News Roundup
‘The extreme heatwaves, flooding and bush fires striking Australia have already been intensified by climate change and are set to get even worse in future, according to a new report. Only fast and deep cuts to carbon emissions can start to reverse the trend, say scientists from the Climate Commission, an independent advisory group set up by the Australian government.’
via Climate change making extreme events worse in Australia – report | Environment | guardian.co.uk.
‘After nearly half a century of research in planetary and climate science for NASA, James E. Hansen is retiring on Wednesday to pursue his passion for climate activism without the hindrances that come with government employment.’
via James Hansen is Leaving NASA to Intensify Campaign for Carbon Cuts – NYTimes.com.
San Francisco, Mar 26, 2013
Kimery Wiltshire of Carpe Diem West and Scott Miller of Resource Media spoke at the SF Commonwealth Club to announce and discuss Carpe Diem’s new report ‘Smart Choices. Western Water Security in a Changing Climate‘. The discussion emphasized ‘power of nature’ solutions and collaboration across agencies and between actors, highlighting several examples of innovation and cooperation in a variety of locations across the West.
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| Water is the face of climate change. .. it’s the way that most people are going to come to understand what climate change means for them in their day to day lives and that’s critically important because that’s how people understand problems, how they experience them personally.” ~ Scott Miller |
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| “Climate change is the game changer, and the way that we used to do things in the past, the way we used to work with each other in balkanized and siloed and competitive ways isn’t going to work, that’s the great news about climate change.” ~ Kimery Witshire |
report by James George
‘Canada’s tar sands formations, landlocked in northern Alberta, are a giant reserve of carbon-saturated energy — a mixture of sand, clay and a viscous low-grade petroleum called bitumen. Pipelines are the best way to get this resource to market, but existing pipelines to the United States are almost full.’
‘Scotland generated 7% more renewable electricity in 2012 than it did the previous year, data has shown.’
Tom Athanasiou, co-founder EcoEquity, appeared on Tom Palmer’s Sane Society show a few months back, discussing equity and climate change.
An interesting discussion. Here are two excerpts:
23:57 “There is this gigantic cartel which has got its tentacles around human civilization. And for lack of a better term, let’s call it the fossil fuel cartel. It’s countries and it’s companies, right, and we’re all implicated in its operation cause we’re all dependent on it’s infrastructure, right, and if we allow it to do what it needs to do to be maximally profitable, we are toast, because the oil companies already have enough coal and oil on their books to blow us so far past two degrees … identified reserves, not resources, that are already priced into traded stocks, so that, … let me put it this way: in the unlikely chance that we decided not to commit civilizational suicide, it would cause a crash in fossil stocks, so they actually have a baked in interest in civilizational suicide. They have to do it.”
2:45 “Well you know the per capita thing is a bit of a problem, because people have a sense that what would be fair would be to cut the pie up into equal shares, but the thing is, the carbon pie has already been eaten, it’s a very difficult problem because we’re already over budget. … we’re at 392(ppm) now.”
‘WASHINGTON — An overwhelming majority of Americans is convinced that sea level rise resulting from climate change poses a significant threat to the United States and coastal communities should invest in preparing for the risks, according to a survey released Thursday by Stanford University.’
via Most in U.S. concerned about sea level rise, poll finds – latimes.com.
‘Mar. 26, 2013 — Excess carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere created by the widespread burning of fossil fuels is the major driving force of global climate change, and researchers the world over are looking for new ways to generate power that leaves a smaller carbon footprint.’
via Discovery may allow scientists to make fuel from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
‘CARLSBAD, N.M. — Just after the local water board announced this month that its farmers would get only one-tenth of their normal water allotment this year, Ronnie Walterscheid, 53, stood up and called on his elected representatives to declare a water war on their upstream neighbors.’
via New Mexico Farmers Push to Be Made a Priority in Drought – NYTimes.com.