Is Carbon Nation the climate change movie for people that don’t believe in climate change?
Is that a good thing?
Month: February 2011
Cleanup Over? “Football field” of submerged oil found in Florida
Broadcast February 12, on WEAR TV, Pensacola, Florida.
Biomimicry: Building the Way Nature Builds
Biomimicry is design inspired by nature’s problem solving techniques. It allows, as the video explains, increases in efficiency of 10x, 100x, even 1000x.
This will be a key characteristic of the emerging renewable energy economy.
At TEDSalon in London, Michael Pawlyn describes three habits of nature that could transform architecture and society: radical resource efficiency, closed loops, and drawing energy from the sun.
Gulf Coast Update: You are Being lied to
Amateur video of the conditions on Alabama beaches, months after the oil disaster.
Alex Loorz – “We Need a Revolution”
Alec Loorz, a high school sophomore at El Camino High School in Ventura California, founded the non-profit organization, Kids-vs-Global-Warming when he was 12 years old. He is a filmmaker, a graphic designer, and a community activist passionately resolved to awaken youth to action on the most pressing issue of their lifetimes.
Inspired by Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Alec felt compelled to reach his peers by creating his own multi-media presentation. Over the past two years, he has reached over 12,000 youth and adults with his message, “Our generation is the one who will be most affected if nothing is done about global warming, so we need to be the ones leading the movement to bring change. Our voices do matter.”
A powerful and inspirational speaker, Alec has led workshops, given presentations, been keynote speaker and served on panels with PhDs, experts and professionals. He has addressed diverse audiences from school children to college students, green builders and environmental activists to politicians and UN delegates, urging adult leaders to integrate the voices of youth into their climate change discussions and the youth, themselves, to raise their voices.
After giving his own youth-focused presentation over 30 times, Alec was invited by Al Gore to be trained to give the official Inconvenient Truth slide shows. He is currently the youngest trained presenter.
Mark Hertsgaard – Generation Hot
From The Nation:
For years, climate “skeptics” have denied the near-unanimous scientific consensus around global warming in an effort to delay action.
But, they’re not really “skeptics”—they’re cranks and hacks, and it’s time to unmask those who are holding our nation’s climate policy hostage.
The Nation is partnering in a new initiative, galvanized by the magazine’s environmental correspondent and my friend Mark Hertsgaard, to name and shame the climate cranks sabotaging our nation’s response to climate change. The coalition includes theSierra Club, 350.org, Kids vs. Global Warming, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and Grist.
On Tuesday, February 15, Mark (author of the new bookHOT: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth) and supporters will head to Capitol Hill, the Fox TV bureau, the Chamber of Commerce and other hotbeds of climate denial. The goal? Put the climate cranks on the spot and make them explain—on camera and in front of kids—why they have condemned the young people of “Generation Hot” (as Mark calls them), to spending the rest of their lives coping with the hottest climate in human history.
As Mark explained in a recent Nation excerpt of his book:
On the ground in Washington I will be joined by local young people—activist members of Generation Hot. Our plan is to confront the climate cranks face to face, on camera, and call them to account for the dangers they have set in motion. We will highlight the ludicrousness of their antiscientific views, which alone should discredit them from further influence over US climate policies. And we will show how our nation could still change course—for example, if the federal government were to use its vast purchasing power to kick-start a green energy revolution that would create jobs and prosperity across the land. We welcome your help and constructive suggestions for how to achieve these goals and invite you to join us.
Facebook page for Generation Hot
Join Mark Hertsgaard and others confronting climate cranks in Washington DC on Tuesday, Feb. 15
Accuweather: 100-Degree Warm-Up Ahead for Some States Next Week
From Accuweather:
A major, prolonged warm-up is finally on the way for the eastern two-thirds of the nation next week.
After a record-shattering, frigid morning with lows well below zero in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas Thursday, temperatures could jump nearly 100 degrees in some areas by late next week.
A change in the overall weather pattern will allow milder air to spread through this region, as well as the rest of the Plains, Midwest and parts of the East, over the next few days. A more substantial warm-up will follow next week.
In the areas of Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas where temperatures dropped between 20° and 30° below zero F Thursday morning, highs in the 60s are in the forecast for late next week.
In some areas, temperatures could even make a run for 70°. This would be close to a 100-degree warm-up from Thursday morning’s frigid lows.
In the process, much of the nation’s snowcover will be wiped out toward the end of next week.
At the Wunderground blog, Dr. Jeff Masters puts this winter’s snows in perspective:
Continue reading “Accuweather: 100-Degree Warm-Up Ahead for Some States Next Week”
One Love | Playing For Change | Song Around the World
We heard a lot about Ronald Reagan’s birthday over the last week. Future generations may very well point to his election as not only a national tragedy for America, but a key lost opportunity for humanity to begin transforming the fossil fuel economy, that Jimmy Carter had begun to chip away at, before serious global consequences became all but imminent.
I stumbled on a celebration of another birthday on youtube, a celebration that apparently 7 million other people found before I did – that of Bob Marley’s birthday, with a global, synchronous, multicultural version of “One Love”.
I’d be amazed if someone, somewhere in Tahrir Square in Cairo isn’t playing, singing, or humming this tonight.
Climate Denier Schmitt Withdraws from New Mexico nomination
Climate Denier Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, who was recently nominated to head New Mexico’s Department of Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, has turned down the position. Schmitt had recently come under scrutiny for his statements denying the reality of man-caused climate change, and his claim that environmentalists are a part of a global communist conspiracy.
Schmitt’s recent claims, in particular, his demonstrably innacurate claims about arctic sea ice, became the focus of attention from a number of scientists, journalists, bloggers and citizens.
He has now turned down the position, ” just hours after a state senator called out Schmitt for refusing to comply with all the rules of a required background check” according to the Washington Post.
Could it be that Dr. Schmitt’s withdrawal is the first significant victory for a burgeoning effort to push back at the climate denying, anti-science movement?
Having watched this effort’s phenomenal growth over recent months, I’m betting the answer is yes.
Continue reading “Climate Denier Schmitt Withdraws from New Mexico nomination”
Sea Level Rise: How do We Know?
Good information about the sophisticated satellite observation systems that give us our best information about sea level rise.