National Climate Assessment

The National Climate Assessment report is here. Go check it out now. 

Chasing Ice - this will make your blood run cold

I have not yet seen the movie Chasing Ice, but did just see the above clip from it over on the NPR web site. Chilling. Pun Intended. I watched it several times just to try and wrap my head around the sheer scale of this event. Welcome to the future.

Hot, hot, hot

We've just come off a rather lengthy heat wave here in New Jersey, a trend for the future, I'm afraid. This sort of sums it up:

Memo To Media: ‘Climate Sensitivity’ Is NOT The Same As Projected Future Warming, World Faces 10°F Rise

Good read:

Memo To Media: ‘Climate Sensitivity’ Is NOT The Same As Projected Future Warming, World Faces 10°F Rise: pThe major media continue to sow confusion on one of the central questions of our time: How much warming will we subject our children and countless future generations to? The answer to that question depends primarily on four factors: The so-called “equilibrium climate sensitivity” – the sensitivity of the climate to fast feedbacks like sea ice [...]/p

We are our own worst enemies

How to we get people who are only concerned about their economic welfare (because it is their understandably biggest concern) to begin to think about the earth as a living, breathing thing that we are killing? This article is eye-opening. We are destroying the "lungs" of our planet (our ONLY planet) at an alarming rate.

Frankenstorm

As I finished making preparations for the upcoming storm (I'm in NJ), I stumbled across an overview over on Treehugger about possible connections between climate change and Hurricane Sandy. Here's what Bill McKibben has to say:

"Our relationship to the world around us is shifting as fast as that world is shifting. “Frankenstorm” is the right name for Sandy, and indeed for many other storms and droughts and heat waves now. They’re stitched together from some spooky combination of the natural and the unnatural. Some state will doubtless bear the brunt of this particular monster, but it also will do its damage to everyone’s state of mind."

He makes an excellent point about how we must begin to alter the way we think about weather and storms, and the interconnectedness of our daily actions and their global consequences.

If you are somewhere in the Northeast, I hope you weather this storm - stay safe and be prepared!

Say what?

Did any of you catch this disturbing bit of news, that a "rogue scientist" dumped tons of iron dust into the ocean just to see what would happen? Appalling. Perhaps nature will soon throw a nice storm our way "just to see what happens". I honestly don't understand how humans have lasted this long.

 

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