Published on Friday, December 26, 2008 by The Washington Post
by Juliet Eilperin
Friday, December 26, 2008
Faster Climate Change Feared
The United States faces the possibility of much more rapid climate change by the end of the century than previous studies have suggested, according to a new report led by the U.S. Geological Survey.
Ice sheets in the Antarctic and Greenland, above, are losing 48 cubic miles per year, pushing up sea level worldwide. (By John Mcconnico -- Associated Press)The survey -- which was commissioned by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and issued this month -- expands on the 2007 findings of the United Nations Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change. Looking at factors such as rapid sea ice loss in the Arctic and prolonged drought in the Southwest, the new assessment suggests that earlier projections may have underestimated the climatic shifts that could take place by 2100.
However, the assessment also suggests that some other feared effects of global warming are not likely to occur by the end of the century, such as an abrupt release of methane from the seabed and permafrost or a shutdown of the Atlantic Ocean circulation system that brings warm water north and colder water south. But the report projects an amount of potential sea level rise during that period that may be greater than what other researchers have anticipated, as well as a shift to a more arid climate pattern in the Southwest by mid-century.
Thirty-two scientists from federal and non-federal institutions contributed to the report, which took nearly two years to complete. The Climate Change Science Program, which was established in 1990, coordinates the climate research of 13 different federal agencies.
Tom Armstrong, senior adviser for global change programs at USGS, said the report "shows how quickly the information is advancing" on potential climate shifts. The prospect of abrupt climate change, he said, "is one of those things that keeps people up at night, because it's a low-probability but high-risk scenario. It's unlikely to happen in our lifetimes, but if it were to occur, it would be life-changing."
In one of the report's most worrisome findings, the agency estimates that in light of recent ice sheet melting, global sea level rise could be as much as four feet by 2100. The IPCC had projected a sea level rise of no more than 1.5 feet by that time, but satellite data over the past two years show the world's major ice sheets are melting much more rapidly than previously thought. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are now losing an average of 48 cubic miles of ice a year, equivalent to twice the amount of ice that exists in the Alps.
Konrad Steffen, who directs the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder and was lead author on the report's chapter on ice sheets, said the models the IPCC used did not factor in some of the dynamics that scientists now understand about ice sheet melting. Among other things, Steffen and his collaborators have identified a process of "lubrication," in which warmer ocean water gets in underneath coastal ice sheets and accelerates melting.
"This has to be put into models," said Steffen, who organized a conference last summer in St. Petersburg, Russia, as part of an effort to develop more sophisticated ice sheet models. "What we predicted is sea level rise will be higher, but I have to be honest, we cannot model it for 2100 yet."
Still, Armstrong said, the report "does take a step forward from where the IPCC was," especially in terms of ice sheet melting.
Scientists also looked at the prospect of prolonged drought over the next 100 years. They said it is impossible to determine yet whether human activity is responsible for the drought the Southwestern United States has experienced over the past decade, but every indication suggests the region will become consistently drier in the next several decades. Richard Seager, a senior research scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said that nearly all of the 24 computer models the group surveyed project the same climatic conditions for the North American Southwest, which includes Mexico.
"If the models are correct, it will transition in the coming years and decades to a more arid climate, and that transition is already underway," Seager said, adding that such conditions would probably include prolonged droughts lasting more than a decade.
The current models cover broad swaths of landscape, and Seager said scientists need to work on developing versions that can make projections on a much smaller scale. "That's what the water managers out there really need," he said. Current models "don't give them the hard numbers they need."
Armstrong said the need for "downscaled models" is one of the challenges facing the federal government, along with better coordination among agencies on the issue of climate change. When it comes to abrupt climate shifts, he said, "We need to be prepared to deal with it in terms of policymaking, keeping in mind it's a low-probability, high-risk scenario. That said, there are really no policies in place to deal with abrupt climate change."
Richard Moss, who directed the Climate Change Science Program's coordination office between 2000 and 2006 and now serves as vice president and managing director for climate change at the World Wildlife Fund-U.S., welcomed the new report but called it "way overdue."
"There is finally a greater flow of climate science from the administration," Moss said, noting that the report was originally scheduled to come out in the summer of 2007. "It really is showing the potential for abrupt climate change is real."
The report is reassuring, however, on the prospects for some potentially drastic effects -- such as a huge release of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas, that is now locked deep in the seabed and underneath the Arctic permafrost. That is unlikely to occur in the near future, the scientists said.
"It's unlikely that we're going to see an abrupt change in methane over the next hundred years, but we should worry about it over a longer time frame," said Ed Brook, the lead author of the methane chapter and a geosciences professor at Oregon State University. "All of these places where methane is stored are vulnerable to leaking."
By the end the century, Brook said, the amount of methane escaping from natural sources such as the Arctic tundra and waterlogged soils in warmer regions "could possibly double," but that would still be less than the current level of human-generated methane emissions. Over the course of the next thousand years, he added, methane hydrates stored deep in the seabed could be released: "Once you start melting there, you can't really take it back."
In the near term, Brook said, more precise monitoring of methane levels worldwide would give researchers a better sense of the risk of a bigger atmospheric release. "We don't know exactly how much methane is coming out all over the world," he said. "That's why monitoring is important."
While predictions remain uncertain, Steffen said cutting emissions linked to global warming represents one of the best strategies for averting catastrophic changes.
"We have to act very fast, by understanding better and by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, because it's a large-scale experiment that can get out of hand," Steffen said. "So we don't want that to happen."
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
A Call to Action
This is an abridged excerpt from an article by Teressa Kerry in "Healthy Choices Lives" by the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. Teresa Kerry is a co-author of "This Moment on Earth"
Just as we human beings must increasingly recognize that we are all internalized into the total environment, we need to understand, too, that the environment itself is internalized, for good and for bad, in us as humans.
What we as individuals do matters, and it matters a lot. I'm a strong believer in the importance of practical actions we each can take. And I believe, too, that we must not allow the pursuit of perfection to impede our commitment to progress.
We must appreciate that our actions may forever be based on incomplete knowledge of all there is to know about the potential effects of the thousands of potential chemical contaminants, and the thousands of various chemical combinations to which our bodies are unwilling hosts. Gertrude Stein cautioned us that "Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense." That's even truer today, and it's critical that we retain our common sense and good judgement.
Having said that, we must also appreciate that the so-called "command-and-control" era has peaked, perhaps even run its course. We simply no longer have the time or resources to expend on programs that in the end might do more than fatten lawyers' wallets than they do to reduce our own toxic exposures and risks.
In that context, our next era of sound environmentalism must be based, like other good public policy efforts, on increased collaboration, among a growing cadre of informed and enlightened interests. It clearly must be based also on prevention and not just after-the-exposure remedial efforts to control potentially harmful exposures.
A recent Business Week cover story tells us that we are "closer than you think" to a world in which "socially responsible and eco-friendly practices actually boost a company's bottom line." Those same practices will boost an entire society's bottom line, not only from a financial, but also from an overall perspective. In this sense, we as a society should move not from the "cradle-to-grave" philosophy that became popular in 1990's, but rather to a "cradle-to-cradle" approach that can lead to an infinite product life cycle of ongoing use and usefulness.
We must realize not only that we as citizens have a "right to know", but also that our governmental leaders have a profound responsibility to tell us more about the chemicals that pervade our society. Here, we must be careful consumers, with a healthy skepticism of what both government and manufacturers tell us. With our right to know comes our responsibility to understand.
Collaboration, again, is the key. There is much we can do together. But we dare not wait or procrastinate before also taking constructive individual actions to manage our own, and our families' adverse chemical exposures.
TASKS:
1. Write the three main ideas of this article
2. Why does the author believe in an individual action? Is it enough?
3. Explain the expressions: internalize, practical action, pursuit to perfection, commitment to progress, potential effects, unwilling hosts, common sense, good judgement, command-and-control, run its course, fatten lawyers' wallets, sound environmentalism, public policy, increased collaboration, enlightened interests, remedial efforts, socially responsible practices, eco-friendly practices, bottom line, cradle-to-grave, cradle-to-cradle, right to know, healthy skepticism,
Just as we human beings must increasingly recognize that we are all internalized into the total environment, we need to understand, too, that the environment itself is internalized, for good and for bad, in us as humans.
What we as individuals do matters, and it matters a lot. I'm a strong believer in the importance of practical actions we each can take. And I believe, too, that we must not allow the pursuit of perfection to impede our commitment to progress.
We must appreciate that our actions may forever be based on incomplete knowledge of all there is to know about the potential effects of the thousands of potential chemical contaminants, and the thousands of various chemical combinations to which our bodies are unwilling hosts. Gertrude Stein cautioned us that "Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense." That's even truer today, and it's critical that we retain our common sense and good judgement.
Having said that, we must also appreciate that the so-called "command-and-control" era has peaked, perhaps even run its course. We simply no longer have the time or resources to expend on programs that in the end might do more than fatten lawyers' wallets than they do to reduce our own toxic exposures and risks.
In that context, our next era of sound environmentalism must be based, like other good public policy efforts, on increased collaboration, among a growing cadre of informed and enlightened interests. It clearly must be based also on prevention and not just after-the-exposure remedial efforts to control potentially harmful exposures.
A recent Business Week cover story tells us that we are "closer than you think" to a world in which "socially responsible and eco-friendly practices actually boost a company's bottom line." Those same practices will boost an entire society's bottom line, not only from a financial, but also from an overall perspective. In this sense, we as a society should move not from the "cradle-to-grave" philosophy that became popular in 1990's, but rather to a "cradle-to-cradle" approach that can lead to an infinite product life cycle of ongoing use and usefulness.
We must realize not only that we as citizens have a "right to know", but also that our governmental leaders have a profound responsibility to tell us more about the chemicals that pervade our society. Here, we must be careful consumers, with a healthy skepticism of what both government and manufacturers tell us. With our right to know comes our responsibility to understand.
Collaboration, again, is the key. There is much we can do together. But we dare not wait or procrastinate before also taking constructive individual actions to manage our own, and our families' adverse chemical exposures.
TASKS:
1. Write the three main ideas of this article
2. Why does the author believe in an individual action? Is it enough?
3. Explain the expressions: internalize, practical action, pursuit to perfection, commitment to progress, potential effects, unwilling hosts, common sense, good judgement, command-and-control, run its course, fatten lawyers' wallets, sound environmentalism, public policy, increased collaboration, enlightened interests, remedial efforts, socially responsible practices, eco-friendly practices, bottom line, cradle-to-grave, cradle-to-cradle, right to know, healthy skepticism,
Toronto's Air Pollution Harms Thousands of Residents
Air pollution causes reduced lung function, asthma attacks, emergency room visits, lung cancer, high blood pressure and reduced life expectancy.
The Toronto data show that compared with 27 cities over a ten-year period, the city's nitrogen dioxide levels were the fourth highest, exceeded only by Los Angeles, Hong Kong and New York. Increases in nitrogen dioxide levels in Toronto coincided with increased vehicle use and a decline in the use of public transit. A study released by Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Toronto's Acting Medical Officer of Health, identifies the city's transportation sector as the most significant source of pollution.
The study estimates that five common air pollutants contribute to about 1,700 premature deaths and 6,000 hospital admissions in Toronto each year.
In Toronto, exposure to fine particles in the air contributes to about 6,000 emergency room visits, 12,000 cases of childhood bronchitis and 72,000 days of asthma symptoms each year.
TASKS:
1. Name some air pollutants. Find a map of the GTA showing air pollution by the ward.
2. Debate pros/cons of the public transit.
3. Compare the public transit in your country with the one in Toronto.
4. Write a letter to the TTC.
5. Come up with some suggestions for air quality standards in Toronto.
The Toronto data show that compared with 27 cities over a ten-year period, the city's nitrogen dioxide levels were the fourth highest, exceeded only by Los Angeles, Hong Kong and New York. Increases in nitrogen dioxide levels in Toronto coincided with increased vehicle use and a decline in the use of public transit. A study released by Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Toronto's Acting Medical Officer of Health, identifies the city's transportation sector as the most significant source of pollution.
The study estimates that five common air pollutants contribute to about 1,700 premature deaths and 6,000 hospital admissions in Toronto each year.
In Toronto, exposure to fine particles in the air contributes to about 6,000 emergency room visits, 12,000 cases of childhood bronchitis and 72,000 days of asthma symptoms each year.
TASKS:
1. Name some air pollutants. Find a map of the GTA showing air pollution by the ward.
2. Debate pros/cons of the public transit.
3. Compare the public transit in your country with the one in Toronto.
4. Write a letter to the TTC.
5. Come up with some suggestions for air quality standards in Toronto.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Meat Production and Climate Change
"Livestock production accounts for 30% of the entire land surface of the planet - equaling 33% of all arable land, and an even larger area devoted to grazing!"
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Toronto Vegetarian Association wants meat consumption to become a higher priority environmental issue given its proven link to climate change. A growing body of research supports the grave environmental costs of meat production:
Raising livestock for food emits more greenhouse gases than all of the world's cars and trucks.
The UN FAO calls the meat industry "one of the most significant contributors to the world's environmental problems", including acid rain, deforestation and water and land pollution.
Going vegetarian would eliminate 1.5 tonnes of CO2 equivalent gas emissions per person, per year - an even bigger difference than switching from a SUV to a hybrid.
EXERCISES:
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Toronto Vegetarian Association wants meat consumption to become a higher priority environmental issue given its proven link to climate change. A growing body of research supports the grave environmental costs of meat production:
Raising livestock for food emits more greenhouse gases than all of the world's cars and trucks.
The UN FAO calls the meat industry "one of the most significant contributors to the world's environmental problems", including acid rain, deforestation and water and land pollution.
Going vegetarian would eliminate 1.5 tonnes of CO2 equivalent gas emissions per person, per year - an even bigger difference than switching from a SUV to a hybrid.
EXERCISES:
- What do the following eat: 1. carnivores, 2. omnivores,3. fructivores, 4. localvores, 5. pescavores, 6. vegetarians, 7. vegans,8. flexitarians, 9. freegans, 10. raw foodists, 11. slow foodists?
ANSWERS:1. meat, 2. all, 3. fruit, 4. local food, 5. fish, 6. no meat or fish, 7. no animal products (like milk or eggs), 8. meat only occasionaly, 9. food they get for free, 10. uncooked food, 11. food that is cooked slowly (as opposed to fast food).
Who are they: gourmands, epicures, connoisseurs, gluttons,orthorexics, gastronomes, chefs? Complete the list with more names for people who eat different foods in different ways. Use a thesaurus. - Debate pro/con vegetarianism.
- Share vegetarian recipes.
- Count nutritional value of a regular meat-potato lunch as compared to a balanced vegetarian course.
- Check http://www.amazon.ca/ for vegan/vegetarian cookbooks.
- Check lifestyle magazines for trends in fine dining.
How Green Is Your Food?
Credit for this quiz goes to the Lifelines,the Voice of the Toronto Vegetarian Association.
1. The energy used to import a kilogram of fresh spinach from California to the UK is equivalent to running a 100 watt light bulb for:
a. 1 year
b. 1 month
c. 2 weeks
d. 1 week
2. It takes 3.5 times as much of what to produce a litre of non-organic milk compared to a litre of organic milk:
a. energy
b. water
c. fertilizer
d. land
3. A typical British family of four emits 4.2 tonnes of CO2 from their house each year and 4.4 tonnes from their car. How much is emitted from the production, packaging and distribution of the food they eat?
a. 1 tonne
b. 2 tonnes
c. 4 tonnes
d. 8 tonnes
ANSWERS:
1B
2A - Organic milk comes from cows which are fed on pasture which is not treated with fertilizers and pesticides. Much of the extra energy used in the production of non-organic milk is energy used in the production of the fertilizer.
3D.
1. The energy used to import a kilogram of fresh spinach from California to the UK is equivalent to running a 100 watt light bulb for:
a. 1 year
b. 1 month
c. 2 weeks
d. 1 week
2. It takes 3.5 times as much of what to produce a litre of non-organic milk compared to a litre of organic milk:
a. energy
b. water
c. fertilizer
d. land
3. A typical British family of four emits 4.2 tonnes of CO2 from their house each year and 4.4 tonnes from their car. How much is emitted from the production, packaging and distribution of the food they eat?
a. 1 tonne
b. 2 tonnes
c. 4 tonnes
d. 8 tonnes
ANSWERS:
1B
2A - Organic milk comes from cows which are fed on pasture which is not treated with fertilizers and pesticides. Much of the extra energy used in the production of non-organic milk is energy used in the production of the fertilizer.
3D.
Winds of Change Blowing, but Resistance Gusting
This is an abridged article by Christopher Hume, from Toronto Star of 28 November 2008.
Suddenly, it seems the future has come to Toronto.
Whether we're talking about wind turbines in Lake Ontario, fees for plastic bags, garbage levies, bans on bottled water or fully recyclable coffee cups, Torontonians are having hard time adjusting to the realities of the 21st century.
As tough as change may be, there's no longer any choice.
Isn't that the lesson of the environmental crisis, global warming, not to mention the current economic meltdown? Isn't that the inescapable conclusion of everything we have been told for the past few decades?
The collapse has happened; we have no alternative but to reinvent our world. And if not our world, certainly our cities.
Yet, a good many of us prefer things just the way they are. Change is good, they say, as long as it means we don't have to do anything differently. Convenience? Unfortunately, the problem for those of us who live in developed countries such as Canada is that convenience is no longer convenient.
Suddenly, it seems the future has come to Toronto.
Whether we're talking about wind turbines in Lake Ontario, fees for plastic bags, garbage levies, bans on bottled water or fully recyclable coffee cups, Torontonians are having hard time adjusting to the realities of the 21st century.
As tough as change may be, there's no longer any choice.
Isn't that the lesson of the environmental crisis, global warming, not to mention the current economic meltdown? Isn't that the inescapable conclusion of everything we have been told for the past few decades?
The collapse has happened; we have no alternative but to reinvent our world. And if not our world, certainly our cities.
Yet, a good many of us prefer things just the way they are. Change is good, they say, as long as it means we don't have to do anything differently. Convenience? Unfortunately, the problem for those of us who live in developed countries such as Canada is that convenience is no longer convenient.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Emerson on Nature
The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the only prophet of that which must be, is that great nature in which we rest as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere; that Unity, that Over-Soul within which every man’s particular being is contained and made one with all other; that common heart of which all sincere conversation is the worship, to which all right action is submission; that overpowering reality which confutes our tricks and talents, and constraints everyone to pass for what he is, and to speak from his character and not from his tongue, and which evermore tends to pass into our thought and hand and become wisdom and virtue and power and beauty.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Over-Soul
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Over-Soul
Greenhouse Effect
INSERT A PREPOSITION:
Not long ago the talking ________ weather was mostly just small talk, but these days it's taking a more serious turn. There's something ______ the air.
You can't see it, most of the time you can't feel it, but air _______ us is changing ____ a quiet, but dramatic way.
The way we live is changing the composition ____ the atmosphere and our climate and local weather pattern are changing ______ it.
We burn fossil fuels to produce energy: coal, oil and natural gas and it's increasing the carbon dioxide _____ the atmosphere.
This process is raising the temperature _____ the planet. We call this warming action greenhouse effect.
SOLUTION: about, in, around, in, of, with, in, of
Not long ago the talking ________ weather was mostly just small talk, but these days it's taking a more serious turn. There's something ______ the air.
You can't see it, most of the time you can't feel it, but air _______ us is changing ____ a quiet, but dramatic way.
The way we live is changing the composition ____ the atmosphere and our climate and local weather pattern are changing ______ it.
We burn fossil fuels to produce energy: coal, oil and natural gas and it's increasing the carbon dioxide _____ the atmosphere.
This process is raising the temperature _____ the planet. We call this warming action greenhouse effect.
SOLUTION: about, in, around, in, of, with, in, of
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