2014 was another disappointing year in terms of major changes needed to avert Global Climate Change. Even though Climatists had redoubled their efforts in order to convince the general public that immediate measures are required to stop the dangers of global warming. But the gap between the general public warnings and actual events lead mostly to climate mockery.
Much of January and December experienced severe cold and record low daily temperatures were recorded in many cities, coupled with all-time seasonal snowfalls as well. Once called a cold snap was now termed as polar vortex.
John Holdren, chief advisor to the President, said in a White House video release:” But a growing body of evidence suggests that the kind of extreme cold being experienced by much of the United States as we speak is a pattern that we can expect to see with increasing frequency as global warming continues.”
Research ship passengers were also rescued in January. The ship had been locked in ice for 10 days near the arctic coast. It was carrying out research to study how the Antarctica weather was changing due to the effects of global warming.
United Nations released a report on Climate Change in March. Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability was part of the Fifth Assessment Report. The report claimed that the man-made climatic change was going to severely the reduce world agricultural output. One of the authors Dr. Mark Howden said in the report, “There’s an increasing set of evidence that climatic change is also having a severe adverse effect on agriculture, especially on some of the cereal crops such as wheat and maize. The negative impacts are far graver and quicker than we previously thought.”
While farmers still ignored warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC, and according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, farmers worldwide have made record yields in 2014 especially for all three major cereal crops. Rice rose to 1.1 % from last year while wheat generated 11.2 % but corn was at the top settling at 14 % more since last year.
The Obama administration continued to put an end to coal based power plants which almost cater to 40 % of the United States electricity needs. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had proposed new restrictions on carbon emissions in June that would almost certainly make it impossible to install new coal based power plants in the U.S. While, 1,200 of these plants were planned to be constructed around the world during the same time and almost two-third of them being in India and China alone.
We all remember the Nobel Prize acceptance speech made by former Vice President Al Gore in 2007, in which he warned that the arctic ice would be gone in as less than 7 years. But actually the arctic ice has rebounded in 2014 and Antarctic ice has been increasing for decades, and according to University of Illinois, global sea ice are above the 30 year average at the end of 2014.
United Nations held a climate summit in New York in September in order to convince the world to conserve energy and reduce their emissions. The much celebrated actor, Leonardo DiCaprio was the spokesperson and he said:, ”This disaster has grown so much in recent years that it’s going beyond the choices that we as individuals make, so we need to act fast in order to curtail it.”
Those who are against the notion of Global Warming and Climate change, said in October that it’s the eighteenth straight year of flat global temperatures and satellite data has shown that no temperature increase has occurred since 1997. This pause in Global Warming is now old enough to vote or serve in the military.
While many climate change advocates state that much of the recent increase in Hurricanes and Tornadoes are signs of changing climatic conditions, but skeptics overruled that the U.S. tornadic activity was less in 2014 and lack of strong hurricanes still continues. It’s been eight years since the last category 3 or stronger hurricane has made it to the U.S., that’s the longest period ever since records began way back in 1900.
