Posts by Katherine Gustafson
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Brazil Rocks: Deforestation Down 45.7 Percent
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Vulnerable Nations Make 'Global Survival Pact'
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Thou Shalt Halt Global Warming
Pope: Global Warming Will Not Starve the World
Published November 20, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Monday, on the opening day of the World Summit on Food Security, Pope Benedict XVI tried to put the panic about global-warming-induced food crises to rest.
According to the UK's Times Online, the Pope said that the Earth can produce enough for everyone despite the ravages climate change might inflict. It is greed, he said, that has driven up prices and increased hunger in the world.
His remarks emphasized that food should not be treated like any other commodity, especially because "there is no cause and effect relationship between population growth and hunger." Nobel Prize-winning economic Amartya Sen has long commented that hunger is not a problem of production but one of access.
What Will Global Warming Look Like on the Ground?
Published November 19, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
It's easy to talk about global warming on grandiose terms (the word "global" is in the title, after all). But it's sometimes harder to imagine what the concept really means for our daily lives. Some of us want to know what will happen when all the analysts and number-crunchers have gone home and the climatic disturbances start appearing one by one.
The UK's Telegraph recently published an article detailing some of the changes those of us not exposed to the extremes of a drowning island or a melting Himalaya might experience as the climate warms. What can we expect? Here's a run-down of some of the possibilities in Europe.
Charged with a Felony? Blame Global Warming
Published November 18, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
When college student Tim DeChristopher bid his way to committing $1.7 million for 13 oil and gas drilling leases last December at a Bureau of Land Management auction, he had the greater good in mind; he apparently planned to mitigate climate change by blocking the pillaging of the Earth, reports the Associated Press.
Who knows how he thought this would work, considering that he bid with the knowledge that he had no ability whatsoever to pay for the parcels near Utah's national parks that he won. Indeed, instead of being honored as a hero he was indicted in April on felony charges. Apparently, Tim, it's rather illegal to interfere with government auctions and make false representations.
His opinion? The auction itself was illegal, so his interference of it couldn't possibly run afowl of any law. He came before the judge trying to use a "necessity defense," stating that he was forced to choose between two evils, namely the evil of lying in the auction and the evil of allowing climate change to continue unabated.
Logically, U.S. District Judge Dee Benson denied DeChristopher's lawyers' motion to use the defense. According to the AP, his nine-page ruling included this amusing statement: "Unlike a person demolishing a home to create a firebreak, DeChristopher's actions were more akin to placing a small pile of dirt in the fire's path."
Photo courtesy of walknboston via flickr
Glacier in a Freezer Helps Scientists Study Melting
Published November 17, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Iowa State University professor Neal Iverson has a freezer like no other.
This is much more than your average walk-in ice box. This is a massive beast, over nine feet tall, on which he has been working for three long years. Science Daily introduces us to the "glacier sliding simulator."
Inside is a miniature glacier undergoing the same pressures from a warming atmosphere that a real glacier contends with. The freezer is equipped with a hydraulic press that can apply up to 170 tons of force on the mini-glacier, simulating the impacts on a 1,300-foot-thick glacier.
The purpose of this contraption is to allow scientists to study how glaciers move across their beds, an understanding of which will help them make key predictions about glaciers' reactions to climate change.
Obama Walks Tightrope on Climate Negotiations
Published November 16, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Obama's in a tough spot. Well, many tough spots, but let's just talk about the one that concerns us here: the Copenhagen climate negotiations. Now that Congress won't vote on a climate bill until next year, Obama has to somehow punt settlement of a long-term international agreement a ways down the road while still portraying an impression of progress and US commitment on the issue to the global audience.
According to the Washington Post, former vice president Al Gore said in an interview that Obama has the difficult task of satisfying both US and global audiences. "The disappointment in the world community that would accompany a failure of Copenhagen, if it were laid at the doorstep of the United States, would be significant," Gore told the Post. "I'm optimistic that they will handle Copenhagen well. What's important is that what emerges from Copenhagen is perceived as an important step forward."
This "important step forward" will come in the form of an interim agreement that will set up a basis on which to build a final, long-term settlement at a later date. In doing so, Obama must walk a very fine line, taking bold enough action to forestall the outrage of the global community and the US climate activist community, on the one hand, and avoiding the dreaded "over-promise" that Senators warn him against, on the other. The mark he needs to hit, US Special Envoy on Climate Change Todd Stern told the Post, is an arrangement that can be widely "seen as substantive building blocks to a full, legal agreement."
Mr. Obama, have you seen "Man on Wire," the film that illustrates Philippe Petit's 1974 walk between the twin towers on a tightrope? You might want to give it a screening before December so you can see what you're in for.
Photo courtesy of _gee_ via flickr
Green Tech, Public Good
Published November 14, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
I
n a recent opinion piece, writer David Dickson, director and editor of the Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net) website and former news editor at Nature, writes the following:
A widely-held myth among climate change activists is that discussing the need for improved technology to mitigate or adapt to climate change detracts from political debates on who is to blame for unsustainable lifestyles — and who should pay for their consequences.
First of all, let me just say: ouch! Is it really fair to say that all climate activists care about is blaming people for spewing out too much carbon and rapping the appropriate knuckles? Come on, Mr. Dickson, there's a reading rainbow of people who care about climate out here talking about all different kinds of things, including, yes, who should change their lifestyles and how. But we also talk about technology. We talk a lot about technology.
Where Dickson's article may be right, however, is that we don't tend to talk enough about how these technologies are going to impact the lives of the world's poor. High-tech developments, after all, occur mostly in rich countries and usually aim to mitigate rich countries' carbon sins.
Melting Antarctic Ice Helps Offset Warming
Published November 12, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
A new study by scientists from the British Antarctic Survey reveals that phytoplankton growing on the surface of sea water newly exposed by melting glacial ice is absorbing carbon, reports AFP. After photosynthesizing the carbon, these microscopic plants get eaten or sink to the sea floor, thereby taking the carbon out of the atmosphere.
Regions of phytoplankton have appeared in open water areas created by the recent disappearance of several ice shelves along the shore of Antarctica. In the last half century, about 9,200 square miles of sea have opened up in this manner and by now much of that area is blooming with phytoplankton. According to the study, published in the journal Global Change Biology, this vegetation now annually gobbles up some 3.5 million tons of carbon (equivalent to 12.8 million tons of carbon dioxide).
While that's a drop in the bucket of the some 8.7 billion tons of carbon emitted by burning fossil fuels and deforestation (to quote a 2007 figure), it is, says the study's lead scientist Lloyd Peck "nevertheless an important discovery. It shows nature's ability to thrive in the face of adversity."
