THE PRAGUE POST (Czech Republic)

January 24th, 2007

http://www.praguepost.com/articles/2007/01/24/keeping-warm.php

This winter, global climate change hits home

By Bill Cohn for The Prague Post

We can feel the difference in the air this winter. Winter 2006-07

thus far has been the warmest in the Czech Republic in memory. When I

asked my Prague university students if they were concerned about

this, a number of them were troubled at not being able to go skiing.

None mentioned global warming.

After a bit of snow in early November, the first snow of winter

arrived in Prague Dec. 28, melted the following day, and has not

returned until now. Most days have been tepid, some even balmy. We're

told there was such a winter 40 some years ago, soperhaps it's

unrelated to global warming caused by humans' ever-increasing

emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. But evidence

to the contrary is compelling.

The United Kingdom's Meteorological Office, which predicts that 2007

will be the hottest on record globally, finds that the world's 10

warmest years since 1850 have been the past 10, with the past five

recorded as the hottest on record in the United Kingdom. In the

United States, 2006 was the warmest year on record, according to the

U.S. National Climatic Data Center. New York City, which has had only

a 15-minute snowfall (Jan. 10), the latest recorded first snowfall of

winter ever (breaking the previous mark of Jan. 4, 1878), hit 72 F

(22 C) in Central Park earlier this month, breaking the previous

record by 9 F.

Mladá fronta Dnes, meanwhile, reports that Bohemia is experiencing

its warmest January in 232 years -- and that the temperature average

for the month will very likely fall around 4 C, compared to 2.2 C in

1998, 2.2 C in 1988 and 2.4 C in 1975.

Rising sea levels, shrinking glaciers, an increase in severe weather

from hurricanes to heat waves -- as witnesses to the fatal windstorms

of the past week can attest, the effects of global warming can be

seen all around us. A record loss of sea ice in the Arctic in summer

2005 has accelerated the loss of still more -- ice that has helped

maintain climatic stability for thousands of years. It seems that

global warming is now melting Arctic ice so rapidly that the region

is absorbing more heat from the sun, propelling a vicious cycle of

melting and heating. Computer models predict that the Arctic will be

entirely ice-free in summer 2070 if current trends continue. This

region being the essential habitat of polar bears, biologists warn

that they may be the first large mammal to fall victim to global

warming.

Tropical ecologists studying the effects of climate change on

biodiversity in Australia's rainforests predict that, by 2100, 50

percent of all species could be extinct. Ever more species are

becoming endangered, so-called bio-predators are proliferating,

animal behavior is changing in reaction to climate change, and even

humans are feeling adverse health effects in forms such as more

severe and widespread asthma, poison ivy and mosquito and tick-borne

disease -- all of which have been linked to carbon dioxide emissions

and climate change. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences states that

"most of the observed warming of the past 50 years is likely to have

been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a report this month

that accuses ExxonMobil of spending millions of dollars on a

disinformation campaign to manipulate public opinion regarding the

causes of global warming and the seriousness of the threat it poses.

In "Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's

Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science," the UCS

alleges that the corporation has manufactured uncertainty about even

the most indisputable scientific evidence in order to promote its

desired message and thus confuse the public.

While U.S. public policy on global warming is quite passive, the

European Union is taking a more proactive approach.

On Jan. 10, saying Europe needs a new "post-industrial revolution"

("We have already left behind our coal-based industrial past. It is

time to embrace our low-carbon future"), European Commission

President Jose Manuel Barroso introduced a set of proposals. The

so-called Energy Policy for Europe aims for the 27 EU member states

to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent to 30 percent by 2020,

limit global warming to no more than 2 C above pre-industrial

temperatures, and ensure that by 2020 at least 20 percent of their

energy comes from renewable sources like wind and solar power. The EC

will also invest 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion/28 billion K?) over

the next six years into research on renewable energy.

The Czech Republic, however, lags behind its EU brethren in

addressing global warming. While the EU has called for member states

to generate at least 8 percent oftheir energy from renewable

resources by 2010, Czech energy policy is far behind;only 4 percent

of energy is currently derived from alternative sources. Reliance on

fossil fuels makes the Czech Republic politically as well as

ecologically vulnerable.

Czechs import some 64 percent of their oil and 70 percent of their

natural gas from Russia. Locally mined brown coal provides some 65

percent of electricity, yet creates terrible pollution. As noted in

the last issue of The Prague Post, the EU covers up to 75 percent of

the cost of building renewable-energy facilities, such as the biogas

power plant in Knice ("Energy Boost," News, Jan. 17-23).

Such efforts should be applauded and expanded. And, while nuclear

power remains fraught with troubling questions, a coordinated

strategy of promoting energy efficiency and cultivating biomass and

other renewable fuel sources will best serve Czechs.

The Czech Republic, which reportedly has the highest annual

greenhouse gas production per capita of the 30-member OECD, recently

asked the EC for a major increase in its emissions allowance through

2012 ("More emissions vouchers called for," Business, Oct. 25-31;

"Emissions trading is nonsense," Business, Mar.15-21). Given the

Czech car craze, this is not surprising. Czechs are reportedto have

the highest per-capita car ownership rate in the world, and, as any

pedestrian here knows all too well, emissions control standards for

vehicles are either nonexistent or not enforced.

Transportation emissions are rising in nearly every European country

and across theglobe. Due to increasing car and truck use, greenhouse

gas emissions are increasing even where pollution from industry is

waning because of stricter laws, as is the case in much of Europe.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) reports that a 23 percent

increase in vehicle emissions from 1990 to 2003 has offset the effect

of cleaner factories. The overriding problem is the growth in the

volume of cars, and there is no better example than the Czechs. And

rising car ownership has been accompanied by larger car engines.

Cars being widely available and affordable results in urban sprawl

and the building of new highways and ring roads. In Europe alone,

10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) of new highways were built from 1990

to 2003, and, with EU enlargement, there are plans for 12,000 more

according to EEA's recent report on traffic, which the International

Herald Tribune reported Jan. 12.

Denmark has aggressively fought the growth of car emissions by

placing a luxury tax on cars, which sometimes reaches as high as 200

percent of the cost of the vehicle. As one Danish woman commented,

"It's easier to go by bike or metro, and it's too expensive to do

anything else." In Rome, only cars with a low emissions rating are

allowed into the historical center. In Stockholm and London, drivers

must pay a congestion charge to enter the city center. With its

excellent public transportationinfrastructure, there is really no

need for cars in Prague's city center. Car-loving Czechs just need a

push to get out of their cars and use their trams and subways.

If you think this is just hysterical hot air from green extremists,

pay attention to the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change (www.ipcc.ch), the pre-eminent international network

of experts on the topic, which will release its fourth assessment

since 1990, and first since 2001, in Paris Feb. 2.

And then ask not what the world can do for you, but what you can do

for the world.

The author, a lawyer, writer, university lecturer and constitutional

law scholar, confesses that his joints welcome this warm winter,

although his kids miss playing in the snow.

--

Cold Mountain, Cold Rivers

Working at the Crossroads of Environmental and Human Rights since 1990

PO Box 7941

Missoula Montana 59807

(406)728-0867

posted to ClimateConcern