The pictures are taken by some of the world's best photographers and all the places are based on reports from UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Simply by drawing attention to the beauty of these places, 100 Places to Remember Before they Disappear creates an argument to preserve them.

The 100 Places we have chosen to highlight, and the people who live in them, are in serious danger because of rising sea levels, rising temperatures and extreme weather events triggered by climate change.

One of them is Ross Ice Shelf · Antarctica

Hush, be quiet! The mystic Barrier!

The Ross Ice Shelf in the Antarctic is Earths largest ice shelf and forms part of its biggest ice mass. It contains a massive 70% of the fresh water on the planet. Named after James Clark Ross, the British naval officer and explorer who first set eyes on it in 1841, it is associated with dangerous adventures, heroic discoveries - and an uncertain future.

In 1911, when it was still known as the Ice Barrier, the explorers Robert F Scott and Roald Amundsen set off on their legendary race to the South Pole from opposite edges of the shelf. In his book South Pole, Amundsen records his immediate feelings on arriving at its huge face for the first time: Hush, be quiet! The mystic Barrier!

The Ross Ice Shelf is linked to the Antarctica but most of it floats on the sea. At 487,000 square kilometres it is almost as big as France. The sea-facing side is almost 600 km long, its vertical face rising to heights of 15-50 metres. Only 10% of the shelf is above water and visible; at its thickest, it plunges several hundred metres below the water line.

In the last 50 years, the average temperature on the west coast of the Antarctic has risen by almost 3ºC, ten times the average increase for the planet as a whole.

The temperature in and above the sea around the Antarctic is projected to rise again over the next 100 years. This could lead to the Ross Ice Shelf collapsing and breaking away from the continent, which would raise sea levels quite dramatically all over the world and cause further melting of the ice on the Antarctic continent.

Boost for Copenhagen as Obama sets target for

emissions cut

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor of TheIndependent

Thursday, 26 November 2009

Prospects for a global climate deal at the UN Conference in Copenhagen next month strengthened yesterday when the United States put a number on the table and announced a target for cutting US greenhouse gas emissions.

The White House statement, that President Barack Obama was prepared to offer a US emissions reduction target "in the range of 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020", means a multilateral treaty to fight global warming is now a possibility.

The US – the world's biggest carbon emitter until it was overtaken by China – was the last developed country without a formal climate target, and it had become clear in recent weeks that without a "US number" for the negotiations, the developing countries, led by China and India, would refuse to pledge specific action of their own to cut back on their soaring CO2 emissions – and thus the conference would fail.

The ball is now back in the developing countries' court, with attention shifting to China, which may make a statement about its climate ambitions later in the week. The White House announcement specified that the US target would be pledged "in the context of an overall deal in Copenhagen that includes robust mitigation contributions [to reduce greenhouse gases] from China and the other emerging economies."

The White House further raised hopes for a successful climate deal by announcing that Mr Obama would attend the summit in person. However, there was disappointment, and some puzzlement, that his visit will be in the first week, on 9 December – the day before he collects his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo – and not on the final two days of the summit on December 17 and 18, when most world leaders are expected to be present, and the crucial talks to seal the deal will take place.

The announcement of the US target, however, matters more than the date of the president's visit. It is qualified in various ways and will be widely regarded as far from satisfactory in its detail, but the important point is that it has been publicly set – something which represented a considerable political risk for Mr Obama.

His administration has been hamstrung in its climate policy by the necessity of securing congressional agreement for any pledges. The White House is only too conscious that the Senate declined to ratify the current international treaty, the 1997 Kyoto protocol, although the US had officially signed it, and so it has been waiting for climate legislation, which includes emissions-target proposals, to pass through Congress.

A climate bill has passed through the House of Representatives, but the equivalent bill in the Senate has become bogged down because of the passage of the President's healthcare reforms, and has no chance of passing before the Copenhagen conference ends.

For Mr Obama to announce a target in advance, therefore, risked a clash with the Senate, and the possibility that it might ultimately refuse to sanction his proposals. That he has done so undoubtedly means that congressional assurances have been received that this will not be the case. The White House statement is careful to specify that the target will be "ultimately in line with final US energy and climate legislation."

The US target itself, which is the same as the target contained in the House of Representatives bill proposed by Congressmen Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, promises less than it may seem, as it proposes its cut "in the range of 17 per cent" from a baseline year of 2005, whereas the EU and most developed countries are using a much tougher baseline year of 1990. The 17 per cent on 2005 equates to about a 3 per cent cut when compared to 1990 levels.

For comparison, the EU has promised to cut C02 to 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, which will climb to 30 per cent if there is a successful deal next month. Britain's own pledge is to cut emissions by 34 per cent by 2020. Japan has pledged a 25 per cent cut by the same date and Norway, a cut of 40 per cent.

But the fact that America has an official climate target at all, for the first time since President George W Bush withdrew the US from Kyoto in March 2001, is an enormous step forward in the search to construct a new global-warming treaty. It is not a sufficient condition for success – but it is a necessary one.

17% is the size of the proposed US cut in CO2 emissions.

Green Thinker Network's Coverage on GreenBuild 2009 

PHOENIX (AZ) - It has been tiring but awarding couple of days and we would like to share our experiences with you here. You can review the pictures we took while there and have an idea how we represented GTN members in our booth. As colorful as it is with all our network members' diplay pages adorned company logos and pictures, our booth was one of which attracted the most attention.

First night, Al Gore welcomed everybody there with a speech that was more of a chat with the green building faithful than a speech.

"We still have a climate crisis, an economic crisis and a national security crisis ... they are united by the thread of dependence on carbon-based fuel, you pull that thread and the crises unravel," Gore said.

He also emphasized the role that individuals can play in driving that shift by pressing lawmakers to adopt the climate change legislation that's now in the U.S. Senate, and by signaling that the country "must do the right thing" in the international climate talks next month in Copenhagen.

"Ladies and gentlemen we have everything we need to solve these crises," Gore said. "We have all the tools, we also have a lot of people who are willing to be a part of the change by speaking out.

"We have everything we need -- with the possible exception of political will. But I believe in my heart that we're going to solve this, because in the United States of America political will is a renewable resource."

USGBC President, CEO and Founding Chair Rick Fedrizzi (pictured left) set the stage for Gore by welcoming Greenbuild participants, now estimated at 28,000, and calling upon them to view their work as part of the effort to mainstream green -- a reflection of this year's conference theme, "Main St Green" -- in the U.S. and beyond.

"Welcome to all 28,000 of you who didn't get the memo that we're in the worst economic recession of all since the 1930s," Fedrizzi said. "Good for you, you're not buying into it.

"Last year in Boston, we rallied around the idea that we were in the midst of a full-blown green revolution. The green revolution, by virtue of what we do, affects everyone everywhere. Our movement has reached not just the tipping point but the leverage point."

To underscore the global effort, almost a dozen leaders of the growing World Green Building Council's member nations took the stage in succession to salute efforts in this country and abroad. They included the heads of green building councils in Australia, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, New Zealand, Germany, Italy, India, Mexico, Taiwan and Brazil.

Jellyfish swarm northward in warming world

By MICHAEL CASEY, AP Environmental Writer Michael Casey, Ap Environmental Writer 

Mon Nov 16, 11:58 am ET - KOKONOGI, Japan

A blood-orange blob the size of a small refrigerator emerged from the dark waters, its venomous tentacles trapped in a fishing net. Within minutes, hundreds more were being hauled up, a pulsating mass crowding out the catch of mackerel and sea bass.

The fishermen leaned into the nets, grunting and grumbling as they tossed the translucent jellyfish back into the bay, giants weighing up to 200 kilograms (450 pounds), marine invaders that are putting the men's livelihoods at risk.

The venom of the Nomura, the world's largest jellyfish, a creature up to 2 meters (6 feet) in diameter, can ruin a whole day's catch by tainting or killing fish stung when ensnared with them in the maze of nets here in northwest Japan's Wakasa Bay.

"Some fishermen have just stopped fishing," said Taiichiro Hamano, 67. "When you pull in the nets and see jellyfish, you get depressed."

This year's jellyfish swarm is one of the worst he has seen, Hamano said. Once considered a rarity occurring every 40 years, they are now an almost annual occurrence along several thousand kilometers (miles) of Japanese coast, and far beyond Japan.

Scientists believe climate change - the warming of oceans - has allowed some of the almost 2,000 jellyfish species to expand their ranges, appear earlier in the year and increase overall numbers, much as warming has helped ticks, bark beetles and other pests to spread to new latitudes.

The gelatinous seaborne creatures are blamed for decimating fishing industries in the Bering and Black seas, forcing the shutdown of seaside power and desalination plants in Japan, the Middle East and Africa, and terrorizing beachgoers worldwide, the U.S. National Science Foundation says.

A 2008 foundation study cited research estimating that people are stung 500,000 times every year - sometimes multiple times - in Chesapeake Bay on the U.S. East Coast, and 20 to 40 die each year in the Philippines from jellyfish stings.

In 2007, a salmon farm in Northern Ireland lost its more than 100,000 fish to an attack by the mauve stinger, a jellyfish normally known for stinging bathers in warm Mediterranean waters. Scientists cite its migration to colder Irish seas as evidence of global warming.

Increasingly polluted waters - off China, for example - boost growth of the microscopic plankton that "jellies" feed upon, while overfishing has eliminated many of the jellyfish's predators and cut down on competitors for plankton feed.

"These increases in jellyfish should be a warning sign that our oceans are stressed and unhealthy," said Lucas Brotz, a University of British Columbia researcher.

Here on the rocky Echizen coast, amid floodlights and the roar of generators, fishermen at Kokonogi's bustling port made quick work of the day's catch - packaging glistening fish and squid in Styrofoam boxes for shipment to market.

In rain jackets and hip waders, they crowded around a visitor to tell how the jellyfish have upended a way of life in which men worked fishing trawlers on the high seas in their younger days and later eased toward retirement by joining one of the cooperatives operating nets set in the bay.

It was a good living, they said, until the jellyfish began inundating the bay in 2002, sometimes numbering 500 million, reducing fish catches by 30 percent and slashing prices by half over concerns about quality.

Two nets in Echizen burst last month during a typhoon because of the sheer weight of the jellyfish, and off the east coast jelly-filled nets capsized a 10-ton trawler as its crew tried to pull them up. The three fishermen were rescued.

"We have been getting rid of jellyfish. But no matter how hard we try, the jellyfish keep coming and coming," said Fumio Oma, whose crew is out of work after their net broke under the weight of thousands of jellyfish. "We need the government's help to get rid of the jellyfish."

The invasions cost the industry up to 30 billion yen ($332 million) a year, and tens of thousands of fishermen have sought government compensation, said scientist Shin-ichi Uye, Japan's leading expert on the problem.

Hearing fishermen's pleas, Uye, who had been studying zooplankton, became obsessed with the little-studied Nomura's jellyfish, scientifically known as Nemopilema nomurai, which at its biggest looks like a giant mushroom trailing dozens of noodle-like tentacles.

"No one knew their life cycle, where they came from, where they reproduced," said Uye, 59. "This jellyfish was like an alien."

He artificially bred Nomura's jellyfish in his Hiroshima University lab, learning about their life cycle, growth rates and feeding habits. He traveled by ferry between China to Japan this year to confirm they were riding currents to Japanese waters.

He concluded China's coastal waters offered a perfect breeding ground: Agricultural and sewage runoff are spurring plankton growth, and fish catches are declining. The waters of the Yellow Sea, meanwhile, have warmed as much as 1.7 degrees C (3 degrees F) over the past quarter-century.

"The jellyfish are becoming more and more dominant," said Uye, as he sliced off samples of dead jellyfish on the deck of an Echizen fishing boat. "Their growth rates are quite amazing."

The slight, bespectacled scientist is unafraid of controversy, having lobbied his government tirelessly to help the fishermen, and angered Chinese colleagues by arguing their government must help solve the problem, comparing it to the effects of acid rain that reaches Japan from China.

"The Chinese people say they will think about this after they get rich, but it might be too late by then," he said.

A U.S. marine scientist, Jennifer Purcell of Western Washington University, has found a correlation between warming and jellyfish on a much larger scale, in at least 11 locations, including the Mediterranean and North seas, and Chesapeake and Narragansett bays.

"It's hard to deny that there is an effect from warming," Purcell said. "There keeps coming up again and again examples of jellyfish populations being high when it's warmer." Some tropical species, on the other hand, appear to decline when water temperatures rise too high.

Even if populations explode, their numbers may be limited in the long term by other factors, including food and currents. In a paper last year, researchers concluded jellyfish numbers in the Bering Sea - which by 2000 were 40 times higher than in 1982 - declined even as temperatures have hit record highs.

"They were still well ahead of their historic averages for that region," said co-author Lorenzo Ciannelli of Oregon State University. "But clearly jellyfish populations are not merely a function of water temperature."

Addressing the surge in jellyfish blooms in most places will require long-term fixes, such as introducing fishing quotas and pollution controls, as well as capping greenhouse gas emissions to control global warming, experts said.

In the short term, governments are left with few options other than warning bathers or bailing out cash-strapped fishermen. In Japan, the government is helping finance the purchase of newly designed nets, a layered system that snares jellyfish with one kind of net, allowing fish through to be caught in another.

Some entrepreneurs, meanwhile, are trying to cash in. One Japanese company is selling giant jellyfish ice cream, and another plans a pickled plum dip with chunks of giant jellyfish. But, though a popular delicacy, jellyfish isn't likely to replace sushi or other fish dishes on Asian menus anytime soon, in view of its time-consuming processing, heavy sodium overload and unappealing image.

Over 100 icebergs drifting to N.Zealand

Mon. Nov 23, 2:09 am ET

SYDNEY (AFP) - More than 100, and possibly hundreds, of Antarctic icebergs are floating towards New Zealand in a rare event which has prompted a shipping warning, officials said on Monday.

An Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist said the ice chunks, spotted by satellite photography, had passed the Auckland Islands and were heading towards the main South Island, about 450 kilometres (280 miles) northeast.

Scientist Neal Young said more than 100 icebergs -- some measuring more than 200 metres (650 feet) across -- were seen in just one cluster, indicating there could be hundreds more.

He said they were the remains of a massive ice floe which split from the Antarctic as sea and air temperatures rise due to global warming.

"All of these have come from a larger one that was probably 30 square kilometres (11.6 square miles) in size when it left Antarctica," Young told AFP.

"It's done a long circuit around Antarctica and now the bigger parts of it are breaking up and producing smaller ones."

He said large numbers of icebergs had not floated this close to New Zealand since 2006, when a number came within 25 kilometres of the coastline -- the first such sighting since 1931.

"They're following the same tracks now up towards New Zealand. Whether they make it up to the South Island or not is difficult to tell," Young said.

New Zealand has already issued coastal navigation warnings for the area in the Southern Ocean where the icebergs have been seen.

"It's really just a general warning for shipping in that area to be on the alert for icebergs," said Maritime New Zealand spokesman Ross Henderson.

The icebergs are smaller remnants of the giant chunks seen off Australia's Macquarie Island this month, including one estimated at two kilometres (1.2 miles) and another twice the size of Beijing's "Bird's Nest" Olympic Stadium.

Young earlier told AFP he expected to see more icebergs in the area if the Earth's temperature continues to increase.

"If the current trends in global warming were to continue I would anticipate seeing more icebergs and the large ice shelves breaking up," he said.

When icebergs last neared New Zealand in 2006, a sheep was helicoptered out to be shorn on one of the floes in a publicity stunt by the country's wool industry.