Bees “restored to health” in Italy after this spring’s neonicotinoid-free maize sowing

During this year’s neonicotinoid-free maize sowing in Italy hardly a bee colony has been lost, bar a suspicious case where some leftover seed from last year may have been used

It does look like a resounding, spectacular success. During this year’s neonicotinoid-free maize sowing in Italy hardly a bee colony has been lost, bar a suspicious case where some leftover seed from last year may have been used. 

The ban on the insecticide-soaked seed coating enforced by the Italian government last year seems to have worked wonders, judging from the freshest data collected on the ground by researchers, beekeepers and regional authorities alike.

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http://www.youris.com/Environment/Bees/Bees_restored_to_health_in_Italy_after_this_springs_neonicotinoidfree_maize_sowing.kl

More Bad News for Doha, World: Global Warming Could Easily Reach 5C

Greenhouse Gas emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO2) are rising annually by three percent, a pace that could bring the world up to a five degrees Celsius (9.0 degrees Fahrenheit) increase by 2100, and reek catastrophic destruction on the earth as we know it, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change by the Global Carbon Project consortium on Sunday. Currently, leaders at the international climate conference COP18 in Doha, Qatar are struggle to agree on ways to limit the world to a 2C (3.6F) maximum rise in global temperatures, with very little progress one week into negotiations as talks balance on the edge of self-destruction.

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A 4°C World Will Be Devastating But Can Be Avoided

Washington, DC  – Without further action to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions the world could be as much as 4°C warmer by 2060, threatening the world with devastating food shortages, extreme weather and sea-level rise, according to the World Bank in a new report published today on climate change titled Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided.  This is the first climate report published under the new World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, signaling a new more aggressive focus on climate change.

The report, which focuses on the impacts of a world 4°C hotter by the end of the century, predicts that sea-levels could rise by more than a meter by 2100, flooding cities in Mozambique, Bangladesh and Venezuela and devastating small island states and river delta regions when combined with projected increased intensity of tropical storms. Changes in water systems such as predicted increasing droughts and extreme rainfall are predicted to double in magnitude in a 4°C world, damaging ecosystems, increasing species extinction, and impacting food security.

“This report should be a wakeup call to the world that we must work harder and faster to combat climate change,” said Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. “Rapid cuts in CO2 emissions are necessary to stabilize long-term temperatures, but in the near-term, aggressively addressing short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) such as black carbon, methane, tropospheric ozone, and HFCs can provide rapid climate, health, and food security benefits, particularly in the critical vulnerable regions that are already suffering some of the worst impacts of climate change.”

Cutting SLCPs can reduce the rate of global warming in half for the next several decades, cut the rate of warming over the elevated regions of the Himalayan-Tibetan Plateau by at least half, and the rate of warming in the Arctic by two-thirds over the next 30 years, while saving millions of lives per year and preventing billions of dollars in crop losses.  Fast-action strategies to reduce SLCPs combined with necessary reductions in carbon dioxide are essential for slowing already accelerating extreme weather events in the near-term, while maintaining global temperature at or below 2°C above preindustrial levels through the end of the century.

“Reducing emissions of these short-lived climate forcers is critical for protecting the world’s vulnerable peoples and vulnerable ecosystems,” said Zaelke.  “When we talk about sustainable development,” Zaelke added, “this is precisely what we mean. These measures reduce climate change, save lives, provide access to clean energy, and improve food security all at once.”

http://www.enn.com/press_releases/4098

An Open Letter to Obama from the World's Poorest Countries

Dear President Obama,

As the lead negotiator for the world's 48 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the United Nations climate change negotiations, I congratulate you on your re-election. I also want to express my admiration for your response to superstorm Sandy: without the preparations that you made, the impacts to those hit by the storm would have been even more devastating. As communities in the north-east work to rebuild and recover, the world has an opportunity to begin a new, reality-based conversation about climate change

I write with a simple request: as this discussion continues in the world's most developed countries, remember those who live in its poorest regions. Remember that as a result of climate change, this kind of fatal weather event has become commonplace for us while we lack the infrastructure and resources to adequately protect our citizens.

As researchers at Brown University's climate and development lab have shown, climate-related disasters such as droughts, extreme temperatures, floods, and hurricanes have caused an estimated 1.3 million deaths since 1980. Two-thirds of these deaths (over 909,000) occurred in the least developed countries. We are only 12% of the world's population, but we suffer the effects of climate-related disasters more than five times as much as the world as a whole.

Given this reality and your early commitment to leading a science-directed discussion about the changing climate, I was surprised that you only mentioned climate change in your re-election campaign a few times, and not once in your three debates with Mitt Romney. We know that 70% of US citizens now recognise the reality of human-caused climate change. As the world's largest economy, the US has a unique opportunity and responsibility to take bold action on this issue. Indeed, the wellbeing of the citizens of your nation and mine depends on your ability to lead at this critical juncture. It is time to end the climate silence.

Later this month, representatives of the world's nations will meet in Doha, Qatar, for the annual negotiations on the UN climate change treaty. When you were first elected president, your words gave us hope that you would become an international leader on climate change. But you have not lived up to this promise. The framework that you put in place sets the planet on course to warm dangerously, and delays action until 2020 – this will be too late. This year's meeting in Qatar may be our last chance to put forward a new vision and plan to reverse this course. Your legacy, and the future of our children and grandchildren depend on it. We ask you to lead in two ways.

First, join with the European Union, the LDCs and the Alliance of Small Island States in taking on ambitious national commitments to reduce climate pollution. Go beyond the commitments that you made in Copenhagen in 2009. The climate is changing faster than we thought, and we must respond with increased ambition.

Second, provide adequate funding to help the LDCs and other vulnerable nations to adapt to this new climate reality. In 2010, the wealthiest countries directed about $1.5bn to help developing countries adapt to a changing climate. Over the same period, they spent over $400bn subsidising fossil fuel industries. They gave the main contributors to human-caused climate change more than 250 times the support they offered those whom it harms most.

Countries from Gambia and Haiti, to Malawi and Bangladesh need the "predictable and adequate" funding promised in Copenhagen so that they can take simple steps to protect their citizens. This means moving drinking water and irrigation wells away from coasts, where saltwater is intruding into aquifers; it includes developing drought-resistant crops and helping small farmers in fragile, semi-arid regions survive. We have to prepare roads and cities, villages and farms for floods, hurricanes and heat waves. We need to equip people with the weather prediction, early warning systems and emergency response that citizens of the developed countries take for granted.

With 20 years of international climate change negotiations behind us, there is simply no longer time or cause for wealthy countries to continue to stall in taking real action to fulfil the promises they have made. Having the wealthy nations reduce their greenhouse gas emissions steeply is fundamental, but helping the poorest of us cope with its impacts is an immediate necessity.

Mr President, remind the world that the devastation of climate change is shared by all its citizens. Remember that this reality is changeable. Make changing it your legacy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/nov/08/obama-climate-change-poorest-countries

Sarah van Gelder - What Climate-Driven Hurricane Sandy Teaches about Cooperation

2012 may well be remembered as the year the climate crisis got real. Superstorm Sandy followed a summer of record-breaking heat, wildfires, and droughts, during which more than half of U.S. counties were declared disaster zones. We may at last be to a point where we can all agree that it's time to tackle the climate crisis.

But there’s another issue that Sandy raises. Climate models suggest we'll be facing similar disasters with increasing frequency. So will we, as neighbors and as a nation, come to the aid of those who lose their home, business, or farm because of flood, drought, fire, or other climate-related disaster? Are we a country that comes together in hard times, or do we come apart? In other words, when things get tough, do we turn to each other? Or do we turn on each other? The answer to these questions will define much about how we live together as we face increasing climate weirdness in coming decades.

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/02

Matt Taibbi - Hurricane Sandy and the Myth of the Big Government-vs.-Small-Government Debate

Quite a shock the other day to look out my window in Jersey City, and see the Hudson River rushing over what used to be the street in front of my building. For nearly three days my dog and I played Robinson Crusoe and Friday, sleepily watching from our little apartment-island while we waited for hot water, cell service, the internet, even elevators to come back on line.President Barack Obama speaks as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie looks on as they visit a shelter for Hurricane Sandy victims in Brigantine, New Jersey, on October 31th, 2012.

When I finally got back on the internet and was able to read the news again, I saw that Hurricane Sandy, in addition to being the rare storm to live up to its televised hype, had turned into the last-minute curveball plot twist that always seems to pop up in presidential races.

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/01-6

Bill McKibben - A Grim Warning from Science

One of the things that makes Sandy different from Katrina is that it’s a relatively clean story. The lessons of Katrina were numerous and painful—they had to do with race, with class, with the willful incompetence of a government that had put a professional Arabian horse fancier in charge of its rescue efforts.Flooded streets under the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn, New York, October 29, 2012. (Bebeto Matthews/AP Photo)

Sandy, by contrast, has been pretty straightforward. It’s hit rich, poor, and middle class Americans with nearly equal power, though of course the affluent always have it easier in the aftermath of tragedy. Government officials prepared forthrightly for its arrival, and have refrained from paralysis and bickering in its wake. Which allows us to concentrate on the only really useful message it might deliver: that we live in a changed world, where we need both to adapt to the changes, and to prevent further changes so great that adaptation will be impossible.

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/01-8

Nicholas Kristof - Will Climate Get Some Respect Now?

President Obama and Mitt Romney seemed determined not to discuss climate change in this campaign. So thanks to Hurricane Sandy for forcing the issue: Isn’t it time to talk not only about weather, but also about climate?

It’s true, of course, that no single storm or drought can be attributed to climate change. Atlantic hurricanes in the Northeast go way back, as the catastrophic “snow hurricane” of 1804 attests. But many scientists believe that rising carbon emissions could make extreme weather — like Sandy — more likely.

“You can’t say any one single event is reflective of climate change,” William Solecki, the co-chairman of the New York City Panel on Climate Change, told me. “But it’s illustrative of the conditions and events and scenarios that we expect with climate change.”

In that sense, whatever its causes, Sandy offers a window into the way ahead.

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/01-3

Bill McKibben - Sandy Forces Climate Change on US Election Despite Fossil Fuel Lobby

Here's a sentence I wish I hadn't written – it rolled out of my Macbook in May, part of an article for Rolling Stone that quickly went viral:Currie Wagner looks over the debris from his grandmother Betty Wagner's house, destroyed by Sandy, in New Jersey. (Photograph: Julio Cortez/AP)

"Say something so big finally happens (a giant hurricane swamps Manhattan, a megadrought wipes out Midwest agriculture) that even the political power of the industry is inadequate to restrain legislators, who manage to regulate carbon."

I wish I hadn't written it because the first half gives me entirely undeserved credit for prescience: I had no idea both would, in fact, happen in the next six months. And I wish I hadn't written it because now that my bluff's been called, I'm doubting that even Sandy, the largest storm ever, will be enough to make our political class serious about climate change.

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/31-2

Lizz Winstead - Hey Super PACs, Superstorm Sandy Just Gave You a Great Cause for Your Millions

We are a week out from the presidential election. We have just had 60 million Americans affected by a hurricane. Super Pacs have billions of dollars just sitting lying around.

So, I have an idea.

Super Pacs, how about you force the candidates to spend the next week campaigning on their own and spend some of your limitless funds on the relief effort? It's a win-win for you any way you look at it.

First, for the Republican super pacs, you make Mitt Romney look good. Hell, you fulfill his dream! Remember, how he waxed on about dissolving the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), and even said:

"If we can send it back to the private sector, that's even better."

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/31-3