The WHC meeting in Lithuania heard evidence that 125 sites including the Himalayas and the Great Barrier Reef are at risk from climate change.
Countries which are members of the WHC are legally obliged to protect sites. Campaign groups say this can only be done by cutting emissions.
What's especially interesting is the accusation flung at the WHC by Peter Roderick, co-director of the Climate Justice Programme:
The world is entitled to expect better from the Committee; bending over backwards as a result of fear of the US and Canada will tarnish its reputation.
So Canada under "Steve" has joined the list of climate change no-goods. As my dear mother would say: Hmmmm!
8 comments:
ahhhhhhhh it was hotter 70 years ago . . . C02 based warming proven a hoax ! Its all natural !!!!
Heat wave was 'truly amazing'
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Canadian Press
Published: Monday, July 10, 2006
EDMONTON (CP) -- David Phillips loves to ask people whether Canada, Venezuela, Lebanon, Cuba or Bangladesh has had the highest recorded temperature.
For Phillips, a senior climatologist with the Meteorological Service of Canada, the best part of the question is watching people's reactions to his answer: Canada, with a record of 45 C set on July 5, 1937, in Yellowgrass.
But that one sweltering day was nothing compared with the heat wave the year before, explains Phillips.
Seventy years ago this week, a two-week heat wave across much of Canada claimed the lives of almost 800 people, destroyed crops, killed livestock and even prompted the authorities to allow topless bathing suits on men.
From July 5-17, 1936, the country baked from Alberta to Ontario, with temperatures soaring as high as 44.4 C in St. Albans, Man.
Winnipeg faced lows of 28.3 C, and an Ontario provincial record was set with a temperature of 42.2 C in Atikokan.
In total, the heat wave killed 780 Canadians and was linked to another 400 indirect casualties, including several drownings.
In Toronto alone, over 225 people succumbed to temperatures reaching as high as 41.1 C.
Phillips calls the 1936 hot spell the "granddaddy" of all Canadian heat waves.
"We are a cold country, the second-coldest in the world, and yet the greatest loss of life (due to weather conditions) was from a 10-day heat wave in July of '36."
Phillips says modern inventions such as air conditioning make it unlikely Canada will ever see the same loss of life from a heat wave as it did during those two weeks.
"When I look back and I try and see what effect it had on people, it was truly amazing because there was no escaping," he explained.
"Now we tell people that when you want to get away from the heat wave, you go to malls and shows or you turn on your air conditioning, you drive your air-conditioned cars or go to your air-conditioned offices.
"But back then, my gosh, people would do things like reverse the flow on their vacuum cleaner just to get a bit of a breeze."
Horses drawing carriages were known simply to drop dead in the street because of the heat, fruit literally baked on the trees and transients were recruited directly off trains to help fight forest fires.
"We talk about climate change and conditions being warmer now, but they aren't nearly as intense as they were back in '36," said Phillips, who has authored several books on Canada's climate.
He added that while hot spells in Canada over the last 70 years haven't come close to 1936 in terms of duration, severity and geographical extent, that doesn't mean global warming is not a reality.
"There's probably as many (hot days) now as there were back then, but what's different is the nighttime temperatures. We don't cool off at night as much as we did back then . . . and that's because more of the heat is trapped in at night," said Phillips, adding that Canadian winters have also warmed up more than our summers.
But Tim Ball, an environmental consultant based in Victoria and one of the first Canadians to receive a PhD in climatology, contends that what may appear to be global warming is simply a natural fluctuation.
Jesus, Anon, everyone knows about the great Sask. heatwave. What does that have to do with Global Warming?
ok . let me speak s-l-o-w-l-y for you
the planet has been warming up, this cycle, for the last - / + 12000 years. the warming cycle is not linear.
The enviro-movement sky is falling sign up for Kyoto send money takes a naturally ocurring event, finds a weak casual link with human caused CO2 and goes into full PR mode.
Kyoto will not have ameasurable impact on the global climate. It has nothing to do with climate. Its just another ponzi scheme, big government UN Money for Gas that will suck the money away from teh REAL environmental problems.
Big expensive government ---- no wonder liberals & dippers love it
Anon, you rule...has the Earth been warming up at a rate of a fraction of a degree for the past 12000 years and then suddenly like 5 or 6 degrees in the past 100-200 years or however long ago they started keeping tabs in N. America? Kind of a funny thing for the Earth to do.
Yup earth is kinda funny that way.
Send money to China,the earth will smile and things will be better in 12,000 years.
like 5 or 6 degrees in the past 100-200 years or however long ago they
= BULLSHIT.
less than 1 . . .
please go take a basic Climatology course a 110 level or something.
Then take a Geomorphology course & a Glaciology course . . entry level will do . . .
Anon, the natural fluctuation argument bit the dust permanently about two weeks ago when the science behind the "hockey stick" graph was vindicated, and the notion that the warming was not a natural cycle but man-made proven.
You are now officially like the guy running around claiming that nobody knows for sure if cigarettes cause cancer. An intellectual dinosaur. You should really try learn a new factoid if you want to contribute to the conversation.
As is Mr. Tim Ball, he recieved his PHD maybe half a century ago and has been shilling for the Petro industry ever since. He is very much like the "scientists" working for the cigarette companies who deny the link to lung cancer.
Anon 10:32 I'm sure I can get an unbiased class here in Calgary, like the Geology class I just finished.
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