NEWS: polar bears, the endangered species act, and climate change
29/05/08 09:44
DC is very hot this week — it was 97 degrees F when I landed on Monday, and yesterday was much hotter. And very humid. On landing, I needed to get to my B & B quickly and decided to opt for a cab. Taxis are a little out of favor in the climate change world, especially in cities with a decent mass transit system like DC. But I didn’t see an alternative. Popping out of the terminal, I took the first cab in line. The small man in the front seat turned to me and said in a thick accent, Hello. Where are you going? Seventeenth and Lanier, near Adams-Morgan, I said. Where’s that? I leaned back, suddenly very hot and very tired.
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Wetlands in the Air
25/05/08 16:09
A study late last week suggested that atmospheric methane emissions are way up. This is disturbing on a number of levels that should have a lot of people very worried. Read More...
The Accent of Power
23/05/08 13:07
Last month I experienced perhaps my most interesting level of policymaker access to date when I was asked to speak at an embassy in the UK. Some 13 or 15 diplomats from across a large region were in attendance. They had not asked me per se to speak but they had approached our national office in that country. Two freshwater staffers were planning on going, and I was going to be arriving that morning in London on the day of the meeting. So my colleagues asked me to come speak as well.
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Good Cop, Bad Cop
20/05/08 08:20
My favorite means of explaining the difference between climate adaptation and climate mitigation in talks for the past few months is a simple metaphor. Imagine, I begin, that you are in a car, and you realize that you will inevitably be hitting a solid object — a wall, a major obstruction on the highway, anything. You know you are going to hit it, and you know it will hurt you and your car.
That obstruction is a changed climate. You have two basic responses you can rely on. First, you press your brake as hard as you can to reduce the rate of impact. You want to hit the obstruction at a slower speed. That's climate mitigation — the process of trying to lower the rate of greenhouse gas emissions and the concentration of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. Both are essentially attempts to slow down the pace of climate change. But you will still hit the obstruction, even if you hit it less hard. Climate adaptation is the second type of response: Read More...
That obstruction is a changed climate. You have two basic responses you can rely on. First, you press your brake as hard as you can to reduce the rate of impact. You want to hit the obstruction at a slower speed. That's climate mitigation — the process of trying to lower the rate of greenhouse gas emissions and the concentration of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. Both are essentially attempts to slow down the pace of climate change. But you will still hit the obstruction, even if you hit it less hard. Climate adaptation is the second type of response: Read More...
Banker's Hours
20/05/08 07:46
I'm just back from a rapid trip to meet with my funding sources in the western burbs of Chicago. Funding has always been a concern in the worlds of conservation and science, since neither area normally has direct services or products that people with money are willing to purchase on their own merits. At best we are investments with uncertain returns. More often we are some combination of guilt, ethical action, and provide an association with behaviors and people that are deemed virtuous. On this trip, however, I was struck by the personal transformations that many of this sponsor's employees have gone through as a result of the association of this company with three non-profits (including the one employing me) and one government-affiliated research institution. Read More...
Barak and the Pew Center: Girding for Battles as President?
15/05/08 09:48
Last Friday, Senator Barak Obama was on tour through Oregon. And Kerry managed to scarf some tickets to an Obama rally in Albany, just north of where we live. The crowd was almost exclusively white, with no obvious age bias in the attendees, was incredibly enthusiastic and cheered and clapped and yelled. People were obviously happy to be there and excited to see and hear Obama, who was a moving and inspiring speaker. We were much impressed with him. Read More...
Rush & climate change
14/05/08 09:41
Yesterday news of Senator John McCain's very public stand with Oregon governor Ted Kulongoski at a wind generation site was all over the news. McCain of course is the Republican candidate for president, and he has a remarkable record of pushing climate change in the U.S. senate for many years now. He is almost as credible on this issue as former senator and vice-president Al Gore. McCain made a strong statement with Kulongoski for reducing U.S. emissions and for the U.S. taking responsibility for our role in current levels of greenhouse gases. His speech was apparently very passionate and seemingly heartfelt, and most commentators believe the speech was very directed to western moderates and progressives — such as myself — who are worried about climate change issues. Some sections of the speech were interpreted as attacks on Bush. And he was roundly attacked today by some conservatives, such as Rush Limbaugh:
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