It’s unlikely that you have not seen this already, but just in case, here’s the summary from the BBC.

Billions of people face shortages of food and water and increased risk of flooding, experts at a major climate change conference have warned.

Full report as PDF, with fragments below.

Settlements in mountain regions will become more susceptible to flooding from glacier-fed lakes. River runoff in fact will increase by 10 to 40 percent in high latitudes and shrink by 10 to 30 percent in the midlatitudes by midcentury. That means a mix of good and bad news for Canada and Russia, but bad news for the Mediterranean. It’s bad for China too, which depends on glaciers to retain its water.

Sea level increases will lead to further coastal erosion.

Droughts and shorter growing seasons will hit Southern Africa and the Sahel region.

Roughly 20 to 30 percent of the plant and animal species on earth will experience an increased risk of extinction if temperatures rise in the expected 1.5-2.5 degree Celsius range.

Shell-forming organisms in the ocean will be impacted in all likelihood by increased acidification.

Deaths from droughts, storms and fires will increase. Deaths from exposure to cold, however, will decline.

[...]

Apparently, some people do not mind lying and deceiving on a regular basis as long as they get paid.

“In another case of a government official creating a ‘unique’ interpretation of science, TPM Muckraker reports on Julie MacDonald, deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks in the Department of the Interior in Washington. The Department’s Inspector General issued a report today documenting evidence that MacDonald not only overrode opinions of department scientists to benefit lobbyists, and political interests, but also that she shared internal documents with said lobbyists and a friend in an unnamed online roleplaying game…”

The victim is everyone’s environment and wildlife.

I am no longer excited about travelling for a variety of very valid reasons. But I think I may have just found a good excuse, as well.

One particular part of the article that caught my attention is this:

Air travel

“Green” travellers are boycotting air travel because of climate change. Campaigners have staged sit-ins at airports while hundreds of people have signed up to an online pledge set up by a veteran environmental campaigner. An estimated 3 per cent of people have stopped flying to help the environment, while 10 per cent are cutting back on flights.

Season of the playful penguins from Oyonale

Dead penguins, dead polar bears, larger oceans, and houses under water. Is this the future?

The world’s largest tropical glacier is in danger of disappearing within five years, according to international researchers meeting this week in San Francisco.

Take action and reduce waste. Every little helps.

Let us borrow this story and translate its impact to aspects of software development. In programming, greater reuse of code translates into fewer ’seats’. Dependently, programmers require waste. Without waste and reproduction there is better utilisation of code replication capabilities. And then there’s commercial software that thrives in waste, leading to a morbid & spontaneous spasm in Mother Nature. Let’s work for Earth, not against it.

While the British government makes technological and political decisions which I disagree with, its stance on environmental issues is an encouraging one. It doesn’t seek to deny the truth. Moreover, it seeks to spread the truth.

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore’s global warming documentary will be sent to every secondary school in England as part of a campaign to tackle climate change, the government said Friday.

Here is the film’s trailer.

Some recent revelations confirm what many of us have already known. There is a lot of money exchanging hands amid efforts to deny man-made climate changes.

This comes around the same time that a United Nations panel took a stance which does confirm that global warming is real. How long can companies manipulate the world though?

Yesterday, in another site, I wrote about the possible Intel-Dell kickbacks affair, which has pretty much been exposed. And only a week ago, Microsoft offered money for changes to Wikipedia. It is sad to see the extent of fraud, but encouraging to see that it gets exposed.

Picture from the BBC (2004).

T is relieving to see that some educated people in the States have begun fighting disinformation. Recently, a serious matter that is denial of global warming has been taken more seriously. In fact, severe actions could soon be taken against those who seek to deny factual dangers whose impact is considerable. Have a look at the short summary from Slashdot.

Expert Wants to Decertify Global Warming Skeptics

“Apparently in the Senate, at least one scientist wants to put a permanent stop to any arguments over Global Warming. The Weather Channel’s most prominent climatologist is advocating that broadcast meteorologists be stripped of their scientific certification if they express skepticism about predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming.”