Climate Impacts Day: 350.org Campaign Connects The Dots Between Extreme Weather And Climate Change

Colorful photos and live video streamed in from events held in more than 100 countries on Saturday where citizens are "connecting the dots” between global climate change and extreme weather events.

The events, part of “Climate Impacts Day” and coordinated by international climate campaign 350.org, demonstrate how a string of weather disasters around the world provide mounting evidence of the hazards incurred by global warming.

“We just celebrated Earth Day. May 5 is more like Broken Earth Day, a worldwide witness to the destruction global warming is already causing,” said author, environmentalist and 350.org founder Bill McKibben. “People everywhere are saying the same thing: our tragedy is not some isolated trauma, it’s part of a pattern.”

While most scientists caution that no single event can be tied specifically to increased atmospheric greenhouse gases, the frequency of extreme climate events documented across the globe suggests the scope of what's upon us. Indeed, it seems as if extreme weather is now the new normal forecast.

Already photos have come in from New Mexico, where firefighters stand over the remains of the Santa Fe Forest, which burned hundreds of acres of land last summer in what some have described as the state's worst wildfire in history.

In Pakistan women hold up dots before the makeshift structure that became their home after floods devastated Pakistan's Indus river basin, killing 1,600 people and displacing more than 2 million, according to aid officials' estimates. The floods, triggered by unusually heavy monsoon rains in 2010 are the worst in recent history, affecting roughly 8 percent of the population and rendering one fifth of the nation underwater.

In Lebanon, more than 1000 students represented the dots with wheels of an enormous bicycle in protest of pollution that has reached concentrations levels so high that scientists are calling it toxic to human health, linking the air quality in Beirut to a variety of cancers.

A recent poll by Yale University found that seven in 10 Americans believe that “global warming is affecting the weather" and that more than 80 percent of Americans have personally experienced extreme weather or a natural disaster of some sort in the past year.

“Most people in the country are looking at everything that’s happened; it just seems to be one disaster after another after another,” Anthony A. Leiserowitz, one of the Yale researchers who commissioned the new poll, told the New York Times. “People are starting to connect the dots.”

350.org has compiled a slideshow of events held around the world.

From our partners

• 10 Of The Worst Wildfires In U.S. History - Mother Nature Network
• 5 Energy Projects Being Backed By The U.S. Government - Mother Nature Network
• The Stunning Rise In California Solar Generation - EarthTechling

Comments

[saturn1]

04:15 PM on 05/29/2012

Connect the dots

THAT IS FUNNY, there are no dots to connect.
There has been essentially no warming for 17 years according to Phil Jones of CRU infamy.

There is no trend toward more ore stronger hurricanes floods or dry spells.

SO THE MENTALLY CHALLENGED CLAIM THAT LACK OF WARMING CAUSES LACK OF HURRICANES ETC ?

MENTAL GIANTS AREN'T THEY ?

.

[maxwells]

09:04 PM on 05/29/2012

This is beyond pathetic.

[gallon]

09:15 PM on 05/29/2012

Now you are just trooooIIing, netdr.

[StephenBP]

08:52 AM on 05/29/2012

The mountain of evidence against global cooling and for human aided global warming is getting enormous. And yet still fossil fuel industries spew utter rot such as the coal industry’s “Clean Coal” campaign. You can put lipstick on a pig but you know what? It is still a pig. “Clean Coal”. What’s next. "Clean dirt?" "Refreshing sewage?" "Good cancer?"

Unfortunately, the paid and unpaid supporters of fossil fuel are becoming a liability to the survival of technological society as they cling to primitive combustion technology, worshipping pollution profits and trashing scientists.

Regarding fear and fear mongering: You are responsible for your own emotions. If you can't handle them, get help. The belief that everyone is trying to scare you to get you to do something is a carry over from childhood. They aren't, but so what, what if they were? You are are responsible for your own emotions.

The rational evaluation of evidence is not fear mongering.

Fear comes from not facing unpleasant possibilities.

Face reality, chose your path, discard your fear.

The world is warming from CO2. That is true. What are you going to do about it?

[fumes]

10:10 PM on 05/28/2012

when alarmists stop jetting around spreading fear..

about jetting around..

they'll get cred.

even more so if they espoused the legalization of Hemp:

Hemp Produces Viable Biodiesel, Study Finds
October 6, 2010 By Christine Buckley

(PhysOrg.com) -- Industrial hemp, which grows in infertile soils, is attractive as a potential source of sustainable diesel fuel.

Of all the various uses for Cannabis plants, add another, “green” one to the mix.
Researchers at UConn have found that the fiber crop Cannabis sativa, known as industrial hemp, has properties that make it viable and even attractive as a raw material, or feedstock, for producing biodiesel – sustainable diesel fuel made from renewable plant sources.
The plant’s ability to grow in infertile soils also reduces the need to grow it on primary croplands, which can then be reserved for growing food, says Richard Parnas, a professor of chemical, materials, and biomolecular engineering who led the study.
http://www.physorg.com/news205599757.html

[gallon]

10:34 PM on 05/28/2012

Climate scientists have ample credibility for their work. Sorry if that alarms you.

[fumes]

10:52 PM on 05/28/2012

have you noticed..

it's not selling!

n y do you think?

[MGhamma]

08:44 PM on 05/29/2012

The way you accumutate fans here fumes, you must just sit at your computer 24/7, spewing your nonsense.

When was the last time you changed your underwear?

Wait, don't answer that question.

[StephenBP]

09:21 PM on 05/28/2012

Here are a couple of clues you can use to spot someone who is clueless about climatology.

1. They pull tidbits of "evidence" out of their… out of the air, and grandly show them as proof that there is no such thing as human-influenced climate change. Case in point: Pointing to a short term buildup of ice at one point of the Arctic,and acting as if this is proof of global cooling. Antarctic and Greenland ice caps are melting at an accelerating annual rate and floating Arctic ice is shrinking. 2. They cite people with absolutely no background in climatology as sources of information about climatology. Would you let an 88 year old doctor operate on you if they had a Nobel Prize in literature? Citing Freeman Dyson as an expert on climatology is like asking a Nobel Laureate in Literature to perform an appendectomy on you.

If you want to find out the known facts about global warming, you would do well to
1. Read reputable journals like Nature and Science. 2. You would do well to look for judgements made by National Academies of Science or similar institutions. NASA, NOAA, AGU, AAAS, and ACS come to mind.
3. You would do well to ignore or be very very skeptical of people and think tanks who have been bought by or who are owned by fossil fuel interests.

[fumes]

12:28 PM on 05/28/2012

Heavy ice could delay start of Shell Alaska's Arctic drilling
May 28th, 2012 in Space & Earth / Environment
The heaviest polar ice in more than a decade could postpone the start of offshore oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean until the beginning of August, a delay of up to two weeks, Shell Alaska officials said.
The summer ice melt in the Arctic has often reached record levels in recent years in what many scientists believe is a sign of climate change. But this year a high pressure zone over the coast of Alaska, low winter temperatures and certain ocean currents have combined to bring unusually large amounts of ice not only to Alaska's northern coast, but farther south in the Bering Sea as well, National Weather Service officials said.
"We're seeing multiyear ice that they've not seen in such large quantities in over a decade, and it could impact our ability to start the well," Slaiby said.
http://phys.org/print257414409.html

[maxwells]

04:14 PM on 05/29/2012

What you're doing we call CHERRY PICKING.

On the other hand, what's Arctic ice volume look like, not just near Pt. Barrow Alaska,
BUT ON THE WHOLE, eh?

I.e., has the cherry basket gotten heavier OR LIGHTER lately?

http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2.png?%3C?php%20echo%20time%28%29%20?

Well, well.

Looks like another year of decline to me and anybody else who can read a graph.

http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/

[fumes]

04:51 PM on 05/29/2012

too funny!

i point out some good news..

and you cling to your runaway doom

[Cayce58]

11:48 AM on 05/28/2012

there is no such thing as normal weather?? yes and no When guys who chronicle abnormal weather say that 100 year events are now 10 year events, they just defined normal by defining abnormal. You can't define good without evil. You can't have life without death and you won't have climate change without extinction of your grandchildren. For God sakes deniers, the worst case scenario is already upon us. 2 degrees melts the arctic, taking us to 3 degrees. 3 degrees reverses the carbon cycle and takes us to 6 degrees{Oxford library of climate change(book 6 Degrees)} 6 degrees releases the methyl hydrate on the continental sheves and finishes the job. 1000ppm, 15 degrees and extinction. Go play russian roulette in the bedroom with your own life, quit playing it in the voters booth and on line with my children's lives.

[Aeryn Reid]

05:29 PM on 05/28/2012

Find a way to convince the Chinese and Indians to give up their right to easy exploitable and cheap energy, and we may yet save the grandchildren yet! Carbon dioxide doesnt much care WHO creates it. ;)

[lndgrabber]

11:46 AM on 05/28/2012

OMG there are people on this web site that still believe in global warming. Where have you all been? It's a hoax. Anyone interested in buying a bridge?

[Katmandu01]

12:59 PM on 05/28/2012

A hoax you say? That would suggest a deliberate effort to mislead, to lie. In effect you’re talking about a conspiracy­­­. I ask, where do you get the informatio­­n to back such a claim because I am amazed that so many intelligen­­­t and well educated people representi­­­ng so many reputable scientific institutio­­­ns including EVERY single national scientific academy in the world can get it so wrong and fail to realize that the planet is not heating up and we have nothing to worry about. That would also include NASA, NOAA, the American Geophysica­­­l Union, and the American Associatio­­­n for the Advancemen­­­t of Science. Why would they do such a thing? I suppose all of these brilliant people are manipulati­­­ng the government­­­s of the world as part of a centralizi­­­ng one world/libe­­ral/soci­­a­ist/Ma­r­xi­st (mix or match them) plan to transfer wealth to the developing world. And all of them are on board? Pretty scary stuff this! I can just see it now…Obama and Ban Ki Moon meeting with Gore and Hansen while Stephen Hawking is wheeled in by James Lovelock like a Dr. Strangelov­­­e to guide their sinister plans. Robert Ludlum couldn’t have dreamed this stuff up. When logic and empirical scientific study can’t support the arguments of the climate change deniers they rant about a conspiracies. However, don't bother trying to prove it since a good conspiracy is unprovable. I mean, if you can prove it, it means they screwed up somewhere along the line.

[fumes]

01:50 PM on 05/28/2012

Another Nobel Prize-winning physicist protests global warming alarmism
September 15, 2011
I noted recently how the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Freeman Dyson of Princeton has objected to global warming alarmism. Another Nobel Prize winning physicist, Dr. Ivar Giaever, objects to all the hype as well. Glaever has resigned from the American Physical Society to protest it's position that there is "incontrovertible" evidence that human activity is causing the temperature to rise to dangerous levels: "The claim is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which means to me that the temperature has been amazingly stable." Another Princeton physicist, William Happer, had this to say about the APS embrace of the alarmist hysteria:
'An APS Council statement issued on November 18, 2007 states: “The evidence is incontrovertible: If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security, and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.” This is pretty strong language for physicists, for whom skepticism about evidence was once considered a virtue, and nothing was incontrovertible.'http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2011/09/another_nobel_prize_winning_ph.html

[Aeryn Reid]

05:32 PM on 05/28/2012

Darth Soros finds your lack of faith...disturbing.

[Cayce58]

11:34 AM on 05/28/2012

ubrew has it in a nutshell. In the 60 to 80's there was concern over rising CO2 in the air but for every 3 articles on warming there was an article by someone wondering about a new ice age because the weather was cold. Then the ocean temps went up a tic and the climate started to change. It was an AHA moment. The realization that the oceans acted as a huge heat sink, stopping change. Now that the cold water at the bottoms have all circulated and warmed it will only delay.

[StephenBP]

09:35 PM on 05/21/2012

For 2010, the combined global land and ocean surface temperature tied with 2005 as the warmest such period on record, at 0.62°C (1.12°F) above the 20th century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F). 1998 is the third warmest year-to-date on record, at 0.60°C (1.08°F) above the 20th century average.

So why do denialists insist that it has been cooling since 2001???????????

Alternate reality I guess.

Unicornville....

[Katmandu01]

07:31 PM on 05/21/2012

Deniers can try connecting these dots:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18120093
It's called methane, the other green house gas and what's happening now is called a positive feedback and it may just as well be called a tipping point. For a bit more detail:
http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v301/n6/full/scientificamerican1209-68.html
http://ine.uaf.edu/werc/people/katey-walter-anthony/
And please don't tell me that methane is plant food.

[Aeryn Reid]

05:39 PM on 05/28/2012

We're all going to die! Do the Chinese share this fear? I've been told to fear this, fear that. I'm bored with the fear politix. When I can grow oranges in my backyard, I'll start to worry. Until then, acuna matada! ;)

[Katmandu01]

06:03 PM on 05/28/2012

So you really have nothing to say about the problem of increasing concentrations of methane in the atmosphere.

[saturn1]

03:46 PM on 05/21/2012

We were told that "weather isn't climate" when we had a cold snowy winter.

No the climate asstrologers claim that all weather events constitute climete.

There has been no trends toward more storms or droughts or anything else so the trend is zero.

That is good for the alarmists because there has been no warming and actual cooling since 2001 so how would they explain it ?

[maxwells]

05:49 PM on 05/21/2012

We were told that HP doesn't allow trolls.

We were told that HP has a policy against commenters having multiple accounts.

We were told by YOU (as Netdr) that you're a college prof.

We were told by YOU (as Netdr) that you have a B.S. in electrical engineering.

But how does a guy with just a B.S. degree become a college prof?

And how does a college prof have time to post 3,000 comments in 5 months exclusively on a topic far removed from his purported specialty? And why would he do so?

As a poster boy for astroturfers on Huffington Post, how credible are you?

And what do your funders think of your antics? Do they think that you're an effective vehicle for their messaging?

[Cayce58]

11:21 AM on 05/28/2012

10 of the 10 hottest years in history occur 1998 and after. But that's not a pattern to you?

[StephenBP]

02:01 PM on 05/21/2012

The article in the April 27 edition of Science by Paul J. Durack, Susan E. Wijffels, and Richard J. Matear indicates that they have found another fingerprint of global warming. By analyzing 50 years worth of data, they found a clear correlation between increasing temperature and an accelerating atmospheric water cycle. Dryer dry areas, flooding in wet areas.

In this light, the Pakistani floods mentioned in this Climate Day article take on new meaning. "The floods, triggered by unusually heavy monsoon rains in 2010 are the worst in recent history, affecting roughly 8 percent of the population and rendering one fifth of the nation underwater. "

So we are seeing more and more evidence that climate change is real and that it pushes weather to extremes.

1,600 people were killed in the Pakistani floods. I expect that the number of people who will perish in extreme weather events this year will substantially eclipse that figure, especially if el Nino kicks in this year.

Meanwhile, apologists for the felonious fossil fuel industry will weep like Chris Crocker over my tree hugger assaults on their freedom to expel lethal gas with impunity. Cry, baby, cry.

[Cayce58]

11:24 AM on 05/28/2012

Katrina. Crossed Fla and stopped on water 3 degrees hotter than normal for a couple days, gaining strength and had just enough to break down the levee. As far as I'm concerned, global warming took out New Orleans.

[ILoveFiction]

09:38 AM on 05/21/2012

Breaking wind in New Zealand.

That's the bad news.

Good news is their water didn't break.

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/wind-and-solar-power/1

[Orkneygal]

07:22 AM on 05/21/2012

Breaking news from the ABC about the Death Threats to Australian Climate Scientists....

http://tinyurl.com/dyc3ucf

[gallon]

10:04 AM on 05/21/2012

Drive-by spamming of Orkney's tabloid sources.

[StephenBP]

09:41 PM on 05/20/2012

Well a number of more high temperature records were broken in the US since I last reported for the month of May. The number of high temperature records broken in the US this May now stands at 997, and there are still at least 11 days more to the month, and 12 days of records to evaluate.

Interestingly, 362 of these broken records had not stood for very long - they were records that had previously been set since the year 2000. THAT IS AN AWFULLY FREAKING HIGH WEIGHTING OF RECORD HIGH TEMPS IN JUST THE LAST 12 YEARS OUT OF 118 YEARS OF RECORDS.

And yet denialists try to tell you that the global temperature is cooling.

Climate change denialists are full of it.

[saturn1]

03:51 PM on 05/21/2012

High temps in the US proves GLOBAL WARMING is happening?

That logic is what iI have come to expect from the alarmists.

worldwide there has been cooling since 1998 so blaming weather events on global warming is mentally challenged,

[StephenBP]

04:33 PM on 05/21/2012

Would you mind terribly asking a sixth grader somewhere about aspect ratio? You have the dumbest looking Saturn I have every seen. Thanks.

[maxwells]

05:52 PM on 05/21/2012

Yeah, we know Heartland is nose deep with bigger problems.

But one of the other astroturfers should really tell Heartland how clownish this guy's posts and profile have become.

Many of us know that there are trolls far more cunning than this guy, right here on HP.