James Hansen’s alarming talk on the climate crisis, and how we can solve it
James Hansen, the eminent NASA climatologist, is sounding the alarm on climate change. Watch his latest TED talk for a succinct synopsis of the state of climate change, ongoing climate impacts, and what we can expect in the near future (hint: it doesn’t look good). As Hansen makes clear, if humanity does not address the growing threat to our global civilization very soon, the climate system will spiral out of control and condemn future generations... Read More
The Fukushima Nuclear Crisis and Risk Perceptions
The earthquake and ensuing tsunami that occurred in Japan last month was a horrific event. The ongoing atomic crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power station is also alarming, but I think a good bit of perspective on actual vs. perceived risk is in order before rushing energy decisions that could affect the fate of the planet. We are facing unprecedented, multiple challenges at once. The first challenge is finding ways in which to dramatically slow... Read More
Book Review: A World Without Ice
Three million years ago, during the mid-Pliocene epoch, sea levels were 100 feet higher than they are today. During this period, there was no ice in the Northern Hemisphere, no sea ice in the Arctic Ocean nor in Greenland. And global temperatures at that time? Only about four to six degrees warmer than today. Such figures gave me pause, as I was about 2/3 of the way through A World Without Ice by Henry Pollack a professor of geophysics at the University... Read More
Prop 23: US Climate Change Fight Hinges on California Voters
(Photo: Flickr user fd) Whether or not you live in California, you might have heard about the battle going down over Proposition 23 on next Tuesday’s ballot. On one side of the climate show-down, two Texas-based oil companies (Valero and Tesoro), who wrote and funded Prop 23, joined by a host of other out-of-state corporate polluters including the energy conglomerate and Tea Party financiers the Koch brothers. On the No-side, an ever-growing list... Read More
NRDC Documentary About Ocean Acidification
Check out this short and effective documentary about ocean acidification, an issue that we are just really beginning to grasp the gravity of. The video is the work of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and highlights what has been called the “other carbon problem”. Read More
Planes, Volcanoes, and Climate
Too often we forget that humanity is fundamentally at the whim of nature. Someone must have angered Vulcan, because the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull ground Europe to a halt last week. I was following the eruption quite closely as I was set to fly to London for a conference. I was relieved last week when I heard that airspace was being opened – just in time for my flight. Source: NASA Earth Observatory What I found most interesting about the... Read More
Ocean Acidification – Ocean in Peril
Rising CO2 emissions in the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels is causing ocean acidification. Ocean dwelling organisms, many of which we eat and depend on, will be negatively affected because forming carbonate (i.e. shells) will become much more difficult. A new study from the north Pacific provides evidence that the oceans are becoming more acidic on a large scale. Graph showing the increase in both atmospheric and dissoved ocean CO2,... Read More
Climate Solutions: The Story of Cap-and-Trade
Interested in understanding more about what climate solutions are out there? Need a quick primer on Cap-and-Trade? This short video from Clean Energy Works offers an overview of some of the major goals and objectives associated with the legislation. Passing energy and climate legislation is essential if there is going to be any sort of comprehensive international agreement to address global warming and climate change. Story of Cap-and-Trade from... Read More
Tuvalu and Goliath
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference in Copenhagen is now 5 days old. As expected, the gathering of 193 country delegates and a combined 16,500 international negotiators, NGO representatives, activists, and journalists at the Bella Center is showcasing some of the most difficult political and economic challenges facing the global community today. Given the importance of curbing climate change from unabatedly... Read More
What is the EPA doing in Copenhagen?
On Monday, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a declaration that outlines its authority and rational to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs). The EPA press release read, “greenhouse gases (GHGs) threaten the public health and welfare of the American people. EPA also finds that GHG emissions from on-road vehicles contribute to that threat.” U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson Yesterday, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson was... Read More
The Copenhagen Diagnosis
Hot off the press is a new global climate change synthesis report by some of the world’s leading scientists. The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Updating the World on the Latest Climate Science is a review of the hundreds of scientific papers published since the 2007 IPCC fourth assessment report (AR4), and presents a sobering update on the state of the global climate. What this report convincingly shows, is that AR4 was perhaps too conservative in its... Read More
Global Warming Reverses Long-Term Cooling Trend, Is “Overwhelming” Arctic Climate System
A recent study published in the September 4 issue of Science magazine is yet another indicator that the Arctic is in crisis. A team of scientists found that temperatures in the Earth’s vast northernmost region – which includes the Arctic Ocean and parts of Alaska, Canada, Russia, Greenland, and the Scandinavian countries in Northern Europe – have reversed a long-term cooling trend and are now the warmest they’ve been in at least 2,000 years. The... Read More
What Happens at the End of the Hockey Stick?
The “hockey stick” was a name given to a graph that depicted the rapid rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations and global temperature over the past 1000 years. While CO2 and temperature have not remained constant during this time (due to natural variation in the earth’s climate) the dramatic rise since the industrial revolution is clear and abnormal. While the initial graph has some controversy surrounding it, similar graphs show more or... Read More
