Not promoting, just found this interesting.

a quote from Barry Lopez, author of one of my favorite books about the Arctic, arctic Dreams:

It is my belief that a human imagination is shaped by the architecture it encounters at an early age. The visual landscape, of course, or the depth, elevation, and hues of a cityscape play a part here, as does the way sunlight everywhere etches lines to accentuate forms. But the way we imagine is also affected by streams of scent flowing faint or sharp in the larger ocean of air; by what the North American composer John Luther Adams calls the sonic landscape; and, say, by an awareness of how temperature and humidity rise and fall in a place over a year.Over time I have come to think of these three qualities–paying intimate attention; a storied relationship to a place rather than a solely sensory awareness of it; and living in some sort of ethical unity with a place–as a fundamental human defense against loneliness. If you’re intimate with a place, a place with whose history you’re familiar, and you establish an ethical conversation with it, the implication that follows is this: the place knows you’re there. It feels you. You will not be forgotten, cut off, abandoned.

Hi,

I am an environmental and natural resource economist who studies the effects of projected climate change on our state’s built environment. The built environment in my current project includes bridges, roads, water/sewer, and many different types of buildings.

Prior to arriving in Alaska, I was an economist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (Boulder, CO USA) where I built sophisticated models to study the effects of weather variability on the U.S. economy.

As a researcher who works in the arctic where these changes seem to be the most pronounced, I am happy to write in to climate commons to report on my observations.

We had a discussion at work yesterday about what it would mean if sea levels rise, possibly up to 20 feet, in our children’s lifetime if not ours. What would Boston look like, or the southern Atlantic and Gulf coasts? One person insinuated that a lot of rich people in our area would be in trouble - think Cape Cod, Back Bay - to which my boss responded, “No, those people have cars. They’re fine.” So what will this do to other parts of the world where people are often way more crowded along the coasts than we are?

I am sure that environmentalists and environmentally conscious individuals ponder what has been accomplished since the beginning of the movement in the U.S. There have been many notable successes, and yet things seem to be getting worse. And, of course, much traction was lost during this U.S. presidency as laws were rolled back or changed. It is time to do some serious introspection and cold assessment of the strategies that have been used, otherwise, I believe, we will continue to experience pendulum swings of public support for environmental causes.

Al Gore’s essay in Newsweek on the Electranet:

From the Dec. 18th Newsweek

My Turn: [The Energy Electranet]

The climate crisis will force a historic shift to a new global power network of small alternative sources. This network will then feed a smart electric grid. Welcome to the future.

By Al Gore
Newsweek

Dec. 18, 2006 issue - Over the past 200 years, the industrial revolution has created vast wealth and huge improvements in the human condition—in a few dozen highly industrialized countries. The engine of that revolution was fueled by coal and then supercharged with oil—multiplying the productivity of human labor many, many times over. Although we have reaped many benefits from this intensive use of energy, we are now faced with an urgent crisis—a crisis that is altering the very nature of the Earth’s climate.

Read the whole essay [here]

When I wrote my new book on global and arctic climate change, I chose to call it The north pole Was Here because scientists had posted a goofy sign on the sea ice near 90 Degrees North with that phrase on it — marking the fact that the camp was drifting 400 yards an hour. It also referred to the idea that the north pole of our history could soon going to be history, given the changes afoot in climate up north. Now both computer climate simulations and fresh measurements of sea-ice trends are both pointing to a much quicker transition to open water around the Pole in summers than earlier studies had projected — possibly by 2040.

I have a story in today’s New York Times on that new work. There are some links in the piece to animations generated by the model and more.

mongabay.com
December 7, 2006

If past climate change is any indication, Earth could be in store for some significant global warming according to research published in the December 8, 2006, issue of the journal Science. The work suggests that climate change skeptics may be fighting a losing cause.

The study, led by Mark Pagani, associate professor of geology and geophysics at Yale, looked at an episode of rapid climate change that occurred some 55 million years ago. Known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), the period was marked by a rapid rise in greenhouse gases that heated Earth by roughly 9° F (5° C), in less than 10,000 years. The climate warming caused widespread changes including mass extinction in the world’s oceans due to acidification and shifts of plant communities due to changes in rainfall. The era helped set the stage for the “Age of Mammals,” which included the first appearance of modern primates.