climate change
illconsidered | March 11, 2013Logging 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
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Another Week of Climate Instability News
Information Overload is Pattern Recognition
March 10, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, CITES, Angry Summer, Marcott, DLST, Maldives
Bottom Line, Subsidies, Cook, Meteorologists
Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy
Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food Crisis, Fisheries, Food Prices, Food vs. Biofuel, Land…
pgleick | March 7, 2013Sometime, about one year from now, the front pages of whatever decent newspapers are left will carry a headline like the one above, announcing that for the first time in human existence (or in nearly a million years, or 3 million years, or 15 million years), the global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide – the principal gas causing climate change – will have passed 400 parts per million.
That’s a significant and shocking figure. Unfortunately, it is only a temporary marker on the way to even higher and higher levels. Here (Figure 1 below) are the most recent (March 2013) data from the…
illconsidered | March 4, 2013Logging 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
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Another Week of Climate Instability News
Sipping from the Internet Firehose...
March 3, 2013
Chuckles, Sensawunda, COP19+, CITES, Petoukhov, Vaks
Bottom Line, Subsidies, Thermodynamics, Cook
Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy
Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food Crisis, Fisheries, Land Grabs, GMOs, Food Production
Hurricanes, Notable…
dr. dolittle | February 27, 2013I read an interesting article today on how eating insects may save the world. The rationale: eating insects are not only nutritious (high in protein and fat), but would also help to save the Earth's resources as the human population continues to expand.
According to Aaron T. Dossey, a biochemist, entomologist, and founder and owner of All Things Bugs, humans consume ~40% of potential terrestrial productivity and livestock currently takes up ~30% of the Earth's land (pasture and growing feed). With the growing population of humans, food consumption will necessarily increase. He sees insects…
pgleick | February 26, 2013One of the most important and threatening risks of climate change is sea-level rise (SLR). The mechanisms are well understood, and the direction of changes in sea-level is highly certain – it is rising and the rate of rise will accelerate. There remain plenty of uncertainties (i.e., a range of possible outcomes) about the timing and rate of rise that have to do with how fast we continue to put greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the responses of (especially) ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, and the sensitivity of the climate.
Even little changes can have big consequences. As we saw…
illconsidered | February 25, 2013Logging 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
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Another Week of Climate Disruption News
Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
February 24, 2013
Chuckles, JODTAA, COP19+, Bowman vs. Monsanto, Vaks, Warnings, Maldives, Tesla
Bottom Line, Subsidies, WB, Pricing Nature, Thermodynamics, Cook, Meteorologists
Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy
Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Geopolitics
Food Crisis, Fisheries, SRI,…
gregladen | February 21, 2013"Thank you to the nearly 50,000 who demonstrated on Presidents Day Weekend at the Washington Monument, the thousands at 20+ solidarity rallies across the country, and the more than one million online activists who stood up and spoke out to tell President Obama that right now its time to move Forward on Climate."
pgleick | February 20, 2013One of the reasons that climate change is such a big issue is because the global climate is an integral part of the Earth’s entire ecosystem, tied to so many of the big and little things that society cares about. Figuring out how all these complicated pieces tie together is hard, as is linking these pieces together in the minds of the public so that we – and our policy makers – can grasp the true implications of a changing climate and plan for them. Because this is so important, I expect that many of my future posts here will address this issue, but let me start with one example: the…
illconsidered | February 18, 2013Logging 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
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Another Week of Climate Disruption News
Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not Wisdom
February 17, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, Tesla, Maldives, Warnings, GreenPeace, Gleick
Bottom Line, Subsidies, Thermodynamics, Cook
Fukushima Note, Fukushima News
Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food Crisis, Fisheries, Land Grabs, IP Issues, GMOs, Food…
pgleick | February 13, 2013We’re bombarded with numbers every day. But seeing a number and understanding it are two different things. Far too often, the true “significance” of a figure is hidden, unknown, or misjudged. I will be returning to that theme often in these blog posts in the context of water, climate change, energy, and more. In particular, there is an important distinction between accuracy and precision.
Here is one example – reported cases of cholera worldwide. Cholera is perhaps the most widespread and serious water-related disease, directly associated with the failure to provide safe drinking water and…
illconsidered | February 12, 2013Logging 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
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Another Week of Climate Disruption News
Information Overload is Pattern Recognition
February 10, 2013
Chuckles, Survival, Lai Pei-yuan, Nickel, Transition, Uranium, Belief
Bottom Line, Subsidies, GFIs, Thermodynamics, Cook
Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy
Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food Crisis, Fisheries, Food Prices, Food vs.…
pgleick | February 10, 2013It is time we just said “no.”
There is growing attention to climate change in the media; and there is a growing realization that decisions we make today will have a lasting effect on the world’s climate tomorrow.
But there is still a gap – a chasm really – between the reality of climate change and our day-to-day choices, investments, and public debates about water, energy, food, and resources.
Here is the reality: the burning of fossil fuels is the leading contributor of gases that are already changing the planet’s delicate climate, and the climate will continue to change in an exponentially…
pgleick | February 8, 2013Welcome to the first post in my new National Geographic ScienceBlogs column “Significant Figures.” I look forward to sharing my thoughts with you on a wide range of environmental science-related issues, data, and people, and to a productive and constructive interaction.
My background? I’m an environmental scientist by training and inclination, with experience in engineering, hydrology, climatology, and interdisciplinary analysis. My research and writing have, for over thirty years, focused on water resources, climate dynamics and change, energy, risk assessment, and the synthesis and…
gregladen | February 6, 2013Here are two graphs that show the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere, mainly as CO2 and mainly form the burning of fossil fuels, per year, from various sources for a long span of time. Both graphs are based on the same data set. the first graph was created by the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center and shows the breakdown between different sources of carbon. The second graph, which I made, simply shows the total, and over a shorter time span to make it easier to use for other purposes.
illconsidered | February 4, 2013Logging 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
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Another Week of Climate Disruption News
Sipping from the Internet Firehose...
February 3, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, Clean Air, Australian Floods, Tyee, Nigeria & Shell, Oh Oh Squad
MDGs, GW & Rain, Bottom Line, IMF, Thermodynamics, Crap Detection, Cook
Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy
Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food Crisis, Fisheries,…
illconsidered | January 30, 2013(sorry to be so late this week, it was Australia Day weekend and I guess it threw off my rhythm!)
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
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Another Week of Global Warming News
Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
January 27, 2013
Minamata, NEEM, Australia, GreenPeace, Tyee, EEA, Oh Oh Squad
Bottom Line, Subsidies, WB, Pricing Nature, Thermodynamics, Cook
Fukushima Note, Fukushima News
Melting Arctic, Methane,…
gregladen | January 25, 2013The Wall Street Journal recently published and editorial by Bjorn Lomborg which uses misleading statistics to justify utterly inappropriate delays in addressing climate change. I would like to direct you to a response to that editorial:
In WSJ op-ed, Bjorn Lomborg urges delay with misleading stats
illconsidered | January 21, 2013Logging 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
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Another Week of Global Warming News
Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not Wisdom
January 20, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, Mercury, Bond, Australian, The Holmes, Attributions
Bottom Line, Thermodynamics, Cook,
Fukushima Note, Fukushima News
Melting Arctic, Megafauna, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food Crisis, Fisheries, Food vs. Biofuel, GMOs, Food Production
Hurricanes, Monsoon…
illconsidered | January 15, 2013Logging 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
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Another Week of Global Warming News
Information Overload is Pattern Recognition
January 13, 2013
Chuckles, Hottest Year, Australia Burning, Holmes Family, Retrospectives
Bottom Line, Subsidies, Thermodynamics, Cook
Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy
Melting Arctic, Orca, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food Crisis, Fisheries, Food Prices, Food vs. Biofuel, GMOs, Food…