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Climate change has recently become an increasingly significant issue among both the people of Maldives and the international community concerned with the fact that the Maldives will be one of the first nations severely affected by the phenomenon. These concerns led to change of climate being addressed recently in a meeting held between the leader of Maldives, President Mohamed Nasheed, and the Indian Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on Climate Change, Mr. Shyam Saran.

How is the change of climate affecting the Maldives
The Maldives, an island country made up of atolls comprising a total of 1,192 islands, is known for being the lowest country in the world, where the highest land is only 2.3 m (71/2 ft) above sea level, and the national average is just 1.5 m above sea level. Over the last century, global sea levels have risen about 20 centimetres (8 in) because of climate change and further rises of the ocean are predicted, which could seriously threaten the existence of Maldives.

In November 2008, President Mohamed Nasheed expressed his concerns about global warming and the possibility of many of the islands being inundated with water from rising sea levels.

India also affected by climate change
Noting not only that the fate of both the Maldives and India are linked to change of climate, but also that any drastic change threatens the survival of millions of people living in the coastal areas of said countries, both President Nasheed and Special Envoy Mr. Shyam Saran agreed that both Maldives and India could work together in combating climate change.

Change of Climate Policies
Presenting several of the Indian government’s policies on environment and climate change, the President was encouraged by their efforts and further stressed the importance of cooperation and support between both countries in working against the threats of climate change.

President Nasheed also praised the Indian government’s policies to support new technological advancements in the field of renewable energy, believing that India and Indian companies could be a leader in the field of renewable energy and environment-friendly technologies.

Adaptation was also a topic dwelled upon by the President and the Special envoy, and they discussed that the aim adaptation should be to find ways of achieving better standards of living through sustainable development. Praising the Maldives and its policies on adaptation, both parties found that both countries possessed similar policies on the subject. As a final note, Special Envoy Saran added that India was prepared to share its new environmentally-friendly and renewable energy technologies with the Maldives.

The meeting was indeed a fruitful one, and it concluded with discussions of how to further strengthen the relations between the Maldives and India, and agreeing on a policy of helping each other in the fight against climate change.

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The April 15th, 2007 Washington Post article called, “Military Sees Security Threat” by Juliet Eilperin adds fuel to my previous commentary on “Climate Change: Security or Aid.” It is amazing that only a few short months ago no one in the Bush Administration was taking climate change very seriously and now The U.S. military is calling it a potential national security threat.

A report released on April 16th by 11 retired generals says that “global warming presents a significant national security challenges to the United States.” According to the Post, the report says that global warming could destabilize “vulnerable states in Africa and Asia and drive a flood of migrants to richer countries.” The Post confirmed that “the military has begun studying possible future impacts of global warming with new intensity.”

The report notes that poorer states will find it increasingly difficult to meet their basic needs.

Of specific note was the fact that 40% of the world population gets at least 50% of drinking water from glaciers which are now rapidly drying up. The inability of governments to protect and provide for its citizens will make such places as “ripe for turmoil, extremism and terrorism.” Vice Admiral Richard Truly was quoted as saying, “It’s going to happen to every country and every person in the whole world at the same time.”

What is interesting is that only a few short months ago the Bush Administration was still denying that climate change was even a reality. And yet, there are reports coming from the military that have been under way for a while that are warning that climate change could impact national security. There is little doubt that other developed nations are also reaching their own conclusions regarding the destabilizing effects of global warning.

This again raises the specter of military control in dealing with social issues. When terrorism erupted we saw our rights dwindle under the Patriot Act. And, while I supported some of its provisions, its implementation has left much to be desired. We are all familiar with the concerns over the privacy of our mail, phone calls and emails and the abuse by the FBI and CIA. To deal with the migration issue we used the umbrella of terrorism once again and now we have the start of our own Berlin Wall. If climate change is considered in light of terrorism, will the military will once again be in the forefront of shaping our policies? What rights and privileges will we use to combat rising sea levels, droughts and food shortages?

Can we avoid this growth in military dominance by taking a more active and urgent role is helping other countries cope with global warming? Wouldn’t it make sense to start now and work with the at risk countries to help them plan for possible disaster? We are walking a very thin line in allowing the military to place all social issues in the context of terrorism. While there is certainly a place for the military with regards to dealing with “real” terrorists threats, I am not sure that the best way to deal with our climate crisis is the militarization of the problem. How many more rights are we willing to sacrifice under the guise of security? If we do not take a more humanitarian position on these issues what will happen to our values as a nation? We need to think hard and fast here because Mother Nature has run out of patience.

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Our success at understanding cause and effect has been outstanding in every aspect of science and engineering. Today we can build higher and bigger structures than ever before; we can travel further and faster than pretty much any time in our history, we understand more about our bodies and health than we have ever done allowing us to conquer disease and extend life spans for many. But, along with all that success, there has been a discovery that throws the whole world into uncertainty, that of global warming and the resultant climate change.

It comes as a surprise to many that the knowledge of global warming is not new.

As long ago as 1824 a scientist called Joseph Fourier discovered that the Earth’s atmosphere kept the planet warmer than would otherwise have been expected and this became know as the “greenhouse effect” The knowledge that that carbon dioxide or CO2 in shorthand, is an active gas that allows the visible (sunlight) radiation from the sun into the climate system but slows that same energy down on its way out as heat (infrared) radiation came more than 100 ago and was described in 1859 by a scientist called John Tyndall. Another called Svante Arrhenius made the first calculations of the impact of adding more CO2 from human activities (principally through the use of fossil fuels) to raise the average temperature of the earth’s surface before the end of the 19th century. Pretty much since then, scientists have been improving our knowledge and watching closely for generations now.

In recent years, scientists have recorded many activities that demonstrate that global warming is a real and continuing phenomenon such as:

Global temperature rise

Although accurate instruments measuring temperature in a wide number of areas is fairly recent, scientists have other ways to calculate past temperatures from other observations such as tree ring growth. There are three major methods for approximating global surface temperature and all three show that Earth has warmed since 1880. Most of this warming has occurred since the 1970s, with the 20 warmest years having occurred since 1981 and with all 10 of the warmest years occurring in the past 12 years.

Warming oceans

With higher surface temperatures has come warmer oceans. In the top 700 meters of the oceans a small but measurable increase in temperature has been recorded.

Melting Ice

Whether it is the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the extent of Arctic ice cover or the size of glaciers, all of the world’s stocks of ice are melting. This and the fact that the oceans are warmer has also led to sea level increases.

Extreme Weather Events

Across the globe the number of extreme record high temperatures has been increasing and the number of record low levels has been decreasing. The frequency and intensity of storms and flooding is also increasing.

The big question facing global society is what to do about global warming and the resultant climate change. On one side, funded primarily by fossil fuel companies, is a lobby that says “don’t do anything”. Their argument is that science is “uncertain” about what the effects will be of further global warming and that the cost of switching from fossil sourced energy to clean energy would be unaffordable. Better, they say, to wait and see how we can adapt to whatever changes come along. The implication is that science doesn’t know what or when the impacts will be so don’t worry until there is clearly something that needs to be reacted to.

“Uncertain” has a special meaning when used in science and scientists seldom claim to be “certain” of anything: after all according to the most advanced thinking in physics there will be occasions when somebody could walk through a wall. What matters most is the likelihood of something happening and for that science talks about “confidence levels”. This is actually a term from the field of statistics and means the likelihood that something you’ve seen happen being caused by the thing you expect to have caused it rather than it just being a “chance” observation. Let me give you an example using coins. Pretty much everybody is comfortable with the thought that if you flip a coin, it can land as a head or a tail so the chance of a head or a tail coming up is 50/50. If you toss again, the chances are still 50/50 because each throw is independent of the last: there is no “law of averages” that says if you have just tossed 4 or 5 head in a row, the next toss must be tail: each toss has just as much chance of being either a head or tail as the last one. However it is quite unusual to toss many heads or tails in a row and how unusual it is can be calculated by probability.

Let’s say we want to know how likely it is to get ten heads in a row. Each time you toss a coin it has two possible outcomes, head or tail so if you toss a coin twice you have four possible outcomes Heads then Heads, Head then Tails, Tails then Heads, Tails then Tails. Each additional toss adds two possible outcomes to each of the possible past outcomes so three tosses gives 8 possibilities, four 16 and so on. Ten tosses gives 1024 possible outcomes of which, only 1 is ten heads in a row. In scientific terms, if you sat down and tossed a coin 1024 times they would be “confident” that at some point during that session you would get ten heads in a row.

In the case of global warming and the resultant climate change, scientist are “confident” that the future is bleak in that crop yields will be affected, more people will get sick from excessive heat and that people, buildings and bridges will be disrupted by flooding. Where the “uncertainty” sits is whether the worst effects will be being felt by 2030 or 2050: either way it is not far away.

Throughout the quest to be able to foretell the future, one thing has become apparent: what will happen in the future will largely be determined by what we do today. It is still possible to change the course of the future by the simple act of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide we put into the atmosphere. You can help bring that about by your own actions through reduced energy use by better insulating your home, using shared or naturally powered transport and reducing the amount of red meat in your diet. But individual action is not enough. You also need to tell your political representatives and the businesses that you deal with that you think this is a big issue and you want action taken on it.

We can never be certain of the future but we do understand cause and effect: it is time to cause change for the better. It is time to implement the solutions to climate change.

A trip to the beach during the summer requires the use of proper suntan lotion to prevent a very bad sunburn. In fact, a hot summer day makes us often retreat from the sun into the cover of nearby shade. However, a cold winter day will often make us long for the warmth of the sun’s direct rays.

When we plan each day, it is around the sun. The sun determines our scheduled activities in the daylight and during the dark of each night. The changing seasons are a function of the number of hours of sunlight. So, if the sun is such a factor in our lives each day, why do we not even consider the sun as a catalyst for future global climate change?

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been looking in the wrong place for the cause of global climate change. It’s global climate change projections do not include the influence of the sun. As a result, it’s computer-generated model, which predicts a one-degree Fahrenheit increase in global temperature in each decade of this century due to human-emitted carbon dioxide gas, is in need of drastic repair.

The truth is that it is becoming clearer with each passing day that global climate change is a function of the sun and not a function of an increase in man-made CO2 emissions. The fact is that global temperatures have not increased in the last ten years, since 1998, even with a significant global increase in CO2. Also, consider that the first half of this year (2008) was actually the coolest of the last five years, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

So, the current trend of global temperature is becoming colder, not warmer, despite the continued increase in CO2. Of course, the reality for the United Nations is that, in all probability, the extent of their error is about to soon get much worse. Since they are looking at the wrong catalyst of global climate change, they really have no idea what is about to happen next. To more adequately predict global temperature in the next few decades, the IPCC should be looking at the activity of the sun.

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Indeed, studying the sun is exactly what astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon, a researcher at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been doing for years. Dr. Soon has identified a clear link between the sun’s activity as indicated by it’s magnetic activity and temperature variations in the Arctic and Greenland over a period of time of about 130 years.

Dr. Soon chose this area for study since it has good temperature records and is an area sensitive to climate change, so that the signal from any one climatic influence should be easier to spot. He also says he can point to a physical mechanism in the circulation of the ocean linking the sun’s influence on temperature in the region.

Dr. Soon discussed the conclusions of his research work recently as follows: “Global temperature change can be attributed to slight variations in the sun’s energy output, not man-made carbon dioxide emissions.”

He continues, “When the sun is slightly brighter, meaning giving more light to Earth’s system, the temperature warms in the Arctic. With the cooling that we observed in the Arctic from the 1940s to the 1970s, guess what the sun is doing? It’s actually dimming slightly, ever so slightly. And then, guess what happened after the late 1970s? The sun brightens again.”

Meanwhile, a new research paper from the Astronomical Society of Australia also identifies the sun as the catalyst for global climate change. The paper contends that the level of activity on the Sun will significantly diminish sometime in the next decade and remain low for about 20 to 30 years. On each occasion that the Sun has done this in the past the World’s mean temperature has dropped by 1 – 2 degrees C.

Of course, all this recent research just confirms earlier findings about the sun’s role in global climate change. Consider that the sun’s influence in the long term cooling and warming of the planet was discovered by the Danish Meteorological Institute in 1991. The Institute released a study using data that went back centuries which showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles.

Then, several years later, a Hoover Institution Study examined the same historical data and came to a similar conclusion. “The effects of solar activity and volcanoes are impossible to miss. Temperatures fluctuated exactly as expected, and the pattern was so clear that, statistically, the odds of the correlation existing by chance were one in 100,” according to Hoover fellow Bruce Berkowitz.

As world politicians and the United Nations continue a misguided global warming focus on man-made CO2 emissions, evidence of the sun ‘s role in global climate change continues to grow.

So, it should not be surprising that to predict global climate change in the decades ahead we should look to the sun, just like we do in preparation for each calendar day.

Climate Change is the abnormal change in the weather conditions which causes serious effects in human lives. It can be a change in the distribution of weather events around the world. That is over heat or over rain which is not normal. The Climate Change is largely related to the Global Warming. Global warming gets highly increased because of the serious climate changes.

The climate in the world has been changing day by day mainly due to human activities like fossil fuel burning, usage of heavy plastics, industrial wastes, e-wastes, change in the land usage and pesticides used with agricultural lands. While burning the fossil fuels for electricity and other industrial processing, excessive amount of carbon-dioxide (CO2). The liberated CO2 covers the planet as a blanket which absorbs large amount of heat and keeps the planet warm.

The second major reason is the usage of plastics and the e-wastes. Wide usage of plastics can change the conditions of the soil, which in turn leads to lot of changes in the climate. E-wastes like electrical and electronic waste products will also leads to serious climate change effects.

Physical &Social Impacts of Climate Change:

Due to climate change lot of ill effects can be caused to the human lives. The average land and sea temperature can be increases to a large extent. There is an increase in floods, droughts, wildfires, earth quakes and various other measures. As a result of global warming the glaciers gets melting which will leads to severe flooding. The ice and the snow in the north and the south poles is melting and breaking continuously.

Agriculture is highly affected by the droughts which leads to scarcity of food supply. People loss their life and property by hurricanes and floods. New diseases arriving day by day and largely spoil the human life.

The natural warming process of the earth is called as Greenhouse Effect. The heat energy reaches the earth from the sun, some of the heat energy is absorbed by the earth and the remaining reflected back to the space. This is the normal process. But by the global warming the greenhouse gases forms a blanket around the earth which does not allow the heat to the space. This excess heat makes the earth to get warm to a great extent. Some of the greenhouse gases are:

1. Carbon-dioxide (CO2)

2. Methane (CH4)

3. Nitrous Oxide (N2O)

The emissions which is generated during the combustion or decomposition of bio-materials is called as Bio-genital greenhouse gas emissions. This emission also include the sources like:

1. Utilizing forest and agricultural products for energy

2. Waste water treatment

3. Livestock management

4. Fermentation process for producing ethanol.

The carbon-dioxide is emitted to the earth by normal human processes. This cannot be avoidable but it should be controlled in a regular manner. But the flourinated gases like methane and ethanol are emitted only by the human activities like industrialization, deforestation and pollution. So it is the duty to every citizen to be aware of these effects and try to avoid such emissions.

When it comes to climate change, there are many sceptics. Lots of people don’t believe in climate change because it used to be called “global warming”, but now recent research has shown that climate change isn’t just about the world warming up. In fact, many places are finding that the climate is actually cooling down, which makes summers cooler, wetter and shorter. Whether you live in a place that is experiencing warming or cooling, for many people, there is no denying that the climate is changing.

Lots of people have questions, and wonder if anything can be done to help offset some of the effects that the world is experiencing. Others will say that nothing can be done to stop what’s already happening. Whether you believe in climate change or not, you should know that many experts agree that climate change encompasses many different factors globally.

For instance, droughts that are long lasting are part of climate change. Flooding and extreme rains are considered to be part of climate change. Lower than normal winter temperatures or higher than normal temperatures are considered to be climate change. Large amounts of snow, tornadoes, and hurricanes or typhoons are said to be part of climate change. In other words anything that seems “out of the ordinary” for the weather patterns in your area probably are abnormal.

Doubters will say that the global weather patterns are cyclical and that the Earth is just coming out of another weather stage, such as a mini-ice age. In other words, global weather cycles are long lasting and it can take hundreds of years to experience the full effects. They will tell you that people are putting themselves in the path of weather more and more and thinking they can defy it. They are learning otherwise. Doubters will also mention how the use of the internet is giving people more knowledge than ever and we are finding out more and more about events around the world that we wouldn’t have known about before.

However, believers are worried and you might want to take another look at the full scope of climate change. Believers will tell you that no matter what the environment is trying to tell us something and we need to listen. Recycling and reducing are just a couple of steps. Believers will tell us that we need to be aware of what we are doing to our water supply, what we put into the air and how much we use and discard in order for a cleaner Earth overall.

Now-a-days we hear about Climate Change more often than before. Climate change is a global phenomenon and the term “Climate Change” is indeed a straightforward expression for such a complex subject. In fact, it has more than we can comprehend from this phrase and that is why it is quite essential to go at defining climate change in today’s scenario.

In the present glossary of researchers and scientists, climate modification as a term is no longer in use and effect. The reason behind this is that we have come to realize the effect of the changes we make to our environment will eventually increase the temperature in many parts of the world, but at the same time will also be decrease in temperature for few parts of the planet. This however, creates a general imbalance in the climate of the world which in turn leads us to the phrase, “Climate Change.”

While wondering the effects of this phenomenon, the things you know of as climate modification is actually referred to as global a global phenomenon of climate change. However, with all the details and statistics we have in hand at present, we can definitely conclude that the world is unquestionably warming with the temperatures rising like never before.

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This is a global problem with many natural disasters started taking shape; the general awareness of this factor is really low. For the better understanding of the issues associated with this phenomenon, we require a simple definition in relation to the warming of the planet. And this definition needs to be the one that brings us the essence of this problem without compromising the simplicities.

However, the easiest and most precise definition is that it is the effect greenhouse gases have on the earth’s overall climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide and methane, but are not limited to these two.

While learning more about this issue, we need to understand few important facts associated with it. The first fact is that it is both a natural phenomena and one catalyzed by us. For instance, greenhouse gases are a natural part of the biosphere and would exist if man did not. In fact, these gases are a vital component to the existence of life on this planet.

It is due to the existence of the greenhouse gases, the temperature on planet earth does not average zero degrees! These naturally occurring gases help to keep the temperature at a desirable 59 degrees. But, the climate change, which is due to the greenhouse gases, is not indeed natural. In fact, the problem we are facing is the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

These gases act as thermal blankets for the atmosphere. The more gas in the atmosphere, the thicker the blanket and the less heat escapes from earth. In the last 80years, we have been releasing these gases into our atmosphere and thus helping them to form a blanket.

On the other hand, we are reducing forests around the planet, which are the natural plant collection that absorb greenhouse gases. This double whammy is starting to show negative results, the increased heating of our world, and thus the beginning of the dreaded climate change.

The ecosystem of the Barents Sea is at the border between warm Atlantic and cold Arctic waters, i.e. in the area of interaction of two oceanic systems. Such a geographical location of sea is extensively determined by the climatic peculiarities of the basin, the area of the ice coverage and its boundaries, as well as the presence extended frontal zones. To opinion of some scientists (Knipovich, 1938; Zenkevich, 1963 et al.), just because of the interaction of Arctic and boreal waters the Barents Sea ecosystem has a high level of biological productivity and is rich in commercial bioresources (about 5 % of the whole world yield of the sea and oceanic fishes).

The last decade is in general characterized by the stable increase of the air temperature over the area of the Barents Sea and adjacent seas. The similar processes were observed in the hydrosphere that is proved by the anomaly high water temperatures of the Barents Sea registered in the Kola section in 2000-2006. The global warming up in the system “ocean-atmosphere” caused the decrease of the ice cover area in the sea.

However, the similar climatic situation has been registered before. The previous period of warming up of the Arctic was observed since the end of the XIXth century to the 1960′s and affected the most of areas of the North Atlantic from the shores of Greenland to the Kara Sea. This process entailed the penetration into the Arctic waters of many heat-loving species not observed there before, as well as escapement of the typical inhabitants of the cold seas, changing of qualitative and quantitative composition of complexes, and shift of fishing grounds into the northern and eastern direction (Zenkevich, 1963). Nearby the western coast of the Spitsbergen archipelago the activation of the fishing for cod and haddock was observed; off the Novaya Zemlya shores the herring, mackerel, haddock and saithe species began to appear. The suppositions have arisen on the possible spawning of cod and saithe off the Novaya Zemlya coast. The species observed in the White Sea were haddock, saithe and red-fishes, whereas in the Kara Sea – Atlantic herring and cod (Zenkevich, 1963).

It should be mentioned that the duration of the present warm period is less than the previous one, and the values of the climate index in the early of the XXIst are lower than its extreme values in 1930-1950. Long-term predictions carried out by PINRO do not give the basis to speak on the retention of a tendency to warming up in the nearest future. Nevertheless, even today there is a unique possibility to explore the happening changes in the Barents Sea ecosystem and in the adjacent areas and to prepare the probable scenarios of the climatic changes influence on the fishery.

The present-day changes of climate have already an impact on the biological resources of the Barents Sea and adjacent areas. The most noticeable changes take place in the geographical re-distribution of the fishing objects over the sea and in revealing of new fish species traditionally dwelling in warm Atlantic waters (Rusyaev and Shatsky, 2001; Smirnov et al., 2000; Pedchenko et al., 2006; Dolgov, 2004; Lepesevich, 1999; Anon., 2004). The acclimatization and widening of the red king crab habitat are more active against the background of the climate warming up.

Increase of the warm waters transference into the Barents Sea and decrease of the Barents Sea ice coverage are the reasons of the growth of the total biological productivity (by our estimates, the increase of production of phytoplankton in the Barents Sea in 2006 could constitute about 20 % of the long-term mean). This is a favourable prerequisite for higher survival of young boreal fishes, increase in the future of their stocks and areas and, finally, for a tendency to increase of the fisheries productivity of the Barents Sea.

The process of the sea warming up can have far-reaching implications not only for heat-loving species.lt is known that <em>Sebastes mentella</em> and Greenland halibut larvae adapted themselves to spend a part of life under sever temperature conditions at high latitudes of the Arctic, where the influence of predators is insufficient, and they have an advantage in survival over typically boreal species because of the low elimination (Anon., 2004). Since the middle of the 1990′s the penetration of blue whiting into the Barents Sea has been registered. This fact, as well as shifting to the north of cod spawning grounds, can change the situation and influence both on the recruitment value of many commercial fish species and the abundance of traditional objects of feeding of the other predators: capelin and polar cod. The recent years investigations of PINRO (Titov et al., 2006) show that the frontal zones of the Barents Sea have a great impact on both the distribution and abundance of commercial fishes. The consequence of changing of cycling of climatic processes in the last decade is the fact that at the background of climate warming up the contracts between the Arctic and Atlantic oceanic systems became weaker, and the frontal zones in the Barents Sea became correspondingly fuzzier. This was fixed with the use of calculated parameters based on observations of PINRO expeditions. In connection with that one can assume that the climate warming up could have a certain negative impact on the abundance of such important commercial species as cod and capelin, the habitats of which are densely connected with frontal zones.

Thus, even now it is necessary to switch the task of studying of implications of the climate change from theory to practice. To our opinion one of the first steps in investigations of implications of the global warming up for the fishing bioresources can be a program of studying of fishing bioresources in the Kara Sea. Stable climatic changes can lead to the reconstruction of ecosystems of the Barents, White and Kara Seas, to changes in migration and distribution of fishing objects or to the appearance in the nearest future of independent self-reproductive population. It is relevant also to explore the dependence and interrelation between components of stocks in the Barents and Kara Seas. The absence of these data can lead to stock underestimation of fishing objects in traditional areas of their distribution, where the standard surveys are carried out.

A diabolical problem and a saving grace.Climate change is a diabolical policy problem. It is harder than any other issue of high importance that has come before our polity in living memory. Climate change presents a new kind of challenge. It is uncertain in its form and extent, rather than drawn in clear lines. It is insidious rather than (as yet) directly confrontational. It is long term rather than immediate, in both its impacts and its remedies. Any effective remedies lie beyond any act of national will, requiring international cooperation of unprecedented dimension and complexity. While an effective response to the challenge would play out over many decades, it must take shape and be put in place over the next few years. Without such action, if the mainstream science is broadly right, the Review’s assessment of likely growth in global greenhouse gas emissions in the absence of effective mitigation tells us that the risks of dangerous climate change, already significant, will soon have risen to dangerously high levels.

Observation of daily debate and media discussion in Australia and elsewhere suggests that this issue might be too hard for rational policy making. It is too complex. The special interests are too numerous, powerful and intense. The time frames within which effects become evident are too long, and the time frames within which action must be effected too short.

But there is a saving grace that may make all the difference. This is an issue in which a high proportion of Australians are deeply interested. A high proportion of Australians say that they are prepared to pay for mitigation in higher goods and services prices. Most of them say that they are prepared to pay even if Australia is acting independently of other countries. There is a much stronger base of support for reform and change on this issue than on any other big question of structural change in recent decades, including trade, tax and public business ownership reform. People in other countries, to varying degrees, seem to share Australians’ interest in and preparedness to take action on global warming.

Public attitudes in Australia and in other countries create the possibility of major reform on emissions reductions, despite the inherent difficulty of the policy problem.

This report aims to nurture the chance that Australia and the world will manage to develop a position that strikes a good balance between the costs of dangerous climate change and the costs of mitigation. It does this by examining approaches to mitigation in one country within a framework which, if followed elsewhere, would add up to a solution. The Review recognises that other approaches may also add up to a solution. If others were also to develop proposals that add up to a solution to the problem that would provide the basis for the type of realistic discussion across the international community that will be essential if a basis is to be found for effective global action.

Not surprisingly, the discussion became a bit heated when Varney brought up those recent e-mails that some folks are declaring are the smoking gun of the climate change debate.

You see, last week it was reported that hundreds of e-mails about climate change were hacked from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University. Apparently, those particular e-mails questioned or led to questions regarding global warming.

The jury’s still out on whether or not those e-mails were taken out of context or possibly edited, as well. But either way, it has provided great fodder for those who believe global warming is not real.

Now my question is, if you’re really interested in debating the climate change issue or you want to further investigate those e-mails, why not do it with a scientist instead of a Hollywood celebrity?

Don’t get me wrong. I applaud Begley for all his work on environmental causes and also shining that celebrity light on the benefits of solar, electric cars, and water conservation on his weekly television show Living with Ed. This guy definitely walks the walk! And his efforts should not go unnoticed.

But let’s face it: if I want to research climate change, I’m going to the science community, not Hollywood.

Of course, just to clarify, Fox is not the only news organization to do this. From my local news here in Baltimore to CNN, celebrities put the asses in the seats. And there isn’t a single news source that doesn’t take advantage of that reality.

But I’m not writing this today to attack mainstream media. After all, I’m no Edward R. Murrow. But what I am is an investor who knows that the market is responding to climate change initiatives – regardless of what you, Ed Begley, or Stuart Varney think about it.

Is Global Warming Real?

About once every week or so, I get an e-mail from an investor who wants to know if I think global warming is real. And to be honest, I never really understood that.

My personal opinion on this topic is irrelevant for the purpose of making money. And if you’re looking to investigate whether or not human-induced climate change is real, the last place you should look is the pages of an investment research letter.

However, if your concern is simply the opportunities stemming from climate change – well, these are the pages you can count on.

Because make no mistake about it…

Any kind of climate change legislation, from international treaties to state and local mandates, will only further the integration of renewable energy… and make us even more money going forward.

And don’t think for a second that a handful of conveniently-timed e-mails is going to derail the massive flow of capital heading straight toward new renewable energy projects and smart grid development.

I see this stuff everyday, folks.

I look at all the new deals that are in the pipeline, all the new legislation being drafted, introduced, and debated – on a global scale. I’ve been traveling the globe, checking out new companies and sitting in on multimillion-dollar financing meetings.

The truth is, in all my years analyzing “green” markets, I can honestly say that I’ve never been more excited than I am going into 2010.

The amount of money up for grabs is mind-blowing. And I want to make sure you have every opportunity to get your share.

From new wind and geothermal technologies to utility-scale developments, it’s going to be a very profitable year for us. And I can’t wait to help you take full advantage of every opportunity coming around the bend.

To a new way of life, and a new generation of wealth…