Extreme weather: Climate on steroids

"Picture a baseball player on steroids," Meehl goes on. "This baseball player steps up to the plates and hits a home run. It's impossible to say if he hit that home run because of the steroids, or whether he would have hit it anyway. The drugs just made it more likely."

It's the same with the weather, Meehl says. Greenhouse gasses are the steroids of the climate system. "By adding just a little bit more carbon dioxide to the climate, it makes things a little bit warmer and shifts the odds toward these more extreme events," he says. "What was once a rare event will become less rare.

Peter Miller
 quoting Gerald Meehl from the National Center for Atmospheric Research
Weather Gone Wild 

National Geographic, September 2012, print edition 

PaperKarma smartphone app decreases junk mail

The record number of wildfires and heatwaves so far this summer makes one consider the actions we can take in our daily lives to mitigate these events in the long-term. Readers of this blog know that part of the solution is reducing our carbon footprint. Just a little reduction by each of us can go a long way.  One small, yet collectively powerful method is getting rid of junk paper - the kind of paper frequently found in the snail mailbox called "junk mail'.

The Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, according to Yahoo Answers, performed

... a life-cycle analysis of the paper that goes into a couple of magazines and found that 0.30 to 0.32 tons of carbon (1.11 to 1.17 tons of CO2) are emitted for every ton of paper produced. That includes emissions during the tree harvesting, transportation, printing, binding, and everything. (emphasis added)

Well, now there is a way to easily reduce our "paper footprint"? Yes, there is an app for that. Reviewed by Katherine Duncan in the July 2012 issue of Entrepreneur magazine, the new app is called PaperKarma:

Available on Apple, Android, and Windows Phone platforms, the free mobile app enables users to automatically unsubscribe from mailing lists by taking photos of unwanted mail - essentially turning the smartphone into a filter for paper mail.

Duncan quotes PaperKarma CEO Sean Mortazavi:

For every piece of mail you want, you get an average of about 18 you don't want. 

Download PaperKarma to your smartphone through their site. And don't worry about the companies producing "junk mail" such as catalogs. PaperKarma has plans to enhance the system so you can request electronic versions of catalogs you do want. Businesses benefit by reaching interested customers at a lower cost and you've just lowered the stress on the environment. 

Welcome to the Preview

Predicted sea level rise highest from Massachusetts to North Carolina. Image: U.S. Geological Survey

A few folks have commented on the record heat Colorado is experiencing this month. My response: it’s just a preview. And, it should'nt come as a surprise. This past May was the hottest month in North America on record. Since we are becoming accustomed to breaking records, let me repeat: not average; not below average; not above average; the hottest.

As for Coloradan’s wondering what this summer would be like, we now know. For Denver, today’s headline reads: “Heat wave of Denver weather melting away records; hits 105 again.” It is hard to keep count of the fires in the state; a new one was just announced in south Boulder. With the heat and dry conditions, it’s shaping up to be record-breaking summer.  

And, it looks like Colorado is not alone. Various areas of the country are getting Previews this month, either in fact or by prediction. The flash floods in Duluth, Minnesota dumped 5-9 inches overnight “sending what looked like raging rivers through Duluth's streets.” (Can we attribute this specific flood to climate change? No. Does planetary warming result in more saturated air that is going dump water somewhere? Yes.) The U.S. Geological Survey has determined the East Coast from Massachusetts to North Carolina is a “hot spot” for sea level rise with levels predicted to rise “three to four times faster than the global average.” And, for Southern California:

By the middle of the century, the number of days with temperatures above 95 degrees each year will triple in downtown Los Angeles, quadruple in portions of the San Fernando Valley and even jump five-fold in a portion of the High Desert in L.A. County, according to a new UCLA climate change study.

At least we are getting a Preview and we should not be surprised by climate extremes the rest of the decade and beyond.

What do we do now? Many already conserve, recycle, or are otherwise proactive in ways big and small. We all need to claim our ecological citizenship and not wait for governmental action. Whether we care or not, we are all ecological citizens. What we individually take from, or give back to our global ecology eventually comes back to support us or bites us. Although I am optimistic and believe we will, in the clutch, solve the climate spiral, we will hit the guardrail. The question is, how hard? 

Brittany Trilford to Rio+20: "Are you here to save face?"

Seventeen-year-old Brittany Trilford speaks for the children of the world at the Rio+20 Earth Summit. Watch the video above or read the text of her speech at Climate Central.

Des Moines, IA, along with most of the U.S., developed a fever this spring

Image: NOAA/NCDC

Des Moines, Iowa offers a case study of just how warm it’s been. The year-to-date there has averaged a whopping 8 degrees F above average, with many other cities across the country tracking close to that figure as well.

Climate Central

... the warmest spring, warmest year-to-date, and warmest 12-month period the nation has experienced since recordkeeping began in 1895.

NOAA

The Colbert Report: Outlawing sea level rise in North Carolina

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Climate "Game Over"?

Which part of this sounds like a game to you?  The billions?  The people?  The poverty?  The civilization?  The collapse?  Daaad, back away from the smartphone.  I mean it.  Focus!  You can’t just go “game over for the climate…  New game!”… like there’s an app for what happens after you lose this one.

Climate Progress

First "State of the Planet Declaration"

Research now demonstrates that the continued functioning of the Earth system as it has supported the well-being of human civilization in recent centuries is at risk. 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.

Thus begins the first State of the Planet Declaration prepared by the Planet Under Pressure 2012 conference just concluded in London. The report outlines the “key messages emerging from the proceedings” and includes the important framework of planetary boundaries, those Earth systems, such as biodiversity, climate change, and ocean acidification. The report continues:

In one lifetime our increasingly interconnected and interdependent economic, social, cultural and political systems have come to place pressures on the environment that may cause fundamental changes in the Earth system and move us beyond safe natural boundaries. But the same interconnectedness provides the potential for solutions: new ideas can form and spread quickly, creating the momentum for the major transformation required for a truly sustainable planet. (emphasis added)

The “distant ideal of sustainable development” is no longer a guiding vision. The vision is much more immediate:

Global sustainability must become a foundation of society. It can and must be part of the bedrock of nation states and the fabric of societies.

Denial of climate change is in retreat. Unrelated to the conference, General Motors this week announced it will no longer fund the Heartland Institute, “a Chicago-based nonprofit well-known for attacking the science behind global warming and climate change.”

Also, meteorologist Shawn Otto writes:

No, you’re not imagining it: we’ve clicked into a new and almost foreign weather pattern. To complicate matters, I’m in a small, frustrated and endangered minority: a Republican deeply concerned about the environmental sacrifices some are asking us to make to keep our economy powered-up, long-term. It’s ironic. The root of the word conservative is “conserve.”

Those denying climate change for economic or political reasons are becoming marginalized. The movement for action is slowly building. "Will it occur soon enough?" is the question of our era.

Download PDF of the Declaration 

Quote: The wrong question about climate change

The answer to the oft-asked question of whether an event is caused by climate change is that it is the wrong question. All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be.

Kevin E. Trenberth - National Center for Atmospheric Research

via Climate Progress

Why the cultural resistance to the growing evidence of a warming climate?

When Kari Marie Norgaard, author of Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions and Everyday Life, was asked by Science Codex to explain the cultural resistance to climate change despite the growing evidence, she responded: 

Climate change poses a massive threat to our present social, economic and political order. From a sociological perspective, resistance to change is to be expected. People are individually and collectively habituated to the ways we act and think. This habituation must be recognized and simultaneously addressed at the individual, cultural and societal level -- how we think the world works and how we think it should work.

When asked why "climate change has been seen as either a hoax or fixable with minimal political or economic intervention", Norgaard replied:

This kind of cultural resistance to very significant social threat is something that we would expect in any society facing a massive threat.

Where the predictions correct? You decide.

found via Climate Progress

(I delayed The Ancestral Health Resources post, as mentioned here, until later this week in order to focus on the flurry of environmental news.)

SUNDAY PALEO / February 26, 2012

The lip of the world ocean as seem from Rosemary Beach, Florida

THE OCEAN

Climate change, global warming, or whatever you call it, humans will likely adapt. We always have. (I won’t mention conflict and population reduction. Oh, I just did.) In Colorado, as the climate warms, there will be less snow for winter sports but more land conducive to growing grapes. Loose some, win some.

Unfortunately, it’s never that simple. We are not the only ones affected. We know we are loosing many of our great species, such as tigers and polar bears, which our children’s children will never see in the wild. Of course, most of us have never seen them in the wild. But just knowing they are there, somehow confirms who we are. We can’t be that destructive, right?

As some species disappear, others will thrive, for example, marmots. But so will mosquitoes, ticks, rodents and jellyfish. Lacey Johnson of Scientific American writes:

Imagine a planet where jellyfish rule the seas, giant rodents roam the mountains and swarms of insects blur everything in sight.

None of these scenarios are appealing, but let’s focus on jellyfish. Their proliferation is a sign many ocean species are not doing well and the reason appears to be ocean acidification. Lacey Johnson:

Jellyfish populations are also suspected to be swelling because of climate change. In recent years, the creatures have been clogging the nets of fishermen, stinging record numbers of beachgoers and blocking the water intake lines of power plants in at least three countries. Some scientists are linking the phenomenon to warmer waters and ocean acidification caused by high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Ocean acidification will also short-circuit the nervous system of some sea creatures:

Based on several years of observations of how baby coral fishes react to an environment with high levels of dissolved CO2, researchers have found that elevated acidity levels directly interfere with fish neurotransmitter functions, impeding their ability to hear, smell, turn and evade predators.

What effect will ocean acidity have on biodiversity? Researchers analysing biodiversity around sites where CO2 from volcanic activity seeps out of the ocean floor are providing a clue:

Directly above these CO2 seeps, pH plummets to at least 7.8, a value that is expected to occur widely by 2100 and that is substantially lower than the normal level for the area, 8.1. These sites offer a preview of what may happen to seafloor ecosystems as CO2 levels continue to rise, causing ocean water pH to drop. Species diversity was reduced by 30%.

Wait. Are they saying a reduction of ocean species by almost 1/3 in about 90 years?? 

GOOD NEWS

Fortunately, creative activity is occurring throughout the world that may stem this unfavorable prognosis. Hey, even some banks are taking action. According to a recent article on the Environmental News Network:

On behalf of 92 pension funds, asset managers, insurers and banks, the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), which holds the world's largest collection of self-reported corporate environmental data, has sent letters to the CEOs of 415 of the world’s largest public companies calling for cost-effective management and reductions of their carbon emissions.

Furthermore,

The largest new signatories include Spain's Banco Santander, Banesto and BBVA from the banking sector, fund manager Henderson and APG the asset manager. There is also a significant number of new signatories in Australia, which passed its Clean Energy Act in November last year, taking the group’s combined assets to over US$10 trillion.

For a frequent dose of progress on the environmental front, try EcoGeek, CleanTechnica, or Grist.

DARK CHOCOLATE

OK. That, was a rough start to Sunday Paleo. Maybe you have given some thought to what your role will be in creating a new future. So, it's time to cheer up.

I am told that one of the answers given by Siri to the question “What is the secret of life?” is: “All available current evidence points to chocolate.” Yes, I know, chocolate was not consumed in the Paleolithic; think of it as Paleo informed by modern knowledge.

Marks Sisson recently posted a great summary on the benefits of chocolate. Here, with a bit of tweaking, is his list. Go to his site for the full flavor.

1. Dark chocolate contains healthy fats.
2. Dark chocolate contains lots of polyphenols, particularly flavanols.
3. Dark chocolate lowers blood pressure.
4. Dark chocolate may lower risk of cardiovascular disease.
5. Dark chocolate reduces insulin resistance.
6. Dark chocolate may improve less severe forms of fatty liver.
7. Dark chocolate increases resistance to UV damage.

You are now ready to pick up some dark chocolate. But which brand? The NorthWest CaveGirls recently tested six dark chocolates:

“Although we brought 12 bars of chocolate, we were only able to taste 6, because – believe it or not- we were chocolated out after that.  Take a look and see which ones won the taste test.”

PALEO RECIPES

 Finally, looking for something more substantial to cook? Try these recipes:

• Rich and Hearty Hungarian Goulash
• Southwestern Frittata
• Paleo Ahi Tuna Poke Bowl: A Hawaiian Inspired Shashimi or Shushi Meal

Related Post

• Ocean Acidification by the Numbers