Global warming headlines and climate change news for January 2010

January 31 - Pentagon to recognize climate change threat
The Pentagon will recognize the impact of climate change for the first time in its upcoming review of military strategy. The Defense Department acknowledges in the draft Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) that climate change will affect the military’s operating environment, roles and missions. Read more

January 30 - U.S. officially commits to emissions cuts
The U.S. has officially committed to greenhouse gas emission cuts of 4 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. US government departments will cut their own greenhouse gas emissions by 28 percent by 2020.At least 29 countries have indicated they will join the Copenhagen accord, however it is not a legally binding treaty. Read more

January 29 - Australia: more record highs, less record lows
While record low temperatures are still being set in Australia, research from the Bureau of Meteorology shows that in the past 50 years, Australia's had far more record high temperatures a trend that is increasing. Read more.

January 29 - China reports record sea level rise
The sea level in China late last year hit a record high for the past three decades. China's State Oceanic Administration says sea level rise last year was 8 mm higher than 2008 with the rise in sea level in Hainan Province reaching 113 mm. Read more

January 27 - Hamsters, economic growth and the planet.
From birth until it reaches sexual maturity, a hamster doubles its weight each week. If it didn't stop growing at such a rate, that hamster would weigh 9 billion tonnes by the time it turned one. Nature doesn't allow for that, so why do we expect economic growth and consumption to be limitless?

January 26 - Woody weeds thriving on increased CO2
Increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide may be contributing to the woody weed invasion that has colonized grasslands across the world. Australian and US scientists have reported that woody plants are often profiting more from the historically high levels of CO2 than grasses. Read more

January 25 - Rising sea levels threaten tiger habitat
A WWF study has warned increasing global temperatures may mean extinction for Sunderban tigers as rise of just under a foot in sea levels will engulf 96 per cent of their habitat. Read more

January 23 - Snow being trucked in for Winter Olympics
Canadian officials have enlisted the services a fleet of helicopters to fly in thousands of tons of snow for the Winter Olympics. With temperatures around 11 degrees Celsius, organisers say they underestimated the impact of climate change when they selected the venue at Cypress Mountain, Vancouver. Read more

January 22 - Asia's pollution boosting western US ozone
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has reported that ozone levels above western North America are rising and a major contributor is eastward flowing air from the Pacific Ocean, particularly when the air originates in Asia. The burning of fossil fuels releases substances such as nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, which then react in the presence of sunlight to form ozone, a greenhouse gas. Read more.

January 21 - Utah's 4 day work week slashes emissions.
Since the introduction of Utah's 4 day work week, air pollution has fallen since people were spending 20 percent less time in their cars. Around 17,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases have been kept out of the atmosphere as a result. Read more

January 19 - Shareholders rebel against tar sands
A group of Shell's investors has forced the inclusion of an agenda item calling for company's audit committee to undertake a special review of the risks attached to the carbon emissions intensive oil production at Athabasca tar sands projects in Alberta, Canada. The head of the group expressed concerns about the cost of carbon capture and cleanup of the area. Read more

January 18 - Increased CO2 good for plants.. or not?
Some believe that both global warming and the rising carbon dioxide levels that behind it are actually a good thing for plants. But studies have found an increase in growth doesn't necessarily mean an increase in desirable plants. Plant growth isn't all about temperature and carbon dioxide - increase CO2 without increasing other nutrients and while plants may get bigger, they may be less able to defend themselves against pests. Read more

January 17 - California legislates low emissions buildings
Earlier this week, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the USA's first mandatory Green Building Standards Code (CALGREEN) that aim to achieve major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption and water use. According to the Governor, the code will help the state meet its goals of curbing global warming and achieving 33 percent renewable energy by 2020. Read more

January 16 - Low emission cars soon - a con?
Car companies are raising false hopes of low emissions vehicles to satiate the demand for large vehicles. A University of Oxford study found the most effective way of reducing overall emissions from cars is to drastically cut down on both size and weight of vehicles. The report says the number of cars will double to two billion globally by 2030.  Read more

January 15 - U.S. carbon emissions creeping up
A report from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) latest Short-Term Energy Outlook states that the current economic recovery will see carbon emissions increase over the next two years, making it more difficult for the nation to meet its proposed carbon emission cuts of 17 per cent on 2005 levels by 2020. Read more

January 13 - 2 degree warming window closing
A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found that even if the global carbon emissions are slashed by half by 2050 and followed by a concerted effort to limit emissions from 2050 on, there are only even odds of limiting global temperature increases to 2 degrees. Read more.

January 12 - Pope criticizes climate change inaction
Pope Benedict XVI has criticized the failure of of a new climate change treaty in Copenhagen last month, saying that to cultivate peace, one must protect creation, requiring a new way of thinking and a new lifestyle. Read more

January 11 - The end of consumerism
With close to seven billion people using increasing quantities of natural resources which in turn destroys fragile ecosystems and pumps millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions into our atmosphere, one of the world's leading environmental think tanks has said a wholesale transformation that would reject consumerism is the only way to prevent a collapse of human civilization. Read more

January 10 - Beetles turning carbon sinks into emitters
One billion of British Columbia's trees have been killed by pine beetles and those trees are now emitting carbon dioxide instead of sequestering it as they had previously done for decades. In 2009, the he beetle-killed wood in B.C. emitted 74 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent. Read more

January 9 - Starfish, sea urchins & carbon sequestration
A group of marine creatures called Echinoderms that includes starfish and sea urchin bury significant amounts of carbon at the seabed when they die and decay - contributing over a hundred thousand million kilograms of calcium carbonate sequestration a year. Read more

January 7 - Arctic methane seepage on the rise
Methane, with around 20 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, is another greenhouse gas causing scientists concern. In what could be a feedback loop from existing warming, scientists have uncovered what appears to be a dramatic increase in the leakage of methane gas that is seeping from the Arctic seabed. Read more

January 6 - Big freeze stirs global warming doubts
Britain is experiencing incredibly cold conditions, such that haven't been seen for decades. This is naturally leading people to start to question whether global warming is indeed really happening. Stephen Dorling of the University of East Anglia's school of environmental sciences says it is wrong to focus on single events, regardless of if they are cold snaps or heat waves. Instead, the underlying, longer term trends should be observed. Read more

January 5 - IPCC chair warns on climate skepticism
Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned climate change skepticism is likely to increase in 2010 and could exacerbate "hardship" for the planet's poorest people. He also warned that those with a vested interest in a business-as-usual world may do everything in their power to slow progress towards a binding agreement by the end of 2010 to reduce carbon emissions. Read more

January 5 - Australia's warmest decade on record
In the last 6 months of 2009, the Australian states of South Australia, Victoria and NSW all experienced their hottest July to December period on record. 2009 was the second hottest year in Australia on record and finished off the hottest decade in Australian history. Read more

January 4 - 2 degree warming limit reached by 2040?
Authors of the 2009 climate report "The Copenhagen Diagnosis" noted that many nations had publicly recognized the importance of the 2 degree Celsius limit to avoid disastrous widespread effects. The authors have said that this 2°C warming threshold could be crossed as early as 2040 unless significant mitigation measures were taken urgently. Read more

January 3 - Climate change to increase insurance costs
While natural disasters killed few people and caused much less damage on average in 2009 than in the previous decade, a report from insurance company Munich Re warns that climate change remains a threat and that the failed Copenhagen summit is bound to make insurance costs rise in the future. Read more