"Arctic may be a thing of the past"

Bad news from the north:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 11, 2009) — "The Arctic as we know it may soon be a thing of the past," says Eric Post, associate professor of biology at Penn State University. Post leads a large, international team that carried out ecosystem-wide studies of the biological response to Arctic warming during the fourth International Polar Year, which ended in 2008. The team's results will be reported on 11 September 2009 in the journal Science.

The team's research documents a wide range of responses by plants and animals to the warming trend. The scientists found that the increase in mean annual surface temperature in the Arctic over the last 150 years has had dramatic effects. In the last 20 to 30 years, for example, the seasonal minimal sea ice coverage has declined by a staggering 45,000 square kilometers per year. Similarly, the extent of terrestrial snow cover has declined steadily, with earlier melting and breaking up and an earlier start to the growing season.

"Species on land and at sea are suffering adverse consequences of human behavior at latitudes thousands of miles away," declares Post. "It seems no matter where you look -- on the ground, in the air, or in the water -- we're seeing signs of rapid change."

To read more of this very important study, click here.

A Warming World: More Hurricanes Like Ike?

In the wake of Hurricane Ike’s devastating hit on Galveston and the Gulf Coast, discussion swirls around the role of global warming in creating both more and larger hurricanes.

As I noted today on WHYY’s “Morning Edition,” you can’t pin any one hurricane on global warming. But you can look for long-term trends.

So the Pew Center for Climate Change has discovered that between 1850 and 1990, there were, on average, 10 tropical storms in the North Atlantic annually, five of which became hurricanes.

Since 1995, the average number has jumped to 14, eight of which were hurricanes. The North Atlantic shows an increase in hurricane activity in the last decade, a possible fingerprint for global warming.

But don’t get cocky: oddly enough, there is no evidence for more hurricanes worldwide. So scientists continue to wring their hands over evidence.

Still, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group that won the Nobel Peace Prize alongside Al Gore, weighed in last year: the probability that GW makes more hurricanes “is more likely than not.” A tepid but appropriate response as science continues to weigh the evidence.

Meanwhile, the National Wildlife Federation has just released a study that says that when hurricanes do form, global warming gives them a three-fold wallop:

Hurricanes will be stronger with more winds.

They will bring heavier rainfall.

And they will cause more flooding because of a larger storm surge.

Their data says a warmed atmosphere over a warmed ocean—the fuel that powers hurricanes—will push wind speeds up some 13%, nudging some storms from dangerous Category 3 to catastrophic Katrina-level Category 4.

Rainfall can increase between 10 and 31% over normal; Hurricane Fay, the one that managed to hit Florida four times, a record, dropped 27 inches of rain in some places. 27 inches: almost what Philadelphia gets in a full year!

And Ike traveled north after Galveston, dropping nine inches of rain in Chicago a couple of days later, causing horrific flooding up there.

And if powerful winds push storm surges higher, there will be more flood damage. Since 1998, some dozen hurricanes have topped $1 billion in damage, capped by Katrina, raining down $125 billion in destruction. Who knows what Ike’s bill will be; the costs mount daily.

To mitigate flood damage, NW reminds us that beaches were once the barriers that protected the mainland from storms—the loss of wetlands in New Orleans exacerbated Katrina’s damage. They are sponges that absorb storm surges and excess water.

Every mile of healthy wetlands, they say, can trim 3-9 inches off a storm surge. Yet wetlands continue to vanish under an assault of development.

And one acre of wetlands reduces hurricane damage by $3,300. String together thousands of acres, and you’ve got something. In fact, Texas and Galveston have begun an intense debate on whether or not homeowners can rebuild on the barrier beaches.

Let’s first just acknowledge that in the last 20 years, there has been a building boom on beaches—a potential accident waiting to happen.

The impact of global warming on hurricanes is, of course, controversial in some circles: just check out the web site of RealClimate.org for starters.

No matter how you feel about the issue, this is a critically important discussion, and the defining era of this, the Greenhouse Age.

Vampire Appliances: Draining Your Wallet, Warming the World

Everyone is concerned about global warming—but everyone tends to look elsewhere, outside their own home, to find the solutions to the looming crisis.

Trouble is, with global warming, Dorothy’s right, there’s no place like home—like searching your own house to rid it of energy-sucking vampire appliances.

A recent study by Cornell University discovered that the average home contains at least 20 appliances that suck power all day and all night, even when they’re “off.” These appliances drain our pockets of $3 billion annually, averaging 200 bucks per household. In fact, seven power plants alone are dedicated to producing power for America’s vampires, spewing greenhouse gases all the while.

Your TV set continues pulling power even when it’s off, so it can await a signal from the remote. Microwaves and ovens stay on forever, powering the clock; in fact, microwaves can use more juice running the clock than actually warming food. Alarm systems, clock radios, answering machines, stereos, computer monitors, even garage door openers—all these stay on 24/7.

New houses are designed with special counters lined with plugs so the family can recharge its fleet of cell phones. The rechargers often stay plugged in all day, adding to your bill.

California—of course, who else?—is considering legislation requiring more efficient appliances. That’s critical—these appliances just use too much.

But there are a million ways you can personally lessen your carbon footprint. And while there is no silver bullet, pulling the plug on your own house’s vampires is a good beginning. Stake out your position on global warming. Zap a vampire today.

"Fierce Urgency of Now"

Political junkie that I am, glued to the primaries this compelling season (let’s face it, CNN boasts more drama these days than even Project Runaway), I rose off the couch the first time I heard Barack Obama—it may have been South Carolina—quote Martin Luther King’s “fierce urgency of now.”

Never heard it before. But now, the phrase won’t let me go. Bloggers too: a Google search pulls up thousands of blogs inspired by the turn of phrase.

King spoke these words in 1967 in a major speech given to a gathering of Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam at Riverside Church in New York. He presented in stunning detail the full spectrum of reasons he decided to come out against the war in Vietnam, a decision for which he was skewered by so many. (Read the full speech here, and you’ll have no doubts about how he would have felt about the current Iraq dilemma.)

When I heard Obama quote King, I had no idea it reflected the Vietnam situation-- for me, the phrase beautifully sums up in four words where we are now.

The fierce urgency of now: the world is warming, climate changing, species disappearing, water vanishing, crops failing.

“The oceans of history,” King noted in that same speech, “are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate.”

Like King connected Vietnam to the larger civil rights struggles of his day, today he would easily connect the dots between rising greenhouse gases, the rising tides of weather patterns, and the pummeling of New Orleans from Katrina, the coming crisis of millions of Bangladesh refugees when the warmed Indian Ocean rises, the devastating droughts in the South last year that crippled family farmers.

Global warming is not just an environmental issue: it is an economic issue. And a civil rights issue.

Just after offering the “fierce urgency phrase,” King added, “In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood—it ebbs. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, ‘Too late.’”

Obama is right. On just the environment alone, we are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. Like King and Vietnam, I pray it’s not too late, and I pray we elect the right president in November for these, the greenhouse times.