<div lang="EN-US" vlink="blue" link="blue">
<div>
<h2 style="BACKGROUND: white"><b><font face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 18pt">Anchorage Daily News:</span></font></b></h2>
<h2 style="BACKGROUND: white"><b><font face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 18pt">Arctic Alaska villages caught in slow-motion disaster onslaught </span></font></b></h2>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">GLOBAL WARMING: Spiraling costs to move imperiled coastal communities pit needs against limited resources. </span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.adn.com/contact/bbragg/index.html" target="_blank">
By BETH BRAGG</a><br><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:bbragg@adn.com" target="_blank">bbragg@adn.com</a></span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Published: October 22, 2007 <br>Last Modified: October 22, 2007 at 02:37 AM </span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The cost of relocating villages that face extinction in the next decade or so -- sooner if the wrong storm hits the wrong place at the wrong time -- is staggering. Even by Alaska standards.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.adn.com/ips_rich_content/657-22VillageErosion.gif" target="_blank">
<font color="#003366"><span style="COLOR: #003366; TEXT-DECORATION: none"><img title="Click to enlarge" height="187" alt="Click to enlarge" src="cid:image001.gif@01C8148E.0A137CE0" width="150" border="0"></span></font></a>
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><i><font face="Arial" color="#666666" size="1"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt">Click to enlarge</span></font></i></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">• Moving Newtok, a Bering Sea coast town of 315 being squished and swamped by two rivers, could cost as much as $130 million. Or $412,000 per person.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">• Moving Shishmaref, a strip of sand in the Chukchi Sea that's home to about 600 people, could cost as much as $200 million. Or $330,000 per person.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">• Moving Kivalina, a shrinking barrier island in the Chukchi that last month saw most of its 380 residents run for safety from the season's first storm, could cost as much as $125 million. Or $330,000 per person.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Meanwhile, millions more are needed to protect people and facilities threatened by catastrophic erosion until they move.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Where will all the money come from? </span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">"That's the million-dollar question," said Sally Russell Cox, a state planner who is involved in the Newtok relocation.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">It's closer to a billion-dollar question, and it's getting a lot of attention at the federal, state and local levels.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">The usual sources are being tapped, among them the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the state Department of Transportation, the Village Safe Water Program and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Even the idea of using some of the Permanent Fund has been floated.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Cox hopes dollars alone don't drive the discussions.</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">"I hate to put things in economic terms, because these are human beings we're talking about," she said. "These are lifestyles they've led for thousands of years that have been passed on to them by their forefathers. How can you minimize all that (by putting it) in economic terms?"
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">In years past, Natives would have moved to safer places if nature's wrath threatened their homes. Today, things like school buildings, airstrips, roads and washeterias keep once-nomadic people anchored in place.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">SO MANY VILLAGES</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">The Denali Commission, a state-federal agency created by Sen. Ted Stevens to improve Alaska's infrastructure, has $100 million to offer. Given the many needs of the many villages being eaten away by erosion, that's a drop in the roiling Chukchi Sea.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Not everyone will get what they need when they need it, Stevens warned village leaders at a U.S. Senate field hearing earlier this month in Anchorage.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Tony Weyiouanna of Shishmaref told Stevens and Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat from Louisiana -- both members of the
U.S. Senate's Disaster Recovery subcommittee -- that his town, located on a quarter-mile-wide strip of sand, loses ground to the sea every year. The village needs $61 million for protection and relocation, and that's just for one year.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">"Your one village's needs is almost more than the entire funding we have available" from the Denali Commission, Stevens noted. "Each village is proceeding on the basis that they're going to come first. That's not possible."
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Yet Stevens acknowledged that action is needed immediately in some places. </span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Like Newtok. Between seasonal rains and flooding rivers, residents there have to be careful where they step.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">"We have to use the boardwalks all the time. We can't use tennis shoes on the tundra. You just get wet and it's really deep," tribal administrator Stanley Tom said. "Some of the boardwalks now are sinking too. We try to keep them floating. We put blocks underneath the boardwalks."
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">The Corps of Engineers says Newtok has about 10 years left before erosion claims it. </span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Tom shakes his head at that estimate. He figures the village has two or three years left.</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">A NEW KIND OF EMERGENCY</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Newtok, Shishmaref, and Kivalina are the canaries in the mine that is global warming, which is eating river banks, thawing permafrost and delaying the annual formation of shore-fast ice that protects coastal towns from fall sea storms.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Even Stevens, once a skeptic of global warming and man's role in hastening it, talks about the effects of "global climate change." Long a champion of the oil industry that supports Alaska's economy, he has in recent months pushed for fuel-efficient American-made cars and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">"I think there is a contribution of mankind to the warming cycle," he told Channel 2 news this summer, although he also said he believes the warming trend is part of a natural cycle hundreds of years in the making.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Stevens harbors no doubt, though, that many Alaska villages face impending disaster. </span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">"This is a new type of emergency," he said at the Senate hearing. "We get it first, but it's coming everywhere."
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">The question for everyone is how to deal with it financially. </span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Even unpopular alternatives -- such as relocating Shishmaref residents to Nome -- are expensive. That would cost $93 million, a quarter of which would pay for new homes, plus another $35 million for new roads in Nome to handle the population boom.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">The price of relocation is so steep, it would be cheaper to buy everyone in Shishmaref, Newtok and Kivalina a condo in Fairbanks or Anchorage. But if any government officials are thinking that, or questioning the idea of rescuing villages, they're not willing to say it.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Landrieu said such thinking is untenable. Natives have made their homes on the western edge of Alaska for thousands of years, and their traditional way of life "shouldn't come to an abrupt end," she said.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Stevens said no one has the right to tell people who live in endangered villages they should pack up and move to a larger town and forfeit their communities, cultures and lifestyles.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">"It's not up to us," he said. "If you're God, yes. But I'm not ready to play God and tell them what to do."
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Landrieu, who saw New Orleans neighborhoods destroyed and Gulf Coast towns all but wiped out by Hurricane Katrina, said it's cheaper to spend money on protection and relocation than it is to rebuild. So far the bill for rebuilding the Gulf Coast is $150 billion, she said.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">But there are limits to what taxpayers are willing to take on, she said.</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">THE FRONT LINES</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">"It's doubtful the relocation of one of these Native villages would come out on the positive side of a cost-benefit analysis," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense in Washington,
D.C. "But you have to look at it overall. Is it the right thing to do? Is it what we should do?</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">"These communities are at the front line of global warming and we have to be cognizant of two factors. One is, they were here before the bulk of the rest of us were. And also, what we decide to do there is going to set precedents and trends for how we're going to react to the same issues on thousands of miles of coastline in the rest of the country."
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">In Newtok, state and federal grants are being piecemealed together to gradually move the town to a safer location. The village is pitching in, too, with labor and money.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">It negotiated a land trade to acquire a new town site on Nelson Island, and in 2000 the Newtok Traditional Council hired a contractor to help plan the move. Residents are currently building a couple of homes at the new site, but they don't have all the heavy equipment they need.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Tom said one of the biggest obstacles is the lack of a single agency or group to be in charge of planning. Stevens said it's imperative to choose a single agency for that job -- and to give it authority over others when it comes to making and carrying out plans.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Meanwhile, Cox said, three groups -- the Corps of Engineers, Village Safe Water and DOT -- are working together in Newtok.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">USE THE PERMANENT FUND?</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Steve Ivanoff, a transportation planner from Unalakleet who testified for western Norton Sound villages at the Senate hearing, said the State of Alaska could easily come to the rescue by tapping some of the $40 billion in the Permanent Fund.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Meant to be a rainy-day savings account, Ivanoff figures the need to relocate villages away from life-threatening storms, floods and erosion meets the definition of a rainy day.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">It may be the federal government's job to come to the aid of Americans under assault -- and most everyone agrees nature is mounting a serious attack against the Alaska coast -- but the state has the money right now to relocate and protect the most imperiled towns, Ivanoff said.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">He points to Shaktoolik, a village of 214 that sits on the Norton Sound coast. It used to be in a safer place, Ivanoff said, but it moved closer to the shore in the 1930s when the Bureau of Indian Affairs put a school near the beach because it was cheaper to build there than inland.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">In recent years, three major floods have eroded natural barriers that once protected the town. There is no evacuation road.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">"Shaktoolik could be wiped out by the right storm," he said. "We have $40 billion in the bank and we have people living in harm's way that might not be here in two weeks.
</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">"If something happens to these people, someone will have to look in the mirror and say, 'You had the opportunity to help these people. Had.' "
</span></font></p>
<div style="BACKGROUND: white; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
<hr align="center" width="100%" size="2">
</span></font></div>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Find Beth Bragg online at <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://adn.com/contact/bbragg" target="_blank">
<b><font color="#003366"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: #003366; TEXT-DECORATION: none">adn.com/contact/bbragg</span></font></b></a> or call 257-4309.</span></font></p>
<div style="BACKGROUND: white; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
<hr align="center" width="100%" size="2">
</span></font></div>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><strong><b><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">High cost of erosion</span></font></b></strong></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><b><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Relocation costs</span></font></b></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">(For villages not expected to survive 10 years)</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Kivalina $95-125 million</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Newtok $80-130 million</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Shishmaref $100-200 million</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><strong><b><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Protection costs</span></font></b></strong></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">(For villages with serious annual erosion damage)</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Bethel</span></font> $5 million</p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Dillingham $10 million</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Kaktovik $40 million</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Kivalina $15 million</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Newtok $90 million</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Shishmaref $16 million</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Unalakleet $30 million</span></font></p>
<p style="BACKGROUND: white"><em><i><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 140%">Source: 2006 U.S. Army Corps of Engineer study</span></font></i></em> </p>
<p><font face="Arial" color="navy" size="2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"> </span></font></p>
<p><font face="Arial" color="navy" size="2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"> </span></font></p>
<div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
<hr align="center" width="100%" size="2">
</span></font></div>
<p><b><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">From:</span></font></b><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"> <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:vision2020-bounces@moscow.com" target="_blank">
vision2020-bounces@moscow.com</a> [mailto:<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:vision2020-bounces@moscow.com" target="_blank">vision2020-bounces@moscow.com</a>] <b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">
On Behalf Of </span></b>Ted Moffett<br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sent:</span></b> Monday, October 22, 2007 1:37 AM<br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">To:</span></b> Joe Campbell; Paul Rumelhart; J Ford; g. crabtree; lfalen; Pat Kraut
<br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Cc:</span></b> <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com" target="_blank">vision2020@moscow.com</a><br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">
Subject:</span></b> Re: [Vision2020] Scientific Consensus: Global Warming: Skepticism &Replicatability</span></font></p></div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Joe et. al.</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">I think you are misstating the current status of global warming, and the impacts coming in the next few decades. The real problems have started. And children born today (not grandchildren or beyond) should expect to witness dramatic effects from global warming. Actually, right now, in the Arctic, they are. And relocation of the current generation on some low lying islands due to climate change impacts is already upon us:
</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1206-unep.html" target="_blank">http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1206-unep.html
</a></span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Verdana" size="2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">Details of the scheme were unveiled at a meeting organized by the United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) polar centre, GRID Arendal in Norway.
<br><br>The meeting called 'Many Small Voices is building bridges between vulnerable Arctic communities and those of small island developing states. <br><br>The meeting takes place today (6 December) during the 11th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations climate convention in Montreal, Canada.
<br><br>Klaus Toepfer, UNEP's Executive Director, said: "The peoples of the Arctic and the small islands of this world face many of the same threats as a result of climbing global temperatures the most acute of which is the devastation of their entire ways of life".
</span></font><br>---------------------<br>Drowning or dying of heat prostration, as Paul wrote, due to human induced global warming, might already be happening for a few people (in 2003 a record heat wave killed many in Europe, and some think the full intensity of Hurricane Katrina, which drowned hundreds, was linked to global warming). But this hyperbolic language does not help the discussion. Most people on Earth are not at risk of this extreme consequence from global warming. Starvation (it's hard to avoid hyperbolic language) from climate related disruptions in food production would be a more likely consequence, in poor nations.
</p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Shifting agriculture to northern latitudes that have warmed may offset some agricultural loses from climate change. But simple physics indicates that though they may be warmer, the solar energy in northern latitudes is less than closer to the equator, setting limits on total food production in these areas compared to their current locations for certain traditional staple crops. This might be addressed by genetic engineering of crops, suggested by the Stern Report as a measure to create drought or flood resistant plants, or engineering or substituting crops with a shorter growing season for northern latitudes.
</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">One of the most certain effects of global warming will be ocean rise, which will remake the world's coastlines. Oceans will rise not only from melting ice but expansion from rising water temperature. But most everyone will relocate, not drown, we can assume? Certain low lying populated islands are already planning to relocate their populations. The economic costs of this world wide, though, are staggering, one variable that weakens the long term economic argument that the costs of lowering emissions are not worth the economic benefits.
</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">As global warming's impacts are already dramatically impacting humans in the Arctic, with the lifestyle of the native peoples, their children's way of life, being disrupted tragically, the effects of global warming are accelerating, and within 50-70 years, much more severe effects will be much more widespread. The current climate trends in the Arctic are thus a warning to the whole planet, that should be heeded.
</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Children born today, even if we dramatically reduce emissions, will live to witness extreme effects from global warming (unless we extreme engineer our way out of the problem very quickly), just from the current carbon loading of the atmosphere, now at about 430 ppm CO2 (I have found conflicting figures, but all significantly above the 380 ppm figure from about a decade ago)
</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">As has been pointed out over and over, poor nations, with limited resources to cope, will be hit the hardest. As the richest nation on Earth, most in the US may be able to maintain a "reasonable" standard of living, as global warming changes the planet, though I do not state this as a reason to continue our status as far and away the world's leader in per capita CO2 emissions. This is irresponsible in the extreme, as we indulge our wealthy lifestyle, jeopardizing the welfare of humans globally.
</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">I think there is an understandable disbelief among many that the predictions regarding global warming are based on the sober estimates of a consensus of the world's climate scientists, who if anything are conservative in their work. The predictions are so incredible, it is reasonable to assume they must be from "alarmists" or "extremists" or those seeking financial or political gain from scare tactics.
</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">However, though no doubt there are many interests, both financial and political, who will exploit global warming for their own ulterior purposes, an objective dispassionate assessment of the work of the world's climate scientists indicates we are facing a very serious crisis, with every decade of emissions based on business as usual increasing the severity of the problem.
</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Consider that every car on the Palouse emits 11450 lbs, and every light truck, 16035 lbs, of CO2, on average, annually. It disappears into "oblivion" yet it is changing the world's climate:
</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.epa.gov/otaq/consumer/f00013.htm" target="_blank">http://www.epa.gov/otaq/consumer/f00013.htm
</a></span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">----------</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">I would be pleased to discover the scientific consensus on the dangers of climate change to be mostly false, though It would be one of the greatest failures of the scientific community in history.
</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">From the Stern Report:</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/Independent_Reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/sternreview_index.cfm" target="_blank">
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/Independent_Reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/sternreview_index.cfm </a></span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Stabilising gases at 450 ppm, seen likely as avoiding the most dangerous effects, was "already almost out of reach".</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The costs of extreme weather alone could be 0.5 to 1 percent of global Gross Domestic Product by 2050.</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Warming of 3 or 4C will result in many millions more people being flooded. By the middle of the century 200 million may be permanently displaced due to rising sea levels, heavier floods and drought.
</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">----------</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071009/ap_on_sc/climate_change" target="_blank">http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071009/ap_on_sc/climate_change
</a><br> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Tim Flannery told Australian Broadcasting Corp. that an upcoming report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will contain new data showing that the level of climate-changing gases in the atmosphere has already reached critical levels.
<br><br>Flannery is not a member of the IPCC, but said he based his comments on a thorough review of the technical data included in the panel's three working group reports published earlier this year.<br><br>Carola Traverso Saibante, spokeswoman for IPCC headquarters is in Geneva, said she was unable to disclose what would be in the final report synthesizing the data before it is released in November.
<br><br>"What the report establishes is that the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is already above the threshold that can potentially cause dangerous climate change," Flannery told the broadcaster late Monday. "We are already at great risk of dangerous climate change, that's what these figures say. It's not next year or next decade, it's now."
</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel called Tuesday for an international system of global emissions trading to be adopted as part of an agreement to flight climate change from 2012 onward.
<br><br>Speaking at a symposium of Nobel laureates and other leading scientists, Merkel insisted that only by establishing limits on carbon dioxide output per individual around the world--suggesting about 2 tons per head — could the fight to stop global warming be effective.
<br><br>"Our long-term goal can only be the assimilation of worldwide per capita emissions," Merkel told the conference.</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Flannery said that the recent economic boom in China and India has helped to accelerate the levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but strong growth in the developed world has also exacerbated the problem.
<br><br>"It's a worldwide issue. We've had growing economies everywhere, we're still basing that economic activity on fossil fuels," he said. "The metabolism of that economy is now on a collision course clearly with the metabolism of our planet."
<br>------------</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Ted Moffett</span></font></p></div>
<div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><br><span>On 10/21/07, <b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Joe Campbell</span></b> <<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:joekc@adelphia.net" target="_blank">
joekc@adelphia.net </a>> wrote:</span> </span></font></p></div>
<div>
<blockquote style="BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; BORDER-TOP: medium none; PADDING-LEFT: 6pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; MARGIN-LEFT: 4.8pt; BORDER-LEFT: #cccccc 1pt solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0in; PADDING-TOP: 0in; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none">
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Paul,<br><br>A few things.<br><br>First, the folks who see the problem -- primarily scientists -- are not the folks <br>who make the laws.<br><br>Second, I don't think folks are suggesting that we'll see the kinds of effects
<br>you suggest in our lifetime. The climatologists I've talked to say it likely won't<br>happen until our grandchildren, or their children, reach our age. It is <br>hard to predict but what seems certain is that once the real problems start
<br>it will proceed at an exponential rate and we won't be able to do anything.<br><br>This reminds me of the Crabtree debate about when we'll run out of water. <br>Suppose it is 200 years, as Krauss suggests. How is that NOT a problem NOW?
<br>Do we have to wait until we are close to running out to do something about it?<br>Likewise, you would be hard pressed to find a climatologist who does not <br>believe that global warming is due, in part, to human behavior -- despite what
<br>Pat says. Why not do whatever we can NOW before it becomes a problem?<br><br>Joe<br><br>-----------------------------</span></font></p></blockquote></div></div></div>