Latest Articles
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On ‘scientific reticence’ and sea-level rise
Sea level rise of 5 meters in one century? Even if most scientists will not say so publicly, that catastrophe is a real possibility, according to the director of NASA's Goddard Institute Of Space Studies.
It may seem like I single Hansen out for recommended reading. But that's only because he:
- is the nation's top climatologist
- writes prolifically
- speaks with unusually bluntness for a scientist
- has been more right than just about any climate scientist
He has written a terrific piece for the open-access Environmental Research Letters on "Scientific Reticence and Sea Level Rise":
I suggest that a "scientific reticence" is inhibiting the communication of a threat of a potentially large sea level rise. Delay is dangerous because of system inertias that could create a situation with future sea level changes out of our control. I argue for calling together a panel of scientific leaders to hear evidence and issue a prompt plain-written report on current understanding of the sea level change issue.
I could not agree more. In researching my book Hell and High Water, many leading climate scientists spoke to me candidly off the record that they share Hansen's fear. Fortunately, more and more are speaking out.
Hansen is especially concerned that sea level rise is nonlinear:
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Funny
Al Gore was on The Daily Show on Thursday. I thought he did quite well — and the crowd was nuts for him. Here’s part one: And here’s part two:
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A few random notes
For Gristers in Houston, you might be interested in this event.
A good friend of mine, Emmett Duffy, has started a new blog called The Natural Patriot. Emmett is a marine scientist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences. Check out his entry on what it means to be a Natural Patriot -- and add this blog to your RSS reader.
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Wind-loss, wind-gain
On the heels of last week's apparent defeat of the proposed Hoosac Wind project in mountainous Western Massachusetts due to environmental (wetland) concerns, Massachusetts' new governor has put his voice behind further offshore wind projects. The timing is interesting.
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Continuing the debate
Recently, in the post "Global Warming and the vision thing," I criticized the use of numbers in advocating policies, arguing instead on behalf of concrete images. Jon Warnow, a Step It Up 2007 organizer, responded to my post, and I thought it would be appropriate to give him the benefit of a separate post, along with my reply:
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Not always, but green branding has potential to connect consumers to their ‘inner green’
In an undeniable rush, corporate giants are jumping on the "green" bandwagon: Wal-mart, Ford, Dow, General Electric, British Petroleum, Chevron, DuPont, to name only a few. "There's a tendency to put a green smiley face on everything," says Joel Makower, author of The Green Consumer. And smiley faces are rearing their heads all over the place. "We use our waste CO2 to grow flowers," claims a Shell Oil ad.Right ...
But the concept isn't new. In 1999, "greenwash" was added to the Oxford English Dictionary, where it is defined as: "Disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image." Naturally, green branding breeds even greener skeptics.
There are plenty of arguments for why this is inherently bad, especially if it's just lip service -- or worse, polishing up the public image of big polluters or convincing people that an environmental problem is being solved by industry when it isn't.
On the other hand, if huge corporate ad campaigns help cultivate a green-conscious public that doesn't stop at voting with their dollars but also votes its greenness at the ballot box, we have a better chance of moving sustainable policies forward. Greenwashing, for all the ire it raises among the truly green, might have long term political benefits.
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A South American take on Gore’s film
Jessica Weisberg is an American journalist currently based in South America. The following is her take on the peculiar cultural dominance of An Inconvenient Truth. —– I liked Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Really, I did. But when I count off my reasons — the special effects, the wet-your-pants astonishment, the drama — I find […]
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Lots of good stuff north of the border
The Vancouver Sun has the scoop. First, the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, just released a draft "eco-density" plan that sounds, at least to my ears, like exactly the right way to deal with the city's expected population increase: curbing sprawl by concentrating new housing in compact, transit-friendly neighborhoods:
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I’ve been Gored in my own neighborhood
"A politics of reason faces a strong headwind." These were Al Gore's words last night, at New York's 92nd Street Y, where I had the unique pleasure of seeing him interviewed by Charlie Rose. The main topic of discussion was Gore's new book, The Assault On Reason, which not surprisingly is #1 on Amazon's bestseller list ("It's not about K-Fed," Gore was quick to chime in). Apart from offering a scathing critique of the Bush administration, the book lambastes the shallowness of today's media -- the amount of time spent on Pamela Anderson versus, say, the still ravaged landscape of New Orleans. And Rose, it was refreshing to see, did not fall into the trap, as did Diane Sawyer, of lobbing the precise sort of vacuous soundbites that Gore goes after in his book.
It was also pretty stunning to hear a man as versed in the details of the Federalist Papers as he is in the melting rates of the Antarctic ice shelf. In response to the Rose question, "When did the decline of reason begin?", he skipped seamlessly through a history of the Enlightenment, the emigration of those ideas to a fledgling nation across the pond, and the firm establishment of reason in the founding fathers' design of the U.S. government. He talked about the dawn of television -- a box with flickering lights that Americans sit motionless in front of for about 3.5 hours a day -- and the accompanying decline in substantive media. I won't go into all the details here, or try to regurgitate the conversation, but suffice to say I was duly impressed.
