Global warming is accelerating three times more quickly than feared, a series of startling, authoritative studies has revealed. They have found that emissions of carbon dioxide have been rising at thrice the rate in the 1990s. The Arctic ice cap is melting three times as fast – and the seas are rising twice as rapidly – as had been predicted. News of the studies – which are bound to lead to calls for even tougher anti-pollution measures than have yet been contemplated – comes as the leaders of the world’s most powerful nations prepare for the most crucial meeting yet on tackling climate change. The issue will be top of the agenda of the G8 summit which opens in the German Baltic resort of Heiligendamm on Wednesday, placing unprecedented pressure on President George Bush finally to agree to international measures. Tony Blair flies to Berlin today to prepare for the summit with its host, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. They will discuss how to tackle President Bush, who last week called for action to deal with climate change, which his critics suggested was instead a way of delaying international agreements. Yesterday, there were violent clashes […]
LONDON and BRUSSEL — Germany and the European Commission reacted angrily to President George W. Bush’s apparent change of heart on climate change on Friday, setting the stage for a stormy G8 summit of rich industrialised countries next week. A spokesman for Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor and current G8 president, said Germany’s stance that climate talks should take place within the United Nations was ‘non-negotiable’. Stavros Dimas, the EU environment commissioner, dismissed the proposals for climate talks as vague and ‘the classic US line’. Mr Bush on Thursday appeared to suggest a parallel process to the UN, by which the world’s 15 biggest emitters of greenhouse gases would within 18 months ‘establish a new framework on greenhouse gases when the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012’ and ‘set a long-term global goal on reducing emissions’. His proposal marked a reversal of the US policy of refusing to discuss emissions cuts and rejecting a global framework such as Kyoto. But the plans are starkly different from the proposal tabled by Germany for next week’s G8 summit, which would require leaders to agree to prevent global temperatures rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius and require stringent emissions cuts. […]
WASHINGTON — On the eve of next week’s G-8 summit meeting, relations between the United States and Russia have ebbed to their lowest level since the Cold War, fueled by Moscow’s growing confidence and an apparent Russian perception of U.S. weakness. Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded to American plans for a European-based missile-defense system by testing a new intercontinental missile, publicly blasted a U.S.-backed initiative to give independence to the Serbian province of Kosovo and frustrated American diplomatic initiatives on several fronts. Putin, alluding to U.S. ‘imperialism,’ said Thursday that the missile test was a response to the Bush administration’s plans to put a missile-defense radar and 10 interceptors in Poland and the Czech Republic. ‘We are not the initiators of this new round of the arms race,’ Putin told a Kremlin news conference. ‘Our partners are stuffing eastern Europe with new weapons,’ he said. ‘What are we supposed to do? We cannot just observe all this.’ While the Russian leader is a former KGB officer and his rhetoric echoed of the Cold War, U.S. officials and analysts don’t expect a return to U.S.-Russian military confrontation. But the disputes appear certain to cloud the […]
CHICAGO — This month, two men – both freed last year after DNA evidence exonerated them of the crimes for which they’d been in prison – received drastically different news about how they might be compensated for those lost years. Connecticut legislators voted to award $5 million to James Tillman to help him get his life back on track after 18 years behind bars for a rape he didn’t commit. The Florida Legislature, on the other hand, denied Alan Crotzer’s request for $1.25 million and let a bill die that would have standardized a compensation system for victims of wrongful conviction. ‘I felt so disappointed,’ says Mr. Crotzer, who served more than 24 years in a Florida prison until DNA evidence cleared him of rape and kidnapping charges. He’s been working odd jobs that pay less than $300 a week since he got out. ‘The bottom line is, I don’t think I could ever put a price on freedom¦. But they’ve got to put a system in place. [This issue] isn’t going away.’ The cases are typical results of the patchwork of compensation laws in the US, say experts. Last month, the 200th person was exonerated […]
NASA’s chief climate scientist joined policymakers from outside the space agency on Thursday in criticizing agency Administrator Michael Griffin’s doubt about whether mankind should address global warming. ‘I was shocked by his comments,’ said James Hansen, who shapes NASA’s climate research as the head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. ‘It was a remarkable statement. I don’t know if it was planned, or it just slipped out of his mouth.’ Even the White House, which has been accused of ignoring a looming global crisis over a rise in temperatures linked to industrial activities, sought to distance itself from remarks made by Griffin in an interview that aired Thursday on National Public Radio’s morning show. The interview was broadcast on the same day the White House unveiled its proposal to limit the production of greenhouse gases by 15 industrialized nations, including the U.S. The gases are linked to a warming trend. ‘I have no doubt that global - that a trend of global warming exists,’ Griffin told NPR in the taped interview. ‘I’m not sure it’s fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with.’ Griffin, who is […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
