environment: Arctic Arctic ice melt arctic methane IPCC scientific consensus
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 13: Uh-oh.
The Barents Observer (Norway) writes about a new report issued by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) that predictably shows us in much worse trouble than we’d thought. Not that this is actually a surprise or anything:
According to the study, multiyear sea ice, mountain glaciers, ice caps and the Greenland Ice Sheet, which were once considered fixtures in the Arctic, shrank faster in the past decade than in the previous one. Their meltwaters contributed more than 40% of the global sea level rise, which averaged at 3 mm per year, between 2003 and 2008.
Sea ice cover has reached record lows every year in the past decade and is “now about one third smaller than the average summer sea-ice cover from 1979 to 2000.” According to the report, the decreased sea ice cover offers opportunities for increased shipping traffic and industrial activity. However, “threats from icebergs may increase due to increased iceberg production.”
My kid is growing up into this world.
Sent May 4:
Given that the IPCC has always tended to err on the conservative side, it’s not surprising that the recently released AMAP study is projecting sea-level rises that drastically exceed the earlier predictions. In fact, it is increasingly recognized that the effects of runaway climate change are happening both faster and more severely than any climatologists had expected. The introduction of methane clathrates into the picture is particularly alarming, as this gas has the potential to trigger greenhouse effects of devastating intensity; the IPCC’s analysis did not take this factor into account, which is one reason their estimates were significantly lower.
Looking at the likely effects of a climate catastrophe on worldwide political and economic stability, one wonders: how much longer can the world’s developed countries and multinational corporations continue to opt for a “business as usual” model? Industrialization’s virtues won’t matter much if humanity’s only available home is rendered uninhabitable.
Warren Senders
environment: Deficit reduction economics energy
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 12: Pretty Soon You’re Talking Real Money
In a business section column in the San Francisco Chronicle, Andrew Ross skirts discussion of climate and energy, instead averring that (gasp!) the deficit is the biggest threat we face as a nation. Sigh. Time to drag out “quibbling over the cost of sandbags” again.
Sent May 3:
Mr. Ross’ analysis touches briefly on the elements that comprise the most significant threat to our country’s long-term security, but neglects them in favor of advocating for deficit reduction. Now, I’m all for reducing the deficit, and the Department of Defense, the biggest public sector spender, is ripe for massive cutting — but the plain and simple fact is that the devastating long-term effects of climate change will make deficit reduction (no matter where it happens) irrelevant. Without immediate steps to transform our energy economy and prepare for the consequences of climatic transformations we’ve already set in motion, no spending cuts will save us. Scientists have warned us over and over; we can no longer plead ignorance — and to resist spending on infrastructure development and disaster preparation will prove far more expensive in the long run. When floodwaters are rising is not the time to economize on sandbags.
Warren Senders
Year 2, Month 5, Day 11: Zap.
It’s May 2, and the world is preoccupied with Osama’s demise. Most of the stories found with the search tag “climate change news” are about OBL, noting that at one point he’d mentioned climate change.
Eventually I found an article in The Himalayan Times describing a new fund for climate change being set up in Nepal.
So I used that as the hook for an anti-corporate screed, sent May 2.
The multinational corporations which control the distribution and consumption of fossil fuels throughout the world are the key factors in the fight against climate change. As long as these inhuman economic giants base their policies on short-term profitability rather than the long-term health of our planet and our civilization, the world’s governments will be able to take only the smallest of palliative steps. The past five decades have shown again and again that popular and governmental initiatives for renewable energy and sustainability can be readily undermined by massive infusions of corporate cash; the private sector is clearly and obviously in the driver’s seat. It remains unclear if it is actually possible to communicate with corporations (after all, they are not flesh and blood, they’re immortal, far larger than humans, and geographically dispersed). Our species’ last hope may rest in somehow convincing these behemoths that their survival is linked with ours.
Warren Senders
environment: birds ecosystems wildlife
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 10: Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…
The Charlotte Observer notes that climate change is having an impact on regional bird populations as well as forests:
Each December a hardy flock of birdwatchers scatters across Mecklenburg County for the National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count, which has tracked bird movements for more than a century.
Here’s what the numbers say about Charlotte’s birds: They’re moving north as temperatures warm. Eighteen of the 20 most common backyard species spotted last Dec. 27 have shifted their winter ranges northward over the past 40 years, national data show. The average distance was 116 miles.
It seemed to me that if our species had remained in closer touch with the ecosystems of which we are a part, we would probably not have fucked things up so badly to begin with.
Sent May 1:
It’s unsurprising that close observation of patterns in the natural world reveals the impact of climate change; the subtle and complex interrelationships between the various forms of Earthly life are profoundly interwoven with climatic factors. We must also recognize that as industrial culture has grown over the past several centuries, humans have become increasingly separated from the environment and oblivious to its transformations. This distance from nature means that for most of us, “climate change” is something scientists and the media discuss, not something we observe in the ecosystems around us. Northward motion of bird populations and crippled spruce forests are just two examples of global warming’s impact — but when Americans are more likely to see nature on TV than in real life, the shape of this terrifying threat will remain hidden until the changes are too big to ignore. At which point it will be too late.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: denialists Department of the Interior Water
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 9: And Not A Drop To Drink
The Lompoc Record issues warnings about water shortages in the wake (pun intended) of the Interior Dept. report.
And here is what the experts say will happen:
There will be more rain and less snow, with snowpacks melting much earlier in the season. The result is that less water will be captured, rivers will flood briefly, then run nearly dry. Fish habitat will slowly disappear, as will reliable water supplies for most of Southern California.
It’s not just California in the center of this environmental bulls-eye. Eight western states will be affected, with the biggest impacts being on water supply and habitat maintenance.
The scientific community is not optimistic about water supply in California, which has the greatest range of climate conditions of all the western states.
It’s a good piece and deserved a little backup. Sent April 30:
Our collective inability to think in the long term is not something of which our species should be proud. The recently issued report on water shortages in the Western U.S. is a case in point. Many climate-change deniers reject these warnings because their immediate experience contradicts them; “it rained today, therefore there will certainly be ample water in 2050.” Others, of course, are convinced that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by a global cabal of climatologists. Either way, the resulting political paralysis fosters inaction — at a time when action is urgently necessary. The potential for severe long-term droughts should not be fodder for political gamesmanship; this is a regional emergency that calls for new infrastructure, new technology, and rededication to the notion of the common good. The agricultural and societal consequences of failure make this a matter to be treated with seriousness and alacrity.
Warren Senders
environment: extreme weather media irresponsibility
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 8: Don’t Blame Me!
USA Today notes the recent insane tornado season, and makes the connection to climate change, with the necessary caveats. Those damned caveats’ll get you every time.
As with any major weather disaster these days — from floods and hurricanes to wildfires and this week’s tornado outbreak in the South — people ask questions about its relation to the huge elephant that’s lurking in the corner, global climate change.
Two separate studies in 2007 reported that global warming could bring a dramatic increase in the frequency of weather conditions that feed severe thunderstorms and tornadoes by the end of the 21st century.
Sent April 29:
As climatologists remind us, no specific fires, floods, droughts or tornadoes can be unequivocally attributed to the effects of climate change. However, scientists’ reluctance to make unilateral statements does not change an all-important fact: by increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere, we are “loading the dice” in favor of extreme weather. Because the professional punditocracy prefers to remain ignorant about the way probability works, our national discussion has continued to overlook this critical factor. Sure, those storms, tornadoes, droughts and fires may well be triggered by other factors — but do we really want to make them even more likely by continuing to load the atmosphere with carbon dioxide through our profligate consumption of fossil fuels? Just because a particular case of lung cancer wasn’t caused by tobacco doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to smoke five packs a day.
Warren Senders
environment: anthropocene mass extinctions
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 7: Sawing Off The Branch We’re Sitting On
A very depressing article in the Sydney Morning Herald about worldwide mass extinctions. Some days this letter-writing thing is no bloody fun at all.
Sent April 28:
As the slow-motion catastrophe of climate change triggers countless extinctions across the globe, it becomes increasingly apparent that our anthropocentric worldview is an essentially destructive one. No living thing on the planet exists in isolation; everywhere we find greater and lesser synergies between different forms of life, each depending on the other for nourishment, for reproduction, for its very survival. Yet in the newly minted Anthropocene Epoch, our species fails to acknowledge the many and varied webs of interdependence that bind us to the rest of creation, as we heedlessly rend the intricate fabric of earthly life. Let us paraphrase John Donne, and recognize that “no living thing is an island, every living thing is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” Humanity risks its own survival; unless we change our ways, we will learn too late that the bell tolls for all of us.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: denialists idiots Ken Cuccinelli Michael Mann
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 6: Global Warming Was Born In Kenya!
The Hampton (VA) Pilot Online notes that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is continuing to stalk Dr. Michael Mann. Since today was the day President Obama showed his Birth Certificate to the gawpers, I figured it was time to conflate climate zombieism with birtherism. What fun.
Sent April 27:
Ken Cuccinelli is, to put it succinctly, an embarrassment to the legal profession and to the State of Virginia. Since he lacks even the most basic level of scientific literacy, Mr. Cuccinelli’s continued harassment of climate scientist Michael Mann is not based on any logically consistent rationale. Rather, the Attorney General is what is technically known as a “climate zombie,” a public figure so ideologically wedded to the notion that anthropogenic global warming does not exist that no evidence would be sufficient to change his mind. Rather like the “birthers” who’ll continue to espouse delusional theories about President Obama’s citizenship, “climate zombies” believe that an international conspiracy of climate scientists is attempting to institute a New (presumably socialist) World Order, and no amount of evidence will deter them from their fixation. It is Virginia’s misfortune to have one of these deluded souls in a position of political power.
Warren Senders
environment: corporate irresponsibility denialists Department of the Interior Water
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 5: And Not A Drop To Think
The Colorado Independent also writes about the Interior Department report on water shortages:
The report, which responds to requirements under the SECURE Water Act of 2009, shows several increased risks to western United States water resources during the 21st century. Specific projections include:
· a temperature increase of 5-7 degrees Fahrenheit;
· a precipitation increase over the northwestern and north-central portions of the western United States and a decrease over the southwestern and south-central areas;
· a decrease for almost all of the April 1st snowpack, a standard benchmark measurement used to project river basin runoff; and
· an 8 to 20 percent decrease in average annual stream flow in several river basins, including the Colorado, the Rio Grande, and the San Joaquin.
Sent April 26:
The coming decades of intensifying climate change are going to wreak a singular sort of havoc on the American West. With a history of complex water disputes going back to the first settlers in the area, Colorado’s future shortages will make those of previous centuries pale in comparison. Climate scientists have sounded the alarm for years; Secretary Salazar’s report is only the latest in a long line of studies and investigations, all pointing to more or less the same conclusion: climate change is real, it’s caused by humans, it’s happening everywhere — and it’s going to cause us all a world of hurt. Meanwhile, the national discussion of this grave danger has been grossly distorted by professional denialists, whose paymasters in the fossil fuel industry are loath to relinquish even a tiny fraction of their immense profits. Sadly, “enlightened self-interest” is as rare today as water will be in 2040.
Warren Senders
environment: denialists idiots Water
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 5, Day 4: You Can Get It If You Dry
The Salt Lake Tribune notes a recently released report from the Department of the Interior, predicting that Utah is going to lose lots of its already meager water resources in the coming century, as climate change gets rolling in earnest:
The Colorado River Basin likely will lose about 9 percent of its annual runoff by mid-century because of a warming climate, further squeezing Utah and its neighbors in a region that already expects to struggle getting water to its growing population, according to a U.S. Interior Department report released Monday.
Bureau of Reclamation scientists calculated likely regional temperature and precipitation models based on a range of possible carbon dioxide emissions, then used the mean of the results to predict an 8.5 percent reduction in water supply. The report actually predicts a 2.1 percent increase in precipitation for the Upper Colorado Basin — of which Utah is a part — but temperatures 5 to 7 degrees warmer than today’s are expected bring more rain than snow, and enough more evaporation to sap the supply.
I used this as the hook for a pretty standard mocking-the-denialists letter. I’m tired and it’s late — and the dimbulbs commenting on this article provide an easy target. That’s my excuse. What’s yours? Sent April 25:
It’s easy to predict reactions to the Interior Department report showing Utah getting hit by water shortages from intensifying climate change. First, conspiracy theorists, who believe the world’s climatologists are part of a sinister cabal attempting to establish a Socialist New World Order featuring lightbulb police and compulsory re-education camps for SUV drivers. Next? The voices proclaiming anthropogenic global warming a fraud, promulgated by liberals and environmentalists in order to raise taxes, followed closely by those claiming “the science isn’t settled,” that “Earth’s climate has always been changing,” or that future water shortages are impossible — because it’s raining.
America’s true greatness once lay in our ability to confront difficulty head-on, turning it into opportunity. By shutting their eyes to the scary truth of climate change, the denialist voices are betraying our country’s heritage of innovation, resourcefulness and creativity — a heritage we’ll surely need in the thirsty decades ahead.
Warren Senders