[Pil-pc-oceania] NEWS: Global warming findings; health problems linked to tea tree, lavendar oils

[pacific-edge]

IPCC Paris meeting report released tonight...

UN panel blames humans for global warming

The United Nations (UN) climate panel has agreed that human activities are
causing global warming that may bring more droughts, heatwaves and rising
seas, delegates say.

The panel's report, due for release tonight and bolstering conclusions from
a 2001 study, may put pressure on governments and companies to do more to
curb greenhouse gases mainly from burning fossil fuels in power plants,
factories and cars.

Scientists and government officials in the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC - http://www.ipcc.ch/), the most authoritative group on
global warming, agreed it was "very likely" that human activities were the
main cause of warming in the past 50 years, delegates say. In IPCC language,
"very likely" means at least 90 per cent probability and is the strongest
link to human activities since the IPCC was set up in 1988. The previous
study in 2001 said a link was "likely" or 66 per cent probable.

The IPCC, grouping 2,500 scientists from 130 countries, is also set to say
that oceans will keep rising for more than 1,000 years even if governments
stabilise greenhouse gas emissions.

The report is the first of four this year by the panel that will outline
threats of warming.

Delegates say the Paris meeting, looking at the science of global warming,
later agreed a "best estimate" that temperatures will rise by 3 degrees
Celsius by 2100 over pre-industrial levels, the biggest change in a century
for thousands of years. It says bigger gains, of up to 6.3 degrees Celsius
in one model, cannot be ruled out but do not fit well with other data. The
world is now about 5 degrees Celsius warmer than during the last Ice Age.

The draft accord projects that Arctic ice will shrink, and perhaps disappear
in summers by 2100, while heatwaves and downpours would get more frequent.
The numbers of tropical hurricanes might decrease but the storms would
become stronger. The Gulf Stream bringing warm waters to the North Atlantic
could slow, although a shutdown is highly unlikely, it says. Sea levels are
likely to rise by between 28 and 43 centimetres this century, a lower range
than forecast in 2001. Rising seas threaten low-lying Pacific islands and
low-lying coastal nations from Bangladesh to the Netherlands.

"Governments planning coastal defences have to live with large uncertainties
for now and quite some time in future," Professor Stefan Rahmstorf of
Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said.

- Reuters
      
Wednesday, January 31, 2007. 11:36pm (AEDT)
Sydney ... climate change warning.
    
Sydney given 'doomsday' climate change warning

The CSIRO has issued Sydney with a dire warning about the impact of climate
change on its future. A report commissioned by the New South Wales
Government predicts large temperature rises and a decrease in rainfall of up
to 40 per cent over the next 70 years.

The study forecasts the city's average temperature will rise by up to 1.6
degrees by 2030 and 4.8 degrees by 2070.

New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma has not held back in stressing the
significance of the findings. "[It is] alarming - it's a doomsday prediction
but it's something that cannot be ignored," he said.

The report's author, Ben Preston, says it is probably too late to prevent
temperature rises in the coming decades."Although there's a promise that
large-scale reductions in future of greenhouse gas emissions on an
international basis will forestall and avoid large scale warming by the end
of the century, we've already committed ourselves to additional warming and
downstream climate change consequences," he said.

The report warns climate change will also have a significant impact on the
health of the city's residents. Professor Tony McMichael from the Australian
National University's National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health
says more deaths from heat stress can be expected.

"Heatwaves will become much more frequent, rather more intense, and they'll
be impinging on an ageing population," he said. "So we'd expect the number
of deaths and hospitalisations to increase rather dramatically by the middle
of this century.

"It's not an exact science, of course, because other things will change
between now and then - housing design, people's behaviour and so on - but
assuming relative constancy of those conditions, for an increase of two or
three degrees centigrade, we'd expect the total number of deaths each summer
in a city like Sydney to increase by a factor of three, four, five,
depending on just how much the temperature is rising."

Professor McMichael says it is time to start preparing for such a trend by
introducing measures including better early warning systems for heatwaves
and improved monitoring of vulnerable people, such as the elderly.

...ABC

In other news...

Lavender makes boys grow breasts: study

Researchers say the lavender and tea tree oils found in some soaps,
shampoos, hair gels and body lotions can produce enlarged breasts in boys.
American scientists say the plant oils have been linked to abnormal breast
development in three boys.

Paediatric Endocrine Associates scientist Dr Clifford Bloch says the
development was reversed when the boys stopped using the oils. His team's
study, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggests the
oils can act in ways similar to the hormone oestrogen.

"This report raises an issue of concern, since lavender oil and tea tree oil
are sold over the counter in their 'pure' form and are present in an
increasing number of commercial products, including shampoos, hair gels,
soaps and body lotions," the report said.

While it is very common for boys to develop temporary breast enlargement as
they go through puberty, the condition is very rare in young boys. Doctors
call the condition prepubertal gynaecomastia and often find no explanation
for it.

- Reuters/ABC Science Online