ER...WHO ARE THESE GUYS?

WHO EXACTLY ARE THE IPCC?

Logo of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

The IPCC.

IPCC is the science authority for the UNFCCC

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific body tasked to evaluate the risk of climate change caused by human activity. The panel was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), two organizations of the United Nations.

The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President of the United States Al Gore.

The IPCC does not carry out research, nor does it monitor climate or related phenomena. One of the main activities of the IPCC is to publish special reports on topics relevant to the implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). (The UNFCCC is an international treaty that acknowledges the possibility of harmful climate change; implementation of the UNFCCC led eventually to the Kyoto Protocol.) The IPCC bases its assessment mainly on peer reviewed and published scientific literature.

The IPCC is only open to member states of the WMO and UNEP. IPCC reports are widely cited in almost any debate related to climate change. National and international responses to climate change generally regard the UN climate panel as authoritative.

The summary reports (i.e. Summary for Policymakers), which draw the most media attention, include review by participating governments in addition to scientific review.

The aims of the IPCC

The principles of the IPCC operation are assigned by the relevant WMO Executive Council and UNEP Governing Council resolutions and decisions as well as on actions in support of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process.

The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they may need to deal objectively with scientific, technical and socio-economic factors relevant to the application of particular policies.

Review is an essential part of the IPCC process. Since the IPCC is an intergovernmental body, review of IPCC documents should involve both peer review by experts and review by governments.

The stated aims of the IPCC are to assess scientific information relevant to:

• 1. Human-induced climate change.
• 2. The impacts of human-induced climate change.
• 3. Options for adaptation and mitigation.

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"If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."

Rajendra Pachauri -- a scientist and economist; Head of the IPCC

RHS1
In this edtion of Earthwatch we are taking a look at Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its latest utterances. Now If you read the above they sound a pretty solid, heavy duty, scientific body..Well maybe? lets peel off the glossy front end and take a look...

The IPCC has produced 4 reports 1992...1995...2001...2007.

The IPCC consists of Three groups

• Working Group I: The Scientific Basis.
• Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.
• Working Group III: Mitigation.
• Synthesis Report.

People from over 130 countries contributed to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report over the previous 6 years. These people included more than 2500 scientific expert reviewers, more than 850 contributing authors, and more than 450 lead authors (according to a Flash animation at the IPCC's website).

Of these, the contributors to the Working Group 1 report (including the summary for policy makers) included 600 authors from 40 countries, over 620 expert reviewers, a large number of government reviewers, and representatives from 113 governments.

That is the set up/structure of the current IPCC...Now lets zoom in...

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WHAT OTHER SCIENTISTS SAY ABOUT THE IPCC.

A number of highly Qualified emminent scientists are not happy with the IPCC for example...Prof. Paul Reiter

Anopheles Gambiae mosquito

"A galling aspect of the debate is that this spurious 'science' is endorsed in the public forum by influential panels of 'experts.' I refer particularly to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Every five years, this UN-based organization publishes a 'consensus of the world's top scientists' on all aspects of climate change. Quite apart from the dubious process by which these scientists are selected, such consensus is the stuff of politics, not of science.

Science proceeds by observation, hypothesis and experiment. The complexity of this process, and the uncertainties involved, are a major obstacle to a meaningful understanding of scientific issues by non-scientists. In reality, a genuine concern for mankind and the environment demands the inquiry, accuracy and scepticism that are intrinsic to authentic science. A public that is unaware of this is vulnerable to abuse."

Prof. Paul Reiter April 25, 2006 testimony to the United States Senate:

Paul Reiter is a professor of medical entomology at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France. He is a member of the World Health Organization Expert Advisory Committee on Vector Biology and Control. He was an employee of the Center for Disease Control (Dengue Branch) for 22 years. He is a specialist in mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever.

In the Second IPCC Assessment Report the chapter on human population health, stated that global warming could lead to 80 million additional cases of malaria per year worldwide. The IPCC scientists' "glaring ignorance" dumbfounded Prof. Reiter and his colleagues.

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Below quoted from, The Nation: (Nairobi) 19 December 2007 Posted to the web 18 December 2007

"the IPCC estimates that by 2100, crop revenues could fall by 90 per cent, devastating Africa's small-scale farmers. Climate change will also create new malaria zones, affecting 80 million people."

Wangari Maathai (Prof Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is the Goodwill Ambassador for the Congo Basin Forest Ecosystem.)

"Malaria, is Prof Maathai correct?"

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The IPCC claimed that malarial mosquitoes cannot ordinarily survive temperatures below 16C to 18C, not realizing that many tropical species do and that many temperate species survive temperatures of -25C. Likewise, IPCC scientists didn't know at what altitudes mosquitoes can be found.

"I know of no major scientist with any long record in this field who agrees with the pronouncements of the alarmists at the IPCC. On the contrary, all of us who work in the field are repeatedly stunned by the IPCC pronouncements. We protest, but are rarely quoted, and if so, usually as a codicil to the scary stuff."

Prof. Paul Reiter.

The Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Time CO2:

"The concern at the top about climate change is not genuine and there are hidden motives behind the global warming hysteria. Although there is not the space in this paper to discuss these motives fully, they may be illustrated by the following citations" (for full references, see Jaworowski 1999).

"Not man, but nature rules the climate. The Kyoto Protocol and the IPCC reports, tuned by Malthusian ideas, may surely make a lot of noise and cause enormous harm for the global economy and for the well-being of billions of people. But they can do nothing for the climate. This we shall learn in the near future."

BALI HOO!

The alarmists at the IPCC: An enquiry

2007 Bali Climate Declaration by Scientists

United Nations meeting on climate change

December 2OO7

RSH1...

In November 2007 the 4th report of the IPCC was published the "Mega bad news report".

In December a United Nations meeting on climate change took place on the Isle of Bali 187 nations participating in the two-week forum, objective - a new set of emissions targets to replace those in the Kyoto protocol. There were 12,000 persons assembled;

What happened? It was a "dogs breakfast" a total shambles. the out come being they decided to move to Copenhagen in 2009.

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With tears in his eyes "The hour is late. It's time to make a decision. You have in your hands the ability to deliver to the people of the world a successful outcome to this conference."

"If the next generation say to us 'daddy, what did you do about climate change' the answer we should give is that we stopped it, any other answer is unacceptable."

Jonathan Essex, a steering committee member of the Campaign Against Climate Change UK.

Vaclay Klaus: President of Czech Republic.

"Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists.

These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. Also, it's an undignified slapstick that people don't wait for the full report in May 2007 but instead respond, in such a serious way, to the summary for policymakers where all the "but's" are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses. This is clearly such an incredible failure of so many people, from journalists to politicians.

If the European Commission is instantly going to buy such a trick, we have another very good reason to think that the countries themselves, not the Commission, should be deciding about similar issues."

Vaclay Klaus: Presibent of Czech Republic.

This consensus document was prepared under the auspices of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

The 2007 IPCC report, compiled by several hundred climate scientists, has unequivocally concluded that our climate is warming rapidly, and that we are now at least 90% certain that this is mostly due to human activities. The amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere now far exceeds the natural range of the past 650,000 years, and it is rising very quickly due to human activity. If this trend is not halted soon, many millions of people will be at risk from extreme events such as heat waves, drought, floods and storms, our coasts and cities will be threatened by rising sea levels, and many ecosystems, plants and animal species will be in serious danger of extinction.

The next round of focused negotiations for a new global climate treaty (within the 1992 UNFCCC process) needs to begin in December 2007 and be completed by 2009. The prime goal of this new regime must be to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees C above the pre-industrial temperature, a limit that has already been formally adopted by the European Union and a number of other countries.

Based on current scientific understanding, this requires that global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by at least 50% below their 1990 levels by the year 2050. In the long run, greenhouse gas concentrations need to be stabilised at a level well below 450 ppm (parts per million; measured in CO2-equivalent concentration). In order to stay below 2 degrees C, global emissions must peak and decline in the next 10 to 15 years, so there is no time to lose.

As scientists, we urge the negotiators to reach an agreement that takes these targets as a minimum requirement for a fair and effective global climate agreement.

The 2007 Bali Climate Declaration has been signed by the 200 scientists:

Click here for list of the scientists who signed

IPCC Report.

Individuals listed below have, since the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC, opposed at least one of these principal conclusions. Inclusion is based on specific, attributable statements in the individual's own words, and not on listings in petitions or surveys. Each individual is notable and has published at least one peer-reviewed article in the broad area of natural sciences, though not necessarily in recent years nor in a field related to climate.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report as follows:

1. The global average surface temperature has risen 0.6 +/- 0.2 degrees C since the late 19th century, and 0.17 degrees C per decade in the last 30 years.
2. "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities", in particular emissions of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane.
3. If greenhouse gas emissions continue the warming will also continue, with temperatures projected to increase by 1.4 degrees C to 5.8 degrees C between 1990 and 2100. Accompanying this temperature increase will be increases in some types of extreme weather and a projected sea level rise of 9 cm to 88 cm, excluding "uncertainty relating to ice dynamical changes in the West Antarctic ice sheet". On balance the impacts of global warming will be significantly negative, especially for larger values of warming.

In February 2007, the IPCC released a summary of a Fourth Assessment Report, which contains similar conclusions. In judging opposition to the consensus, individuals' statements are compared to the most recently released IPCC report at the time of the statement.

Timothy F. Ball, former Professor of Geography, University of Winnipeg: "(The world's climate) warmed from 1680 up to 1940, but since 1940 it's been cooling down. The evidence for warming is because of distorted records. The satellite data, for example, shows cooling." (November 2004) "There's been warming, no question. I've never debated that; never disputed that. The dispute is, what is the cause. And of course the argument that human CO₂ being added to the atmosphere is the cause just simply doesn't hold up..." (May 18, 2006; at 15:30 into recording of interview) "The temperature hasn't gone up. ... But the mood of the world has changed: It has heated up to this belief in global warming." (August 2006) "Temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and in the early 1970's global cooling became the consensus. ... By the 1990's temperatures appeared to have reversed and Global Warming became the consensus. It appears I'll witness another cycle before retiring, as the major mechanisms and the global temperature trends now indicate a cooling." (Feb. 5, 2007)

• Hendrik Tennekes, retired Director of Research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute: "The blind adherence to the harebrained idea that climate models can generate 'realistic' simulations of climate is the principal reason why I remain a climate skeptic. From my background in turbulence I look forward with grim anticipation to the day that climate models will run with a horizontal resolution of less than a kilometer. The horrible predictability problems of turbulent flows then will descend on climate science with a vengeance."
• Antonino Zichichi, emeritus professor of physics at the University of Bologna and president of the World Federation of Scientists : "models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are incoherent and invalid from a scientific point of view".

• Khabibullo Abdusamatov, mathematician and astronomer at Pulkovskaya Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the supervisor of the Astrometria project of the Russian section of the International Space Station: "Global warming results not from the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but from an unusually high level of solar radiation and a lengthy - almost throughout the last century - growth in its intensity...Ascribing 'greenhouse' effect properties to the Earth's atmosphere is not scientifically substantiated...Heated greenhouse gases, which become lighter as a result of expansion, ascend to the atmosphere only to give the absorbed heat away."
• Sallie Baliunas, astronomer, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: "The recent warming trend in the surface temperature record cannot be caused by the increase of human-made greenhouse gases in the air."Baliunas and Soon wrote that "there is no reliable evidence for increased severity or frequency of storms, droughts, or floods that can be related to the air's increased greenhouse gas content."
• David Bellamy, environmental campaigner, broadcaster and former botanist: "Global warming is a largely natural phenomenon. The world is wasting stupendous amounts of money on trying to fix something that can't be fixed."Bellamy later admitted that he had cited faulty data and announced on 29 May 2005 that he had "decided to draw back from the debate on global warming", but in 2006 he joined a climate skeptic organization and in 2007 published a paper arguing that a doubling of atmospheric CO₂ "will amount to less than 1degree C of global warming and such a scenario is unlikely to arise given our limited reserves of fossil fuels certainly not before the end of this century."
• Reid Bryson, emeritus professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison: "It's absurd. Of course it's going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we're coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we're putting more carbon dioxide into the air."
• Robert M. Carter, geologist, researcher at the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Australia: "The essence of the issue is this. Climate changes naturally all the time, partly in predictable cycles, and partly in unpredictable shorter rhythms and rapid episodic shifts, some of the causes of which remain unknown."
• George V. Chilingar, Professor of Civil and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Southern California: "The authors identify and describe the following global forces of nature driving the Earth's climate: (1) solar radiation ..., (2) outgassing as a major supplier of gases to the World Ocean and the atmosphere, and, possibly, (3) microbial activities ... . The writers provide quantitative estimates of the scope and extent of their corresponding effects on the Earth's climate [and] show that the human-induced climatic changes are negligible."
• Ian Clark, hydrogeologist, professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa: "That portion of the scientific community that attributes climate warming to CO₂ relies on the hypothesis that increasing CO₂, which is in fact a minor greenhouse gas, triggers a much larger water vapour response to warm the atmosphere. This mechanism has never been tested scientifically beyond the mathematical models that predict extensive warming, and are confounded by the complexity of cloud formation - which has a cooling effect. ... We know that [the sun] was responsible for climate change in the past, and so is clearly going to play the lead role in present and future climate change. And interestingly... solar activity has recently begun a downward cycle."
• Don Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology, Western Washington University: "global warming since 1900 could well have happened without any effect of CO2. If the cycles continue as in the past, the current warm cycle should end soon and global temperatures should cool slightly until about 2035"
• William M. Gray, Professor of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University: "This small warming is likely a result of the natural alterations in global ocean currents which are driven by ocean salinity variations. Ocean circulation variations are as yet little understood. Human kind has little or nothing to do with the recent temperature changes. We are not that influential." "I am of the opinion that [global warming] is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people."..."So many people have a vested interest in this global-warming thing all these big labs and research and stuff. The idea is to frighten the public, to get money to study it more."
• George Kukla, retired Professor of Climatology at Columbia University and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said in an interview: "What I think is this: Man is responsible for a PART of global warming. MOST of it is still natural."
• David Legates, associate professor of geography and director of the Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware: "About half of the warming during the 20th century occurred prior to the 1940s, and natural variability accounts for all or nearly all of the warming."
• Marcel Leroux, former Professor of Climatology, Universite Jean Moulin: "The possible causes, then, of climate change are: well-established orbital parameters on the palaeoclimatic scale, ... solar activity, ...; volcanism ...; and far at the rear, the greenhouse effect, and in particular that caused by water vapor, the extent of its influence being unknown. These factors are working together all the time, and it seems difficult to unravel the relative importance of their respective influences upon climatic evolution. Equally, it is tendentious to highlight the anthropic factor, which is, clearly, the least credible among all those previously mentioned."
• Tad Murty, oceanographer; adjunct professor, Departments of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa: global warming "is the biggest scientific hoax being perpetrated on humanity. There is no global warming due to human anthropogenic activities. The atmosphere hasn't changed much in 280 million years, and there have always been cycles of warming and cooling. The Cretaceous period was the warmest on earth. You could have grown tomatoes at the North Pole"
• Tim Patterson, paleoclimatologist and Professor of Geology at Carleton University in Canada: "There is no meaningful correlation between CO₂ levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO₂ levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years. On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO₂ levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"
• Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology, The University of Adelaide: "We only have to have one volcano burping and we have changed the whole planetary climate... It looks as if carbon dioxide actually follows climate change rather than drives it".
• Tom Segalstad, head of the Geological Museum at the University of Oslo: "It is a search for a mythical CO2 sink to explain an immeasurable CO2 lifetime to fit a hypothetical CO2 computer model that purports to show that an impossible amount of fossil fuel burning is heating the atmosphere. It is all a fiction".
• Frederick Seitz, retired, former solid-state physicist, former president of the National Academy of Sciences: "So we see that the scientific facts indicate that all the temperature changes observed in the last 100 years were largely natural changes and were not caused by carbon dioxide produced in human activities."
• Nir Shaviv, astrophysicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: "The truth is probably somewhere in between [the common view and that of skeptics], with natural causes probably being more important over the past century, whereas anthropogenic causes will probably be more dominant over the next century. ... About 2/3's (give or take a third or so) of the warming [over the past century] should be attributed to increased solar activity and the remaining to anthropogenic causes." His opinion is based on some proxies of solar activity over the past few centuries.
• Fred Singer, Professor emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia: "The greenhouse effect is real. However, the effect is minute, insignificant, and very difficult to detect.It's not automatically true that warming is bad, I happen to believe that warming is good, and so do many economists."
• Willie Soon, astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: "There's increasingly strong evidence that previous research conclusions, including those of the United Nations and the United States government concerning 20th century warming, may have been biased by underestimation of natural climate variations. The bottom line is that if these variations are indeed proven true, then, yes, natural climate fluctuations could be a dominant factor in the recent warming. In other words, natural factors could be more important than previously assumed."
• Philip Stott, professor emeritus of biogeography at the University of London: "...the myth is starting to implode. ... Serious new research at The Max Planck Institute has indicated that the sun is a far more significant factor..."
• Henrik Svensmark, Danish National Space Center: "Our team ... has discovered that the relatively few cosmic rays that reach sea-level play a big part in the everyday weather. They help to make low-level clouds, which largely regulate the Earth's surface temperature. During the 20th Century the influx of cosmic rays decreased and the resulting reduction of cloudiness allowed the world to warm up. ... most of the warming during the 20th Century can be explained by a reduction in low cloud cover."
• Jan Veizer, environmental geochemist, Professor Emeritus from University of Ottawa: "At this stage, two scenarios of potential human impact on climate appear feasible: (1) the standard IPCC model ..., and (2) the alternative model that argues for celestial phenomena as the principal climate driver. ... Models and empirical observations are both indispensable tools of science, yet when discrepancies arise, observations should carry greater weight than theory. If so, the multitude of empirical observations favours celestial phenomena as the most important driver of terrestrial climate on most time scales, but time will be the final judge."

• Syun-Ichi Akasofu, retired professor of geophysics and Director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks: "The method of study adopted by the International Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) is fundamentally flawed, resulting in a baseless conclusion: Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. Contrary to this statement ..., there is so far no definitive evidence that 'most' of the present warming is due to the greenhouse effect. ... [The IPCC] should have recognized that the range of observed natural changes should not be ignored, and thus their conclusion should be very tentative. The term 'most' in their conclusion is baseless."
• Claude Allegre, geochemist, Institute of Geophysics (Paris): "The increase in the CO₂ content of the atmosphere is an observed fact and mankind is most certainly responsible. In the long term, this increase will without doubt become harmful, but its exact role in the climate is less clear. Various parameters appear more important than CO₂. Consider the water cycle and formation of various types of clouds, and the complex effects of industrial or agricultural dust. Or fluctuations of the intensity of the solar radiation on annual and century scale, which seem better correlated with heating effects than the variations of CO₂ content."
• Robert C. Balling, Jr., a professor of geography at Arizona State University: "It is very likely that the recent upward trend [in global surface temperature] is very real and that the upward signal is greater than any noise introduced from uncertainties in the record. However, the general error is most likely to be in the warming direction, with a maximum possible (though unlikely) value of 0.3 degrees C. ... At this moment in time we know only that: (1) Global surface temperatures have risen in recent decades. (2) Mid-tropospheric temperatures have warmed little over the same period. (3) This difference is not consistent with predictions from numerical climate models."
• John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, contributor to several IPCC reports "I'm sure the majority (but not all) of my IPCC colleagues cringe when I say this, but I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see. Rather, I see a reliance on climate models (useful but never "proof") and the coincidence that changes in carbon dioxide and global temperatures have loose similarity over time."
• William R. Cotton, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Colorado State University said in a presentation, "It is an open question if human produced changes in climate are large enough to be detected from the noise of the natural variability of the climate system."
• Chris de Freitas, Associate Professor, School of Geography, Geology and Environmental Science, University of Auckland: "There is evidence of global warming. ... But warming does not confirm that carbon dioxide is causing it. Climate is always warming or cooling. There are natural variability theories of warming. To support the argument that carbon dioxide is causing it, the evidence would have to distinguish between human-caused and natural warming. This has not been done."
• David Deming, geology professor at the University of Oklahoma: "The amount of climatic warming that has taken place in the past 150 years is poorly constrained, and its cause--human or natural--is unknown. There is no sound scientific basis for predicting future climate change with any degree of certainty. If the climate does warm, it is likely to be beneficial to humanity rather than harmful. In my opinion, it would be foolish to establish national energy policy on the basis of misinformation and irrational hysteria."
• Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and member of the National Academy of Sciences: "We are quite confident (1) that global mean temperature is about 0.5 degrees C higher than it was a century ago; (2) that atmospheric levels of CO₂ have risen over the past two centuries; and (3) that CO₂ is a greenhouse gas whose increase is likely to warm the earth (one of many, the most important being water vapor and clouds). But--and I cannot stress this enough--we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to CO₂ or to forecast what the climate will be in the future. There has been no question whatsoever that CO₂ is an infrared absorber (i.e., a greenhouse gas albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming. Indeed, if all else were kept equal, the increase in CO₂ should have led to somewhat more warming than has been observed."
• Roy Spencer, principal research scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville: "We need to find out how much of the warming we are seeing could be due to mankind, because I still maintain we have no idea how much you can attribute to mankind."
• Sherwood Idso, former research physicist, USDA Water Conservation Laboratory, and adjunct professor, Arizona State University: "Warming has been shown to positively impact human health, while atmospheric CO₂ enrichment has been shown to enhance the health-promoting properties of the food we eat, as well as stimulate the production of more of it. ... [W]e have nothing to fear from increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO₂ and global warming."
• Patrick Michaels, former state climatologist, University of Virginia: "scientists know quite precisely how much the planet will warm in the foreseeable future, a modest three-quarters of a degree (Celsius), plus or minus a mere quarter-degree...a modest warming is a likely benefit."

References

1. Climate Change 2001: Working Group I: The Scientific Basis p.5 - IPCC
2. Climate Change 2001: Working Group I: The Scientific Basis p.7 - IPCC
3. Climate Change 2001: Working Group I: The Scientific Basis p.8 - IPCC
4. Dr. Tim Ball, Historical Climatologist On the real danger for Canada, global cooling Frontier Centre for Public Policy
5. Climate of controversy Ottawa Citizen May 2006
6. Mr.Cool Nurturing doubt about climate change is big business August 2006
7. Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts? Ball, Timothy Canada Free Press February 2007
8. A Skeptical View of Climate Models Tennekes, Hendrik from Science & Environmental Policy Project www.his.com/~sepp
9. Global Warming Natural, Says Expert Zenit April 2007
10. Russian academic says CO2 not to blame for global warming Russian News & Information Agency, January 2007
11. Russian scientist issues global cooling warning Russian News & Information Agency August 2006
12. http://www.ogoniok.com/4933/24/ Page in Russian, Go here for a translation.
13. Global Warming Science vs. Computer Model Speculation: Just Ask the Experts Capitalism Magazine, August 2002
14. Extreme Weather Events: Examining Causes and Responses Baliunas, Sallie and Soon, Willie Marshall Institute March 2003
15. Wildlife groups axe Bellamy as global warming 'heretic' TimesOnline May 2005
16. In an adverse climate TimesOnline May 2005
17. Bellamy warms to scientists' scepticism on climate change Weekend Herald October 2006
18. Climate stability: an inconvenient proof Bellamy, Barrett Thomas Telford Journals May 2007
19. [1] Wisconsin's Energy Cooperative May 2007
20. There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998 Carter, Bob Telegraph April 2006
21. On global forces of nature driving the Earth's climate. Are humans involved? L. F. Khilyuk1 and G. V. Chilingar Environmental Geology, vol. 50 no. 6, August 2006
22. [http://www.nrsp.com/clark_letter_22-03-04.html Letter to the editor] The Hill Times, March 2004
23. The Cause of Global Warming and Predictions for the Coming Century Easterbrook, Don
24. Viewpoint: Get off warming bandwagon Gray, William BBC November 2000
25. The Tempest Achenbach, Joel The Washington Post May 2006
26. Discover Dialogue: Meteorologist William Gray Discover September 2005
27. An Unrepentant Prognosticator Krueger, Mari Gelf Magazine, April 2007
28. Climate Science: Climate Change and Its Impacts National Center for Policy Analysis May 2006
29. M. Leroux, Global Warming - Myth or Reality?, 2005, p. 120
30. Global warning? Controversy heats up in the scientific community Robinson, Cindy Carleton University Spring 2005
31. Dr. Patterson Page at Carleton University
32. Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe Harris, Tom Canada Free Press June 2006
33. Read the Sunspots Patterson, Timothy Financial Post June 2007
34. Wild weather ignites climate change debate
35. [2]
36. Models trump measurements Lawrence Solomon Financial Post July 07, 2007
37. Do people cause global warming? Heartland Institute Environment News December 2001
38. Carbon Dioxide or Solar Forcing? ScienceBits
39. The Earth currently is experiencing a warming trend, but there is scientific evidence that human activities have little to do with it Christian Science Monitor April 2005
40. [http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279.pdf The Physical Evidence of Earth's Unstoppable 1,500-Year Climate Cycle] Singer, Fred et alNCPA Study No. 279, September 2005
41. The Denial Machine CBC's Denial machine @ 19:23 - Google Video Link
42. Global warming is not so hot: 1003 was worse, researchers find Harvard University Gazette April 2003
43. Essay 1: 'Global Warming' as Myth A Parliament of Things
44. Influence of Cosmic Rays on the Earth's Climate Svensmark, Henry Danish National Space Center, Juliane Maries Vej 30, DK-2100 Copenhagen
45. Celestial climate driver: a perspective from four billion years of the carbon cycle and here In J. Veizer, , Geoscience Canada, March 2005
46. On the Fundamental Defect in the IPCC's Approach to Global Warming Research Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group Weblog, June 15 2007
47. Climat: la prevention, oui, la peur, non (Translation from the original French version in L'Express, May 2006
48. The Increase in Global Temperature: What it Does and Does Not Tell Us Balling, Robert George C. Marshall Institute, Policy Outlook September 2003
49. Christy, John (2007-11-01). My Nobel Moment. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on 2007-11-02.
50. Global Climate Change: A Global Climate Change: A Skeptics Perspective Presentation by William R. Cotton
51. Dead Link: [3] The New Zealand Herald May 2006
52. Testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works December 2006
53. The Press Gets It Wrong Our report doesn't support the Kyoto treaty. Lindzen, Richard Opinion Journal (The Wall Street Journal) June 2001
54. There is no consensus on Global Warming appeared in The San Francisco Examiner July 2006 and in The Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2006, Page A14
55. Satellite Temperature data John Christy & Roy Spencer George C. Marshall Institute Washington Roundtable on Science and Public Policy April 2006
56. Enhanced or Impaired? Human Health in a CO2-Enriched Warmer World co2science.org November 2003 p. 30
57. Posturing and Reality on Warming Michaels, Patric CATO Institute October 2006

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Opiniones meae, facta omnibus

Opinions are mine, facts belong to everyone

CO2 THE TIDE TURNS

THE HOCKEY PUCK GRAPH:
Were... Latest data = A large tidal wave;
& The IPCC declarations ; Bali 07 = Some flimsy wooden huts on stilts in the sea.

Quick!...Everyone change chairs...

BUT, but... "What about Global warming?

Shissh Don't say that..Its "Climate Change" now! OK.....

THE CO₂ TRAINWRECK

Time to clear the field...Time for a few observations from a hill.

FUTURE CLIMATE

Over in the left corner is the IPCC who say we are all going to burn in Hades due to CO2.
In the right corner confident in their observational and correlational data, NASA & the SSRC say it is going to be colder in the future than it is today .

This is a collision course. Come on guys you can't both be right....

Personal opinion...My money is on NASA...

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) needs to change its name to The Intergovernmental Panel on Wrecking Planets (IPWP)...Buffoons...Indy

VARIOUS REFLECTIONS

THE MASS MEDIA

Though out 2007/8 Hundreds of media reports from all over the planet have been read and considered,here at RHS1, dozens of scientific papers researched, in the past few days media reports examined still repeat and quote as fact information that has been shown, demonstrated, definitively to be wrong, untrue, incorrect.

Whatever you believe about global warming/climate change, you do well to take heed here, you cannot have full confidence in what you read in the mass written media about global warming/climate change.

Now I am not going to waste my time here demonstrating errors, the real problem is that many of these errors are used as fact as proof of opinion and projections of concequenses. Such forward thinking based on error may be termed "logical fantasies".

BREAKING...Carbon Madness

G8 ministers endorse greenhouse gas cuts by 2050

Associated Press

2008-05-26

The Associated Press

Sun, May 25, 2008 (7:12 p.m.)

Environmental ministers from the world's top industrial countries say they have the political will to move toward cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050.

However, the announcement Monday by ministers meeting in Japan stopped short of setting a more contentious goal of slashing emissions by 2020.

The G8 statement said that rich nations have the responsibility to take the lead in cutting emissions. The statement is aimed at setting the stage for the Group of Eight summit in Japan in July.

Some G8 members had pushed for a commitment on a 2020 target.

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Hang on a minute...If NASA is correct according to the greenhouse gas theory shouldn't we be putting more CO2 into the atmosphere to be warmer in the future...Train wreck -O)...Indy

" The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions"

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EARTHQUAKE WATCH

" The Road To Hell "

Earthquake Sichuan province, China

Click image to enlarge or here:

ORIGINAL CAPTIONS: Reaching Beichuan is a long march into hell. When you finally emerge scrabbling through the dirt into the town, what lies before you is a breathtaking vision of horror. Beichuan was a town of 160,000 nestling in one of the world's most beautiful valleys. When rescuers arrived yesterday, they found a scene of unimaginable devastation and despair. www.standeyo.com/NEWS/08_Pics_of_Day/080516.pic.of.day.html

UPDATE click here

Facts about China's May 12 earthquake According to the Associated Press – 22 may 08 the latest facts about the May 12 earthquake that struck China's Sichuan province, are as follows Magnitude: measured at 7.9 by the U.S. Geological Survey; 8.0 by Chinese officials.

• Disaster area population: 20 million.
• Dead: 51,151.
• Missing: 29,328.
• Injured: 288,431.
• Homeless: 5 million.
• Classrooms destroyed: 6,898.
• Orphans: 4,000.
• Tents needed: 3.3 million.
• Animals killed: 12.5 million.
• Company losses: $9.5 billion.
• Reconstruction: $10 billion fund set up by government.

Sources: Chinese government.

May 22nd, 2008 by cmcelwee

www.chinaenvironmentallaw.com

I have had several inquiries as to the “environmental” toll of the Wenchuan earthquake. The short answer is it is hard to say. Defining “environmental” damage in this situation is problematic. A landslide that occurs in an unoccupied area may cause extensive damage to the pre-existing environment, but I don’t think that is what most people mean or, at least, should mean when they speak of environmental damage. When nature harms, or let’s use a less loaded word, changes nature it is hard to speak of “damage” unless one has, irrationally, assumed that any given temporarily static state of nature represents an eternal “natural” state.

However, even if we adopt a definition of earthquake induced “environmental damage” as a sudden increase (above pre-earthquake baseline levels) in the damage to the environment caused by human activity (which, of course is also a ”natural” activity, but I won’t take that argument further here), it is still hard at this stage to assess the extent of the damage, but they do not appear to be catastrophic.

The most immediate concerns would be acutely toxic air emissions (Bhopal-like), drinking water contamination, and radiation leaks. I have not heard reports of any harmful air emissions.

As to drinking water it has been reported that:

Water supply to the populous cities of Chengdu and Chongqing was largely unaffected by the 7.9-magnitude earthquake that struck a wide swathe of northern Sichuan on May 12.

But in smaller towns, like Yingxiu near the epicenter, unclean drinking water is a growing problem for locals and for the refugees trekking in from flattened villages up in the mountains.

In Yingxiu, accessible only by foot in the days after the quake, the only available bottled water appeared to be that scavenged from wrecked homes and hotels.

The source of the drinking water contamination is unclear. I suspect in many cases the drinking water delivery system (pipe network) has been disrupted, and residents have had to resort to open, untreated surface water sources. These sources are easily contaminated with runoff containing, for instance, human and animal waste and lime and anti-bacterial agents used in earthquake remediation efforts.

Given the magnitude of the quake (and the lack of reliable containment structures at most Chinese industrial concerns), there is little doubt that burst process pipes or tanks and vessels at chemical plants, manufacturing facilities, sewage treatment plants, and gas stations, pipelines and terminals have also released pollutants that have made (or will make) their way to drinking water sources. The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) has invoked its water pollution prevention contingency plans in the quake region, and has allocated

35 million yuan ($5 million) to the prevention and control of pollution-related accidents, which could occur in Sichuan province in the wake of [the May 12] earthquake.

Monitoring equipment worth 10 million yuan has been sent to the worst-hit areas, and will be used to treat drinking water and provide protection from pollution caused by pesticide, fertilizer and chemical leakages, and damaged nuclear facilities, it said.

However, Shanghai Daily reports that:

The Ministry of Environment Protection today [May 14] denied a rumor that Chengdu’s supply of water was polluted by a chemical plant explosion caused by Monday’s earthquake. The rumor caused panic buying and hoarding among residents in the capital of Sichuan Province.

Chengdu’s water is safe, the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said the earthquake damaged a total of three plants in Shifang City and Deyang City, which caused a sulfuric acid and ammonia leak.

The Southwest Environment Protection Monitoring Center launched emergency response procedures after the leaks and took measures to clean water downstream. Tests proved the water met standards except for in some areas of Deyang.

The Shifang and Deyang City chemical fertilizer plants are the only industrial facilities that I have seen publicly acknowledged to have suffered damage and released pollutants as a result of the earthquake. Caijing Magazine has a good story on the damage to the Shifang plants if you’re interested.

There was also a report in the United Nations OCHA Situation Report No. 2 that

damaged railway tracks have caused a 40-car freight train carrying gasoline to derail and catch fire in Gansu province. The train burst into flames on Monday and was still burning on Tuesday evening, more than 26 hours after the accident. Fears that the tank cars could explode forced more than 900 local residents to be evacuated from the area.

There have to be other instances of pollutant releasing quake damage, but unless the pollutants released caused immediate and significant human harm, I can certainly understand that there are more important issues to report on at this point. Fortunately for the residents of this devastated region, it was not heavily industrialized.

As to radiation leaks, the situation is a little cloudier (as it is always and everywhere with radiation). “The region has some key atomic sites and the country’s chief nuclear weapons research lab,” and China has said has activated its contingency plans for nuclear and radiation pollution reports The Hindu. It also states that

China has so far recovered 30 of the 32 radioactive sources which were buried under the debris during the devastating May 12 earthquake, Minister for Environmental Protection Zhou Shengxian said.

He said locations of two other radioactive sources had been detected and they would also be transported to “safe areas” soon.

Altogether, 32 radioactive sources were buried under the debris during the 8 magnitude earthquake that struck last week, he added.

Thirty-two radioactive sources were buried by debris; wtf?! OK I guess we could be talking hospital X-ray equipment or other low-level medical applications, but I would like some confirmation of that fact. I’ll try to keep follow up on these reports, but my suspicion is we have heard about all we are going to hear on this score.

If you want more information about continuing landslide risks and damage to dams in the region check out this post from ResponsibleChina and this Wall Street Journal, China Journal post. For an excellent rundown on the energy implications of the quake check out this post from The Green Leap Forward.

Another Danger.

Satellite shot of Zipingpu Dam (Sep 1997) from China Daily

Cracks in the Zipingpu dam, most likely caused by the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan province, pose a threat to an area still reeling from the destruction caused by the earthquake. Another concern is the dam’s power station, which may be off line for months, if not longer, further reducing the electrical supply in a province already suffering shortages because of low water levels in area rivers and rising industrial demand.

Analysis

Some 2,000 Chinese troops were sent to the Zipingpu dam May 14 in an effort to repair cracks in the dam most likely caused by the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan province. Meanwhile, damage at other, smaller dams in the region is still being assessed. The Zipingpu dam was completed in 2006, one of several built to develop China’s western frontier, and created by far the largest reservoir in the affected area. (The Three Gorges Dam in neighboring Hubei province reported no damage from the earthquake.) Engineers already have begun releasing water from the Zipingpu reservoir, which has a capacity of 1 billion cubic meters, in order to relieve pressure on the dam.

A dam break would inundate the town of Dujianyan (population 600,000), which lies five miles downstream of the dam and where rescue efforts are still under way following the earthquake. The city of Chengdu, with a population of 3.75 million, is about 40 miles downstream from Zipingpu and would likely have to deal with flooding as a result of a dam break. Sichuan province also is a major grain producing area for China — 9 percent of the country’s total grain harvest comes from the province. Not all of the grain fields lie in the floodplain, but the Min Jiang River is a major source of irrigation in the region and a wall of water could knock out dams and diversions further downstream that irrigate more than 7 million acres on the Sichuan plain. With food prices already on the rise, a flood in Sichuan would further strain rice and wheat production. dam map

Assuming that a major disaster resulting from the earthquake can be avoided at the dam, the region still faces a long-term problem of energy shortages. The hydroelectric power station inside the Zipingpu dam suffered major damage as well; walls reportedly collapsed and part of the station was said to have slid into the Min Jiang. The earthquake also shut down coal mines, if only temporarily, while they undergo safety inspections. The Zipingpu dam alone produces 3.4 billion Kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per year in a region that produces a total of 91.75 billion kWh annually – so, 3.7 percent of Sichuan’s electricity output is gone.

This has occurred in a region already suffering from electricity shortages because of low water levels in area rivers and rising industrial demand. Sichuan province is a significant steel and aluminum producer and supplies the rest of China with reinforcing bar (“rebar”), which is used in concrete construction. Additionally, Chengdu is home to many textile plants and electronics factories. Even production facilities not damaged by the earthquake are feeling a pinch in power supplies that will hurt production levels and have a broad impact throughout China.

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ZOOM IN

In depth; 2008 Sichuan earthquake

This article documents a recent earthquake. Information regarding it may change rapidly as it progresses.
It may not therefore reflect the most current and/or official information about this earthquake.

For other uses, see Sichuan earthquake.

2008 Sichuan earthquake

Date	May 12, 2008
Magnitude	8.0 Ms[1] / 7.9 Mw[2]
Depth:	19 kilometres (12 mi)
Epicenter location:	30°59?20?N 103°19?44?E? / ?30.989, 103.329? (Sichuan earthquake) (Wenchuan County in Sichuan province)
Countries/ regions affected	China
Tsunami:	None
Aftershocks:	so far 83 stronger aftershocks (see list) over 7,000 weaker aftershocks[3]
Casualties:	51,151 (dead) 288,431(injured) 29,328(missing) (as of May 22, 2008 10:00 CST)[4]

The 2008 Sichuan earthquake (Chinese: ?????), which measured at 8.0 M_s according to the China Seismological Bureau, and 7.9 M_w according to USGS, occurred at 14:28:01.42 CST (06:28:01.42 UTC) on 12 May 2008 in Sichuan province of China. It was also known as the Wenchuan earthquake (Chinese: ?????), after the earthquake's epicenter in Wenchuan County in Sichuan province. The epicenter was 80 kilometres (50 mi) west-northwest of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, with a depth of 19 kilometres (12 mi).^[2] The earthquake was felt as far away as Beijing (1,500 km away) and Shanghai (1,700 km away), where office buildings swayed with the tremor.^[5] The earthquake was also felt in nearby countries.

Official figures (as of May 22, 10:00 CST) state that 51,151 are confirmed dead, including 50,651 in Sichuan province, and 288,431 injured.^[4] Tens of thousands are missing, approximately 14,000 of them buried, and eight provinces were affected.^[6] The earthquake left about 4.8 million people homeless.^[7] It was the deadliest and strongest earthquake to hit China since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, which killed over 240,000 people.

Contents 1 Earthquake details 1.1 Tremors felt in different places 1.2 Tectonics 2 Immediate aftermath 3 Casualties 3.1 Property damage 4 Rescue efforts 5 Reactions within China 6 Foreign and domestic aid 6.1 Countries and regions 6.2 Mainland China 7 Signs and prediction 8 See also 9 References 10 External links 10.1 News Records 10.2 Online Maps 10.3 Media 10.4 Scientific and Educational Synthesis 10.5 Other Wikis

Earthquake details

See also: List of 2008 Sichuan earthquake aftershocks

A USGS map of epicenter

A USGS map showing dozens of aftershocks.

The earthquake had a magnitude of 8.0 M_s according to the State Seismological Bureau of China and 7.9 M_w according to the United States Geological Survey.^[1][2] The epicenter was in Wenchuan County, Ngawa Prefecture, 80 km west/northwest of Chengdu, with its main tremor occurring at 14:28:01.42 CST (06:28:01.42 UTC), on Monday 12 May 2008.

Fifty-two major aftershocks, ranging in magnitude from 4.4 to 6.0, were recorded within 72 hours of the main tremor.^[8] Preliminary rupture models of the earthquake indicated displacement of up to 9 meters along a fault approximately 240 km long by 20 km deep.^[9] The earthquake generated deformations of the surface greater than 3 meters and increased the stress (and probability of occurrence of future events) at the northeastern and southwestern ends of the fault. On May 20, USGS seismologist Tom Parsons warned that there is "high risk" of a major M>7 aftershock over the next weeks or months.

Japanese seismologist Yuji Yagi said that the earthquake occurred in two stages: "155-mile Longmenshan Fault tore in two sections, the first one ripping about seven yards, followed by a second one that sheared four yards." Yagi's data also showed that the earthquake lasted about two minutes and released the energy that was 30 times larger than that of Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995 in Japan, which killed over 6,000 people. He pointed out that it was a shallowness of the epicenter and the density of population that greatly increased the severity of the earthquake. Teruyuki Kato, a seismologist in the University of Tokyo, said that the seismic waves of the quake traveled at a long distance without losing their power because of the firmness of the terrain in central China. According to reports from Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, the earthquake tremors lasted for "about two or three minutes".

Tremors felt in different places

Places ordered by distance from epicenter (or time of propagation) :

•  China (mainland): All regions except Xinjiang, Jilin and Heilongjiang were affected by the quake.^[14]
•  Hong Kong: Tremors were felt approximately three minutes after the quake, continuing for about half a minute. This was also the farthest distance from the epicentre felt in Hong Kong's record.^{[15][16][17][18]}
•  Macau: Tremors were felt approximately three minutes after the quake.^[19]
•  Vietnam: Tremors were felt approximately five minutes after the earthquake in Northern parts of Vietnam.
•  Thailand: In parts of Thailand tremors were felt six minutes after the quake. Office buildings in Bangkok swayed for next several minutes.
•  Taiwan: It took about eight minutes for the quake to reach Taiwan, then the tremors continued for one to two minutes; no damage or injuries were reported.
•  Mongolia: Tremors were felt approximately eight minutes after the earthquake in parts of Mongolia.
•  Bangladesh: Tremors were felt eight and a half minutes after the quake in all parts of Bangladesh.
•  Nepal: Tremors were felt approximately eight and a half minutes after the quake.
•  India: Tremors were felt approximately nine minutes after the earthquake in parts of India.
•  Pakistan: In parts of Northern Pakistan tremors were felt ten minutes after the quake.^[17]
•  Russia: Tremors were felt in Tuva, no casualties reported.

Tectonics

The extent of the earthquake and after shock-effected areas lies north-east, along the Longmen Shan fault.

USGS National Earthquake Information

Dr. Harley Benz, US Geological Society

Problems listening to the file? See media help.

According to the United States Geological Survey:^[24]

The earthquake occurred as the result of motion on a northeast striking reverse fault or thrust fault on the northwestern margin of the Sichuan Basin. The earthquake's epicenter and focal-mechanism are consistent with it having occurred as the result of movement on the Longmenshan fault or a tectonically related fault. The earthquake reflects tectonic stresses resulting from the convergence of crustal material slowly moving from the high Tibetan Plateau, to the west, against strong crust underlying the Sichuan Basin and southeastern China.

On a continental scale, the seismicity of central and eastern Asia is a result of northward convergence of the Indian Plate against the Eurasian Plate with a velocity of about 50 mm/y. The convergence of the two plates is broadly accommodated by the uplift of the Asian highlands and by the motion of crustal material to the east away from the uplifted Tibetan Plateau. The northwestern margin of the Sichuan Basin has previously experienced destructive earthquakes. The magnitude 7.5 earthquake of August 25, 1933 killed more than 9,300 people.

According to the British Geological Survey:

The earthquake occurred 92 km northwest of the city of Chengdu in eastern Sichuan province and over 1500 km from Beijing, where it was also strongly felt. Earthquakes of this size have the potential to cause extensive damage and loss of life. The epicentre was in the mountains of the Eastern Margin of Qing-Tibet Plateau at the northwest margin of the Sichuan Basin. The earthquake occurred as a result of motion on a northeast striking thrust fault that runs along the margin of the basin. The seismicity of central and eastern Asia is caused by the northward movement of the India plate at a rate of 5cm/year and its collision with Eurasia, resulting in the uplift of the Himalaya and Tibetan plateau and associated earthquake activity. This deformation also results in the extrusion of crustal material from the high Tibetan Plateau in the west towards the Sichuan Basin and southeastern China. China frequently suffers large and deadly earthquakes. In August 1933 a magnitude 7.5 earthquake about 90 km northeast of today's earthquake destroyed the town of Diexi and surrounding villages, and caused many landslides, some of which dammed the rivers.

Immediate aftermath

USGS shake map

The outside of a warehouse in disarray following the earthquake.

Office buildings in Shanghai's financial district, including the Jin Mao Tower and the Hong Kong New World Tower, were evacuated.^[26] Phone calls to emergency response numbers in Chengdu were repeatedly busy.^[27] A receptionist at the Tibet Hotel in Chengdu said things were "calm" after the hotel had evacuated its guests.^[28] Meanwhile, workers at a Ford plant in Sichuan were evacuated for about 10 minutes.^[29] The Chengdu airport was shut down, and the control tower and regional radar control evacuated. One SilkAir flight was diverted and landed in nearby Kunming as a result.^[30] Cathay Pacific delayed both legs of its quadruple daily Hong Kong to London route due to this disruption in air traffic services. Chengdu airport has since reopened on Monday at 8 p.m. (1200 GMT) to limited flights as the airport is used as a staging area for relief operations.^[31]

Reporters in Chengdu said they saw cracks on walls of some residential buildings in the downtown areas, but no building collapsed.^[32] Many Beijing office towers were evacuated, including the building housing the media offices for the organizers of the 2008 Summer Olympics. None of the Olympic venues were damaged.^[20] Meanwhile, a cargo train carrying 13 petrol tanks derailed in Huixian County, Gansu Province, and caught on fire, after the rail was distorted.^[33]

All of the highways into Wenchuan, and others throughout Sichuan province, were damaged, resulting in delayed arrival of the rescue troops.^[34][35] In Beichuan county, 80% of the buildings collapsed according to Xinhua News.^[36] In the city of Shifang, the collapse of two chemical plants led to leakage of some 80 tons of liquid ammonia, with hundreds of people reported buried.^[37] In the city of Dujiangyan, south-east of the epicentre, a whole school collapsed with 900 students buried and 50 dead. The Juyuan middle school, where many teenagers were buried, is being excavated by civilians and cranes.^[38] Dujiangyan is home of the Dujiangyan Irrigation System, which is an ancient water diversion project which is still in use and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The project's famous Fish Mouth was cracked but not severely damaged otherwise.^[39]

A bank building in Beichuan after the earthquake. A girl was found in the ruins 102 hours (4 days, 6 hours) after the earthquake.^[40]

Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange suspended trading of companies based in southwestern China. Copper rose over speculations that production in southwestern China may be affected,^[41] and oil prices dropped over speculations that demand from China will fall.^[42]

China Mobile had more than 2,300 base stations suspended due to power disruption or severe telecommunication traffic congestion. Half of the wireless communications were lost in the Sichuan province. China Unicom's service in Wenchuan and four nearby counties were cut off, with more than 700 towers suspended.^[43][44][45]

A single door frame bearing a portrait of Chairman Mao remained standing in a pile of debris.

Initially, officials were unable to contact the Wolong National Nature Reserve, home to around 280 giant pandas.^[46] However, China's Foreign Ministry later said that a group of 31 British tourists visiting the Wolong panda reserve in the quake-hit area have returned safe and uninjured to the provincial capital. Nonetheless, the well-being of an even greater number of pandas in the neighbouring panda reserves remains unknown at this point in time. As of May 20, two pandas at the reserve were injured, while search continues for another two adult pandas that went missing after the quake.^[47] A group of 26 Malaysian tourists including a 90-year-old woman who initially were missing after the earthquake have been found alive. None of the Malaysian tourists were injured. They are about four kilometres outside Maoxian.^[48]

The Zipingpu (?????) Hydropower Plant located 20 km east of the epicenter has been destroyed. The dam has severe cracks and "the plant and associated buildings have collapsed, and some are partly sunk."^[49]. The Tulong reservoir Upstream is in danger of collapse. About 2,000 troops have been allocated to Zipingpu, trying to release the pressure through spillway. In total, 391 dams, most of them small, were reported damaged by the quake.^[50]

China's Olympic Games organisers said that they would scale down the route of the torch through the country, and there was a minute of silence when the next leg started in the south-eastern city of Ruijin on the Wednesday after the quake.^[51]

Casualties

Region		Deaths[4]
Sichuan	Mianyang	15,976
	Deyang	15,627[52]
	Ngawa	8,469 [53]
	Guangyuan	4,521[54]
	Chengdu	4,179
	Nanchong	30
	Ya'an	28
	Suining	27
	Ziyang	20
	Meishan	10
	Bazhong	10
	Garzê	9
	Leshan	8
	Neijiang	7
	Dazhou	4
	Liangshan	3
	Zigong	2
	Luzhou	1
	Guang'an	1
	Total	50,651
Gansu		364
Shaanxi		114
Chongqing		16
Henan		2
Guizhou		1
Hubei		1
Hunan		1
Yunnan		1
Total		51,151

According to Chinese state officials, the quake caused 51,151 known deaths including 50,651 in Sichuan province, 29,328 people were missing, and nearly 300,000 injured, but this figure may increase as more reports come in.^[4] This estimate includes 158 earthquake relief workers who had been killed in landslides as they tried to repair roads.^[55][56]

Officials and rescue teams have yet to reach some of the hardest hit areas closest to the epicenter due to roadways that were completely damaged or blocked off by landslides. The chief secretary of Wenchuan county said in a short satellite phone call that there were some 30,000 people gathered at the major town waiting for help.^[57] One rescue team reported only 2,300 survivors from Yingxiu, out of a total population of about 9,000.^[58] 3,000 to 5,000 people were killed in Beichuan county, Sichuan province alone, 10,000 injured and 80% of the buildings were destroyed. 8 schools were toppled in Dujiangyan.^[59] A 56-year-old Taiwanese tourist was killed in Dujiangyan during a rescue attempt on the Lingyanshan Ropeway, where due to the earthquake 11 Taiwanese tourists had been trapped inside cable cars since May 13.^[60] A 4-year-old Taiwanese was reported dead, and one missing.^[4]

Experts point out that the earthquake has hit an area that has been largely neglected and untouched by China's economic rise. Health care is poor in inland areas like Sichuan province, where the magnitude-7.9 quake struck, highlighting the widening gap between prosperous urban dwellers and struggling rural people.^[61] The Vice Minister of Health Gao Qiang told reporters in Beijing on Thursday that the "public health care system in China is insufficient."^[61] The Vice Minister of Health also suggested that the government would pick up the costs of care to earthquake victims, many of whom have little or no insurance: "The government should be responsible for providing medical treatment to them," he said.^[61]

Property damage

Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide reported official estimates of insurers' losses at US$1 billion from the earthquake; estimated total damages exceed US$20 billion. It values Chengdu, Sichuan Province's capital city of 4.5 million people, at around US$115 billion, with only a small portion covered by insurance.^[62]

Rain was among some of the problems in the aftermath of the earthquake. Here, a group of onlookers examine a collapsed building in the rain.

Reginald DesRoches, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Georgia Tech, pointed out that the massive damage of properties and houses in the earthquake area was because China did not get an adequate seismic design code until following the big Tangshan earthquake in 1976. DesRoches said: "If the buildings were older and built prior to that 1976 earthquake, chances are they weren't built for adequate earthquake forces."^[63]

News report indicate that the poorer, rural villages were hardest hit. Swaminathan Krishnan, assistant professor of civil engineering and geophysics at the California Institute of Technology said: "the earthquake occurred in the rural part of China. Presumably, many of the buildings were just built; they were not designed, so to speak."^[63] Swaminathan Krishnan further added: "There are very strong building codes in China, which take care of earthquake issues and seismic design issues. But many of these buildings presumably were quite old and probably were not built with any regulations overseeing them."^[63]

Rescue efforts

Persistant rain, as well as rock slides and a layer of mud coating on the main roads, such as the one above, hinders rescue official's efforts to enter the target region.

China's President Hu Jintao has said that the disaster response would be rapid.^[64] Just 90 minutes after the earthquake, Premier Wen Jiabao, who has an academic background in geomechanics, flew to the earthquake area to oversee the rescue work.^[65]

On May 12, 2008, China's Health Ministry said that it had sent 10 emergency medical teams to Wenchuan County in southwest China's Sichuan Province. On the same day, China's Chengdu Military Area Command dispatched 50,000 troops and armed police to help with disaster relief work in Wenchuan County.^[66] However, due to the rough terrain and close proximity of the quake's epicenter, the soldiers found it very difficult to get help to the rural regions of the province.^[67]

The National Disaster Relief Commission initiated a "Level II emergency contingency plan", which covers the most serious class of natural disasters. The plan rose to Level I at 22:15 CST, May 12.^[68]

An earthquake emergency relief team of 184 people (consisting of 12 people from the State Seismological Bureau, 150 from the Beijing Military Area Command, and 22 from the Armed Police General Hospital) left Beijing from Nanyuan Airport late May 12 in two military transport planes to travel to Wenchuan County.^[69]

Many rescue teams, including that of the Taipei Fire Department from Taiwan, were reported ready to join the rescue effort in Sichuan as early as Wednesday. However, the Red Cross Society of China said that (on May 13) "it was inconvenient currently due to the traffic problem to the hardest hit areas closest to the epicenter."^[70] The Red Cross Society of China also stated that the disaster areas needs tents, medical supplies, drinking water and food; however it recommends donating cash instead of other items at the time, as it was not possible to reach roads that were completely damaged or places that were blocked off by landslides.^[71]

Falling debris, such as the object that landed on this vehicle, hinders rescue worker's progress as they attempt to cross the mountain.

Persistent heavy rain and landslides in Wenchuan County and the nearby area badly affected rescue efforts.^[72][73] At the start of rescue operations on May 12, 20 helicopters were deployed for the delivery of food, water, and emergency aid, and also the evacuation of the injured and reconnaissance of quake-stricken areas. By 17:37 CST on the 13 May, a total of over 15,600 troops and militia reservists from the Chengdu Military Region have joined the rescue force in the heavily affected areas.^[74][75] A commander reported from Yingxiu town, Wenchuan, that around 3,000 survivors were found, while the status of the other inhabitants (around 9,000) remains unclear.^[76] The 1,300 rescuers reached the epicenter, and 300 pioneer troops reached the main town of Wenchuan at about 23:30 CST.^[77] By 12:17 CST, 14 May 2008, communication in the major town of Wenchuan is partly revived.^[78] On the afternoon of May 14, 100 paratroopers, along with relief supplies, parachuted into inaccessible Maoxian County, northeast of Wenchuan.^[79]

An elderly woman was rescued and placed on a stretcher after being trapped for over 50 hours.

By May 15, China's Premiere Wen Jiabao ordered the deployment of an additional 90 helicopters, of which 60 were to be provided by the PLAAF, and 30 provided by the civil aviation industry, bringing the total of number of aircraft deployed in relief operations by the air force, army, and civil aviation to over 150, resulting in China's largest ever non-combat airlifting operation.^[80]

The Chinese Government accepted the aid of the Tzu Chi Foundation from Taiwan late on May 13. Tzu Chi was the first force from outside the People's Republic of China to join the rescue effort.^[81] China stated it would gratefully accept international help to cope with the quake.^[82][51]

A direct chartered cargo flight was made by China Airlines from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport sending a sum of 100 tons of relief supplies donated by the Tzu Chi Foundation and the Red Cross Society of Taiwan to the affected areas. Approval from the PRC Government was sought, and the chartered flight departed Taipei at 17:00 CST, May 15 and arriving in Chengdu by 20:30 CST.^[83][84] A rescue team from the ROC Red Cross is also scheduled to depart Taipei on a Mandarin Airlines direct chartered flight to Chengdu at 15:00 CST on May 16.^[85]

Francis Marcus of the International Federation of the Red Cross praised China's rescue effort as "swift and very efficient" in Beijing on Tuesday. But he added the scale of the disaster was such that "we can't expect that the government can do everything and handle every aspect of the needs".^[82] The Economist noted that China reacted to the disaster "rapidly and with uncharacteristic openness", which contrasted Myanmar's secretive response to Cyclone Nargis, which devastated the country 10 days before the earthquake.^[86]

On May 16, rescue groups from South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Russia and Taiwan arrived to join the rescue effort.^[87] The United States shared some of its satellite images of the quake-stricken areas with Chinese authorities.^[88] During the weekend, the US sent into China two U.S. Air Force C-17's carrying supplies, which included tents and generators. ^[89] Xinhua reported 135,000 Chinese troops and medics are involved in the rescue effort across 58 counties and cities.

The Internet has been extensively used for passing information to aid rescue and recovery in China. For example, the official Xinhua has set up an online rescue request center in order to find the blind spots of disaster recovery.^[90] After knowing that rescue helicopters had trouble in landing into the epicenter in Wenchuan, a student proposed a landing spot online and it was chosen as the first touchdown place for the helicopters.^[91] Volunteers have also set up several websites to help store contact information for victims and evacuees.^[92]

Reactions within China

On May 19, 2008, people mourned for the earthquake victims at Tiananmen Square, Beijing, with the flag at half mast throughout the mourning period.

The State Council declared a three-day period of national mourning for the quake victims starting from May 19th, 2008; The Chinese National Flag and Regional Flags of Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR were raised at half mast. It is the first time that a national mourning period had been declared for something other than the death of a state leader, and many call it the biggest display of mourning since the death of Mao^[93]. At 14:28 CST on May 19, 2008, a week after the earthquake, the Chinese public held a moment of silence. People stood silent for three minutes while air defense, police and fire sirens, and the horns of vehicles, vessels and trains sounded. Cars on Beijing's roads came to a halt. ^[94][95][96] The Ningbo Organizing Committee of Beijing Olympic torch relay announced that the relay will be suspended for these three days.^[97]

Many websites converted their front page to black and white; Sina.com and Sohu, major internet portals, limited their homepage to news items and removed all advertisements. Chinese video sharing websites, youku and Tudou, displayed a black background and only videos related to the earthquake were available on the homepage. Other entertainment websites, including various gaming sites, were also blacked out, or had corresponding links to earthquake donations.^[98] After the moments of silence, in Tiananmen Square, crowds spontaneously burst out cheering various slogans, including "Long Live China".^[99]

All Mainland Chinese television stations, along with some Hong Kong stations, displayed their logo in black and white, while broadcasting non-stop earthquake footage from CCTV-1. Even Pay TV, such as Channel V China, also broadcasted earthquake footage. Foreign brodcasts in expatriate communities was suspended for the days of mourning.

On the evening of May 18, CCTV-1 hosted a special four-hour program called The Giving of Love (????), hosted by regulars from the CCTV New Year's Gala and continual coverage anchor Bai Yansong, and attended by a wide range of entertainment, literary, business and political figures from mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. Donations of the evening totalled 1.5 billion Chinese Yuan ($US 208 million). At 11:30 in the evening, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singaporean entertainers Joey Yung, Nicholas Tse, Wakin Chau, JJ Lin and Zhang Mingmin sang a song titled Tomorrow will be better.^[100]

Foreign and domestic aid

Because of the magnitude of the quake, and the media attention on China, foreign nations and organizations immediately responded to the disaster by offering condolences and assistance. On May 14, UNICEF reported that China has formally requested the support of the international community to respond to the needs of affected families.^[101]

Countries and regions

Main article: International reactions to 2008 Sichuan earthquake

Mainland China

The Ministry of Civil Affairs said 10.7 billion Yuan (apprx $1.5 billion US) had been donated by the Chinese public. One of the country's most popular sportsman and Houston Rockets' center, Yao Ming gave $214,000 and $71,000 to the Red Cross Society of China. The association has also collected a total of $26 million in donations so far.^[102] Other multinational firms located in China has also announced large amounts of donations.^[103]

The Red Cross Society of China flew 557 tents and 2,500 quilts valued at 788,000 yuan (US$113,000) to Wenchuan County. The Amity Foundation already began relief work in the region and has earmarked US$143,000 for disaster relief.^[104] The Sichuan Ministry of Civil Affairs said that they have provided 30,000 tents for those left homeless.^[7]

On May 15, United Daily News reported that the top ten richest people of China had only donated a little over 32.5 million yuan altogether as of May 13th, drawing accusations of selfishness and callousness from Chinese internet users.^[105]

Following the earthquake, donations were made by people from all over China, with booths set up in schools, at banks, and around gas stations.^[106] People also donated blood, resulting in according to Xinhua long line-ups in most major Chinese cities.^[107] Many donated through text messaging on cellphones to accounts set up by China Unicom and China Mobile.^[108] By May 16, the Chinese government had allocated a total of $772 million for earthquake relief so far, up sharply from $159 million from May 14.^[109] On May 16 China stated it had also received $457 million in donated money and goods for rescue efforts so far, including $83 million from 19 countries and four international organizations.^[109]

Signs and prediction

See also: Earthquake prediction

• In 2002, a study by Chen Xuezhong published in the Chinese seismology journal Recent Developments in World Seismology (??????) reported that starting 2003 there is a high probability of an M?7 earthquake in Sichuan Province. "Sichuan is virtually certain to experience an earthquake measuring above 7 in the next few years" he wrote.^[110]
• In 2006, a study published in the Chinese Journal of Catastrophology (???) reported that the Sichuan-Yunnan region may experience a M?6.7 earthquake in 2008.^[111]
• The journal Tectonics published a thesis in July 2007, stating that the risk of a serious earthquake was imminent.^[112]
• On April 26, nearly 80,000 m³ of water that once filled the Guanyin pond of Baiguo township of Enshi City, Hubei province sank underground with a rumbling sound. Changes in the underground waterflow usually indicate changed seismic conditions.^[113]
• On May 9, an anonymous user posted a thread on the popular Baidu Forums stating that earthquake clouds were observed in Linyi, Shandong (more than 1400 km away from the epicenter), and wondered if an M?6.0 were to occur in the next few days; this was later confirmed by a user from Tongzhou District in Beijing.^[114]
• On May 10, residents of Tanmu village of Southwest town of Mianzhu, Sichuan (less than 100 km from the epicentre) observed hundreds of thousands of toads migrating on a roadway near a pharmaceutical factory.^{[citation needed]} "The move is because of the change of weather," Shu Shi, director of the Mianzhu forestry bureau, was quoted as saying by local media.^{[citation needed]} A similar phenomenon was observed a day earlier in Taizhou, Jiangsu.^[115]

• On 12 May, sightings of unusually colorful and luminous cloud formations in two cities of nearby provinces more than 400km north east of the epicenter, each at 32 and 10 minutes before the earthquake, were filmed and photographed.^{[116][117][118]} These clouds exhibit luminous characteristics akin to auroras and sundogs(rainbow-like phenomena in cirrus or other high clouds). Earthquake was also felt at the location of the photographer, and the mobile phone signal was cut off for a while.^[119] There are many hypotheses for the cause of these earthquake lights.^[120][121] Of note, Dazhou's natural gas fields have been greatly being harvested by China Petrochemical Corporation and PetroChina.^[122][123] The audio comment of the video was that it looked like sun-light deflection. Some Buddist believe that it is a sign from Guan Yin, as it happened on Buddha's Birthday/Vesak.^{[citation needed]}
• On May 13, in a press conference held by the State Council Information Office,^[124] the spokesperson restated that earthquake forecasting is a "World problem", and that no prediction notification was received before the earthquake.^[125] The only case in the last 100 years that an earthquake was successfully predicted by an official department was the Haicheng earthquake in 1975 by the China State Seismological Bureau.^[126]

See also

• Natural disasters in China
• List of deadly earthquakes since 1900
• List of earthquakes
• List of natural disasters by death toll

References

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114. ^ "Earthquake cloud in Linyi, tens of thousands of toads migrate in Jiangsu --- Omens of today's earthquake", Sohu, 2008-05-12. Retrieved on 2008-05-12. (Chinese) 
115. ^ Tens of thousands of toads migrating in Taizhou (Chinese). Yangtze Evening Post (2008-05-10). Retrieved on 2008-05-13.
116. ^ Colorful clouds spotted in Tianshui, Gansu province, 30 minutes before the 2008 Sichuan earthquake
117. ^ Colorful clouds spotted in Meixian, Shaanxi province, 10 mins before the 2008 Sichuan earthquake
118. ^ Bizarre phenomenon photographed 1 hour before the quake (Chinese). The Epoch Times (2008-05-14). Retrieved on 2008-05-20.
119. ^ "Buddha's Halo" appears at Nanguo Temple (Chinese). Tianshui Online (2008-05-12). Retrieved on 2008-05-20.
120. ^ Paul Simons (2008-03-15). Glowing lights around an earthquake's epicentre. Times Online. Retrieved on 2008-05-20.
121. ^ Earth Lights - Earthquake Lights. Retrieved on 2008-05-20.
122. ^ PetroChina, Sinopec Shut Some Gas Wells After Quake (Update3). Bloomberg.com (2008-05-14). Retrieved on 2008-05-20.
123. ^ Robert Williams (2008-02-07). China Oil Perspective - CNOOC (CEO), Petrochina (PTR) & China Petroleum (SNP). Retrieved on 2008-05-20.
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126. ^ Confirming a Chinese earthquake prediction. Geotimes (2006-06-26). Retrieved on 2008-05-20.

External links

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News Records

BBC's Chinese Earthquake Main Page

• China Earthquake Toll tops 40,000
• Tourist Trail of Sichuan in Ruins
• Town Mourns as Search Continues
• BBC - Map of the Affected Region
• The Quake hits the Web

CNN - Chinese Earthquake Portal

• Chinese Olympic Torch Relay Delayed
• Unity and Patriotism Sweeps China
• Stadium becomes Tent City after Chinese Earthquake

New York Times Topic - Sichuan Earthquake

• Rescue Ends One Ordeal for Young Chinese Pupils
• Global Monitor Finds no Radioactive Leaks in Quake Zone
• Eight Earthquake Pandas Going to Beijing
• Two Detained for Spreading Quake Rumor in China

Xinhua News Agency - Strong Earthquake Jolts SW China

• Government allocates 70 billion yuan for reconstruction
• Rescuers helped by 680,000 volunteers
• Quake Relief Still at Critical Point

Online Maps

• BBC - Map of the Affected Region
• CNN - Map of the Affected Region
• New York Times - Map of the Affected Region
• Relief Web - Map of the Affected Region
• USGS - Map of the Affected Region

Media

• Life and Death, Love and Pain: Snapshots of Sichuan Earthquake
• BBC
  • Compilation of BBC Videos Related to the Earthquake
  • BBC NEWS Video, Quake hits western China
• CNN
  • CNN - Chinese Earthquake Entire Video Archive
• Xinhua News Agency
  • Leaders Inspect Quake Relief Work
  • Rescuers Comb Quake-Hit Areas

Scientific and Educational Synthesis

• Identification of Earthquake Faults In Sichuan
• USGS Earthquake Hazards Program: An Informational Page about Sichuan quake