Why has the surface of the Arctic sea ice remained frozen this March?
Yesterday morning, March 30, I emailed James Overland with the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory/NOAA in Seattle asking him about the slow melt of visible Arctic sea ice, adding that this was certain to stoke the fires of the army of climate skeptics. This morning Dr. Overland replied that “the winds on the Atlantic side were [...]
Climate Action Symposium at George Washington University April 13
Climate Action Symposium at George Washington University April 13 on the Next Big North American Climate Issue:
Sustainability Impacts of The Canadian Tar Sands Development.
Presented by the GW Institute for Sustainability. Featuring presentations by the Pew Center for Climate Change, renowned conservation photographer Garth Lenz, preeminent indigenous rights lawyer Jack Woodward and communications specialist and climate change author James Hoggan.
Presented by the GW Institute for Sustainability. Featuring presentations by the Pew Center for Climate Change, renowned conservation photographer Garth Lenz, preeminent indigenous rights lawyer Jack Woodward and communications specialist and climate change author James Hoggan.
CAN Report: Canadian Scientists Muzzled by Harper Government
The scandal is growing at Environment Canada of how Canadian climate researchers are being “muzzled” by draconian policies of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The Montreal Gazette has reported on a leaked document showing that the information restrictions brought in by the Harper government had severely restricted the media’s access to government researchers.
Dr. James Hansen expects a new global temperature record to be set within the next few months
A must-read paper from James Hansen at NASA: “We conclude that global temperature continued to rise rapidly in the past decade” and “that there has been no reduction in the global warming trend of 0.15-0.20°C/decade that began in the late 1970s.”
Solar Minimum Induced Global Cooling? Don’t Bet On It
Will the media continue to ignore all the extreme weather that scientists have been predicting for years would become more common as we pour more heat trapping gases into the atmosphere? Given that we’ve only warmed about a degree Fahrenheit in the past half century and much of this country projected to warm 9°F or more on our current emissions path, it’s hard to imagine the kind of extreme weather we will ultimately be seen.
Warnings of the Approach of Peak Oil and Its Effect on World Food Supply
There’s been a lot of stale argument recently about oil – is it running out? Are we approaching/at/passed Peak Oil (the point when global oil production goes into irrevocable decline)? Business, unsurprisingly, isn’t waiting for the answer; it’s working out what will happen next.
Take the recent report from Deutsche Bank, entitled ‘The Peak Oil Market: Price Dynamics at the End of the Oil Age’. This describes a world where the effect of failing global reserves is compounded by incoherent politics. If the US Government was honest about the cost of oil, for example, it would slap another 50c on a gallon of gasoline to pay the cost of the war in Iraq. Ludicrously, as global oil supplies dwindle, the increasingly precious part that remains is concentrated in the hands of those who give it away to their citizens for almost nothing – Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq.
Governments should be planning how best to manage the limited supply of oil sensibly, for the long-term, the bankers write:
‘We believe, based on the history of the past decades, years, and months, that they will do the exact opposite.’
A CLIMATE LIFEBOAT AT SEA
While compromising your standards in dealing with misinformed, dishonest or incompetent politicians may make you look good to them, this won’t gain you much respect or credibility with your children and grandchildren, who will be forced to live with future climate change, exacerbated by the lack of meaningful action today. We should approach the great task before us with passion and concern – and not be afraid to show it.
Corporate Influence on Climate Change and Environmental NGO’s Exposed
By pretending the broken system can work–and will work, in just a moment, after just one more Democratic win, or another, or another–the big green groups are preventing the appropriate response from concerned citizens, which is fury at the system itself. They are offering placebos to calm us down when they should be conducting and amplifying our anger at this betrayal of our safety by our politicians. The US climate bills are long-term plans: they lock us into a woefully inadequate schedule of carbon cuts all the way to 2050. So when green groups cheer them on, they are giving their approval to a path to destruction–and calling it progress.
Disturbing New Information on the Arctic Methane Bubbling to the Surface
In the past two days, there has been many breaking news stories published on “a large but overlooked source of methane gas escaping from permafrost underwater”. Here is one report from the National Science Foundation and a commentary by by Will Steffen at World Changing.com From the NSF, March 4. (Click title for full story): [...]
Ecopsychology: A New Environmental Frontier
Psychology has recently turned its attention to our relationship with nature. Deep within this complex subject lie hidden insights about ourselves that may help to explain our treatment of nature, reveal our innate dependence on nature, and provide us with the self-awareness we will need to exist harmoniously with nature. Indeed, this inward search may so important that the continued existence of civilization as we know it could depend as much on our understanding of the inner workings of our selves as the outer workings of our physical environment. This new frontier of study is called “ecopsychology”. Regardless of our individual position in this spectrum of responses to the environmental transformation sweeping our planet, we could all use a little ecopsychology to help us understand and cope. And insight might even be inspirational.
