Barry Gardiner Quotes

The risks brought about by climate change are a major concern. It goes without notice—unless people find out that 12 of the last 13 biggest climatic disorders have occurred in the last 10 years.

People are seeing the impact of climate change around them in extraordinary patterns of floods and droughts, wildfires, heatwaves and powerful storms.

We do know that global warming has led to the increase in number and intensity of weather events.

The world is now on track to more than double current greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere by the end of the century. This would push up average global temperatures by three to eight degrees Celsius and could mean the disappearance of glaciers, droughts in the mid-to-low latitudes, decreased crop productivity, increased sea levels and flooding, vanishing islands and coastal wetlands, greater storm frequency and intensity, the risk of species extinction and a significant spread of infectious disease.

Floods will become more serious and frequent in the Indo-Gangetic plains. Drought induced food and water scarcity will become more acute. South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the small islands will be the worst victims.

Islands are going to suffer from climate change in very, very difficult ways. And it's not just Pacific islands. It's not just Puerto Rico.

Global warming is actually a misnomer. It should be global extremes and global swings, because you add - as you add more energy into the atmosphere, it sloshes around. Energy doesn't simply uniformly warm up the planet. And that means droughts in one area, enormous snowstorms in another area, 100-year floods here, 100-year forest fires there.

The effect of climate change is not simply to reduce rain during the summer months, but also to increase the number of torrential storms. When the rain falls that hard and fast, it cannot sink into the ground and go down to the aquifers.

Years of drought and famine come and years of flood and famine come, and the climate is not changed with dance, libation or prayer.

It turns out that as the climate changes, the distribution of that water is changing very fundamentally. So now we have too much, too little, wrong place, wrong time. It's salty where it should be fresh; it's liquid where it should be frozen; it's wet where it should be dry; and in fact, the very chemistry of the ocean itself is changing.

Emissions of greenhouse gases warm the planet, altering the carbon and water cycles. A warmer ocean stores more heat, providing more fuel for hurricanes. A warmer atmosphere holds more water, bringing dangerous deluges. Rising sea levels threaten coastal zones.

Orissa is cursed by the two tragic extremes of drought and famine.

The impacts of climate change are almost immeasurable.

Climate change is already upon us, and its effects are being felt with increasing intensity.

In particular, Australia, because of its ancient geography, soil profile and distinctive weather patterns, is more adversely affected by climate variability than some other continents.

Opening up Atlantic and Arctic waters to drilling would lock the next generation into burning oil and gas in a way that only makes climate change that much worse, fueling ever rising seas, widening deserts, withering drought, blistering heat, raging storms, wildfires, floods and other hallmarks of climate chaos.

You want calamities? What about the Ice Age?

Climate change is hugely exacerbated by changing patterns of how we choose to live, often in danger zones such as extremely vulnerable coastal zones - from New Jersey to the Philippines. This enormously increases the economic and human costs of hurricanes, rising seas and changing weather patterns.

So imagine a world 6 degrees warmer. It's not going to recognize geographical boundaries. It's not going to recognize anything. So agriculture regions today will be wiped out.

The signs of climate change are visible across the nation, from the drought-stricken fields of Central California to the flooded streets of Michigan. Extreme weather is turning people's lives upside down and costing communities millions of dollars in damaged infrastructure and added health care costs.

I think the Caribbean countries face rising oceans and they face increase in the severity of hurricanes. This is something that is very, very scary to all of us. The island states in the world represent - I remember this number - one-half of 1 percent of the carbon emissions in the world. And they will - some of them will disappear.

We are already experiencing the symptoms of climate change, especially with a hotter and drier climate in southern Australia - the rush to construct desalination plants is an expensive testament to that.

Extreme weather threatens our energy and electric grid, federal buildings, transportation infrastructure, access to natural resources, public health, our relationships across the globe, and many other aspects of life.

East and Gulf Coast states are at risk of hurricanes; prairie and other central and southern states are constantly threatened by tornados; and western states commonly face damaging droughts. Extreme weather does not discriminate by American geography.

For millions of Americans, climate change is no longer just a chart or a graph. It's the smoke on our tongues from massive wildfires. It's the floodwater invading our homes and record-breaking hurricanes and heat waves.