occur where currents carry the carbon-dioxide-rich surface water into the ocean depths. (Map adapted from Sabine et al., 2004.) See The Ocean’s Carbon Balance on the Earth Observatory. On land, changes in the carbon cycle are more complicated. Under a warmer climate, soils, especially thawing Arctic tundra, could release trapped carbon dioxide or methane to the atmosphere. Increased fire frequency and insect infestations also release more carbon as trees burn or die and decay. On the other hand, extra carbon dioxide can stimulate plant growth in some ecosystems, allowing these plants to take additional carbon out of the atmosphere. However, this effect may be reduced when plant growth is limited by water, nitrogen, and temperature. This effect may also diminish as carbon dioxide increases to levels that become saturating for photosynthesis. Because of these complications, it is not clear how much additional carbon dioxide plants can take out of the atmosphere and how long they could continue to do so. The impact of climate change on the land carbon cycle is extremely complex, but on balance, land carbon sinks will become less efficient as plants reach saturation, where they can no longer take up additional carbon dioxide, and other limitations on growth occur, and as land starts to add more carbon to the atmosphere from warming soil, fires, and insect infestations. This will result in a faster increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide and more rapid global warming. In some climate models, carbon cycle feedbacks from both land and ocean add more than a degree Celsius to global temperatures by 2100. Emission Scenarios Scientists predict the range of likely temperature increase by running many possible future scenarios through climate models. Although some of the uncertainty in climate forecasts comes from imperfect knowledge of climate feedbacks, the most significant source of uncertainty in these predictions is that scientists don’t know what choices people will make to control greenhouse gas emissions. The higher estimates are made on the assumption that the entire world will continue using more and more fossil fuel per capita, a scenario scientists call “business-as-usual.” More modest estimates come from scenarios in which environmentally friendly technologies such as fuel cells, solar panels, and wind energy replace much of today’s fossil fuel combustion. It takes decades to centuries for Earth to fully react to increases in greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide, among other greenhouse gases, will remain in the atmosphere long after emissions are reduced, contributing to continuing warming. In addition, as Earth has warmed, much of the excess energy has gone into heating the upper layers of the ocean. Like a hot water bottle on a cold night, the heated ocean will continue warming the lower atmosphere well after greenhouse gases have stopped increasing. These considerations mean that people won’t immediately see the impact of reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Even if greenhouse gas concentrations stabilized today, the planet would continue to warm by about 0.6°C over the next century because of greenhouses gases already in the atmosphere. See Earth’s Big Heat Bucket, Correcting Ocean Cooling, and Climate Q&A: If we immediately stopped emitting greenhouse gases, would global warming stop? to learn more about the ocean heat and global warming. How Will Global Warming Change Earth? The impact of increased surface temperatures is significant in itself. But global warming will have additional, far-reaching effects on the planet. Warming modifies rainfall patterns, amplifies coastal erosion, lengthens the growing season in some regions, melts ice caps and glaciers, and alters the ranges of some infectious diseases. Some of these changes are already occurring. Photograph of Lake Powell showing the bathtub ring exposed by the low lake level. Global warming will shift major climate patterns, possibly prolonging and intensifying the current drought in the U.S. Southwest. The white ring of bleached rock on the once-red cliffs that hold Lake Powell indicate the drop in water level over the past decade—the result of repeated winters with low snowfall. (Photograph ©2006 Tigresblanco.) Changing Weather For most places, global warming will result in more frequent hot days and fewer cool days, with the greatest warming occurring over land. Longer, more intense heat waves will become more common. Storms, floods, and droughts will generally be more severe as precipitation patterns change. Hurricanes may increase in intensity due to warmer ocean surface temperatures. Maps of predicted future precipitation based on global circulation models. Apart from driving temperatures up, global warming is likely to cause bigger, more destructive storms, leading to an overall increase in precipitation. With some exceptions, the tropics will likely receive less rain (orange) as the planet warms, while the polar regions will receive more precipitation (green). White areas indicate that fewer than two-thirds of the climate models agreed on how precipitation will change. Stippled areas reveal where more than 90 percent of the models agreed. (©2007 IPCC WG1 AR-4.) It is impossible to pin any single unusual weather event on global warming, but emerging evidence suggests that global warming is already influencing the weather. Heat waves, droughts, and intense rain events have increased in frequency during the last 50 years, and human-induced global warming more likely than not contributed to the trend. Rising Sea Levels The weather isn’t the only thing global warming will impact: rising sea levels will erode coasts and cause more frequent coastal flooding. Some island nations will disappear. The problem is serious because up to 10 percent of the world’s population lives in vulnerable areas less than 10 meters (about 30 feet) above sea level. Between 1870 and 2000, the sea level increased by 1.7 millimeters per year on average, for a total sea level rise of 221 millimeters (0.7 feet or 8.7 inches). And the rate of sea level rise is accelerating. Since 1993, NASA satellites have shown that sea levels are rising more quickly, about 3 millimeters per year, for a total sea level rise of 48 millimeters (0.16 feet or 1.89 inches) between 1993 and 2009. Graph of average global sea level since 1880. Sea levels crept up about 20 centimeters (7.9 inches) during the twentieth century. Sea levels are predicted to go up between 18 and 59 cm (7.1 and 23 inches) over the next century, though the increase could be greater if ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica melt more quickly than predicted. Higher sea levels will erode coastlines and cause more frequent flooding. (Graph ©2007 Robert Rohde.) The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that sea levels will rise between 0.18 and 0.59 meters (0.59 to 1.9 feet) by 2099 as warming sea water expands, and mountain and polar glaciers melt. These sea level change predictions may be underestimates, however, because they do not account for any increases in the rate at which the world’s major ice sheets are melting. As temperatures rise, ice will melt more quickly. Satellite measurements reveal that the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets are shedding about 125 billion tons of ice per year—enough to raise sea levels by 0.35 millimeters (0.01 inches) per year. If the melting accelerates, the increase in sea level could be significantly higher. Impacting Ecosystems More importantly, perhaps, global warming is already putting pressure on ecosystems, the plants and animals that co-exist in a particular climate zone, both on land and in the ocean. Warmer temperatures have already shifted the growing season in many parts of the globe. The growing season in parts of the Northern Hemisphere became two weeks longer in the second half of the 20th century. Spring is coming earlier in both hemispheres. This change in the growing season affects the broader ecosystem. Migrating animals have to start seeking food sources earlier. The shift in seasons may already be causing the lifecycles of pollinators, like bees, to be out of synch with flowering plants and trees. This mismatch can limit the ability of both pollinators and plants to survive and reproduce, which would reduce food availability throughout the food chain. See Buzzing About Climate Change to read more about how the lifecycle of bees is synched with flowering plants. Warmer temperatures also extend the growing season. This means that plants need more water to keep growing throughout the season or they will dry out, increasing the risk of failed crops and wildfires. Once the growing season ends, shorter, milder winters fail to kill dormant insects, increasing the risk of large, damaging infestations in subsequent seasons. In some ecosystems, maximum daily temperatures might climb beyond the tolerance of indigenous plant or animal. To survive the extreme temperatures, both marine and land-based plants and animals have started to migrate towards the poles. Those species, and in some cases, entire ecosystems, that cannot quickly migrate or adapt, face extinction. The IPCC estimates that 20-30 percent of plant and animal species will be at risk of extinction if temperatures climb more than 1.5° to 2.5°C. Impacting People The changes to weather and ecosystems will also affect people more directly. Hardest hit will be those living in low-lying coastal areas, and residents of poorer countries who do not have the resources to adapt to changes in temperature extremes and water resources. As tropical temperature zones expand, the reach of some infectious diseases, such as malaria, will change. More intense rains and hurricanes and rising sea levels will lead to more severe flooding and potential loss of property and life. Photograph of beach erosion in Massachusetts, 2007. One inevitable consequence of global warming is sea-level rise. In the face of higher sea levels and more intense storms, coastal communities face greater risk of rapid beach erosion from destructive storms like the intense nor’easter of April 2007 that caused this damage. (Photograph ©2007 metimbers2000.) Hotter summers and more frequent fires will lead to more cases of heat stroke and deaths, and to higher levels of near-surface ozone and smoke, which would cause more ‘code red’ air quality days. Intense droughts can lead to an increase in malnutrition. On a longer time scale, fresh water will become scarcer, especially during the summer, as mountain glaciers disappear, particularly in Asia and parts of North America. On the flip side, there could be “winners” in a few places. For example, as long as the rise in global average temperature stays below 3 degrees Celsius, some models predict that global food production could increase because of the longer growing season at mid- to high-latitudes, provided adequate water resources are available. The same small change in temperature, however, would reduce food production at lower latitudes, where many countries already face food shortages. On balance, most research suggests that the negative impacts of a changing climate far outweigh the positive impacts. Current civilization—agriculture and population distribution—has developed based on the current climate. The more the climate changes, and the more rapidly it changes, the greater the cost of adaptation. Ultimately, global warming will impact life on Earth in many ways, but the extent of the change is largely up to us. 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Real Climate Introduction Global Warming How is Today’s Warming Different from the Past? Is Current Warming Natural? How Much More Will Earth Warm? How Will Global Warming Change Earth? References and Related Resources Print this entire article Share facebook twitter stumbleupon Google+ pinterest Subscribe Today