writeaboutwarming

January 7, 2015 – I want to tell you about a book I just read, by Naomi Klein, called This Changes Everything .   Klein’s book is about climate change, and how very close we have now come to exchanging our world for a place that’s nearly unlivable. She begins with dogged conjecture regarding why we appear to want to change our world in such a manner.   We don’t, of course, so we engage in various degrees of climate change denial.   I’ll interject here that looking away and pretending everything will be just fine is essentially mandatory, at least from time to time, if we’re to continue living in this world without going mad.   Draconian measures are required, as all non-Republicans are now aware.   In the words of Angelica Navarro Llanos, “We need a Marshall Plan for the Earth.”   All good Republicans know what that means: the United States will get stuck with the bill.   And that terrifies them. Except that now, China has admitted that it mus...

I like Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General.   He doesn’t just talk about doing things; he makes things happen.   I refer specifically to a new collaboration between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).   These two organizations intend to restore at least 150 million hectares of forest by 2020 (a hectare is slightly more than 2 acres).   Their joint effort will be announced at the Secretary-General’s Climate Summit on September 23, 2014. Restoring 150 million hectares of forest, an area about the size of Alaska, would sequester roughly 1 gigaton of carbon dioxide and/or the equivalent thereof every year, reducing the current emissions gap by 11 – 17 percent.   The target date of 2020 is ambitious, but would generate US$85 billion per year in ecosystem services that would benefit the rural poor all  over the world. The rate of global deforestation has slowe...

July 16, 2014 - Stephen Leahy has just written a landmark article, which can be found at http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-new-ddt-is-starving-out-insect-eating-songbirds.  I kind of wish he wouldn't use that phrase, "the new ddt," though I understand why he does.  He's actually talking about neonicotinoids, which I've written about here previously.  His article is based on a science article published in the journal Nature on July 9.  The name of the article begins "Declines in insectivorous birds ... ." Neonicotinoids were introduced 20 years ago.  Their usage has increased every year since then.  When did their manufacturers realize that these toxins were 5,000 - 10,000 times more poisonous than DDT? As the now-adage goes, what did they know, and when did they know it?  The contagion makers have unleashed on an unsuspecting world amounts to a lethal pandemic.  You see, neonicotinoids don't stay put.  They are absorbed not just by cr...

Dear Readers - I'll be writing only sporadically from now on.  Thanks for caring - do all you can. - Best, Vicki

May 12, 2014 - The Daily Climate features an article by Al Kesselheim today.   Kesselheim writes about the need for Americans to notice the beauty of nature in their own backyards, rather than expecting to encounter nature only when they visit a state or national park.   Actually, Kesselheim writes about wilderness; I will, too, but on a very small scale. For many Americans, what Kesselheim advises is a bland prospect, at best.   First-time homeowners many times own just enough yard to mow, a miniature imitation pasture of sorts that has been scraped off and graded.   Those lucky enough to own property that has been tended and loved (or, better yet, neglected!) probably would find a great deal going on in their private outdoors that would be worth noticing.   What so many of us lack is the time it would take to do so. The bugs and the birds are, nevertheless, right there under ignorant and knowledgeable noses alike.   What if you we...

April 27, 2014 – A report that makes a very thorough assessment of the environmental gains to be made by reshaping our farming methods was issued last Friday. The study was authored by scientists at two consulting firms: Climate Focus (CF) and California Environmental Associates (CEA).   It was funded by the Climate and Land Use Alliance, a coalition of major U.S. foundations.   Strategies studied were numerous; they include managing soil nutrients, halting deforestation, reductions in animal husbandry, using less fertilizer, storing carbon in croplands, and converting manure into compost and biogas through anaerobic digestion.   Consumers, for their part, need to eat less meat and reduce food waste.   A “demitarian” – a term I’d never heard before - is someone who cuts their consumption of red meat in half. Countries poised to make the biggest contributions in this area are, no surprise, big ones: Brazil, China, India, the EU, and the United States. ...

April 21, 2014 – Life just got more interesting.   A fast-spreading wheat rust has scoured farmers’ fields from Africa to Latin America, the Middle East and Europe.   Wheat is the world’s second most important grain crop, after rice.   This modern epidemic began in North America’s wheat belt back in the 1950s, when the fungus that causes wheat rust destroyed 40 percent of the crop.   Since that time it has traveled to other parts of the world.   In response, rust-resistant varieties of wheat were developed. A new era dawned in 1999, when an outbreak in Uganda was found to be the result of a virulent mutation of the wheat rust fungus.   According to Dr. David Hodson of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Addis Ababa, the mutation causes “large-scale destruction in a very short period of time over very large cultivated areas.”   The speed with which the fungus spreads can be likened to a forest fire, says Hodson. ...