Re/Action on Climate Protection

How to solve global warming

Stopping "dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate" is the most important problem facing humanity today. Significant action at the local level is one of the major keys.

Climate Newsfeeds

I have selected some of the best climate change newsfeeds and have put them up on the blog. If you look at the left side margin of the blog, the newsfeeds are listed:

US behavior at Montreal-More bad news

Despite the Bush administration's adamant resistance, nearly every industrialized nation agreed early Saturday to engage in talks aimed at producing a new set of binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions that would take effect beginning in 2012.

And so ends the Montreal talks. The officials of the American government have, once again, offered a gesture of arrogance and contempt to the rest of the world on the most significant environmental problem of our time.

And here we have Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, chairperson of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee,

"James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) was even more skeptical of Saturday's pact, saying it would lead only to "a dead end economically."

"Two weeks of costly deliberation only resulted in an agreement to deliberate some more, so Montreal was essentially a meeting about the next meeting," Inhofe said in a statement. "The Kyoto Protocol . . . is a complete failure."

(Remember, ol' Jim invited Michael Crichton, a writer of fiction, to testify as an expert, before Congress, on climate science.)

A complete failure also of American democracy to deal with the most pressing issue of our time.

The Socio-Political Aspects of Climate Change

Over the last few days, we have had a couple of posts that depart somewhat from our usual "nuts-and-bolts" presentation. One post was by author/lecturer/activist Shepherd Bliss, on the visit of Prince Charles to the San Francisco Bay Area. This post provoked several comments on the meaning and relevance of Charles taking a position on climate change. This would be a good opportunity to weigh in on the apparent schizophrenia of the British Government, as well as the mechanisms of advocacy. Part of the mission of this blog is to explore what works and what doesn't in motivating political action.

Along these lines, we also had two posts from the director of Climate Protection Campaign, Ann Hancock. One post is on dependent co-arising which is an alternative way of viewing the mechanisms of political change. The other is on the relationship between activism on the Peak Oil issue, and climate change activism. There is a possibility that these two issues can merge and build a constituency for action. However, problems arise. What should the focus be? What if anything is the driving issue? For more information on Peak Oil, you can start here. Thanks for joining us, and I'm looking forward to hearing your views!

Dave

Report on the Prince of Wales visit to Northern CA

The Prince and the Peak

By Shepherd Bliss, sb3[at]pon.net

England’s Prince Charles convened a Nov. 7 dialogue in San Francisco on “Peak Oil, Climate Change, and Business Action.” 300 high-level guests from corporations, government, and non-profit groups attended.

“We simply can’t go on as we are,” Prince Charles said to the select audience. He cited statistics and stories about global warming and oil depletion, contending, “Somehow we have to find the courage to reassert the once commonplace belief that human beings have a duty to act as the stewards of creation.”

Climate Change Newsfeeds

You may not have noticed the left column of our blog. It has been reorganized so that some newsfeeds that we feature are more accessible. The three newsfeeds on our left column are The Climate Ark (Climate Change Newsfeed), a site from the UK called Climate Change Action, and the premier climate change science site RealClimate.

These newsfeeds are updated constantly, with the five most recent entries shown in the left column. Clicking on the link will take you to the article. The Climate Change Newsfeed is very active, with the latest news items related to climate change. Climate Change Action is an interesting site, with links to the "Campaign Against Climate Change", a UK climate activism group.

RealClimate isn't updated very often, but it contains a wealth of information about the latest findings in climate science. It contains refutations of some of the most popular climate change myths, as well as rebuttals of Michael Crichton's book, State of Fear.

Enjoy the links, and also check out our Climate Protection Campaign website and white paper wiki links.

Bill McKibben on Global Warming

What Part of 'Global Warming' Don't We Get?
By Bill McKibben, Prairie Writers Circle
Posted on October 25, 2005, Printed on October 25, 2005

http://www.alternet.org/story/27034/

Forget about the hurricanes. Put them out of your mind. We'll never know for sure that any particular hurricane is caused by global warming, so just don't think about them. Instead, concentrate on the other evidence for climate change that's appeared recently:

More on Warming in Sonoma County

Did some more analysis on temperature data in Sonoma County. This time the data is from the Santa Rosa C weather station, and goes back to 1950. Santa Rosa is the biggest city in Sonoma County, and has experienced the largest population growth. Interestingly, this data also shows warming, about 2 degrees, in the average of annual high and low temperatures

However, there is a fundamental difference with the Graton data.

Warming in Sonoma County

I was curious about whether the effect of warming would show up in our county. I got the temperature data from our local weather station going back to 1949. I calculated the average annual high temperature for each year and plotted it on the above graph. I drew a linear trendline through the data. You can see that the average temperature has increased 3-4 degrees during this time. This doesn't necessarily mean we are seeing this amount of warming over this time period, but it is pretty suspicious. This is an example of how a layperson can see the effects of global warming in their own locality.

I got the temperature data here.

CA Energy Commisions - Conference on Climate Change

http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/events/2005_conference/index.html
Good information about what is happening at the state level

Against the backdrop of the borderless battle against global warming, the California Energy Commission and the California Environmental Protection Agency will hold the Second Annual Conference on Climate Change Research.

Sir David King, the chief science adviser to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, will deliver the keynote speech at this year's gathering (on Thursday). Through Sir David, the United Kingdom will forge a united front with California and its two closest Western neighbors - in hopes of complementing worldwide strategies to soften the economic and environmental blows inflicted worldwide by the climactic phenomenon.