writeaboutwarming

February 22, 2010 - It was my good fortune to attend the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association Conference this weekend. Held in Granville, Ohio (what a jewel of a town!) at the positively palatial junior high, it was just a treat. Workshop leaders from all over the state converged on Granville, intent upon sharing their expertise. Here is just a sample of some of the workshops I didn’t attend, but know I would have thoroughly enjoyed: Fresh Mozzarella and Ricotta Cheese in Your Own Kitchen, How to be a Successful Farmers’ Market Vendor, Ecological Design in the Garden, Building Green, Living Green; Basic Off-Grid Living, Pruning and Training of Apple Trees, Forest Farming American Ginseng and Goldenseal – you get the idea. The variety and currency of the topics were, in the truest sense of the word, awesome. I do want to tell you about the sessions I attended. My first workshop was about Small-Scale Intensive Farming Systems. This two hour long class was led by Andy Pressman...

February 15 – A couple of interesting articles in the February 9 edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer . The first one, on page A4, headlined “New agency to report on climate risks.” The article, written by the Associated Press (no authors’ names provided), begins by enumerating the various threats posed by climate change, and then states that Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and NOAA’s Jane Lubchenco announced the formation of the innocuously named Climate Service. Talk about bland. The reason the Commerce Department is involved is that they regulate the wind power industry and coastal fisheries, both of which will rely upon the new agency for long-range forecasts. Other sectors of the economy that will benefit from the new agency’s formation include farming and public health, according to the article. Coastal community planning was also listed. There is then a reiteration of the recently released finding that the last decade has been the warmest since the government beg...

February 8 – I’m drawing inspiration from the Diane Rehm Show last week. As some of you may know, this program can be heard on National Public Radio; here in Cincinnati, I listen to it on WVXU, 91.7 FM. It’s on from 10:00 am until 12:00 pm, Monday through Friday. I listened to the podcast the next day. Half of the February 2nd show was about water. The three panelists – Steven Solomon, Geoff Dabelko, and Julia Bucknall – are each, in their own way, experts regarding the current world water situation. They are, in addition, professionals who are capable of predicting what the world water situation could be in 15 to 20 years. Keep in mind that, both now and in the future, global warming is and will be having a significant impact on this very fluid (!) situation. Here are some things I heard that I hadn’t heard before: countries in the Northern Hemisphere will have to deal with more rainfall than they currently receive, in 15 years there will be 3.6 billion people in the Middle East...

February 1, 2010 – It’s been a cold January this time around. Cincinnati never gets all that much snow, and that’s holding true this year, too. Cincy is, however, a terribly gloomy place during the winter – I really don’t think Seattle has got us beat by much – and it’s easy to see there are lots of us who are badly in need of increased sunshine! When yours truly goes out for a walk in 25-degree weather just to inhale a little fresh air and get an occasional peak at the sun, it’s bad. So what’s the topic du jour? I was thinking we’d take a close look at natural gas, with the help of the Worldwatch Institute and the American Clean Skies Foundation (ACSF). On December 12, Worldwatch, the ACSF, and the UN Foundation sponsored a forum at the Copenhagen Climate Conference. Entitled “Natural Gas, Renewables and Efficiency: Pathways to a Low-Carbon Economy,” the audience attending the forum listened to a distinguished panel of speakers. Aubrey McClendon, Board Chairman of Chesapeake Ener...