global warming effects

Over the weekend, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the Synthesis Report of its Fourth Assessment Report (4AR). The report is being published in advance of the upcoming 13th Conference of the Parties (COP-13) to the U.N Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bali. At the COP-13, negotiators will try to hammer out a new international treaty to deal with the man-made emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) that are contributing to global warming. Any new treaty would replace the Kyoto Protocol which terminates in 2012. The Kyoto Protocol set a goal of reducing GHG emissions by an average of 5 percent below the level that signatory countries emitted in 1990. In October, the scientific journal Nature published a commentary that declared,

"...as an instrument for achieving emissions reductions, [the Kyoto Protocol] has failed. It has produced no demonstrable reductions in emissions or even in anticipated emissions growth."

Among other things, the Synthesis Report concludes:

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level...

Most of the observed increase in globally-averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.7 It is likely there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent (except Antarctica)...

The Synthesis Report further notes:

Determining what constitutes “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” in relation to Article 2 of the UNFCCC involves value judgements. Science can support informed decisions on this issue,...

The negotiations in Bali will be over these value judgements and how to balance higher energy costs with the benefits of a cooler climate.


Impacts of climate change are very likely to impose net annual costs which will increase over time as global temperatures increase. Peer-reviewed estimates of the social cost of carbon23 in 2005 average US$12 per tonne of CO2, but the range from 100 estimates is large (-$3 to $95/tCO2). This is due in large part to differences in assumptions regarding climate sensitivity, response lags, the treatment of risk and equity, economic and noneconomic impacts, the inclusion of potentially catastrophic losses, and discount rates. Aggregate estimates of costs mask significant differences in impacts across sectors, regions and populations and very likely underestimate damage costs because they cannot include many non-quantifiable impacts.

Limited and early analytical results from integrated analyses of the costs and benefits of mitigation indicate that they are broadly comparable in magnitude, but do not as yet permit an unambiguous determination of an emissions pathway or stabilisation level where benefits exceed costs.

Climate sensitivity is a key uncertainty for mitigation scenarios for specific temperature levels.


Choices about the scale and timing of GHG mitigation involve balancing the economic costs of more rapid emission reductions now against the corresponding medium-term and long-term climate risks of delay.

404 not found pages

Create Your Own 404 Not Found Page

Does your 404 Not Found page help your visitors or irritate them? You will undoubtedly come across unhappy visitors to your website from time to time. It’s a part of business. And 404 Not Found pages are supposed to help visitors who couldn’t find the web page that they were hoping to find. You don’t want your 404 Not Found page just being a blank page or some useless error message that will send your visitors elsewhere cussing and spittering and sputtering like a rusty wheel.

If your website sits on an Apache web server then you can simply update your .htaccess file and customize your 404 Not Found page. Open you .htaccess file and add this phrase to the file:

ErrorDocument 404 /notfound.html
This creates your 404 Not Found page. If you don’t already have a notfound.html file then you’ll need to create one of them as well and put it in the root directory of your web site. If you don’t have an .htaccess file then you’ll need to create one of them and all you need to do is open a blank Notepad file to do so.

If all you have is a blank page that says 404 Not Found then your visitors will hit the back button and never return. To prevent that from happening, you need to help them find the web page they were looking for. Here are some things you can put into your notfound.html file to help your visitors.

Make your 404 Not Found page look like any other web page on your website by enclosing in your website template and having your menu bar in its usual location
A sitemap link so that visitors can see all the web pages on your website
If you’ve created a customized search engine or you have a search function for your website then put a search box on your 404 Not Found page
A list of frequently mistyped URLs and their correct locations
Anything that will help your visitors find what they are looking for should go onto your 404 Not Found page. Otherwise, your visitors will leave and not come back.