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"What Australia showed us is that things can happen faster than we think," said study co-author Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and associate professor of geosciences at Texas Tech University. "Although we cannot say whether climate change played a role in the February fires in Australia, we do know that climate change will increase the risk of conditions conducive to such devastating wildfires in the near future."

Climate change inescapable fact Story by NGOVI KITAU Publication Date: 6/9/2008 CLIMATE CHANGE LEADING to global warming is the biggest environmental challenge facing the world. The World Environment Day was marked last week, and it is necessary to examine the state of our environment. Our moderate weather and tropical climate encourage a range of outdoor activities. We have been fortunate to live in a country that has marvellous mountains to climb, fabulous beaches to bask in, magnificent vegetation and animals in our famous national parks. We have great lakes and rivers to explore, fertile highlands to grow cash crops and rear exotic dairy animals in, extraordinary lowlands to grow food crops in, the magnificent Rift Valley, beautiful plateaus and hills covered by dense tropical forests and giant trees, and great savannas for grazing our animals in. And what do we observe today? Long and recurrent droughts, flooding whenever it rains, melting of ice on Mt Kenya, destruction of the Mau and other forests, continuing and alarming soil erosion, silting of dams, degradation of the eco-system, accelerated desert march, loss of biodiversity, and persistent human conflict over scarce resources.

I remain very, very concerned with the notion that all we have to do is let the kids connect with the world.... There's a fallacy there, and my experience with how much really deep teaching of digital ethics we've had to do at SLA to counter all that the kids come in the door thinking about the digital world.

Global warming is changing the distribution, abundance and diversity of marine life in the polar seas with "profound" implications for creatures further up the food chain, according to scientists involved in the most comprehensive study of life in the oceans ever conducted.

We need to do two things, broadly. We need first to slow the rate of climate change. The second thing is that we need to start adapting to the climate changes we can't avoid. And the best way to say it is that we need to avoid the unmanageable and manage the unavoidable.

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) is an independent body established under the Climate Change Act to advise the UK Government on setting carbon budgets, and to report to Parliament on the progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Half the world's population could face a shortage of clean water by 2080 because of climate change, experts warned Tuesday. Wong Poh Poh, a professor at the National University of Singapore, told a regional conference that global warming was disrupting water flow patterns and increasing the severity of floods, droughts and storms - all of which reduce the availability of drinking water. Wong said the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that as many as 2 billion people won't have sufficient access to clean water by 2050. That figure is expected to rise to 3.2 billion by 2080 - nearly tripling the number who now do without it.

It's true, Mother Nature doesn't tell us with one simple number how she's feeling. But if you follow climate science, what has been striking is how insistently some of the world's best scientists have been warning - in just the past few months - that climate change is happening faster and will bring bigger changes quicker than we anticipated just a few years ago. Indeed, if Mother Nature had a Dow, you could say that it, too, has been breaking into new (scientific) lows.

"We know from scientific evidence that climate change is a reality and that climate change will have damaging effects on the economy all over the world," said Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, one of the politicians attending the scientific conference. "Therefore we need an agreement and we need an agreement this year."

The wildfires blazing through North Myrtle Beach, S.C., today are hardly an anomaly in a warming world. According to a landmark report that will be published tomorrow in Science, fires are not just a result of a changing climate, they're also contributing to the overall warming trend much more than imagined, the authors report. As vegetation burns, it releases stored-up carbon into the atmosphere, speeding global warming and thereby exacerbating conditions that may generate a greater incidence of wildfires in the coming years.

The effort responds to and builds upon the leadership of Pope Benedict XVI, the U.S. Catholic Bishops, and many Catholic religious communities who believe that our response to climate change must be guided by the exercise of prudence, the pursuit of the common good and a priority for the poor. Pope Benedict most recently referenced "troubling climate change" in his Easter message to the world and has insisted that, "Before it is too late, it is necessary to make courageous decisions that can recreate a strong alliance between humankind and the earth. A decisive 'yes' is needed to protect creation and also a strong commitment to invert those trends which risk leading to irreversibly degrading situations."

In Alaska, climate change is creating an unforeseen humanitarian crisis. Arctic sea ice - which had protected communities from coastal erosion and flooding - is rapidly disappearing and signalling a radical transformation of this northern ecosystem. Scientific observations during the summer of 2007 documented a new record low. In 2006, the US government completed a $2.5m (£1.7m) seawall to protect the native village of Kivalina, located on an island in the Chukchi Sea. But on the day of the dedication ceremony, a storm surge partly destroyed the newly constructed sea barrier. One year later, the community was evacuated to protect inhabitants from a severe storm.

Climate Change - ADB Programs: Strengthening Mitigation and Adaptation in Asia and the Pacific

"Climate change is the greatest challenge facing this and future generations," he said at a press conference in New York. "Emissions are rising and the clock is ticking."

"Imagine these scenarios: The rice bowl of Vietnam cracking. Popular diving spots in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia lying idle with no tourists. Nearly half of Bangkok inundated with water. Well, they could become a reality in 20 to 30 years-no thanks to the adverse effects of climate change in Southeast Asia exacerbated by forest fires particularly in Indonesia which recently blanketed the region with deadly smoky haze. Scientists warn in a new World Bank report of major impacts on the region if the temperature rises by up to 2 degrees Celsius-warming which they say may be reached in two to three decades-fueled by the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. The warming climate will push up the sea level in the region and cause an increase in heat extremes, a higher intensity of tropical cyclones, and ocean acidification stemming from excess carbon dioxide in the air, according to the latest edition of the bank's "Turn Down the Heat" report."

The Climate Change Collection is a suite of science education web-based resources covering natural climate dynamics as well as human impacts on the climate system.

# Ning, a social networking system which lets you create a community * An example: The Falmouth Kids Global Climate Change Institute is a unique opportunity for teachers and students to communicate and collaborate with a global audience as they study the causes and effects of global climate change. This project was designed to inspire teachers to empower students to use Web 2.0 tools in contextual learning environments

Without decisive action, global warming in the 21st century is likely to accelerate at a much faster pace and cause more environmental damage than predicted, according to a leading member of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

This report recommends ways to overcome obstacles to cooperation between the United States and China on climate change. The report is intended for senior leadership in each country....