Subscription Center
Jun 16, 2009 03:30 PM | 9
Along with melting glaciers and more intense heat weaves, a report released by the Obama administration today outlines the detrimental effects of global warming on winter recreation, power generation, fisheries, and even maple syrup.
“It is clear that climate change is happening now,” Jerry Melillo, lead author of the report and an ecologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., said at a press conference. “The observed climate changes we report are not opinions to be debated, they are facts to be reported.”
Beginning in 1990, the United States Global Change Research Program has been required to report every 10 years on the natural and anthropogenic effects of climate change in the United States. The 188-page report was written with input from 13 federal agencies and President Barack Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren.
At the news conference, Melillo began by spelling out dramatic changes taking place in the Northeast United States. “The center of maple syrup production has shifted from the U.S. to Canada,” he said, noting that the domestic industry is expected to decline substantially in the coming years. Apples, cranberries, and other fruits that require winter chilling will also decline with warmer temperatures. The center of lobster fisheries is projected to shift northward, and the cod fishery will decline around Georges bank. Ice fishing, skiing, and snowmobiling will no longer be possible in some areas, which could have a significant economic impact on the $7.6 billion winter sports industry.
On a national scale, the report describes how reduced snow on mountaintops, for instance, will lead to water shortages affecting spawning salmon, hydroelectric power plants, and agricultural water supplies. Higher temperatures could cause more heat-related deaths, water-borne and insect-transmitted diseases, along with an increase in asthma.
The report outlines options for adapting to climate change by switching to crops suited to warmer and drier conditions and moving business centers away from coastal areas. However, the report warns that there are limits to adaptation, and we most be prepared for conflicts due to mass migrations of people from areas with food and water shortages.
One journalist in the audience asked whether there was political pressure to water down the findings, as had happened during the Bush administration. “There was no political pressure to change anything in this report,” Melillo replied, “This is about scientific integrity.”
Image of maple syrup courtesy Brett L. via Flickr
More News Blog: Next: Apple fixes lingering Java security flaw in Mac software Previous: Under pressure: NASA aims to fix Endeavor's leaky fuel system and launch June 17
See what we're tweeting about
BecCrew I have no idea what this means but I love it so much http://t.co/NA5WMMApWS
DNLee5 #DispatchesDNLee: Non-target capture Marsh Mongoose: http://t.co/h6iOKMW63v via @YouTube
Horganism Ahab to severed whale head: O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham and not one syllable is thine!
Deadline: Jun 29 2013
Reward: $7,000 USD
The Seeker for this Challenge desires proposals for chemical methods that could rapidly degrade a dilute aqueous solution
Deadline: Jul 25 2013
Reward: Varies
This challenge provides an opportunity for Solvers to build a web-based or mobile “app” to explore data relationships in scholarly conte
Powered By: 
YES! Send me a free issue of Scientific American with no obligation to continue the subscription. If I like it, I will be billed for the one-year subscription.
9 Comments
Add CommentNot the maple syrup!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh, I love this, “The observed climate changes we report are not opinions to be debated, they are facts to be reported.” Tell me how this doesn't imply that these are axioms. Here's an axiom. The earth has experienced extensive climate change over the course of its history.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo suggest that we as human beings, in our progress to evolve as a highly intelligent (authors of this report not withstanding) must somehow cease to use important and critical technologies that improve our quality of life (which if you really look at what this report is suggesting, our very existence contaminates the Earth) is to encourage digression and repression. The essence of the report is that we are evil because the excrements of our existence destroy the planet. Truly, read the report. That is what its implying.
Try playing out in your minds what would happen if the products and services we use today were suddenly gone. Want to know what that would look like? Try Argentina, the once shining bastion of productivity in South America. Before Peron, it was the richest and most advanced nation in South America. Now, you’re lucky if you can get a half-decent car that was made over five years before, through a government approval process, which can take well over a decade. Don’t believe me? Obama is headed in this direction, hence his administration and name in the title. The California Environmental Protection Agency literally FORCED the American automotive industry to change its fuel efficiency to 35 MPG nationally. The EPA (feds) are now looking at using the California model for EVERYTHING environmental nation-wide. More and more restrictions will be imposed, less and less viable products will be available, and surely your liberties and rights will dwindle until we reach a totalitarian government.
If you think that somehow industrialist and/or the producers of this world are holding back technology and must be FORCED into a new way of doing business, you honestly are ignorant. I don’t know a capitalist alive that wouldn’t patent that technology and make a ton of money, if indeed such wonderful, more efficient technologies were available. The truth is, there simply isn’t.
People, don’t let the zealots of environmentalism, who have the same passion as Zero Population-phyles from the 70s confuse you into believing that human beings are filth (These Zero Population individuals ironically still advocate that the world population should drastically decrease, which would mean what? [See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4R8IkSOY9k] Yeah, you need to die because your existence wastes precious resources and destroys the planet. Sound familiar?). We are the most intelligent creatures on this planet. It’s time we start using that intelligence and name what these environmentalists are really doing—they want to control you by removing your individual rights to satisfy their whims.
"Here's an axiom. The earth has experienced extensive climate change over the course of its history. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEveryone with half a brain knows that. Yet this time it's not the natural cycle that's driving climate change, no matter what denialists say.
"The essence of the report is that we are evil because the excrements of our existence destroy the planet"
The essence of the report is about the observable facts of global warming. The "excrements" of our unsustainable existence are certainly collapsing our sources of food and materials (fisheries, water tables, forests) and the sinks of our waste (land, air and water). Nature will probably correct these exceses, with or without us.
"These Zero Population individuals ironically still advocate that the world population should drastically decrease, which would mean what?"
Having a sustainable population in line with the carrying capacity of the Earth means halting population growth and gradually reducing the number of inhabitants. How do you achieve that? Empowering women, eliminating illiteracy, securing retirement and other development activities. Population stability/decline happens when women can plan their reproductive life (access to sexual education, birth control and safe abortion), when people have affordable retirement without the need of an inmense family to sustain them in their seniority, when parents know that their children will reach a healthy adulthood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Kerala#Social_development
"It’s time we start using that intelligence and name what these environmentalists are really doing—they want to control you by removing your individual rights to satisfy their whims."
Conservative paranoia all over again. Environmentalists don't want to take your rights and control your life, they want to give you more rights (the right to clean air and water, healthy and secure food, etc) and a better quality of life without exhausting the resources (non-renewable materials, photosynthetic capacity, the water cycle, biodiversity, the biogeochemical cycles, the climate system) of the Earth.
http://www.eoearth.org/article/IPAT_equation
"surely your liberties and rights will dwindle until we reach a totalitarian government. "
Be careful, black helicopters are here to arrest you for saying "the truth". Give me a break.
"Try Argentina, the once shining bastion of productivity in South America."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt still is a bastion of productivity and a leading food exporter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_trade_of_Argentina
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0856690.html
"Before Peron, it was the richest and most advanced nation in South America."
Before Peron Argentina had no advanced industry, the wealth concentrated in few hands and malnutrition in a nation that exported food. You may or may agree with his policies, his authoritarism or other things but you can't distort the facts.
"Now, you’re lucky if you can get a half-decent car that was made over five years before, through a government approval process, which can take well over a decade."
In 2007 Argentina achieved a record in the number of new vehicles sold (570,000). The previous record was 485,865 vehicles sold in 1994.
http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=974701 (Spanish)
Go to the heartland and you'll see lots of new pick-ups and light trucks owned by farmers. In the big cities, you'll see lots of imported luxury (i.e., Audi, BMW, Mercedes Benz, high-end Toyota, etc) vehicles.
You may be entitled to your opinions, but you're not entitled to your own facts. You will be a lot better informed if you switch from hate radio and Faux News to credible news sources.
Farmers? You think that those farmers have new trucks? Tell me, did you live there? Tell me, do you know what its like to be in a socialist/fascist society? I do. Sure, you see lovely pictures of farmers with new cars. Guess what happens when the camera gets turned off? The farmer goes back to his hoe or dilapidated vehicle, spray painted to keep it looking new, where he must break his back to feed the masses. I do have the facts. I know them first hand.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBTW, I don’t watch FOX news. I don’t watch any media anymore, because its biased too far to the left and the right is no better.
You say, “Yet this time it's not the natural cycle that's driving climate change, no matter what denialists [<--that isn’t a word, btw] say.” We have change, but there is no substantial evidence to prove that it is man made, and moreover, that it’s bad. Evolution includes change. Without change, we don’t evolve and you can read all about how wonderful that would be here: http://www.co2science.org/about/position/globalwarming.php
I want to know why so many of you out there insist that human beings should live like animals. I want to know why industrialist are evil, but politicians noble (hell, even scientist who use pseudo logic to prove their theories) who are supposed to have our best interest at heart? Please, use your brain. Do you think that if an industrialist had the technology to produce a more fuel efficient, better product that would improve the quality of life for us wouldn’t patent that technology and make a ton of well deserved money? See, this is the crux of your argument. You say, the industrialist, who creates and provides wealth (I mean an honest industrialist who isn’t in bed with Washington DC), is nefarious at heart, evil with his millions (why, because he earned it?!), and a politician who easily negates individual rights using altruistic/science jargon is our friend. WRONG.
Truth is that the data on climate change, global warming, whatever you want to call it, isn’t conclusive. There is no definitive proof that our climate change is anything other than natural, and even part of our evolution.
When you side with politicians for controlling the populous to control our day to day lives, you are siding with fascists and totalitarians. Individual rights be damned, because you SAY that you’re right. Prove it with REAL science!
Here’s a quote from George Hays, who was the Member of the House of Virginia Delegates in 1799, “..truth was always equal to the task of combating falsehood without the aid of government; because in most instances it has defeated falsehood... [T]ruth cannot be impressed upon the human mind by power, with which therefore, it disdains an alliance, but by reason and evidence only.” HELLO! REASON AND EVIDENCE.
According to these people in the report, you got a theory, go to Washington DC. They’ll fund it and they’ll mandate on it!
"You think that those farmers have new trucks? Tell me, did you live there?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm an Argentine. I live in the heart of the Pampas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Mar%C3%ADa) so I know what I'm talking about.
"Tell me, do you know what its like to be in a socialist/fascist society?"
No, I don't know. I live in a democratic republic.
" We have change, but there is no substantial evidence to prove that it is man made, and moreover, that it’s bad. Evolution includes change. Without change, we don’t evolve and you can read all about how wonderful that would be here: http://www.co2science.org/about/position/globalwarming.php"
The physics of the greenhouse effect are more than a century old. The measure of CO2 concentrations in ice cores and observatories around the world indicating a rise in its concentrations. The isotope evidence indicating that this CO2 is mainly a product of the burning of fossil fuels. The paleoclimatic record indicating an unprecedent warming period. The temperature record from thousands of weather stations around the world. The retreat of glaciers, the rise of sea levels, the early-onset of spring, the move of species to higher latitudes and altitudes. The global circulation models which have predictive powers even including the uncertainties. You're right, there's no evidence of global warming. It's just an invention of Al Gore (who, BTW, is fat and has a mansion). And your source of "facts" is an astroturf group on the bankroll of fossil fuel interests (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_the_Study_of_Carbon_Dioxide_and_Global_Change).
I prefer the peer-reviewed literature as a source of facts.
Global warming is bad. We depend on a relatively stable climate to sustain the agriculture that feeds the world, the glaciers that sources of freshwater for millions of people and other things.
" Do you think that if an industrialist had the technology to produce a more fuel efficient, better product that would improve the quality of life for us wouldn’t patent that technology and make a ton of well deserved money?"
There are lots of businessmen developing sustainable materials, energy sources and techniques. They will be the wealthy of tomorrow. But today, the fossil fuel industry is so big (Exxon-Mobil is the biggest corporation in the world) that the regulation/taxation of GHG emissions has the potential to make their investments worthless.
"Truth is that the data on climate change, global warming, whatever you want to call it, isn’t conclusive. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe neoconservatives in the Bush administration reframed global warming to climate change to downplay it in people's mind. Those of us living in the real world prefer to call it global warming (excess energy in the Earth's energy budget).
"There is no definitive proof that our climate change is anything other than natural, and even part of our evolution"
There is never definitive proof in science. You have proofs in mathematics. We have evidence in science. And the evidence fits neatly the rising concentration of GHG, specially CO2. The evidence doesn't support that the recent warming can be atributed to natural cycles (e.g., solar activity) in a statistical significant way.
"When you side with politicians for controlling the populous to control our day to day lives, you are siding with fascists and totalitarians. "
Tell me what is fascist/totalitarian in achieving universal literacy, providing sexual education, means of contracepcion and safe abortion, decent retirement, food security, basic healthcare, women's rights and other things. Your little conservative brain don't understand that the low/negative population growth in developed contries is the result of such policies.
"Prove it with REAL science! "
Check the Wikipedia article on the demographics of Kerala. Check the demography of developed contries. All of them achieved population control without totalitarian governments or undermining your individual rights. Facts be damned.
LOL ... I can't believe he used CO2 Science as a source.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow anyone in this day and age can say that there is not substantial evidence to "prove" that climate change is man-made is living a very sheltered life or is very naïve or is in denial. I have to wonder why these people deny the existence of so many man-made toxic emissions. To say that there is no evidence that the incidence of asthma is higher near highways, that particulates aren't congesting our lungs, and that the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere aren't what scientists say they are is simply airing an empty argument but for what purpose?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this