From Green Right Now Reports

An emerging body of evidence suggests that the changing global climate is already affecting infectious disease transmission patterns. At a symposium today at the 58th annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in Washington D.C., experts reported that such changes are expected to have a profound impact on global public health.

“There is concrete evidence that the global climate is changing, and these changes are expected to greatly impact human health as surface temperatures rise, agricultural belts shift, and extreme weather events become more commonplace,” Mary H. Hayden, Ph.D. of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said in a statement. “Although most scientists agree that climate change is underway, the role it plays in infectious disease transmission is still in contention. The evidence presented today suggests that climate change will exacerbate the challenges of controlling infectious diseases in the developing world.”

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

While the world scrambles to find clean energy solutions, somewhere, every minute of every day, saws buzz through a forest, cutting down one of nature’s antidotes to carbon pollution.

Saving forests in the Congo will help save endangered gorillas (Photo: John Martin)

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From Green Right Now Reports

New ground measurements made by the West Antarctic GPS Network project, composed of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin, The Ohio State University and The University of Memphis, suggest the rate of ice loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet has been slightly overestimated.

“Our work suggests that while West Antarctica is still losing significant amounts of ice, the loss appears to be slightly slower than some recent estimates,” Ian Dalziel, lead principal investigator for the project, said in a statement. “So the take home message is that Antarctica is contributing to rising sea levels. It is the rate that is unclear.”

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Greenland Ice Flow (Photo: NASA)

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

By now you’ve heard the dire predictions for how sea level rise would affect Miami. Basically this city, already imperiled by worsening hurricanes is in the bulls-eye for rising oceans too.

But did you realize that a one meter sea level increase — now believed by many scientists to be a likely outcome of global warming by 2100 — would put Philadelphia underwater?

Yes, the city of Brotherly Love would be among the large family of coastal cities potentially devastated by coastline changes. And not in the too-distance future either.

According to glacier and ice shelf expert Dr. Gordon Hamilton, Philadelphia could experience troubles decades before that 2100 benchmark if storm surges pushed rising oceans inland.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

This number shows Earth’s collective 3 trillion-plus metric tons of combined greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

You’ll notice that it is a BIG number. And it’s already outdated. This picture was captured yesterday. Look at the counter today on the web, and the number will be bigger.

The volume of greenhouse gases is constantly ticking upward. Much faster than a watch. Steady as an oil derrick. As ominously as a time bomb.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Not convinced that climate change matters? The Union of Concerned Scientists has concluded that if Americans adopt that stance, they’ll be gambling not just with their lungs, but with their pocketbooks.

The UCS surveyed 60 studies to better examine the anticipated financial toll of global warming if we fail to “dramatically curb emissions.” The nonprofit released the findings today in a report called “Climate Change in the United States: The Prohibitive Costs of Inaction”.

It found that rising sea levels, intense hurricanes, flooding, impaired public health and strained energy and water resources would all add up to one monumental price tag.

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From Green Right Now Reports

The increase in size and frequency of large hurricanes that make landfall from the Gulf of Mexico also is resulting in more tornadoes that form from the storms, according to a new report from researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

“As the size of landfalling hurricanes from the Gulf of Mexico increases, we’re seeing more tornadoes than we did in the past that can occur up to two days and several hundred miles inland from the landfall location,” James Belanger, a doctoral student in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech and lead author of the paper, said in a statement.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Barbara Ettinger and Sven Huseby knew their documentary about ocean acidification would have to pass a high test to avoid overwhelming a public already challenged to understand many technical facets of climate change.

To sound the alarm about yet another looming global warming catastrophe, the potential destruction of all marine life, their film would have to be engaging, accessible, down-to-earth.

Happily, A Sea Change: Imagine a World Without Fish succeeds on all those levels. Humanizing this critical issue like no previous film or book, it follows the soft-spoken Huseby on an odyssey of discovery as he meets with scientists and activists in Alaska, Seattle, California and Norway trying to understand the phenomenon of ocean acidification.

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By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now

When we put our shoes on, we don’t really think about where they’ve been before they got to us.

Most likely, they were manufactured somewhere overseas, China or Vietnam perhaps, then shipped to the United States. But where did the material used to manufacture them come from? Are your shoes made of leather? If so, there’s a chance they’re contributing to climate change — and the illegal destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

Greenpeace International says rainforests are being needlessly lost not just to the meat trade but to the leather industry, as cattle ranches expand illegally in Brazilian Amazon region.

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From Green Right Now Reports

Greenpeace’s report “Slaughtering the Amazon” notes that Brazil’s thriving and expanding cattle trade, which has made it the world’s largest exporter of beef and the top producer (along with China) of leather, has out-sized environmental consequences.

“The cattle sector in the Brazilian Amazon is responsible for 14% of the world’s annual deforestation. This makes it the world’s largest driver of deforestation, responsible for more forest loss than the total deforestation in any country outside Brazil except Indonesia,” according to the report, the result of a three-year investigation by Greenpeace International.

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strong> By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Kimberly-Clark, the world’s largest personal paper products company, announced new policies today in which the paper maker will greatly increase the use of recycled and sustainably grown wood fibers in its products, which include the Kleenex, Scott and Cottonelle brands.

The move will help save forests around the globe and make the Dallas-based company a leader in producing sustainable paper products, said Greenpeace media officer Daniel Kessler. “We worked with Kimberly-Clark on this policy and it’s a landmark for forest protection; 100 percent of Kimberly-Clark’s fiber will come from sustainable sources.”

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From Green Right Now Reports

A group of island nations, facing an uncertain future amid the threat of rising seas, says it needs the United States to take the lead in pushing for aggressive climate mitigation standards. However, after a week of discussions among the 195 countries that back the Montreal Protocol ozone treaty, the coalition said today it was unable to convince the United States to take a larger role.

The islands have proposed using the Montreal Protocol to phase down production and consumption of a group of super greenhouse gases known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). HFCs are projected to grow so fast that they could represent up to 45 percent of CO2 emissions in 2050, assuming the climate treaty is able to stabilize CO2 emissions at 450 ppm by that date.

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