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Tonight's editor: boatsie
Tonight's Editor's Choice is NOT an eco diary from Kos but rather a shocking report Global Warming Issue From 2 Or 3 Years Ago May Still Be Problem
WASHINGTON—According to a report released this week by the Center for Global Development, climate change, the popular mid-2000s issue that raised awareness of the fact that the earth's continuous rise in temperature will have catastrophic ecological effects, has apparently not been resolved, and may still be a problem.
While several years have passed since global warming was considered the most pressing issue facing mankind, recent studies from the Center for Atmospheric Research, the National Academy of Sciences, NASA, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, and basically any scientific report available on the issue confirmed that it is not only still happening, but might also be worth stopping.
"Global warming, if you remember correctly, was the single greatest problem of our lifetime back in 2007 and the early part of 2008," CGD president Nancy Birdsall said. "But then the debates over Social Security reform and the World Trade Center mosque came up, and the government had to shift its focus away from the dramatic rise in sea levels, the rapid spread of deadly infectious diseases, and the imminent destruction of our entire planet."
Cast your Tweet
Twitter storm for 'Safe American Communities'
EPAcoal.org launchesTwitter campaign to send a powerful message of the support to the EPA for regulating toxic coal sludge so it doesn't enter the water of vulnerable communities in the U.S. (read on)
a few suggested tweets:
# EPA has proposed two rules for storing coal ash. Rule C is for CLEAN. Rule D is for Dirty. Tell the EPA Yes on C. www.epacoal.org
# Burning coal makes toxic ash full of arsenic, mercury, lead and other heavy metals. Tell the EPA Yes on C. www.epacoal.org
# Every year, 130 million tons of coal ash is produced in the US. Tell the EPA Yes on C. www.epacoal.org
Safe American CommunitiesShare Your Concerns on Toxic Coal Ash Storage with the EPA
07.2007 abstract by Matilde B
Biodiversity
ScienceInsider has obtained draft text from negotiators at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya, Japan, in regards to a proposed bar on geoengineering research. If it is passed, the language could broadly affect a whole field of research still taking shape. That emerging field is laid out in a new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the field, released today.
The statement, proposed to be part of the official communiqué of the meeting, declares that "no climate-related geoengineering activities that may affect biodiversity take place, until there is an adequate scientific basis
on which to justify such activities and appropriate consideration of the associated risks for the environment and biodiversity". The text goes on to define geoengineering as either techniques that reduce the amount of sunlight striking the ground or suck carbon out of the atmosphere.
Peru - the age-old mystery of the lines de Nazca by Fxlopes
Stone age etchings found in Amazon basin as river levels fall
A series of ancient underwater etchings has been uncovered near the jungle city of Manaus, following a drought in the Brazilian Amazon.
The previously submerged images – engraved on rocks and possibly up to 7,000 years old – were reportedly discovered by a fisherman after the Rio Negro, a tributary of the Amazon river, fell to its lowest level in more than 100 years last month.
Tens of thousands of forest dwellers were left stranded after rivers in the region faded into desert-like sandbanks.
Climate in Context: A 60-Year Glimpse At Local Climate Change Affects Communities
Three things you need to know:
-- Plants and animals around the world are changing their behavior and their distributions in response to global warming.
-- Multiple factors affect local climate, including elevation, how land is used and the distance to a major source of water.
-- Current global climate models do not simulate climate changes at local scales well, so other methods are needed to help make such projections more accurate
WarrenS made a New Year's Resolution to write a letter advocating climate action every day. The result is over three hundred letters to congresspeople, newspapers, President Obama, and more. Warren has even had letters published in the New York Times and the Boston Globe.
Learn Warren's letter writing technique here. Be sure to steal his stuffand visit his blog.
"Month 11, Day 15: Do You Believe In Magic?
The New York Times profiles the scientists who are measuring water temperatures and ice melt in the glaciers.
Shit:
While the United States is among the countries at greatest risk, neither it nor any other wealthy country has made tracking and understanding the changes in the ice a strategic national priority.
The consequence is that researchers lack elementary information. They have been unable even to measure the water temperature near some of the most important ice on the planet, much less to figure out if that water is warming over time. Vital satellites have not been replaced in a timely way, so that American scientists are losing some of their capability to watch the ice from space.
The missing information makes it impossible for scientists to be sure how serious the situation is.
"As a scientist, you have to stick to what you know and what the evidence suggests," said Gordon Hamilton, one of the researchers in the helicopter. "But the things I’ve seen in Greenland in the last five years are alarming. We see these ice sheets changing literally overnight."
As a scientifically aware layperson, I wish to point out that when these people use words like "alarming" it means something very different from the day-to-day interpretation we put on the word. "Alarming" is what an exobiologist would say if Chthulu appeared over a city in all His blood-curdling glory.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, kids. It’s been fun.
Perhaps the greatest failing of our national discussion is our systemic reliance on magical thinking; American politicians honestly seem to believe that if we don’t acknowledge something, it doesn’t exist. Thus the inevitable default choice: do nothing and hope for the best. Later, we hear, "Nobody anticipated..." Nobody, we’re told, anticipated the breach of New Orleans’ levees; the hijacked airplanes and collapsing towers; the missing Iraqi WMDs. Those who did were ignored, because believing in magic is easier than dealing with facts. Now we learn that our capacity to measure ice depletion in the Poles has been degraded by funding cuts, making it impossible for anyone to anticipate the effects of glacial melt until it’s too late to respond effectively. In the coming years, the catastrophes of climate change may finally teach us that facts are ignored at our peril. Alas for our species, Earth is unmoved by our magic.
Warren Senders
Sunrise - Ngorongoro Crater - Lerai Forest by Jim Griggs
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(All times Eastern!)
eKos diaries from 11/15/2010 |
Diary | Author | Time (Eastern) | Tags |
Science Tidbits | possum | 12:38:40 | Learning, Teaching, Science, eKos |
Gulf Watchers Monday Afternoon Edition BP Catastrophe AUV #426 | shanesnana | 10:06:20 | Gulf Watchers, Oilpocalypse, BP, Deepwater Horizon, Macondo |
Monkey Oranges: Mouthwatering Potential | NourishingthePlanet | 05:57:45 | Ekos, Nourishing the Planet, State of the World, Monkey Orange, Indigenous Vegetable |
eKos diaries from 11/14/2010 |
Diary | Author | Time (Eastern) | Tags |
Climate Change News Roundup: 14 November 2010 | billlaurelMD | 19:44:46 | Patriot News News Clearinghouse, Climate News, global warming, Arctic sea ice, climate change |
Water News | Patric Juillet | 11:28:33 | Recommended, Water News, H2O, Scarcity, Environment |
Hockey Stick and Climategate Revisited | docmidwest | 09:54:37 | ekos, global climate change, climategate |
Dawn Chorus Birdblog: Cumberland Island | matching mole | 07:36:55 | Dawn Chorus, birds, birding, teaching, learning |
Dawn Chorus: Snooze Alarm Edition | Kestrel | 07:20:13 | Dawn Chorus, birds, ducks, waterfowl, eKos |
Gulf Watchers Sunday - Bickering Delayed Testing of BOP - BP Catastrophe AUV
#425 | Yasuragi | 07:08:11 | Recommended, Gulf Watchers, Oilpocalypse, BP, Deepwater Horizon |
It's only natural | Mark Sumner | 06:00:03 | disasters, This is the Way the World Ends, climate, weather, earthquakes |
Daily bigjac Poetry Slam | bigjacbigjacbigjac | 00:35:04 | poetry, philosophy, contraception, population control, eKos |