Apparently, the carbon footprint is not one of the FIFA's criteria for selecting a World Cup host.
The desert nation of Qatar, where temperatures in the 50s Celsius are not unusual during the day, will be building and upgrading twelve, large air-conditioned soccer stadiums for the 2022 Cup.
I can't wait 'til the 2026 World Cup at McMurdo Station in Antarctica.
The latest Wikileaks release presents an important ethical challenge to the climate change blogs and the community as a whole.
Is it ethical to read and blog about the leaked cables, when at the same time condemning the CRU e-mail hack or "Climategate"? In both cases, the subject matter are messages that were i) stolen, ii) intended to be private, and iii) written by government employees. Not to mention that in both cases many of the message can easily be taken out of content.
Is this a false equivalence, or a potential case of hypocrisy?
This post from the Capital Weather Gang is a reminder that the lack of Atlantic hurricanes which made landfall this year does not mean it was a tepid hurricane season. The year's tracks are shown at right.
The new paper by Eakin et al. in PLoS-One (open access) summarizes the extent of the 2005 coral bleaching event in the Caribbean, an event discussed at length on Maribo. The paper includes data from dozens of coral reef sites across the Caribbean that were affected by the prolonged period of water water in the late summer and fall of 2005, the same unusual warmth which helped promote the strong Atlantic hurricane season. The previous post drawing analogies between the state of climate blogging and cable news drew a wide variety of responses, some here, some over at the Energy Collective, and some in private e-mails (if such a thing exists). There's no right answer to the question of how to respond to skepticism about well-founded scientific findings. I'm arguing that we may all benefit from taking a deep breath before raising our voices, from thinking about the big picture and not overreacting to every event.
Jon Stewart, whose call for civility inspired my post, compared himself to a climate scientist in an interview last week (thanks Keith):
This is—I‘m not saying—look, I love the voices that I hear on MSNBC. And there‘s a difference between—here‘s what‘s unfair about what I do. This is really what‘s a great—here‘s a great thing that I think is unfair.
You‘re one person with one great voice and sincere—but I‘m a climate scientist. I study weather patterns and climate. You‘re talking about the weather. Maybe these networks are not meant to be viewed in aggregate, but there is an aggregate. There is an effect.
A perfect analogy. Are the climate blogs dealing with the "weather"? Or with the climate?
[UPDATE: to hear other views, Keith Kloor is also asking readers this question]
The article Geoengineering: The Inescapable Truth of Getting to 350 from online hybrid magazine / academic publication The Solutions Journal appeared in my inbox today.
We can argue back and forth about the societal and ecological implications of geoengineering. That's not the point of this post. What struck me as unique in this particular article is the focus on "bioenergy" solutions, namely 'The Case for Algae', out of all the many possible geoengineering proposals. It turns out the article is written by two academics along with the chief technology and science officer of Cellana. From the Cellana website:
Cellana was established in 2007 as a joint venture between Shell and HR BioPetroleum to develop technology for the sustainable and commercial production of biofuels and animal feed from algae
Let's be clear. Developing and implementing solutions to climate change will require working with industry. We live in a capitalist system; it is willful blindness to ignore the efforts of profit-seeking outfits. So there's not necessarily anything unethical about working with industry - there certainly are cases where it will be unethical, but it is not absolute guaranteed ethical violation. Having worked on the ecological impacts of biofuels, I've certainly encountered academic scientists who consult with algae companies, because the scientists concluded algae is a far better feedstock than corn.
Does the same apply to publishing peer-reviewed articles? Is this a good example of academics working with companies to find solutions, or of a journal bridging the gap between the ivory tower and the real world? Or is this article example of "the literature" being sullied by industry influence?
This is from US President Obama's interview in Rolling Stone:
When I ask him [Stephen Chu] how we are going to solve this problem internationally, what he'll tell you is that we can get about a third of this done through efficiencies and existing technologies, we can get an additional chunk through some sort of pricing in carbon, but ultimately we're going to need some technological breakthroughs
It is an interesting and rather pragmatic characterization of the solution. The pricing could, of course, drive efficiencies, use of efficient technologies and the development of new breakthrough technologies. But we're seeing how a comprehensive pricing scheme is a practical and political nightmare. Implementing a national or international pricing scheme that touches on a limited set of carbon-generating activities, let one alone taxes carbon across the board, has been hard enough (in the case of Waxman-Markey, you end up with a complicated bill that alienates even the supporters of action).
Maybe people are finally coming to the realization that a piecemeal solution might actually work the best. If we can use adopt "wedges" thinking, rather than one grand solution, to reducing emissions, why not do the same for the policy that encourages the emissions reductions?
In Obama's words:
We may end up having to do it in chunks, as opposed to some sort of comprehensive omnibus legislation. But we're going to stay on this because it is good for our economy, it's good for our national security, and, ultimately, it's good for our environment.
From the Montreal Gazette:
The Harper government has tightened the muzzle on federal scientists, going so far as to control when and what they can say about floods at the end of the last ice age.
Natural Resources Canada scientists were told this spring they need "pre-approval" from Minister Christian Paradis's office to speak with national and international journalists. Their "media lines" also need ministerial approval, say documents obtained through access-to-information legislation.
The documents say the "new" rules went into force in March and reveal how they apply not only to contentious issues including the oilsands, but benign subjects such as floods that occurred 13,000 years ago.
I'm always surprised by Canadian or American government efforts to limit or control public statements by scientists. Forget the logic of the communication policy itself. It goes without saying that controlling public appearances by scientists is bad policy in a democratic society. But it is even worse politics. Tales of muzzling always make it into the media. It's futile to attempt to hide such a policy in a world of Twitter, WikiLeaks and Youtube. And the eventual tale of "muzzling scientists" always makes the government look bad in the end. So why bother? Political masochism if you ask me.
A colleague mentioned this list (also see Joe Romm) of statements about climate change by Republican candidates for Senate. With one exception, they all doubt that human activity is responsible for climate change.
Sure I agree with all the commentators that the stance of all these candidates is depressing. The similarity of their statements suggests that it has less to do with what the individual's actually think about climate change, than the fact that climate change has become so politicized in the U.S. that Republicans need to express doubt in order to win their party's nomination. From their vantage point, denial and doubt is the only viable option.
As such, what's far more depressing to me than the statements themselves is what those statements imply about the utter failure to communicate the science of climate change and the rationale for climate change solutions in a non-partisan way. Maybe this should serve as a lesson that years of doing things like calling people who question climate change "brain-dead zombies" hasn't accomplished anything but maybe "fire up the base" (which in itself, didn't accomplish much in the past two years!)
You can be right without being arrogant. I've said it before: rather than demonize people who question climate change, it's worth thinking about their motivation and their reasoning, faulty as though it may be. Otherwise, the water will be flooding the front steps here in Vancouver, and we'll still be having the same inane arguments.
A couple weeks backs, I answered a few questions about coral reefs and climate for at Andy Extance's site Simple Climate.
At the end, he asked how I would explain the global warming situation to someone who had no previous exposure at all. Of course, like any scientist, my first instinct is to launch into a discussion about the radiative transfer, the carbon cycle, etc. But explaining the science without considering the context is pointless. Here was my quick answer for Andy:
I’d start with talking about how it can be hard to “believe” that people can change the climate. For thousands of years, we’ve assumed that only powers greater than us could possible influence something as vast as the atmosphere. That’s enshrined in most cultural and religious traditions. But today, there are so many people on the planet, and we’ve consume so much energy every year, that we generate enough waste products – greenhouse gases – to alter the climate.
I’d then stress separating the science from the politics. The science tells us that human activity is changing the climate. How you want the world to respond to that information is a value judgment. As a scientist working on this subject for a number of years, I can provide you a reasonably informed opinion on the costs and benefits of different responses. But the choice is not mine alone.
After all that, if the person was still awake and interested, I’d then talk about the scientific evidence.
"Our industrial civilization has been pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a great rate... If it remained, it would have a very marked warming effect on the earth's climate, but most of it will probably be absorbed by the oceans. Conceivably, however, it could cause significant melting of the great icecaps and raise sea levels in time."
From Planet Earth: The mystery with 100,000 clues, a brochure produced by the U.S. National Academy of Science as part of the first International Geophysical Year, 1957-1958.
The terrific, very 1950s, accompanying film "The Inconstant Air" describes the basics of weather and climate, including the greenhouse effect. What I find most fascinating is the film provides historical context to the viewer - i.e. mentioning that early human societies though that gods controlled the weather - something that is generally missing from education and outreach on climate change today. We are so buried in the politics, we forget and ignore history, and therefore fail to appreciate that the very premise (that humans are affecting the climate) is quite revolutionary.
Maribo's been quiet the past few months because of field work, other research, the Canadian summer and a major case of blog exhaustion. I may be inspired to write more on the exhaustion issue later, we'll see.
In the meantime: Last year, I mentioned that several parts of the Indo-Pacific were at risk of coral bleaching in the coming year. The same El Nino event that melted the Vancouver Olympics and weakened last year's Atlantic hurricane season, did indeed cause coral bleaching across the Central Equatorial Pacific from October through the spring. We're still putting together the data for Kiribati (home of this whimsical coral).
The Pacific since sloshed back towards more neutral or La Nina conditions, the unusual warmth has been pushed to the western Pacific and Asia, leading to bleaching in Thailand, Malaysia and other parts of SE Asia. Add it all up, and 2010, which the data shows may end up being the warmest or second year in the observed temperature record, may end up also having the most extensive bleaching since 1998.
The management response in Malaysia is impressive. The Department of Marine Parks has banned diving in several popular dive sites in order to give the reefs the best chance to recover (the Telegraph):
"We expect [the corals] to recover or at least improve." Mr Abdul Jamal said The Department of Marine Parks claimed the damaged coral was solely the result of rising sea temperatures and not tourism activities.
However, Mr Abdul Jamal explained that by banning diving, the coral will be given time to regenerate naturally. The closures are likely to affect tourism revenue over the summer, but authorities argue the priority is to safeguard one of the country's main attractions – its coral reefs.
Will this ensure the coral reefs recover to the previous state? No, but it increases the odds. Short of covering the entire reef with a sheet, you can't really stop a bleaching event. But you can manage the system to encourage recovery. This is the type of management - of climate change adaptation - that many of us in the community have argued is necessary to help coral reefs survive the predicted warming over the coming decades.
(why it is warmer and the copra dries faster than in the old days, according to a 97-year old Kiribati unimwane or elder)
The quote came to me second hand, via Kiribati religious leader I met while conducted a field project in the Central and Northern Gilbert Islands. It comes with the usual caveats about translation and the accuracy of anecdotal climate observations.
The unprecedented warmth across Canada stands out in the NOAA global temperature map for March. But Canada was not alone. According to NOAA's data, this was the warmest March and the fourth warmest January - March in recorded history.
I had a nice long interview about different aspects of climate change with human rights expert Darren Thorne as part of a new podcast series Human Rights and Wrongs, hosted by the Mark. As always, feedback and comments are welcome.
[Update] On the podcast, we discuss the pitfalls of Canada relying on the US to determine climate policy. One of the problems is that it may be a long wait. From the Globe and Mail:
Environment Minister Jim Prentice is signalling further delays in imposing greenhouse gas emission standards on the oil sector and other industries, saying Ottawa does not want to lose jobs and investment by driving activity out of the country.
The Conservative government is waiting for the United States to decide how it will impose climate-change regulations before acting here. And the U.S. Congress could take up to two years to pass legislation that sets caps on greenhouse gas emissions, Mr. Prentice told a Senate committee Thursday.
Add the delay to the fact that the whatever US legislation is produced will be tailored to the US economy (i.e. provide loopholes for industries that are more prominent in the US than in Canada), and there's even more reason to pursue a national strategy.
Last week, President Obama shocked environmentalists by opening millions of acres of the American continental shelf to oil and gas drilling. The announcement reminded me of a backpacking trip I took to Malaysian Borneo several years ago.
Read more at the Mark.
For all those lamenting the decline of science journalism in print and on television, its worth checking out the growing number of science podcasts.
One great example is Public Radio International's The World: Science hosted by Rhitu Chaterjee. The show has a more global focus than most other programs, including some recent interviews with young inventors in India and this week's discussion of the international politics of geoengineering. The show also features a fun segment on the music that scientists listen to while they work. The music segment features yours truly this week, but don't hold that against the show!
A few days ago, I waded into the old "global warming" vs. "climate change" debate to demonstrate a simple point about public communication.
The issue at hand is not which term is most appropriate. Of course, there is a legitimate argument to be had on that question. Michael Tobis intelligently advocates for climate change, as do most scientists. Others argue that the two terms describe different phenomena and should not be used interchangeably.
These arguments highlight the very disconnect between scientists and the public that I was getting at in the initial post. I'll obnoxiously quote myself:
Rights and wrongs of the different labels aside, the fact is that there is a disconnect here. We use a term that means less to people. And it puts scientists and others communicating the real scientific consensus at a disadvantage.
Too often, we are oblivious to the way the public perceives science. And if we do see the disconnect between scientific and public language (or style), we tend to stubbornly insist that our language (or style) is the only correct option. This only exacerbates the problem. High-minded debates about semantics like the phrase-ology certainly won't diminish the common view that academics and scientists are disconnected from reality.
Should we suspend those debates? Of course not. But let's save our energy for the more critical issues. We also shouldn't allow semantic debate to get in the way of public communication, as the Google search history I showed suggests may be the case. Like many scientists, I not wild about the terms global warming or ocean acidification or ozone hole; but if the price of increasing public understanding of the science is occassionally having to say one term instead of another, well, that's a pretty good deal.
Ironic, yes. Why bother with that whole slow process of burning the coal and oil, then having to wait for the emitted CO2 to change the climate and alter the ocean chemistry, thus threatening corals that are the cornerstone of the Great Barrier Reef, when you can just ram a ship right into the reef itself?
From the Onion New York Times:
BRISBANE, Australia (AP) -- A coal-carrying ship that strayed outside a shipping lane and ran aground in protected waters was leaking oil on Australia's Great Barrier Reef and was in danger of breaking apart, officials said Sunday.
So much of the online climate "debate" is about effective communication, not science. Earlier this week, I met with a public opinion expert who critiqued the way many scientists and environmental groups speak about, er, climate change, no global warming, maybe the climate crisis, global heating, countdown to a meltdown, springtime for CO2, waterworld, the greatest threat facing humanity, well, you know what I mean.
The expert raised example after example of scientists, NGOs, government, etc. shooting themselves in the foot while talking about, um, the impact of human activity on the climate system. Take the oldest argument of them all: global warming or climate change?
At right is the Google trends graph of average worldwide searches for global warming (in blue) and climate change (in red). The top graph is standard Google searches, the bottom graph is news references.
The graph shows that "global warming" is far more common a search term. The average person is more likely to use and recognize the label "global warming", as evidenced by the search volume. But "climate change" appears more often in the news. Why? In no small part because all the writers, and especially all the people quoted in the articles, say "climate change".
Now, we can argue the semantics of the different terms. Generally, scientists reject the term "global warming", because it is not used in the literature and supposedly "less accurate" because the entire planet is not warming at the same rate. I've used that argument many times, and now wonder if it may be a mistake to do so (as has been pointed out to me, "global" simply implies the whole planet is warming, which is true!).
Rights and wrongs of the different labels aside, the fact is that there is a disconnect here. We use a term that means less to people. And it puts scientists and others communicating the real scientific consensus at a disadvantage. Do a Google search for "global warming" and "climate change". With "global warming", the term the public is more likely to use, a "skeptical" site comes up second [note: search is done from Canada, others may find different results].
This is an example of how a climate policy framework can inspire the motivated.
The University of British Columbia (my institution) just adopted very aggressive greenhouse gas reduction targets including a 33% reduction (below 2007 levels) by 2015.
Why? To set an example, for one. The other reason?
Under the province of British Columbia's system, all public institutions have to be carbon-neutral by the end of this year. That's virtually impossible for most institutions so UBC and other public institutions will be paying into a provincial offsets fund.
I do trust that independent of the BC climate policy, UBC is motivated to take action of greenhouse gas emissions. The policy gave the university the necessary nudge. That's the crux of my federal "opt-in" proposal. Nudge the willing.
Since people are asking, here's a little bit of background on my climate policy proposal in the Mark.
I trust that to many an "optional" climate policy smells fishy, like setting voluntary targets that companies or jurisdictions will then volunteer to ignore. There are three critical distinctions.
First, this policy is designed to mobilize willing participants.
My proposal for a compromise deal that could break the long stalemate between Alberta and the other provinces on climate change appears in the Mark.
The compromise solution is an “opt-in” federal climate change program. The program would include a range of existing and proposed policy instruments, like a carbon tax that is revenue-neutral at the provincial level, targeted tax incentives or rebates for efficiency measures, and feed-in tariffs for renewable energy.
The key is that in order to join the program, a province would need to adopt an emissions target that meets or exceeds some minimum federal target. If, for example, the minimum was the U.S. target adopted by the Harper government, nine of the ten provinces would be eligible.
The level of access to the federal dollars in the program would be pro-rated to that province’s emissions target. Failure to achieve the target would lead to reimbursement of the federal program. If Alberta, or another province like Saskatchewan, elected not to participate, there would be no direct cost or punishment. Provinces outside the system could still negotiate targeted federal investments to support emissions reductions, like support for carbon capture and storage research.
Canada has been arguing about climate policy since the mid-1990s, and there is still no federal plan. This compromise could get the willing provinces working together to reduce emissions.
According to Environment Canada, the winter of 2009/10 was the warmest and the driest since national records were kept in 1948. The country was 4.0 C warmer and 22% drier than "normal", which for those of you scoring at home, is the 1971-2000 1951-1980 mean.
The radio program "Are we alone?" from the SETI Institute does a regular series on skepticism in science. This week's show looks at climate change skepticism and features a terrific interview with Steve Schneider, as well as some thoughts from Naomi Oreskes. Former Apollo astronaut Phil Chapman offers his reasons for being a "skeptic", including the rather crazy unscientific claim that the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide may be natural. Rather than present climate scientist and skeptic as a journalistic he-said, she-said, the show lets the scientific experts on the subject explain where the less informed "skeptic" is wrong. As I've argued many times, it's worth thinking about the motivation behind skepticism and the genesis of skeptical arguments, faulty as they may be, in order to improve outreach and communication.
I'm on later in the program discussing coral bleaching and ocean acidification.
The best line at the AAAS meeting came from Steve Schneider in a talk on science communication:
“Science is not a democracy. Quality trumps equality.”
It is a fantastic accurate description of the difference between the practice of science and the “balanced” approach to media coverage, from one of the best at coming up with analogies to explain climate science.
The fact that it took me three days to decide to post that line because of fears it would be misconstrued or abused – "Breaking News: Top climate scientist is a socialist" or "Fascism at top science conference" – says as much (about the current media environment) as the quote itself.
More highlights to come.
The symposium Will Coral Reefs Disappear? Separating Fact from Conjecture takes place on Sunday at 1:30 pm at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This session examines the chemical, biological, and physical factors that control reef growth, and how climate change and ocean acidification are likely to affect these processes. I'll be delivering a talk on climate change and coral bleaching events, touching on the impacts on coral cover, potential for adaptation, and whether coral communities learn from past experience.
For all the East Coast-ers thinking that January and February in always spring-like in Vancouver:
This is a highly unusual winter, warmer than most would expect from a moderate El Nino event. So far this year, every single day in Vancouver has been warmer than "normal", using the Environment Canada definition of normal. Every day in January exceeded the 1971-2000 January mean temperature is 3.3 deg C. So far, every day in February has exceeded the 1971-2000 February mean temperature of 4.8 deg C. When the Canadian athletes paraded into the snowy white BC Place last night, it was 9 degrees and raining.
Welcome to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Spring Olympics. These photos were all taken by yours truly this week. Enjoy the cherry blossoms and crocuses, courtesy of our changing friend El Nino.
Thank you for sticking with Maribo during the unannounced hiatus over the past seven weeks or so.
This blog started a few years back as an effort to reach people who were not otherwise actively reading or thinking about climate change. I'd imagined the audience as people like the old friends and family that don't follow the climate news but do pepper me with questions about the state of the science or the politics whenever I'm visiting. Over time, Maribo, like most other climate-focused blogs became enveloped in the online game of whack-a-mole between the 20% of the internet-savvy population that is actively concerned about climate change and angry about the lack of action, and another 20% who see climate change as conspiracy cooked up by Al Gore. The battles may be necessary to stamp out the egregious mistakes and misrepresentations that permeate the internet and the daily news (*). The battles are also tiresome.
I'd like to get back to thinking about the other 60% of the population. I've been working on new ideas and venues for outreach which may involve a re-imagining of Maribo and/or a venture into other media. Keep checking Maribo for updates and feel free to send along ideas and suggestions.
Thanks,
Simon
* The mistakes and misrepresentations, I should add, can come from the "skeptics" and the irrational "alarmists" among the climate change activists; human-created emissions of greenhouse gases are warming the planet, despite what the "skeptics" might say, but it is not going to drive us to extinction, as I hear far too often.
