Talk to the Kids

Orion has a new essay worth a read.

I also know that I needed something to say to my six year old when we walked home from the library in April—no leaves to offer shade, the bank’s LED sign reading eighty-four degrees—and he turned his ingenuous face to mine to ask, "Mama, is it supposed to be so hot?"

Value of Observation

Turns out that Thoreau's helping us with climate change.

Their conclusions are clear. On average, common species are flowering seven days earlier than they did in Thoreau’s day, Richard B. Primack, a conservation biologist at Boston University, and Abraham J. Miller-Rushing, then his graduate student, reported this year in the journal Ecology. Working with Charles C. Davis, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard and two of his graduate students, they determined that 27 percent of the species documented by Thoreau have vanished from Concord and 36 percent are present in such small numbers that they probably will not survive for long. Those findings appear in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Hummer-BUH BYE

Wasn't this really inevitable?

More from the LA Times.

Bamboozlers Ramp It Up

Vanity Fair has a good roll-up of the latest from George Will, who is still afraid that the "Dirty Hippies" are gonna take over the world with their eco-fascism, or is that eco-commies?.

George Will is far from the only middle-aged Boomer pundit who spends his time shadowboxing Dirty Hippies on the Washington Post editorial page, but his Thursday column is a doozy even by that genre’s dubious standards. Seems the Communist Greens, with their “hostility to markets” and contempt for individual freedom, have teamed up with Activist Judges yet again. They’re after America’s vital fluids!

Got new for ya George, 1968 was 40 years ago, grow up. The commie stuff is a little tired.

350

Bill McKibben pens an important new essay. Worth reading. Our kids future is at risk.

We're the ones who kicked the warming off; now, the planet is starting to take over the job. Melt all that Arctic ice, for instance, and suddenly the nice white shield that reflected 80% of incoming solar radiation back into space has turned to blue water that absorbs 80% of the sun's heat. Such feedbacks are beyond history, though not in the sense that Francis Fukuyama had in mind.

Find it here.

I Am the Walrus

I've had the privilege of watching walrus in their natural habitat. it was a spectacular site, with hundreds of male walrus beached on a small strip of sand and gravel at the bottom of a cliff on Bristol Bay in Alaska. This place is located in Togiak National Wildlife Refuge, a place few have heard of.

Since then, I've been a walrus fan. But because of the geography of walrus, few people will ever get to see them, and climate change will make them even more elusive.

So, check this article from today's New York Times and meet the walrus.

Oil and an Adaptation

I've always enjoyed Vanity Fair. Here are two article links from this great magazine.

First, a piece from 2004 about two kids who make their own version of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

When 10-year-old Chris Strompolos and 11-year-old Eric Zala decided to remake Raiders of the Lost Ark, shot for shot, in the summer of 1982, they never imagined it would take 7 years—and emerge, two decades later, as a minor cult phenomenon. A tale of love, obsession, and pissed-off moms.

Then Robert Kennedy's latest on the future of oil and his vision for the future.

The United States has far greater domestic energy resources than Iceland or Sweden does. We sit atop the second-largest geothermal resources in the world. The American Midwest is the Saudi Arabia of wind; indeed, North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas alone produce enough harnessable wind to meet all of the nation’s electricity demand. As for solar, according to a study in Scientific American, photovoltaic and solar-thermal installations across just 19 percent of the most barren desert land in the Southwest could supply nearly all of our nation’s electricity needs without any rooftop installation, even assuming every American owned a plug-in hybrid.

Climate Demographics

I saw this Pew study results a few days ago. Wired looks at them and asks some obvious questions. Unfortunately, the whole issue of climate change has become a political football, the goal of some of the parties involved, I'm sure..

That strikes me as deeply weird. I don't even have a snarky quip, much less an explanation. What do you think, Wired Science readers? Why are less-educated Republicans more likely to agree with the global scientific community than their more-educated political counterparts, and vice versa among Democrats?

from the Pew Research Study

Text for Ignorance

Take the current state of disconnect between children and nature, add apparently carefully crafted bamboozles about climate change in a high school textbook, and you have the potential for whole generation of kids who would potentially ignore what's happening with our climate.

From dot.earth at the New York Times:

Talk about a civics lesson: A high school senior has raised questions about political bias in a popular textbook on U.S. government, and legal scholars and top scientists say the teen’s criticism is well founded. They say “American Government,” by conservatives James Wilson and John DiIulio, presents a skewed view of topics from global warming to separation of church and state. The publisher now says it will review the book, as will the College Board, which oversees college-level advanced-placement courses used in high schools.

Matthew started the process rolling by contacting the Center for Inquiry, a nonprofit group in Amherst, N.Y., that says its goal is to defend reason and science. (A PDF version of its critique is online.)

Here's the link. Grist also posts on the issue. You read and decide.

Turn Them Off

Tonight at 8:00 pm, turn the lights off.

More at Earth Hour.

What Should We Do?

Check out this video, link courtesy of the Thought Kitchen.

About that recent gathering in NYC

The bamboozlements continue. The denialism blog has some good thoughts on the recent denial gathering in New York.

Know what I mean? Global warming isn't being rejected because the science isn't sound. It's critics don't tend to be scientists, and the ones that are, well, let's just say they could have fooled me. The issue is the effective framing of the scientists and supporters of global warming as snooty liberals who want to tell you what to do and the media who want to scare you (they do have a point there). What is surprising is that how ineffective environmental groups have been at fighting this impression.

This winter in Virginia, the robins never left, the red-winged blackbirds came back six weeks early, and the peepers were out on the third of March. The daffodils were up last week and I've burned less than half the wood I used two and three winters ago. But now they're telling us the globe is cooling, and that a large number of capable scientists are hysterical quacks.

I think I'll trust the Nobel winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change instead of some so-called free market bamboozlers.

Students Step Up

Banner from Deerfield Academy

A group of schools have united under the banner of The Green Schools Alliance to focus on the issues of Climate Change and Sustainability.

They will make a difference.

Future Challenges

Friedman gives a good look at the what the next generation will be dealing with.

The world is rightly focused on climate change. But if we don’t have a strategy for reducing global carbon emissions and preserving biodiversity, we could end up in a very bad place, like in a crazy rush into corn ethanol, and palm oil for biodiesel, without enough regard for their impact on the natural world.

“If we don’t plan well, we could find ourselves with a healthy climate on a dead planet,” said Glenn Prickett, senior vice president of Conservation International.

The mantra is: if the next generation is not engaged in nature, we lose everything...

Dispatch From Bali

Here's a post from itsgettinghotinhere.org on the Youth Statement given at the Bali Conference.

WHO WE ARE

I am Anna Keenan from Australia, Karmila Parakkasi from Indonesia, and Whit Jones from the United States of America. We speak today as part of the global youth climate movement. Half the world’s population is under 30, and will live with the decisions you make today.

THE YOUTH ARE RISING

We cannot wait any longer. If you lead us on the wrong path, we have no time to find our way back and undo your decisions. The potential effects will be devastating and indiscriminant.

Youth around the world are rising to the challenge. As emerging leaders, we are mobilizing the public, building powerful movements, and forging international coalitions.

But all this won’t be enough without strong action from you. We have put our trust in you. We need a Bali Breakthrough — now.