If you’re under 25, you should be pissed about climate change. So you effed up our planet, huh? “Generation Hot” is the 2 billion or so young people who will be stuck dealing with global warming and weirding for their entire lives — and who have to figure out how to do it sanely and humanely. In his new book Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth, journalist (and Grist contributor) Mark Hertsgaard puts the official start of Generation Hot at June 23, 1988, when climate scientist James Hansen first testified to Congress about climate change and The New York Times put the story on its front page.
“My daughter and the rest of Generation Hot have been given a life sentence for a crime they didn’t commit,” Hertsgaard writes in a piece in The Nation adapted from his book. Even if we manage to ditch fossil fuels over the next 25 years, “the reality is that we’re locked in to at least 50 more years of rising temperatures and the harsher climate impacts they bring. But Hot is not primarily an angry book; at times, it’s cautiously hopeful. Mass. releases plan to cut greenhouse gases. More and More Farmers' Markets Set to Go Year Round. Photo: Natalie Maynor More and more of us have committed to hitting the farmers' market each and every week to pick up produce, dairy, bread, meats, etc.
But once the farmers' market ends for the year, then what? Do we switch back over to the grocery store and settle for perfectly round albeit tasteless produce? Not so fast. It seems farmers' markets across the country are going year round.According to a story on Huffington Post, more and more farmers' markets are staying open throughout the year. Even those further north are continuing to supply local eats even when it's cold outside. David Purpura, a local farmer in Plymouth, Mass. It can't be a five-month-long thing and then just stop and everybody go to Walmart. From cranberries to root vegetables, farmers' markets across the country are meeting local demand and staying open year round.
According to the U.S. More on Farmers' MarketsKnow Your Farmers Market? Eight Botched Environmental Forecasts. A new year is around the corner, and some climate scientists and environmental activists say that means we're one step closer to a climate Armageddon. But are we really? Predicting the weather -- especially a decade or more in advance -- is unbelievably challenging. What's the track record of those most worried about global warming? Decades ago, what did prominent scientists think the environment would be like in 2010? 1. , March 20, 2000. Ten years later, in December 2009, London was hit by the heaviest snowfall seen in 20 years. A spokesman for the government-funded British Council, where Viner now works as the lead climate change expert, told FoxNews.com that climate science had improved since the prediction was made. "Over the past decade, climate science has moved on considerably and there is now more understanding about the impact climate change will have on weather patterns in the coming years," British Council spokesman Mark Herbert said. 2.
That may be in doubt, however. 3. 4. Why even skeptics should tackle climate change. Kumi Naidoo said Amsterdam snow delightful, but he feared it would fuel global warming denialHe says NASA analysis named 2010 the warmest year on record Naidoo: Even those who doubt climate change can take actions that benefit them and the planetFor skeptics, case must be made in terms of better health, water, energy independence Editor's note: Kumi Naidoo is executive director of Greenpeace International.
Amsterdam (CNN) -- I recently returned to Amsterdam from the latest round of U.N. climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, and found this city of canals covered in snow. It was a beautiful sight. Yet rather than filling me with joy, it caused me concern. Over the past few years, climate-change skeptics have repeatedly used cold snaps as proof that our planet is not heating up. This argument ignores NASA's recent analysis of 2010 as the warmest year on record and the World Meteorological Organization's pronouncement of the first decade of this century as the hottest since records began.
Mass. releases plan to cut greenhouse gases. The # climatezombies Daily. Print « Rationing Health. Medical rationing sometimes seems inevitable during disasters. Major earthquakes, floods, and pandemics can leave health workers scrambling to care for all the patients who need attention—and can force some patients to go without. But even in such dire circumstances, can rationing be avoided? An Indian doctor offers a hopeful tale.
By Sheri Fink The emergence of H1N1 or “swine” flu last year raised fears around the world of a severe pandemic. In the United States, health officials planned for the worst. American health officials drafted emergency plans that set out which patients would, and would not, have access to life support. Many of the plans included a chilling directive: patients who didn’t quickly improve could be taken off ventilators, most likely resulting in their deaths. Thankfully the demand for ventilators during the pandemic did not outpace the supply in the United States. Rationing seemed inevitable, but one doctor wouldn’t accept that. An Influx of Patients Dr. Dr. Dr. Back. The top five stories of the year for climate hawks.
1. Cap-and-trade is dead Cap-and-trade is deader than dead. Everyone in Washington officialdom knows that. Virtually no one in Washington officialdom understands how it would work or how much economists think it would cost, but they’re certain it’s bad, bad, bad and had to die. Polluting industries and wealthy right-wing oligarchs, aided by a well-funded grassroots army, sympathetic conservative politicos, and a major cable TV news network, cast cap-and-trade as a plague of socialist cooties that would destroy the economy. The left’s Purist Brigade wove florid tales of corruption and plutocracy. The reality — a long, opaque, technocratic bill burdened with several high-profile side deals — inspired no one. In the end, the bill was done in by a dysfunctional, sclerotic Senate. Despite the fond hopes of its critics on the left, cap-and-trade won’t likely be replaced with a carbon tax or a tax-and-dividend system or massive investments in R&D.
Still happening.NOAA 2. Addendum: Sen. 3. 4. 5. Xmas Cleanup: Where to Recycle Your Old Gadgets: Cleantech News « The # climatehawks Daily. The # climatehawk Daily. Deep ocean heat is rapidly melting Antarctic ice « Climate Progress. By Joe Romm on December 15, 2010 at 3:17 pm "Deep ocean heat is rapidly melting Antarctic ice" Oceanographer at AGU: Western Antarctic Peninsula is seeing “the highest increase in temperatures of anywhere on Earth.” “Warm waters carried by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current are brushing the ice front in the western part of the continent, in the area of the Bellingshausen Sea.” [Click to enlarge.] Antarctica is disintegrating much faster than almost anybody imagined — see “Nothing in the natural world is lost at an accelerating exponential rate like this glacier.”
A presentation Monday at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union sheds some light on the underlying cause of this rapid melt — the ice is being attacked from the bottom. Global warming is sneaky. Total Earth Heat Content from 1950 to 2003 (Murphy 2009). Time series of global mean heat storage (0-2000 m), measured in 108 Jm-2 The time to act was a while ago, but now is far better than later. Related Posts: Beware the Treehuggers! Just in time for the holidays, a coalition of Christian conservative groups has issued an "explosive new 12-part DVD series" detailing the dangers of environmentalism. "Resisting the Green Dragon" explains how caring about future of the natural world is really an attempt to "push evangelicals to embrace anti-Christian environmental views. " There's a 12-minute preview here (password is "RESIST"), but Right Wing Watch helpfully made a condensed version for those who only want the greatest hits.
Here's their clip: And from the Christian groups' press release: "One of the greatest threats to society and the church today is the multifaceted environmentalist movement," says Cornwall Alliance founder and national spokesman Dr. "Today's environmentalism isn't a neutral set of ideas that can be tacked onto the Christian faith without theological compromise," Beisner said.
Corporate Sustainability. Next Year Offers Little Cheer for Those Battling Climate Change. It began with gloom, after the collapse of the Copenhagen climate meetings in December 2009. The mood darkened further as it became clear that legislation to combat greenhouse gas emissions would not pass the U.S. Congress. A sliver of hope came from a modest agreement at climate meetings in Cancún, Mexico, earlier this month, on a more solid multinational commitment to finding ways to cut emissions. Another development, bringing perhaps more relief than hope, was the rejection by California voters of an effort, backed by oil companies, to suspend the state’s landmark law to combat global warming.
The year 2011 may not bring too much improvement, from environmentalists’ perspective. Budget deficits and a still-sluggish economy in the United States and elsewhere may complicate investments in clean-energy technologies. “I’m pessimistic about this international process,” said Jürgen Weiss, a principal at Brattle Group, a consulting firm based in Massachusetts.
Environmental Justice. Green Tech. Sustainable Food. Kiribati - A Climate Change Reality. New House Science chair praises ‘tremendous’ BP spill, plans to subpoena climate scientists.