Posted on 03/30/2008 10:02:10 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Three months after the landmark agreement on a road map towards strengthened international action on climate change reached in Bali, Indonesia, the next round of negotiations shifts to the neighbouring country of Thailand and its capital, Bangkok. The talks are taking place between 31 March to 4 April 2008 at the United Nations Conference Centre (UNCC) of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
The climate change talks in Bangkok will convene sessions of both the Ad hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (first session) and the Ad hoc Working Group on further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (first part of the fifth session), during which Parties need to advance the Bali Road Map agreed last December.
Parties agreed at Bali to formally launch negotiations on enabling the full, effective and sustained implementation of the Convention. These negotiations need to conclude in an agreed outcome by the end of 2009.
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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ice/chill.html
The Big Chill by Kirk A. Maasch
During the past billion years, the Earth's climate has fluctuated between warm periods - sometimes even completely ice-free - and cold periods, when glaciers scoured the continents. The cold periods - or ice ages - are times when the entire Earth experiences notably colder climatic conditions. During an ice age, the polar regions are cold, there are large differences in temperature from the equator to the pole, and large, continental-size glaciers can cover enormous regions of the earth. Ever since the Pre-Cambrian (600 million years ago), ice ages have occurred at widely spaced intervals of geologic time - approximately 200 million years - lasting for millions, or even tens of millions of years.
For the Cenozoic period, which began about 70 million years ago and continues today, evidence derived from marine sediments provide a detailed, and fairly continuous, record for climate change. This record indicates decreasing deep-water temperature, along with the build-up of continental ice sheets. Much of this deep-water cooling occurred in three major steps about 36, 15 and 3 million years ago - the most recent of which continues today. During the present ice age, glaciers have advanced and retreated over 20 times, often blanketing North America with ice.
Our climate today is actually a warm interval between these many periods of glaciation. The most recent period of glaciation, which many people think of as the "Ice Age", was at its height approximately 20,000 years ago. Although the exact causes for ice ages, and the glacial cycles within them, have not been proven, they are most likely the result of a complicated dynamic interaction between such things as solar output, distance of the Earth from the sun, position and height of the continents, ocean circulation, and the composition of the atmosphere. Climatic Cooling from 60 million years ago to present day
Between 52 and 57 million years ago, the Earth was relatively warm. Tropical conditions actually extended all the way into the mid-latitudes (around northern Spain or the central United States for example), polar regions experienced temperate climates, and the difference in temperature between the equator and pole was much smaller than it is today.
Indeed it was so warm that trees grew in both the Arctic and Antarctic, and alligators lived in Ellesmere Island at 78 degrees North. But this warm period, called the Eocene, was followed by a long cooling trend. Between 52 and 36 million years ago, ice caps developed in East Antarctica, reaching down to sea level in some places. Close to Antarctica, the temperature of the water near the surface dropped to between 5 and 8 degrees Celsius. Between 36 and 20 million years ago the earth experienced the first of three major cooling steps. At this time a continental-scale temperate ice sheet emerged in East Antarctica.
Meanwhile, in North America, the mean annual air temperature dropped by approximately 12 degrees Celsius. Between 20 and 16 million years ago, there was a brief respite from the big chill, but this was followed by a second major cooling period so intense that by 7 million years ago southeastern Greenland was completely covered with glaciers, and by 5-6 million years ago, the glaciers were creeping into Scandinavia and the northern Pacific region.
The Earth was once more released from the grip of the big chill between 5 and 3 million years ago, when the sea was much warmer around North America and the Antarctic than it is today. Warm-weather plants grew in Northern Europe where today they cannot survive, and trees grew in Iceland, Greenland, and Canada as far north as 82 degrees North.
We are still in the midst of the third major cooling period that began around 3 million years ago, and its effect can be seen around the world, perhaps even in the development of our own species. Around 2 and a half million years ago, tundra-like conditions took over north-central Europe. Soon thereafter, the once-humid environment of Central China was replaced by harsh continental steppe. And in sub-Saharan Africa, arid and open grasslands expanded, replacing more wooded, wetter environments. Many paleontologists believe that this environmental change is linked to the evolution of humankind.
Possible Explanations for the Past 60 Million Years of Cooling Climate change on ultra-long time scales (tens of millions of years) are more than likely connected to plate tectonics. Plate motions lead to cycles of ocean basin growth and destruction, known as Wilson cycles, involving continental rifting, seafloor-spreading, subduction, and collision. Several explanations of the latest cooling trend that involve a climate-tectonic connection are summarized below.
There is no arguing with idiots, especially agenda-driven and well-funded ones.. and those seeking grant money.. these folks are like the living dead.. like zombies.. oblivious to the pain they inflict, we truly are living in a bizarro world
The UN is out of control, full of nutcases like Monkey woman Jane Goodall, and greenpeace freaks.
It MUST be dismantled.
How would AllGorey respond to a question about past climate changes that were NOT caused by SUVs??????????
All the carbon credits in the world can’t undo the damage done by Al Gore’s giant carbon ass-print.
No kidding.
The SCOTUS gave the EPA the power to regulate CO2 and either Obama,Hillary or McCain will be in charge of the agency in January—and all three are ignorant Gorebots.
Grab guns,gold and groceries then head for the mountains folks.
Al Gore’s Mansion Described As Energy Hog
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
February 27, 2007
(CNSNews.com) - Former Vice President (and global warming aficionado) Al Gore deserves an award for hypocrisy, says the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.
The group, which studied Gore’s electric and natural gas consumption, says his mansion in Belle Meade area of Nashville “consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year.”
In his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Gore urges Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home, the group noted.
“The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) a year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh-more than 20 times the national average,” the Tennessee Center for Policy Research said in a news release.
Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh — consuming more than twice as much electricity in one month as the average American family uses in an entire year. Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359, the research group said.
Likewise, the natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 a month last year.
“As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.
In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research said.
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It worked for Castro back when he was the “good guy” and Cuba was rotten with political corruption.
Sadly,only after the coup did the lying bastard tell the world that he was really a commie.
What is it about countries not first colonized by England?
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