What is outside the envelope of natural variation? How are we framing risk? Global hazards in July, according to a NOAA report: Severe drought plagued Bolivia, killing crops and livestock. Three massive wildfires raged across Southern California. Record high temperatures and sparse rainfall in Russia, killing 40% of the grain harvest, creating huge wildfires, oppressive …
Author: ryankwhi
TX & VA v. EPA GHG Endangerment Finding
Here's the latest example of why communicating climate science is so important. From a petition filed by Texas asking the EPA to reconsider its Endangerment Finding that "the current and projected concentrations of the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases--carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)--in the …
Post Conference Thoughts – Altruistic Hubris
The COP15 was certainly a worthwhile experience all-around for me personally. Before I left I was incredibly skeptical that anything positive would come out of the conference. I left the conference not only skeptical but also angry and fearful; angry that just about any group with an agenda used climate change as an impetus for …
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Reflections on Copenhagen
As COP15 comes to a close without a clear path forward forward from Kyoto, it is difficult not to become dismayed at the growing gulf between the urgency of climate science and the pace of international negotiations. While it provides little solace, there is little doubt that the economic calamities of the past two years …
Snow Storms and the REDD+ Gala
On Wednesday, Renee Willoughby and I served as the lead ushers at the REDD+ Gala at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, an awards ceremony honoring various environmental and political leaders for their work in the United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) Program (We did not actually get a …
Copenhagen + The Media: Aubrey to be on San Fran NPR affiliate
Listen in tomorrow!!!! I'm going to be on a call-in radio show tomorrow 2-3pm (EST) discussing Copenhagen and the media! 91.7 KALW Public Radio Station in San Francisco!!!! http://www.yourcallradio.org/ Written by AUBREY PARKER.
Imagining Cooperation on Climate
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” – Albert Einstein Can climate models embolden the imagination enough to push us through political stalemates? We are getting reports that the …
Letting the market transform the fossil fuel economy
Is a global agreement to combat global warming even necessary? What about simply leveling the playing field for alternative energies, and then letting the market “choose” new, cheaper technologies? This is an argument made by Hermann Scheer in this month’s issue of Ode magazine (widely distributed at COP)—and when considered objectively (it is vulnerable to …
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Hadley Centre: 4° C looks like…
I want to refer everyone to a very cool interactive map of the projected geographical distribution of of an average 4° C warming and related impacts, produced by the Met Office at the Hadley Centre, which reports that a business as usual emissions scenario puts us at 5-7° C by 2100. The Copenhagen Diagnosis provides …
Good COP, Bad COP
I left Copenhagen on Wednesday morning, just as World Leaders started to descend into the city and protestors mounted their most "direct action" on COP15 yet. Like the rest of the world, I can only watch and wait, nervously for a positive outcome from the last few days of negotiations. From a personal point of …
Climate Blue 