Q&A Is scientific certainty enough to move the public and policy makers on climate change?

12 July 2012 Leave a comment

“I don’t think we’ll have the luxury of a clear, compelling, obvious directive to follow – at least in terms of taking significant action on climate change. In part of how the argument is mentioned today, it’s basically an argument against a theoretically bad outcome, which is not exactly the most motivating thing for human beings. If something ‘could’ go wrong, but ‘maybe isn’t going to’, then why bother – why not let someone else take the fall and see where it goes, before you have to do anything about it? In many ways I see the climate change ‘debate’ as having some motivation along those lines. The problem is that if we do collect all of the evidence necessary, and use planet earth as an actual ‘case study’ — and the case study turns out that we royally messed up our planet, we don’t get another try, or ‘restart’. There is no reset button…”

There’s a new scientific paper out in the journal Nature called “Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere.” In a sane world, it would be front page news. This is from the abstract:

Localized ecological systems are known to shift abruptly and irreversibly from one state to another when they are forced across critical thresholds. Here we review evidence that the global ecosystem as a whole can react in the same way and is approaching a planetary-scale critical transition as a result of human influence. [my emphasis]

As examples of past global state shifts, the authors cite the Cambrian explosion (“a conversion of the global ecosystem from one based almost solely on microbes to one based on complex, multicellular life,” which took a comparatively brief 30 million years), the Big Five mass extinctions, and the last glacial-interglacial transition, which started about 14 thousand years ago.

http://grist.org/climate-energy/were-about-to-push-the-earth-over-the-brink-new-study-finds/

energy reality. consumerism. sustainability. mhm.

We’ve got along way to go.

join the discussion jpinfluence.com

The Planet Under Pressure Conference, which concluded today in London, is a precursor to the UN’s Rio+20 conference, published the first ever “State Of The Planet Declaration“, which is intended to reflect “key messages emerging from the proceedings of the Planet Under Pressure conference”.

This declaration, a ten-page document, provides an planetary-level status report of the challenges we face. “Without urgent action, we could face threats to water, food, biodiversity and other critical resources: these threats risk intensifying economic, ecological and social crises, creating the potential for a humanitarian emergency on a global scale”.

The State of the Planet is broken down into these sections: an introduction, “New Knowledge”, “New Solutions”, “New Opportunities: Science In Support of Rio+20″, “2012: A Defining Moment in History”, an annex, and a letter from the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, to the conference.

[click on image to read more]

My Editorial, "A Substantial Failure" In Energy Education

Check out my article, featured exclusively on The Energy Collective. It addresses what Michael Spence, a Nobel Laureate, referred to when he mentioned “A substantial failure” in education about America’s energy situation. Hopefully the US can start moving towards energy reality, and soberly determine the best path forward.

It is a curious thing when a mindset develops. Thoughts, data interpretation, reactions, and behaviors become solidified into expectations about what is normal and what is to come as that sense of normal changes. It’s an important process of human development, and it is a particularly interesting thing to look at on a national scale — and when it comes to American perspectives on energy, attempting to sort out the present situation requires looking at what ‘we’, the collective USA, have been telling ourselves.

Earlier this week, Michale Spence exclaimed:

A substantial failure of education about non-renewable natural resources lies in the background of current public sentiment. And now, having underinvested in energy efficiency and security when the costs of doing so were lower, America is poorly positioned to face the prospect of rising real prices. - “The Energy Deficit” by Michael Spence | Project Syndicate

I agree on both counts; the failure in education and the allusion to difficulties because of a lack of foresight about energy.

Continue Reading at The Energy Collective

SELF is solar electrifying villages in Benin, West Africa

You know the first time I heard of Benin was in an art history class in undergrad?

It’s curious how some places in Africa are unique places to test new strategies for sustainable development. My time in Senegal was a mixture of deep traditions and new technologies and perspectives; I wonder if a closer attachment to the land will lead to less ego-attachment to high-energy consumption lifestyles…

Sustainable development is not a pipe dream. It is the destination the world’s accumulated knowledge points us towards, the fair future that will enable us to live with security, peace and opportunities for all. To get there we must transform the ways we manage, share and interact with the environment, and acknowledge that humanity is part of nature not apart from it.

- Camilla Toulmin, director of the International Institute for Environment and Development

The Asahi Glass Foundation | “The Blue Planet Prize laureates jointly presented a paper titled “Environment and Development Challenges: The Imperative to Act” at the 12^th UNEP Governing Council meeting in the year 2012 when the Prize celebrates its twentieth anniversary.”

(Source: af-info.or.jp)