writeaboutwarming

February 7, 2019 Today is a "first-timer." For the first time, I saw a full page of newspaper articles (in the Vancouver, Wa. Columbian  ) about climate change. They're in a section of the paper called "In the Know." Here's some of what they have to say: - The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tells us that between the years 1980 and 2013 - 33 years, for all you math whizzes - our country averaged six disasters a year that cost us at least $1 billion in repairs. In the last five years, since 2019 has just begun, we've averaged more than a dozen such disasters a year. Last year, we endured 14 billion-dollar disasters (remember, $1 billion is the minimum) at a total cost of $91 billion. There were 3 "main events": Hurricane Michael, Hurricane Florence, and the wildfires out here in the West. Sadly, 2017 was far worse. Hurricanes Harvey, Maria, and Irma, as well as massive wildfires in the West, cost a total of $306 billi...

April 11, 2013 – The budget that the President sent to Congress yesterday would reduce the deficit to 2.8% of GDP by 2016.   Further predictions are made about reductions in 2023, but we all know that’s meaningless.   The point I’d like to make here is that the President continues to try to work with Republicans in decreasing the deficit, which would be of benefit to us all.   Setting that mutual goal aside, the similarities between the President’s budget and the Republican budget pretty much end there.   The R’s are already staking out their territory on the evening news, a dishearteningly familiar strategy.   Whether or not the President’s budget is DOA remains to be seen.   Let’s take a look at it. First and perhaps foremost, the President proposes to make the tax credit for renewable energy production permanent.   This should be more than offset by the retraction of oil industry subsidies.   His budget also proposes clean energy research ...

March 28, 2013 - It seems odd that this could have happened with so little fanfare, but the Obama Administration announced its first national strategy for dealing with climate change on Tuesday.   This strategy, released in the form of a report, was the product of any number of government agencies, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation taking the lead.   Developed with the help of over 90 federal, state, tribal and local officials, the strategy recommends seven goals, among them land conservation, species maintenance, and educating the public. Land conservation and habitat loss mitigation are going to play a huge role in implementing climate change strategy, because habitats traditionally occupied by certain species have already been altered by global warming.   In the case of the Lesser Prairie Chicken, the threats come from all sides: climate change,...

May 14, 2012 - One of the more sophisticated devices available to climatologists in their struggle to gain further understanding of the changing climate is the polar-orbiting satellite.  Capable of continuously scanning our planet from north to south, instruments aboard the satellite can also monitor volcanic eruptions, gather sea surface temperatures, and locate emergency beacons indicating aviators or mariners in distress.  Oh yes, and they help forecast the weather.  Without these satellites, weather and climate forecasts are less accurate.  Furthermore, climatologists' ability to monitor natural disasters declines significantly. The NRC (National Research Council) has issued a new report concerning ongoing satellite programs, an update of a decadal report published in 2007.  Long story short, these programs are in trouble.  I'll bet you'll never guess what the problem is!  Gosh, you're good: not enough money.  While the launching of the next...

February 7, 2012 - Hi everybody, glad to be back at last.  You know, I have friends who are very hip to permaculture, the need to end environmental degradation, and organic farm products, but who still can't get their minds wrapped around climate change.  They can't see it playing out in their town or neighborhood, so what's the worry?  Whenever I find myself talking to such people, I've wished I could whip out a fact like "Don't you realize that over 12,000 climatologists worldwide believe that global warming is a real threat to human existence?"  I still don't have that number at the ready (it's not 12,000 - I made that up), but I have found a website called 100 Top Climate Change Sites - http://www.world.org/weo/climate .  I though I'd give at least some of them a look and tell you what I think. The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions - http://www.pewclimate.org/ (formerly The Pew Center on Global Climate Change) is ranked number 1 o...

August 2, 2010 – It seems a barrage of earthshaking information is being loosed upon us these days. First the report of the International Polar Year Oslo Science Conference, in which Arctic scientists state that a feedback loop has been established that allows climate change to perpetuate itself. Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued their annual report. I haven’t read the report in its entirety; it’s 218 pages long. Realizing that lay people would find the whole report onerous to read, the NOAA was kind enough to issue an executive summary of the report simultaneously (what they refer to as “Highlights”). It is a vitally important document – too late in coming, critically important nonetheless. I’d like to point out what I view as constituting the very core of the report, the information around which the rest of the report revolves. On page two of The State of the Climate, 2009: Highlights, the authors (of which there are more than 300, from 48...

September 21, 2009 – Last week, I recommended a couple of radio stations to you that broadcast what I believe are important shows about global warming. While I did not discuss Radio Ecoshock, a Canadian program originating in Vancouver with host Alex Smith, I will now. First let me say that Smith does a superlative job of not interrupting his interviewee’s, and of selecting the most important questions in need of asking. Back in June of this year, he hosted a show he called “American Climate Change.” The show was broadcast on June 18, two days after the release of a “State of the Climate – National Overview” report by NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States. The report was released, with some degree of fanfare, by Dr.’s Jane Lubchenco, Thomas Karl, and Jerry Melillo. Each made lengthy comments with regard to the various impacts of global warming described in the report. (Let me suggest you visit http://www.ecoshock.org/ if you would care to hear ...