Shrinking Planet

Exploring climate change and its impact on people, politics, and the environment.

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Climate change is a fact.

The freakin’ President of the United Sates, finally, in the State of the Union (via jtotheizzoe)

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Longview coal port skeptics want thorough study - The Spokesman-Review

The spotlight on coal exports steadily continues in Washington State, most recently with a public hearing in Spokane this past Wednesday over the proposed Millennium Terminal in Longview, WA. Conflict over the parameters of the environmental assessment persist, with coal export opponents calling for a broader assessment that will include, among other regional considerations, the impacts from the consumption of U.S. exported coal. The environmental impact statement for Washington State's other main coal export terminal, the Gateway Pacific Terminal at Cherry Point in Bellingham, will officially include an evaluation of greenhouse gases from coal consumption.

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The "token communicator" (!) at the PNW Climate Science Conference, Connie Roser-Renouf, did a great presentation on current data for the Six Americas project, used to determine public engagement with climate issues. In a room full of modelers, the information seemed distressing. Check out the amazing work that Connie is doing with George Mason's Center for Climate Change Communciation.

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People trust scientists more than anyone when it comes to climate change.

Senator Jeff Merkely (D-OR) A lot of emphasis on the impact that scientific consensus has on convincing the public that climate change is real this morning. Not much consensus on how the "climate abyss" can be bridged, underlining the great need for climate communication folks to emerge from the data.

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We're back!

It's been a long time, Tumblr. Shrinking Planet is back, and now we have Master's degrees. Nothing can stop us now. This week, we will be updating from the Pacific Northwest Climate Science Conference in Portland. Looking forward to meeting and learning from regional climate experts over the next few days!

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BREAKING: Senators Boxer and Sanders Introduce Climate Legislation

On the heels of President Obama’s call to action in his State of the Union address and the arrest of 48 environmental, civil rights and community leaders at a protest of the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, Senators Boxer (D-CA) and Sanders (I-VT) have introduced …

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We’ve just been stealing, stealing, stealing from our children, and it’s shocking. But is it true that there’s nothing that can be done? No absolutely not.

Jane Goodall, one of the most inspiring environmental stewards of our generation, speaks about engaging youth in her program, Roots and Shoots, to draw awareness to the impacts of climate change.  <3 u, Jane!

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Sixty-five percent of Americans support "the President taking significant steps to address climate change now," including 89 percent of Democrats, 62 percent of independents and 38 percent of Republicans. The survey finds that most Americans see climate change as a tangible threat, as 61 percent said climate change is already affecting them or will affect them sometime in their life. An overwhelming 93 percent say there is a moral obligation to leave an Earth not polluted or damaged to future generations, with 67 percent strongly agreeing.

The Huffington Post reports on a new survey by the League of Conservation Voters taken just before the President's State of the Union address last night.  There are indications that there may be growing political will to begin moving from rhetoric and towards action on climate mitigation and adaptation.  Will climate hawks pounce on the opportunity?

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The Lens Blog at the New York Times has an amazing slideshow to photographs taken by Samuel Jones of the VII Photo Agency for Harper's Magazine which documents illegal oil refining in Niger Delta.  Corporate oil producers have all but shut out some of the most vulnerable individuals from the fossil fuel profits in the region.  These same folks have turned to illicit refining to make a living in a community wracked with extreme poverty.

“The refining process itself is extremely risky. It requires boiling crude oil at high temperatures, then channeling the vapors into a cooling chamber filled with water. The technology is very rudimentary. For generations, men in the Niger Delta used this same process to distill palm sap into a potent gin known locally as Ogogoro. Sometimes wood fires such as the one in this image are used to boil crude. But more often, workers fill open pits with crude oil and light them on fire. The fumes and waste produced are toxic and flammable. Whole camps can, and often do, explode. You can tell where diesel cooking is going on because people are burned all over their bodies.”

Jones' new article, "The Water of My Land," is out in Harper's this month (behind the paywall). 

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AB 32, California's Global Warming Solutions Act, has been found to appreciable reduce greenhouse gas emissions for some of the state's biggest producers. The cap-and-trade portion of the law went into effect at the beginning of this year.

Evidence shows that reductions of GHGs and toxic pollutants are not a mere result of facilities suspending or cutting production through voluntary or involuntary action. Instead, evidence points to AB 32’s cap-and-trade program inspiring facilities to reduce emissions by investing in and upgrading equipment.

[via David Roberts]

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This nice article from The Guardian provides a brief summary of the fossil fuel divestment campaign so far. While it's great to see prominent figures such as Al Gore giving their support, it's even better to see that cities and universities are taking notice.

Check out 350.org for more info on their campaign. Also, the City of Seattle has already taken action to freeze and move investments from fossil fuels. Mayor Mike McGinn's blog post from late last year offers interesting insight into how that's being done.

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Plant Response to Climate Change and Future Food Production

A Yale Environment 360 interview with Stephen Long , professor of crop sciences at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign sheds some light on some of the research being done with plant responses to and impacts from climate change. While plants respond positively to increased CO2 levels in the lab, field tests reveal a more complex situation, with increased problems from pests, temperatures, and increased ozone levels, potentially resulting in decreased yields. Long specifically notes the research on increased insect activity under increased CO2 levels. What does this mean for future food needs? 

e360: How significant are your findings in the context of global food production? Do you think that this could affect the world’s ability to feed itself in the future, given the projections are for a required 70 percent increase in food by 2050? Long: In my view, these results are very significant, because we’ve shown that rising ozone and rising temperature really take away the advantage to crops of rising CO2, which is perhaps the one benefit we can see on the horizon from global climate change. If we add in increased pest incidence, we’re probably looking at seeing crop losses, even in areas like the Corn Belt, where we expected that there might be some benefit from climate change. And the U.S. Corn Belt is probably the world’s largest exporter of grain, and has always being a major buffer of world basic primary foodstuff supplies. So if that area is affected, it has major repercussions on global grain supply. And of course the Corn Belt will be affected when many other areas in the world are affected by these changes as well. Given the projected increase in grain that we need, if we don’t start to do something about it, these effects could be quite profound.

There wasn't much mention of potential impacts from changes in seasonal precipitation in the interview, but it's additional food for thought. Climate change isn't just increased CO2. How will we feed the future?

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The poor have contributed little to climate change, but their forests, land and water will be put up in the market and denied to them in the name of saving nature.

Dorothy Grace M. Guerrero on the dismal outcomes of UN international climate mechanisms (via ecodevelopment)

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Environmental stories made up for only 0.36% of CNN’s news headlines between January 2011 and May 2012. Given that this is the lowest amount of coverage for any major TV news network, they have a lot to improve on. With Jeff Zucker assuming the role as the new president of CNN Worldwide (as of...

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There are many steps that can be taken to reverse inequality. The benefits are huge, for the poorest – but also for the richest. We cannot afford to have a world of extreme wealth and extreme inequality. We cannot afford to have a world where inequality continues to grow in the majority of countries. In a world of increasingly scarce resources, reducing inequality is more important than ever. It needs to be reduced and quickly.

Fighting the war on poverty is exhausting, frustrating, and seemingly never ending.  Oxfam International suggests in their latest report, "The cost of inequality: how wealth and income extremes hurt us all," that efforts need to be refocused on combating extreme wealth.  The report shows that the annual income of the richest 100 people in the world could now "end global poverty four times over." 

The richest one per cent has increased its income by 60 per cent in the last 20 years with the financial crisis accelerating rather than slowing the process.  [This] is not only unethical, it is also economically inefficient, politically corrosive, socially divisive, and environmentally destructive.

The petrochemical industry represents a huge driver of economic, political, social, and, of course, climate change.  Efforts to divest from fossil fuel, currently championed by climate activist Bill McKibben, could be an important leverage point in the battle against extreme wealth.  Climate change will be a huge amplifier of existing social and environmental stressors in the future.  Yoking public concern and passion in ways that are effective, pragmatic, and move beyond Occupy tactics will be essential to change the world for the better. 

Food for thought as all of us working towards ending structural injustice in ways that are holistic, intentional, and environmentally sensitive.

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Washington state Senator Kevin Ranker (D-Orcas Island) has introduced new legislation that comes on the heels of former Governor Gregoire's Blue Ribbon Panel on ocean acidification. 

Ranker’s bill would establish the “Washington Marine Resources Protection Council” to coordinate acidification work and address broader ocean issues. The 21-member panel would include Washington’s governor and commissioner of public lands, heads of state agencies, tribal members, elected officials from Puget Sound and coastal areas, and representatives from fishing and marine industries. The council could also start getting ahead of other marine issues, such as the increasing number of uses proposed for ocean areas and the conflicts they create.

Much like the panel that preceded it, the marine council would also be another venue to begin educating local officials and creating buy-in for the politically difficult actions that the state must take if it hopes to see meaningful changes in acidification trends. Ranker said it was “extremely valuable” to have everyone from Weyerhaeuser representatives to shellfish farmers, Republicans to Democrats, sitting on the blue ribbon panel, getting up to speed on ocean acidification, and deciding collectively what actions the state should take.

Want to learn more about ocean acidification?  Sightline has some great information on ocean acidification in the Northwest and its relationship with climate change.  Additionally, for those of you in the region, the Evergreen State College will be holding a TEDx conference on February 25, featuring Shallin Busch, a research ecologist with the Northwest Fisheries Science Center and a member of the Blue Ribbon Panel.