December 28, 2006
I finally watched An Inconvenient Truth
Since I received An Inconvenient Truth for Christmas, I watched it, and came away with some useful insights.
As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am firmly convinced that climate change is upon us, and that the effects will worsen - probably with increasing speed - over the coming years.
One of Al Gore's points related to the "balance" that the non-scientific press brings to the debate. This balance is truly out of kilter. Gore cites a sampling of nearly 1000 scientific articles (out of a pool of many thousands of articles), noting that not a single one of them suggested that the earth is not undergoing climate change brought about by human activity.
But in the popular press, 53% of a sample noted that the matter remained uncertain.
This "balance" seems much like the free pass the press gave the Bush administration in the build-up to the Iraq invasion (which persists to this day among some popular press sources).
Posted by aquacura.com at 09:21 AM | Comments (0)
August 11, 2006
Each year it gets worse
You may recall my fretting about the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps. Scientists are surprised over the past couple of years that the ice is melting quite a bit faster than climate change modeling had lead them to predict.
Check this link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/10/AR2006081001557.html
The brush off by Myron Ebell at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (can you say 'rampant capitalism'?) is pretty droll. And the popular press's fixation on sea level rise misses the point, as far as I'm concerned.
That point is that climate change will be inhospitable to humans and the flora and fauna that share the globe with us, for many reasons. Some of them, we are probably seeing today: hot, dry conditions. A cooling Europe would be a real kick in the head ('Hey! I thought you said global warming!') Add population pressure and increasing demands for higher level foods by societies that are developing economically, and we have a major mess on our hands.
So I'm back to my adaptation mantra. Let's visualize as best we can what our part of the world is going to be like as climate change and liquid petroleum depletion progress, and do the best we can to prepare for those effects.
Posted by aquacura.com at 03:41 PM | Comments (0)
August 04, 2006
A conversion! Praise the Lawd!
Robertson Converts
Conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson is now a true believer of global warming. "We really need to address the burning of fossil fuels, stated Robertson on his 700 Club broadcast. "It is getting hotter, and the icecaps are melting and there is a buildup of carbon dioxide in the air."
Posted by aquacura.com at 02:18 PM | Comments (0)
August 01, 2006
Impact of sea level rise in Mid Atlantic
I could also categorize this under 'Nature Wins' or 'Water Management'. Those readers of a certain age might recall one of Bill Cosby's earliest oral skits: Noah. The recurring punch line is, "How long can you tread water?"
Check this link from the Baltimore City Paper: http://www.citypaper.com/news/printready.asp?id=12022
Posted by aquacura.com at 11:08 AM | Comments (0)
July 14, 2006
More cautious hopefulness about WalMart
The retail behemouth I love to hate continues to move me to ambivalency. Check out this link to Grist Magazine (Btw, I recommend you get on their daily email list. It's free, and a great source of current environmental news and views.)
Here's the link:http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/7/12/152241/484?source=daily
Posted by aquacura.com at 09:34 AM | Comments (0)
May 17, 2006
Have we reached the tipping point?
I have been thinking a lot about where we are on the climate change trend line, and I think we have exceeded the point at which we can avoid some drastic changes in global climate. Several factors have brought me to this conclusion.
The past year has brought a number of announcments by earth scientists along the line, "This is happening more quickly than we had expected." Antarctic ice loss; Arctic ice loss; Greenland ice loss. All more rapid than had been predicted from climate change modeling. I am also concerned with the past couple of extremely hot European summers, and this past extremely cold European winter.
Besides, how plausible is it that developing nations, which are yearning to achieve the American standard of living, will quell their desires to avoid adverse climate change impacts. The rich world certainly isn't doing much to control its release of global warming gases.
I have a powerpoint file by John Holdren, the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, that asks the questions, "What Do We Know? What Can We Do?" The file is too large to upload, but I will send it to you by email dsheridan@aquacura.com
I read a subtext in the presentation that supports my concerns that we have passed the point of avoiding very unpleasant effects. I suppose we need to keep stressing the importance of decreasing global warming emissions, and perhaps there is some merit to continuing to try, but I believe it is time to switch gears and begin to adapt to the likely effects of climate change.
Posted by aquacura.com at 09:46 PM | Comments (1)