Yes Virginia, the Glaciers are Melting

by Bonnie Alter, London on 01.27.10

Images by B.Alter. Perito Moreno glacier in Patagonia

The World Glacier Monitoring Service has jumped into the controversy about whetherthe glaciers are melting. And their answer is an emphatic yes.

In their annual report they confirmed that glaciers across the world are melting so quickly that many will disappear by the middle of this century. Some in a few decades. The most vulnerable are in lower mountain ranges like the Alps and the Pyrenees in Europe, in Africa, parts of the Andes in South America and the Rockies in North America.

The annual update on the state of the glaciers confirms that most are continuing to melt at historically high rates. The director of the World Glacier Monitoring Services (WGMS) said that the melting was "less extreme than in years [immediately before] but what's really important is the trend of 10 years or so, and that shows an unbroken acceleration in melting. Glaciers at lower levels such as the Alps will be about 70% will be gone by the middle of the century, and mountain ranges like the Pyrenees may be completely ice-free."

However, glaciers at much higher altitudes, such as the Himalayas and Alaska could grow in the short term. That is because it is colder there and global warming could actually increase snowfall. But he said, even for those their life span is still just centuries, " not millennia, and not many centuries."

The WGMS should know. They record date for more than 90 glaciers worldwide; there are about 160,000 glaciers in the world, including 30 considered to be "reference" glaciers, since they have data going back to at least 1980. According to an article in theGuardian, scientists also use methods from geology to photos and travel journals and other data to estimate glacier sizes further back in history.

The latest preliminary figures for 2007-08 show the average reduction in thickness across all the 96 glaciers was nearly half a metre, and since 1980 they have collectively lost an average of 13m thickness. During that year 30 of the 96 glaciers gained in mass.

So the IPCC may have made a boo-boo, but the British government's chief scientific adviser, Professor John Beddington has stated it best in today's Times::

"It's unchallengeable that CO2 traps heat and warms the Earth and that burning fossil fuels shoves billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. But where you can get challenges is on the speed of change.

When you get into large-scale climate modelling there are quite substantial uncertainties. On the rate of change and the local effects, there are uncertainties both in terms of empirical evidence and the climate models themselves.

Some people ask why we should act when scientists say they are only 90 per cent certain about the problem. But would you get on a plane that had a 10 per cent chance of crashing?"

Image of Upsala Glacier

This TreeHugger visited the glaciers in Los Glaciares National Park in Patagonia, Argentina last year (hence the family photos) and they are spectacular. The one stable glacier is Perito Moreno--it is 60 metres high above lake water and is still growing. Mistakenly, poor Al Gore used its image in "An Inconvenient Truth" and identified it as a receding one.

The Upsala Glacier is receding the most. Within ten years it will have shrunk by as much as the size that Merino is now. At the moment it is 60 to 80 metres high.

World's glaciers continue to melt at historic rates

Juliette Jowit
Monday 25 January 2010 17.26 GMT

Latest figures show the world's glaciers are continuing
to melt so fast that many will disappear by the
middle of this century

guardian.co.uk,

An aerial view of the Siachen glacier, which traverses the Himalayan region dividing India and Pakistan. Glaciers are seen as a leading indicator of how much the planet is heating up. Photograph: Channi Anand/AP

Glaciers across the globe are continuing to melt so fast that many will disappear by the middle of this century, the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) said today.

The announcement of the latest annual results from monitoring in nine mountain ranges on four continents comes as doubts have been cast on how much climate scientists have exaggerated the problem of glacier melt, which is seen as a leading indicator of how much the planet is heating up.

Last week the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) apologised for "a paragraph" in its four-volume 2007 report which warned there was a "very high" risk that the Himalayan glaciers, on which at least half a billion of the world's poorest people depend for water, would disappear by 2035.

However the director of the WGMS, Professor Wilfried Haeberli, said the latest global results indicated most glaciers were continuing to melt at historically high rates.

"The melting goes on," said Haeberli. "It's less extreme than in years [immediately before] but what's really important is the trend of 10 years or so, and that shows an unbroken acceleration in melting."

Haeberli also repeated his warning that many glaciers are set to disappear in the next few decades, due to an expected continuation in the rise of global average temperatures. The most vulnerable glaciers were those in lower mountain ranges like the Alps and the Pyrenees in Europe, in Africa, parts of the Andes in South and Central America, and the Rockies in North America, said Haeberli.

"We are on the path of the highest scenario [of global warming] in reality, but if you take a medium scenario in the Alps about 70% will be gone by the middle of the century, and mountain ranges like the Pyrenees may be completely ice-free."

Glaciers at much higher altitudes - particularly in the Himalayas and Alaska, where it was colder and global warming could increase snowfall - could grow in the short term and were likely to last "centuries", said Haeberli. "But even for the large glaciers, for a realistic [mid-range warming] scenario, it's centuries, not millennia, and not many centuries," he added.

The WGMS records data for nearly 100 of the world's approximately 160,000 glaciers, including 30 "reference" glaciers, with data going back to at least 1980. Scientists also use methods from geology to photos and travel journals and other data to estimate glacier sizes further back in history.

The latest preliminary figures for 2007-08 show the average reduction in thickness across all the 96 glaciers was nearly half a metre, and since 1980 they have collectively lost an average of 13m thickness. During that year 30 of the 96 glaciers gained in mass.

Two years ago the WGMS preliminary figures revealed the biggest melt-rate in one year on record. The figure was later revised so it was slightly less "catastrophic" than the other extreme year in 2002-03, said Haeberli.

The IPCC uses WGMS data throughout its report, but the offending statement regarding 2035 was blamed on a quote from a scientist given to a journalist, and never presented in a peer-reviewed journal.

Sustainability Explained: Demystifying a Humongous Green Concept

Defining a really big idea, a pocket guide for how to live sustainably, and tools for measuring our success along the way.

By Jaymi Heimbuch
San Francisco, CA, USA | Thu Jul 16, 2009 06:00 AM ET

What's Sustainability?

Tackling the Linguistics

Sustainability is a big, big concept. Attempts to define it feel nearly impossible since it encompasses philosophy, ecology, economy, sociology and more.

The most famous definition is the Brundtland definition that came out of the 1987 Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. It states that sustainability is "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Wikipedia editors have boiled sustainability down to "the capacity to endure," though still noting that this definition applies to nearly every aspect of life on earth across physical and chronological planes and therefore is humongous. These thimble-sized summaries are helpful, but beg questions such as what exactly are "needs" and just what does "endure" mean when considering sustainability and future quality of life? The Wikipedia entry thankfully notes that attempted definitions can be 'statements of fact, intent, or value with sustainability treated as either a 'journey' or 'destination.'" In other words, there are lots of ways of forming a definition of sustainability and one may actually not have much overlap with another, other than the common word we struggle to define.

“Definition or no definition, we know we aren't living sustainably now, and we know we must change.

Perhaps all this tells us that definitions for sustainability can often be a case by case issue, and the more important thing for us to have is an understanding of sustainability in a broad sense and how it applies to our daily ways of living in an eco-friendly manner. Really, that comes down to a gut check. After all, definition or no definition, we know we aren't living sustainably now, and we know we must change. Most of us can agree that living sustainably means living in a way that ensures Earth is a flourishing, healthy planet indefinitely. This means drastically reducing pollution and waste—and aiming to eliminate them—and cutting way down on our use of natural resources and greenhouse gas emissions.

Aspirations for Sustainability: What Does a Sustainable World Look Like?

Image courtesy of Hiroshi Watanabe/Getty Images.

Is there a much bigger question than this, or one more subjective? Yet we have to know what we're aiming for as we plan how to change.

Everyone has their vision for what a sustainable world looks like. It likely includes a world with clean air, soil and water, plenty of food for everyone, healthy ecosystems and a restoration of the natural rhythms of life. However, when it comes to human civilization, there are also lots of variations. Some people feel a sustainable world includes one where cars are gone and clean-running, efficient public transportation reigns supreme, whereas others may envision a sustainable world is one in which we've overcome the polluting and wasteful aspects of cars and use them without damage to the planet. Some people may see a world in which all products in stores (and the stores themselves) are designed as cradle-to-cradle, whereas others may see a world where there are hardly any stores at all but rather a series of product service systems.

“Experts have shown that to return to functional levels of CO2 - or, that magical number of 350 parts per million—each person on earth has a CO2 budget of around 2 tons per year.

While we may each have a slightly unique vision for a sustainable world, there are a few things we all will need to agree upon if sustainability in any sense is to be achieved, primarily that we all reduce our consumption levels and greenhouse gas emissions levels to those our planet can tolerate, so that earth can continue to support human life.

Structuring Sustainability so We Can Achieve Sustainability

Image courtesy of Anthony Harvie/Getty Images.

Putting sustainability into measureable categories

Living sustainably also requires not only a grasp of what it is we want to achieve, but also how to achieve it. Because sustainability touches so many various aspects of our lives and social structures, we have to come at it from all sorts of different angles. As the Presidio School of Management points out, incorporating sustainability fully into our lives includes looking at it from business, social, financial and environmental points of view. For instance, when assessing the sustainability of a product, a business will need to look at, among many qualities, how the product works into the lives of the people who will use it, if it is economically sustainable, and its potential impact on future generations. These, and dozens of other angles all come together to weigh how sustainable a product or service is.

So how do we measure if we're achieving sustainable living? There are at least four ways we can tick off immediately:

350 PPM

This is the magic number for carbon emissions within our atmosphere, arguably the biggest threat to life on earth right now. Scientists state that 350 parts per million is a safe level of Co2 in the atmosphere, and right now we're soaring above that at around 387 parts per million, and rising. Bill McKibbon started the group 350.org, which works to explain and educate people about this number and why it's so important to keep it down at a level where our oceans, trees, and other life forms can absorb the CO2 fast enough to keep the planet's systems balanced. The closer we get to acceptably low levels of emissions and closer to 350, the closer we are to sustainable living.

Carbon Footprints

We know that we are emitting carbon dioxide at levels far too great for the planet to process, and it's wreaking havoc on our natural systems. The average American has a carbon footprint of 20 tons of CO2 per year. That means, each American, through food choices, travel habits, energy consumption, and other habits is responsible for putting roughly 20 tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere every year. That's equal to flying round trip from New York to LA 12 times!Experts have shown that to return to functional levels of CO2—or, that magical number of 350 parts per million—each person on earth has a CO2 budget of around 2 tons per year. Globally, we are learning rapidly how to measure and track the carbon footprints of everything from products to buildings to plane flights. We're also getting ever more firm about requiring the tracking and measuring of carbon emissions for businesses and their supply chains, which makes measuring our personal footprints more thorough and effective. Each of us knowing our carbon footprint and keeping it at a sustainable level of 2 tons per year is a vital step in knowing we're living sustainably.

Here are three ways we can cut our footprints in half right now, and incorporating carbon-cutting actions (or inactions like staycations and buying less stuff) into our lives at every turn will get us there.

Cradle to Cradle Design

Coined in 2002 by industrial architect William McDonough, Cradle to Cradle is the idea of designing everything as closed loops that mimic the natural cycles of "dust to dust." Ideally, everything we produce, from buildings to products, would be made of natural ingredients, have no negative impact on the planet during their use, and return as raw materials for natural or industrial systems at the end of their lives, producing no waste and giving more of the planet than they took in. By mimicking the natural cycles that have kept this planet going for millions upon millions of years and shifting from cradle-to-grave design to cradle-to-cradle design, we will make huge strides in living sustainably.

Green Thinking as Common Sense

Living sustainably really comes down to using common sense in our daily decision making. There are choices everyone can make to live more sustainably regardless of how much they read up on environmental issues; for example, purchasing just the things we need rather than everything we want, taking the train instead of taking a plane, or drinking shade-grown organic coffee instead of whatever is brewing at the chain-store coffee shop, are all obvious ways of living much more sustainably. Of course, the more informed we are about environmental issues, the easier it is to access common sense for quick and effortless decision making. For instance, once we understand that it takes more water to raise a cow than it does to raise a chicken, and more to raise a chicken than it does to raise a crop of veggies, then we can make fast decisions in our food consumption that drastically reduce our water footprints without our having to put a lot of thought into it, or use our iPhones to do green research while standing in the middle of the farmer's market. Bringing this information into common knowledge so that green common sense is effortless will show us we're becoming much more sustainable as a species.

Sustainability in Daily Life: A Pocket Guide for Thinking Sustainably, 5 Things to Remember

Image courtesy of Indeed/Getty Images.

1. Understand the Scale of Your Daily Decisions

Some decisions seem small and have big impacts, some seem big but aren't as huge as you think. The difficulty comes in identifying which decisions fall into which category. For instance, recycling seems like a big deal, and it helps to diminish the waste stream going to landfills. However, purchasing a product that has zero waste in the first place is actually the more impactful decision. Another example is the fact that skipping that 12 ounce steak for dinner holds the same impact on your water footprint as showering only every other day for a year. Skipping the steak seems like a small decision, but the impact is larger than what would seem like a big decision—skipping showering!

2. Remember Everything is Connected

It can be difficult to grasp how vastly interconnected everything is. With how specialized we are and our lives have become, we can forget that everything we do affects something else. But taking our thinking at least four or five steps down the chain of cause and effect helps us understand the impacts of our actions and choices.

We need to remember to think about things in terms of their wide-ranging effects. For example, looking at a food product on a store shelf not just in terms of what ingredients it contains, but also how the ingredient choices impact the health of both the consumer of the final product as well as the people working harvesting the ingredients and their exposure to any chemicals, and the health and longevity of the ecosystems impacted by gathering the ingredients used in the product, and how our political systems impact and are impacted by raising, importing, and exporting the ingredients...and the chain can keep going. So, we can see how one food product on a shelf is actually connected to much broader parts of our lives. Keeping this in mind guides us towards more sustainable living choices.

3. Consider True Cost

Sometimes buying green seems expensive, and it's difficult to bring ourselves to spend more money for organic or locally made products. However, one thing that helps us understand that greener is cheaper is considering true cost. While something like a factory farmed steak may have a lower price tag than a locally raised grass-fed steak, the true cost is actually far higher, because it takes into account things like increased healthcare costs because the factory farmed steak is actually less healthful than the other to your health, the higher amounts of water used to raise factory farmed steak thanks to the vast amounts of corn raised to feed the cattle, the higher cost of pollution emitted into the atmosphere and water systems, and so on. In the long run, our unsustainable choices have a far higher true cost than our sustainable choices. Eventually the market will adjust to true costs as people more and more value making sustianable purchases. For now, you can invest a bit more for your health and the planet's on sustainable products and save money by buying less stuff you don't need and reading our eco-nomics feature with tons of tips on going green and saving green.

4. Remember Your Two Footprints

Water and carbon. While many aspects of our lives leave footprints, these are the two biggies. We use water heavily in everything from manufacturing and processing goods to running buildings, from growing food and livestock to landscaping. Our water consumption in our home lives, like showering and washing the dishes, is just a tiny fraction compared to the amount of embodied water we consume throughout the day. In the same way that our water consumption is embodied in the goods and services we access all day long, so too is carbon. We might not think of the computers we use or books we read as having a carbon footprint, but just like the methods of transportation we choose, most everything we use and consume during the day has a carbon footprint. Learning more about water footprints and carbon footprints, and working to minimize both our own and that of everything we produce and use, will get us closer to living sustainably.

5. Don't Get Discouraged or Overwhelmed

Easier said than done, right? But the key to achieving success here is not letting yourself get depressed about how much work lies ahead of us, but instead focusing on the many ways we can tackle the problems and make progress. Simply sit down in the evening, look back on your day, and ask yourself, "Did I go through my day in a way that got us all closer towards living sustainably?" If you can say yes, consider yourself successful.

Live sustainably by staying informed, thinking logically and connecting dots as you interact with your world during the day.

Veganism: Just What the Doctor Ordered

Dr. Michael Klaper "does no harm" by promoting a plant-based diet

By Mickey Z.
Astoria, NY, USA | Sun Jan 10, 2010 08:00 AM ET
Planetgreen.com

In case you're confused by all the conflicting info out there, a vegan is someone who doesn't eat meat, chicken, fish, eggs, dairy products, or any other animal-derived food. But there's much more to this lifestyle, e.g., vegans also don't "wear" animals (wool, fur, leather, down, etc.). There are at least 101 reasons to go vegan, not the least of which is that such life choices can have a major, positive impact on our environment. For example, a relatively recent U.N. report found that animal agriculture is responsible for almost 1/5 of the pollution causing global warming. Plus, as Michael Klaper, M.D. reminds us:

"The human body has absolutely no requirement for animal flesh. Nobody has ever been found face-down 20 yards from the Burger King because they couldn't get their Whopper in time."

...and...

"People are the only animals that drink the milk of the mother of another species. All other animals stop drinking milk altogether after weaning. It is unnatural for a dog to nurse from a giraffe; a child drinking the milk of a mother cow is just as strange."

Hmm...who's Dr. Klaper and why is he saying such things?

A graduate of the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago (1972), Dr. Klaper served his medical internship at Vancouver General Hospital in British Columbia, Canada and took under took additional training in surgery, anesthesiology, orthopedics, and obstetrics at the University of California Hospitals in San Francisco. "My nutritional awakening began when I was on the cardiovascular anesthesia service, and that's the service that deals with people's hearts and blood vessels," he explains. It was after drawing blood from a patient scheduled for a four-vessel coronary by-pass, that Klaper saw with his own eyes the results of the standard American diet.

"When you draw blood into a glass tube and allow it to sit there for a couple of hours, it separates out into two parts," says Klaper. The liquid serum—which should be transparent—was, he says, "thick and greasy white, it looked like ivory glue when I shook the tube, the serum stuck to the sides of the tube." When Dr. Klaper asked the man what he had eaten lunch, the answer came back: "I had a double-bacon steerburger with extra cheese and a milkshake."

What was floating on top of his blood tube, Klaper realized, was "all the beef-fat in the burger, it was all the butterfat in the cheese, it was the butterfat in the ice-cream, it was the egg yoke fat that was in the mayonnaise that was slathered on the bun. All the fat that this man had eaten had oozed out into his bloodstream and turned his blood fatty."

A new career as a vegan spokesperson was launched. Dr. Klaper has spoken to millions across the globe, never wavering in his commitment to the planet-based diet. "Being vegan is doing actions where no one gets hurt," he says. "The world will become vegetarian, one way or another."

UK Government Calls for Food Labels to Show Carbon Footprint

Environmental Leader
Jan. 7, 2010

Supermarket food in the UK will be labeled to show its carbon footprint, country of origin and animal welfare standards as part of the government’s new food strategy for the next 20 years, reports the Telegraph. The voluntary “green” food labels will show how much carbon was produced in the manufacture and transportation of food, according to the article.

Companies such as Tesco, PepsiCo and other leading brands already display a “carbon reduction label” on certain products showing the amount of carbon dioxide produced in grams in growing the food, packaging and transportation, reports the Telegraph.

Now the UK government wants other brands to consider measuring the carbon footprint of goods along with including country of origin and compliance to animal welfare standards on the labels, reports the Telegraph.

But environmental groups said in the article that the government needs legislation rather than a voluntary labeling scheme to really transform food and farming.

A government-supported body, the Carbon Trust, is currently working with the food industry, including big brands like Boots and Innocent, to help manufacturers determine and display the carbon footprint of different items.

Quaker Oats and Quaker Simple, part of PepsiCo, was the first cereal brand to carry the Carbon Trust Carbon Reduction Label, according to Carbon Trust.

The government is also asking all retailers to join the Pigmeat Labeling Code of Practice, due to be published next month, which will show where the animals were born, reared and processed, reports the Telegraph.

Critics believe carbon labeling will do little to fight climate change unless more low carbon products become available, according to the article.

Other countries including Sweden also call for labels listing the carbon dioxide emissions associated with the production of foods, which is expected to cut the nation’s emissions from food production by 20 to 50 percent.

In Japan, about 30 companies said they would voluntarily start carrying carbon footprint labels on food packaging and other products beginning in April 2009. This was followed by Australia’s announcement to join the UK in using the Carbon Trust’s Carbon Reduction Label.

82% of Firms Plan to Boost Green Marketing Spending

click to enlarge

Environmental Leader
January 7, 2010

Businesses increasingly are finding distinct additional marketing and advertising advantages in green messages, according to a new survey.

In fact, 82 percent of survey respondents said they planned to use more green messaging in their marketing, according to the report, “Green Marketing: What Works & What Doesn’t – A Marketing Study of Practitioners.”

More than 370 marketing and advertising executives responded to the survey, which was sponsored by Environmental Leader and marketing trade publications including MarketingCharts, MarketingVOX and MediaBuyerPlanner.

About 74 percent of respondents said they are conducting marketing of green messages on the Internet, which proved the most popular medium. About half are using print and another 40 percent are relying on direct mail, among other methods.

Marketers are finding that consumers will spend more on green products, and they are putting their marketing dollars behind the notion, said study co-authoer Jennifer Nastu.

“This was generally seen as a nice opportunity, as most firms perceived that they were – in reality – greener than their customers initially thought they were,” Nastu said.

In a sort of repudiation of the notion of greenwashing, marketing executives seemed to be cognizant of their company’s standing in relation to environmental stewardship. Respondents who noted that their firms were less green were less likely than others to use green marketing messages.

Another finding was that companies tend to make environmentally friendly operational changes before moving into green messaging in their marketing.

Still, 28 percent of respondents said they thought green marketing was more effective than other marketing messages, compared to just 6 percent who saw it as less effective.

The report offers detailed analysis of habits by firms with a range of marketing budgets, from less than $250,000 to in excess of $50 million.

The higher the budget, the more likely a firm was to use mobile phone advertising, a burgeoning trend in marketing. About 16 percent of firms spending more than $50 million used mobile advertising, compared to just 6 percent for all marketers, according to the report, which is available here.

In a recent example of consumer marketing, via the iPhone, an application from SAP and the Carbon Disclosure Project shows a visualized breakdown of a variety of corporate emissions data. It was released ahead of the Copenhagen climate talks as a means of communicating to world leaders and the public about climate change and corporate emissions.

T-Mobile has issued its own mobile application that promotes coupons for green products and services.

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The Best Climate Change Video (1958) to Forward to Your Grandparents

By Brian Merchant
Brooklyn, NY, USA | Wed Jan 6, 2010 08:00 AM ET

We all love our grandparents. But unfortunately, some think that global warming is a bunch of hooey made up to get Al Gore rich. Of course, not all grandparents fall into this category, and that characterization may be a tad unfair. Let me put it this way then--the demographic of those 65 and older is less likely to believe that there's solid evidence that climate change is occurring than the rest of the population.

According to a Pew Research poll done last October, only 50 percent of Americans ages 65 and up believe there's solid evidence that the earth is warming. Compare that with the 18-29 demographic, where 64 percent believe (which is still sadly low). And this may be why my job never comes up as a topic for discussion at family get-togethers.

To oversimplify the case, much of this may be rooted in an aversion to changing behavior--an implicit consequence in accepting the fact that the globe's temperatures are warming, and that we humans are causing it. When I'm seventy years old, and someone tells me that catastrophic consequences will greet the world unless we stop doing x--where 'x' is some action I've been doing or depending on all my life (driving cars, relying on coal-powered electricity, buying plastic goods, etc)--I'll be more disinclined to believe it, too. It's human nature.

But the fact is, there's more evidence than ever that greenhouse gases, emitted in abundance by humans, are slowly causing the climate to change. There is a huge scientific consensus that has determined that this is the case. And maybe a big part of the problem that older people resist the idea is that this seems like a sudden, new, and untrustworthy development. It's not. Scientific studies on how greenhouse gases are warming the earth began over a century ago, and those examining man's contribution commenced in the 1950s.

And so, I present to you perhaps the most forward-able video clip on climate change I've yet found. It's from a 1958 film produced by Frank Capra (It's a Wonderful Life)--about global warming. It's proof that scientists have been working toward the same conclusion--that our irresponsible emitting of greenhouse gases is warming the earth--for over 50 years. This is not a scheme dreamed up by communist czars or Al Gore. It is a truth backed by 96% of climate scientists. And it has been studied for decades. Enjoy, and forward away!