Group items tagged

There's an interesting difference between (some) meteorologists and (almost all) climatologists over the anthropogenic factor in climate change; this article discusses a recent meeting in Portland primarily attended by skeptical meteorologists. Why the difference? Is it that meteorologists tend to focus on weather vs. climate, i.e., attend to different spatiotemporal scales? Or is it something about who decides to become a meteorologist vs. climatologist and what sort of training is necessary?

Check out this interesting debate, with lots of money already invested!, over the possibility of a high-tech fix to global warming by scrubbing CO2 from the atmosphere, once rejected out of hand but now seriously considered given our failure to enact policies to limit GHG emissions...amazing how the discussion changes in a matter of a few short years!...

Could Mt. Everest be the Panda of movements attempting to address issues of global warming? It isn't exactly charismatic megafauna, but maybe for climactic problems a bit of "charismatic geology" could do the trick?

"[Matthew Kahn's] new book, Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter Future, argues that while it's too late to avoid the major effects of global warming, that's OK because most people will simply move to places that are effectively adapting to the changes. " An intriguing argument on the side of the climate debate we tend to ignore. Kahn believes that it's too late to stop global climate change or even slow it to a noticeable degree, yet he offers some optimistic opinions about what this could mean for humanity. For those who may not like the idea of giving up the "stop global warming" campaign, this interview offers some insight to the rationale behind this perspective. (I dont feel like my tags capture all the topics here, suggestions?)

Primitive stoves that produce toxic smoke are one of the leading causes for death and disease in third world countries. It is also a huge driver of climate change. Proposal to provide 100 million clean burning stoves to villages in Africa, Asia, and South America

An article about walmart's attempt to buy more local produce and educate small farmers. This is a new aspect of their sustainability goals that they are trying to focus on now.

The biggest question I have is what standards they are using to make their judgments on what is "local", "sustainable", or such like. Local is within state borders, but will Wal-Marts on the borders of states be subject to that same criteria, and unable to access markets just a few miles away? I tried to dig through their website, but as of yet have found mostly press releases... Just some thoughts relating this to the symposium - I'd welcome comments, I'm just trying to figure out what this could lead to: For all those who attended the symposium (particularly the banquet), this timing couldn't have been better. Last night the VP of Bon Appetit said that "when Wal-Mart says change, people change". Wal-Mart is also an expert at driving prices down, even on luxury items. If the high price of specialty local or organic foods are indeed bifurcating the market, and keeping lower incomes out of the alternative food movement, Wal-Mart is a force that can change that. That said, Wal-Mart is also very good at driving down prices at the expense of the producer. While many of the people behind Wal-Mart support the alternative food movement, sometimes very directly, this could be the economic equivalent of getting hugged to tightly by a gorilla. Its size could crush a lot of aspects of the alternative food movement (like independent producers). And if there is a serious drive to cut costs, migrant labor exploitation and other cost-cutters could become pretty serious. It is all about what Wal-Mart is actually measuring... Either way, this will be a good one to watch, in my opinion. The Wal-Mart fortune has actually been pretty supportive of environmental agriculture and community issues for longer than most people think. They've been demonized, fairly, for a lot of issues related to the destruction of local economic communities and such, but here is one organization that has been largely supported off the Wal-Mart fortune: http://www.icfdn.org/abo

Discussion of the money networks surrounding The Tea Party.  This paper tries to argue that the support that large companies have towards the Tea Party also have interests in polluting.

Addresses the big environmental question of where the force to solve environmental problems will come from. This talk argues for coorporations as the major force - and not the small ones either. Cargill as the change we need? He also touches on ideas of economic externalities at the very end, which is one (atleast in my opinion) of the most important economic ideas (and ideas in general) that relates to environmentalism. Not paying attention to the value of environmental resources is bad for the environment, and bad for the economy. The most recent economic meltdown could be argued to be a product of similar misjudgments in value in the housing market. Simply a good philosophy of progress to keep an eye on. Also interesting how businesses are realizing they want to be competitive into the future, and that is the very definition of sustainability

Definitely valuable points made in this talk. Oddly enough though, for the same reason that I was concerned about the fungicides saving bees, the fundamental theory if this talk worries me. There is a "treat the immediate illness/symptom" ideology at play here. This very well may be the only option for avoiding the pending doom, but we can't rely on this as a long term solution to our sustainability crisis. True, it might be impractical to wait for consumers to get their act together, but if we just give up on that effort all together, we're not going to save ourselves for very long. There needs to be a drastic change in consumerism. If consumers are sent the message that sustainability is being taken care of at the higher level of companies and producers (and this is my main concern with this talk) then we remove all incentive for consumers to change their ways. Jim posted an article about a week ago about how energy efficient appliances do not actually result in reduced energy use, and the main reason this happens is because it makes the consumers feel like they can go back to old (pre-responsibility) energy use habits (or even more) once the appliances are labeled "efficient." In the same way, this sustainable companies idea might not work very long. I'm thinking, for example, the point where he mentions palm oil in China. He says we could say to consumers "go ahead and use palm oil because its all 'good,' " when in reality -- granted, this palm oil might be better than other alternatives, but still -- any use of palm oil is something we should be trying to move away from. This might be a valuable short-term method of saving the world, but in my opinion it has to be just that: short-term. I agree with you that the mention of economic externalities was one of the most important parts. Too bad he didnt expand on this. I would love it if someone should give a TED talk on just this idea (my parents wont listen when I try to explain that even the organic foo

Sounds like, in the long run, a call for a shift in the economic system itself. A little further out there, but I found this one a few nights ago: http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_jackson_s_economic_reality_check.html I recall thinking it sounded a little idealistic at the time, but yesterday's idealism can be today's movement and tomorrow's reality, I suppose. A vague plan for the future from him, but a plan of sorts all the same. Still not sure I buy it, but I can't deny liking the sound of it.

One of those that speaks entirely for itself. Bill Mckibben, of the 350 climate campaign and the international day of action back in October, argues that due to climate change we are in a very different world, ecologically, than we were a century or more ago - not about to be in it, are in it. This makes me think he may be right.

Check out this conference, titled "Resilience, Innovation, and Sustainability: Navigating the Complexities of Global Change," for some interesting interdisciplinary work.

Citizen science is science done, not by highly trained experts, but by your run-of-the-mill citizen on the street. Which makes a lot of sense, since science is conceptually a very simplistic, mindless, algorithmic process (in certain forms, granted) which makes it very powerful (for anyone doubting the power of simple, mindless, algorithmic processes see evolution) . This article highlights the use of video games to channel citizen science towards things that the science community struggles with. For reference as to how cool this is, a problem regarding the AIDs virus that scientists struggled with for over a decade was solved in 3 weeks via this system. Other neat programs like this include World Without Oil, designed to put people in the place of a post-peak oil society via a Role Playing Game, where they use their own lives as the basis. People actually enacted real world change, building gardens, biking instead of driving, and reporting on it to the public, as a result of the game. It is a really convincing way to generate change, and well worth looking at just for the concept. The same company is looking at creative ways to solve other global crisis by making "mini worlds" that encourage people to have a little more agency and creativity, so that those ideas can be translated to the real world. How neat is that?

done right, science is so not a mindless algorithmic process.

Apparently windmills cause climate change too, both macro and micro. Not much to say depth wise, I just thought it was interesting. Does pose potential challenges to wind expansion in the future, perhaps.

Although ideas in the article are unoriginal, it presents an interesting argument that I am not entirely sure is the best method to go about oil dependency. The author is convinced that adding a fee to any greenhouse gas emissions will lead to a new and clean energy system. "This is what motivates changes in behavior and technological investments." Will this monetary burden be enough to change people's habits and lifestyle, or will we become creative in other ways to dance around this dependence? One major critique I have of this proposal is how slow this conversion process will be. It also seems as if we are simply designing a new way to herd the sheep of society without taking a moment to look up and recognize the bigger implications and options.

From everybody's favorite National Review, a case for global warming - not only existing, but being really, really awesome. And this claim is even claimed to be based on science. Pretty interesting way of thinking. Especially once you accept that change is going to happen, there is something to be said for the logic of we-should-strive-to-maximize-primary-productivity-in-ecosystems (arguably). Really curious what people think, particularly the more ecologically and biologically minded among us.

What if it's true that the effects of the BP oil spill are far less serious than originally predicted?  It would not mean that nothing bad happened at all, nor that no changes are needed to business as usual , but maybe we need to reconsider the perennial sky-is-falling rhetoric of environmentalism.

This article forced me to look at environmental issues from the perspective of religious conservatives. It also gave me hope that people can change if the facts are presented in the correct way. These Kansans do care about the environment but for some different reasons than I do. I was surprised at the amount of overlap though. They want to make sure future generations enjoy life in the same way they do and leave the world better than they found it. Overall, this article gave me some hope.

Last of my posting on the political situation, just wanted to provide some variety. This is a more moderate view. It points out the fact that all things considered, the Obama administration has not been a huge help with environmental issues in so far, so the change will be tough on the environment, but not neccessarily dramatic. And it also has a touch of optimism at the end, that bills supporting certain aspects of energy issues may pass via compromise. But all told, its a lot of the old bad news, and more. Funding cuts seem to be a big worry - if you can't get rid of a committee, department, or what have you, its not as hard to make sure it has no money. I'd be interested in seeing how the elections at the state level might play out as well. The state parks system in my home state is under threat now, and I imagine the same might be true in other places. Anyone from other states know anything personally about whats going on at that scale?

A follow up to the post I made earlier in the semester about the food safety bill. As far as I can tell, it has been passed. This article highlights an important variation to the bill (from the October version) though; exemptions for small farms and those who sell directly at farmers markets. My original posting was in response to scare propaganda claiming that the food safety bill would outlaw small farming and farmers markets, so this new variation definitely changes things. The other side of the issue is covered here as well though, which questions if this will be the most effective solution, or just an opportunity for loopholes. Come on PoliSci majors, a little insight here?

Rare enough, but it seems emissions actually dropped this year - in part due to natural patterns. Academic studies of the environment are often depressing in a number of ways, so its nice to have some good news by traditional environmental standards. Hard to know what the source of it is, but it seems like at least some efforts are working out. Deforestation efforts get particular credit.

Bad news on the economy: Article touches on the same news, but gives a lot more credit (probably fairly) to a faltering world economy. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40298983/ns/world_news-world_environment/