climate change

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 45 Table of Contents Chapter 47 Chapter 46 Boo-Boo, August 26, 2056 I found myself becoming quite anthropological watching Anna learn to walk and talk over the summer. She is a curious and rambunctious child who is always getting into things we thought out of reach. If it isn't pots and pans, it is the media padd, old shoes -- you name it -- any damned thing we inadvertently leave open. I walked into the kitchen one day and Anna was sitting in the middle of the floor chewing on a mud-covered carrot she had pulled from a pile on the counter.…
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years July 7, 2013 Chuckles, COP19+, WMO, Steinacher, CO2 Fertilization, Desertec, Rabobank, Cook Fukushima: Note, News, Policies Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Food vs. Biofuel, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, New Weather, GHGs, Temperatures, Aerosols Paleoclimate, ENSO, Biosphere, Extinctions,…
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not Wisdom June 30, 2013 Chuckles, COP19+, Montreal Protocol, Indian Monsoon, Obama's Plan, Sumatran Smog Bottom Line, World Bank, Cook Fukushima: Note, News, Policies, Related Papers Melting Arctic, Geopolitics Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Food vs. Biofuel, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather GHGs,…
Here, David Letterman interviews the man who spent two years in prison for trying to sand in the way of the Bush administration's attempt to sell off your future. More here.
Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Mid-Summer's Day Edition June 23, 2013 Chuckles, Solstice, COP19+, Post-G8, UK Meeting, Indian Monsoon Sumatran Smog, European Flood, World Bank, Cook Fukushima: Note, News, Policies Melting Arctic, Arctic Birds, Methane, Antarctica Food: Crisis, Fisheries, GMOs, Production Hurricanes, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather, Temperatures GHGs, Aerosols, Clouds,…
On Tuesday, President Obama will make a speech outlining his administration’s plans to address climate change. The Right Wing has already responded by calling those concerned with climate change “Terrorists.” How have the progressive and left wings responded? Badly. Very badly. Here is a selection, some paraphrased to ensure anonymity (though these are all public), of comments by people that I know are well meaning climate change activists or otherwise concerned about global warming and such. Obama’s speeches and verbal plans make no difference. It’s what he DOES that counts. He’ll say…
Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not Wisdom June 16, 2013 Chuckles, COP19+, Bonn, Xi-Obama, G8, IEA, EIA, Europe Flood, Cook Fukushima: Note, News, Policies, Related Papers Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather…
Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Information Overloadis Pattern Recognition June 9, 2013 Chuckles, COP19+, Bonn, WED, WOD, European Floods, Patriot, CO2 Fertilization Bottom Line, Pricing Nature, Global Legal Framework, Cook, Warnings, Lu, Weathermen Fukushima: Note, News, Related Papers Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production Hurricanes,…
There is a long history of conflicts over water – the Pacific Institute maintains an online, searchable chronology of such conflicts going back 5,000 years. There were dozens of new examples in 2012, in countries from Latin America to Africa to Asia.  (A full update for 2012 has been posted.) Access to water and the control of water systems have been causes of conflict, weapons have been used during conflicts, and water systems have been the targets of conflict. One especially disturbing example of a major conflict, with complicated but direct connections to water, has developed over the past…
A paper came out in today’s Nature about glacial melting and its contribution to sea level rise. This paper does not present new research, but rather summarizes and evaluates the last several years of research on modeling and measuring contiental glaciers and their dynamics. From the Abstract: Since the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report, new observations of ice-sheet mass balance and improved computer simulations of ice-sheet response to continuing climate change have been published. Whereas Greenland is losing ice mass at an increasing pace, current…
One day, sometime around the middle of this century, during the lifetime of people now alive, the population of the planet will be smaller than it was the day before. Global population growth is slowing, will level off, and one remarkable day, decline. This day will mark the dividing line – the definitive transition – between a world dominated by the concept of exponential, inexorable growth to one that has the opportunity to come to grips with true long-term global sustainability. Ever since the dawn of humanity, the population of the planet has been growing (ok, some quibblers may point out…
Global Warming is the increase in the Earth's temperature owing to the greenhouse effects of the release of CO2 and other gasses into the atmosphere, mainly by humans burning fossil fuel, but also by the release of Methane from oil wells and melting of Arctic permafrost, natural gas from leaky pipes, and so on. This increase in temperature occurs in both the atmosphere and the oceans, as well as the land surface itself. During some periods of time most of the increase seems to happen in the atmosphere, while during other times it seems to occur more in the oceans. (As an aside: when you…
Sipping from the Internet Firehose... This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom June 2, 2013 Chuckles, Roll Cloud, COP19+, Black Carbon, WIN, Patriot, Bodman Otto, Cook et al, Aurornis, Bottom Line, Pricing Nature, Cook Fukushima: Note, News, Policies Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Land Grabs, GMOs, Production Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Temperatures,…
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Chronicling a new Age of Consequences May 26, 2013 Chuckles, COP19+, GWSP, State of Nature, MAHB, Moore EF5, Otto Consensus , Warnings, Subsidies, Thermodynamics, Cook, Shrinkology Fukushima: Note, News, Policies Melting Arctic, Research Station, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food: Crisis, Fisheries, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production Hurricanes, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Temperatures…
The threshold of 400 carbon dioxide molecules per million molecules of Earth's atmosphere is an arbitrary but still significant milestone, reflecting a near 50% increase in the concentration of the greenhouse gas since humanity first started burning fossil fuels for industry. Sure, the Earth has experienced hotter chemistry before, but Peter Gleick says it all the in the title of his post: The Last Time Atmospheric CO2 was at 400 parts per million Humans Didn’t Exist. The Arctic was also free of ice, and CO2 levels were changing 1000 times slower than they are today. Not that we can't survive…
Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom May 19, 2013 Chuckles, COP19+, Arctic Council, Consensus, Warren 400 ppmv, Ventus Project, Red List, Bottom Line, Cook Fukushima: Note, News Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Food vs. Biofuel, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production Hurricanes, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather GHGs, Temperatures, Aerosols,…
You've gotta love South Minneapolis. My friend Sharon Sund passed me an email this morning about an Organizing for Action meeting in South Minneapolis to discuss climate change activism. Sharon and I had been talking about local climate change activism earlier in the week so she thought I'd liked to go to this meeting and see what they are up to. Organizing for Action(OFA) is an offshoot of the Obama campaign, a grassroots non profit that is separate from any campaign committee (so they don't support or run candidates) that organizes in favor of Obama's issues like getting some sensible gun…
Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not Wisdom May 12, 2013 Chuckles, Beauty, COP19+, G8, Red Lists, 400 ppmv Lake El'gygytgyn, CCAC, Unburnable , Pricing Nature, Cook Fukushima: Note, News, Policies, Related Papers Melting Arctic, Arctic Fox, Methane, Geopolitics Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Land Grabs, GMOs, Production Hurricanes, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather…
The planet has passed a disturbing landmark, a marker on a continuing highway to climate disruption. On May 9th, the NOAA and the Mauna Loa observatory reported that atmospheric CO2 levels touched 400 parts per million. Before humans started burning fossil fuels, they were around 280 parts per million. Mauna Loa measurements of carbon dioxide. From http://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/   The last time atmospheric CO2 was at 400 parts per million was during the ancient Pliocene Era, three to five million years ago, and humans didn’t exist. Global average temperatures were 3 to 4 degrees C warmer…
The Colorado River, recently named America’s most endangered river, supports millions of people in the American Southwest and northwest Mexico and helps irrigate millions of acres of land. It is shared by seven states in the U.S. and Mexico, through a complex series of legal agreements and treaties. Yet every drop of water on the river is accounted for, used, reused, and transpired away, and today, no water reaches the Colorado River delta in an average year. Quite simply, demands on the river exceed the river’s average supply, and this problem is projected to get worse as populations…