January 2011
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Sudan's New Oil Problem
90% of Sudan’s exports are oil revenues, making it ultra-dependent on world markets, and especially Asian growth. What’s more unique is its bountiful natural resources coupled with an intense geopolitical location.
The country is split lengthwise by the Nile River (in green below), which enters Sudan from the northern border with Egypt. Pollution ruins any reasonable access to clean...
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Vermont Climate Action Day →
Looks interesting because legislators, 350.org, Transition Towns, Vermont Energy and others will be there. Also, the state of Vermont is trying to join the United Nations Climate Neutral Network.
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China to make largest city in the world by...
Facts:
26 times the size of London
1/10th of China’s economy, growing at 4+%
Highly industrialized section of China - lots of pollution
Searching for a new name for the new city
29 rail lines, 3100 miles of track (NYC has 24 lines, and 800 miles of track)
42 million people - compare to Tokyo (34mil), Guangzhou (25mil), Seoul (24.5mil), Delhi (23mil). NYC is 7th, at 22 million people...
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Watch“What could possibly go wrong? It’s a base jump?” Strong, 45 second student video extolling the virtues of gambling with the environment. Click to find out the three reasons why base-jumpers get out of the game.
WatchBadass Russian research ship circumnavigates Antarctica for 210 days. In this fast paced video, set to an upbeat beat, the Akademik Fyodorov goes on a research mission to resupply stations along the coastline of Antarctica. Recall that back in 2007, the Akademik Fyodorov planted a Russian flag on the sea floor in the North Pole as some sort of oil and gas drilling rights claim. Still, the ship has...
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Climate Adaptation Planning: Anticipating the... →
My paper is finally published in The International Journal of Climate Change. I argued that local urban planners will have to be prepared for several types of legal issues. Let me know if you’d like a copy.
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Pro-Geoengineering
In my previous post, I touched upon a few reasons why I’m against geoengineering. I also expressed dismay at Oxford University’s call for a post-doc researcher geoengineering, which seems to show momentum is building for this type of tinkering. Governments - and this is my bottom line - are too politically immature to handle managing the earth’s weather.
We can’t even...
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Postdoc in Geoengineering. Read that carefully.
Geoengineering is, to my mind, the creepiest way to respond to climate change. It’s not a new idea, but it is so politically unpalatable that scientists don’t research it. This is why, at the bottom of this post, I’m disturbed by the call by Oxford for a post doc researcher in geoengineering.
In a nut shell, geoengineering posits that human can cool the planet using various,...
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Russia drilling into Antartic Lake?? →
I don’t quite get this story, but apparently there are lakes under Antarctica that haven’t been exposed to air or any elements for 14 million years.Though the piece does say something about “extremophiles.”
Lake Vostok, which has been sealed off from the world for 14 million years, is about to be penetrated by a Russian drill bit.
The drill bit currently sits less...
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Environmentalists can win the debate by playing...
Continuing my theme of responding to anti-environmentalists and climate deniers, it’s not enough to respond with a memorized litany of facts. It’s not enough to rattle off key stats that support doing the right thing for our environment. You have to be a good rhetorician. Take the offense, rather than automatically playing a defensive game. You need to understand tactics, where you use...
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Environmentalists can win the debate by playing...
Continuing my theme of responding to anti-environmentalists and climate deniers, it’s not enough to respond with a memorized litany of facts. It’s not enough to rattle off key stats that support doing the right thing for our environment. You have to be a good rhetorician. Take the offense, rather than automatically playing a defensive game. You need to understand tactics, where you use...
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DC peeps: "Defense, National Security and Climate...
U.S. defense and intelligence communities are increasingly focusing resources on the operational and national security implications of climate change and energy. With the most recent quadrennial report identifying climate change as a global destabilizing force for the first time, an executive order from President Obama on sustainability across the Federal...
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become...”
– John Quincy Adams (via tomorrowis2late)
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Banks shying away from environmentally destructive...
My favorite environmental story of 2010 comes from the NYTimes, “Banks Grow Wary of Environmental Risks,” published in the business section. I can’t say anything better than the article itself. Reflectively, I think the idea that banks are concerned with public repercussions is a fascinating angle for environmentalists to research. Our biggest challenges as environmentalists,...
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“Why do environmentalists face an uphill battle? Because they fall for, and...”
– http://naturalgascaucus.murphy.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=46§iontree=8,46&itemid=92
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Four New Adaptation Course, Online
Climate Change Online Courses:
CSDi is announcing the January launch of a module of four online field courses on Community-Based Adaptation to Climate Change. These courses begin by introducing basic climate change concepts, and develop as participants identify local community vulnerabilities, investigate appropriate solutions, develop full projects, launch and manage them.
Complete...
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Climate Change Class in Tokyo
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
Spring 2011 Postgraduate Courses on
Building Resilience to Climate Change
28 February – 25 March 2011
Tokyo, Japan
U.N. Univ., Institute for Sustainability and Peace
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DEADLINE: 21 January 2011
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The United Nations University Institute for Sustainability and Peace (UNU-ISP), Tokyo, invites applications for the...
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“I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I...”
– http://greenlighthouse.ku.dk/english/film/
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“Prohibitive cartography has its own graphic rhetoric. Because efficient...”
– From the good folks at fuckyeahcartography, identifying a continuing issue with political border disputes - where to place the lines? From a strong book on the history of maps, it covers everything from the need to delineate Egyptian property boundaries for agriculture, to Thomas Jefferson’s...
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Giffords sits up! Dangling legs from her bed....
Turning out to be The Miracle of 2011. But I am so confused. Representative Giffords was shot in the back of the head, and the bullet exited her forehead. The bullet traveled the length of her brain. And now she’s sitting up!?
More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41018273/ns/health-health_care
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EPA revokes huge mountain-top removal coal mining... →
Just in from the steadfast tumblr-er, Kateoplis. The Spruce Number 1 mine would have buried 7 miles of fresh water mountain streams, with no remediation. The destructive project was the largest mtn-top removal permit issued in Appalachia. The public voiced its distaste for the project as far back as 1998 (warning, that ‘98 story is a bit of a heartbreaker). According to the Guardian,...
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China's Plan to Win World Business Race: Carbon... →
This is from my friend and colleague, Ben Jervey over at GOOD Magazine (which, I just realized is owned by MSN. Very interesting. Whoops! Ben tells me GOOD and MSN just have a partnership. My bad.). Ben and I spent some time in Copenhagen during the COP15, and also up in Vermont. He’s a great writer, landed a spot over at HuffPost, has traveled the world chasing environmental stories, and...
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Exploring Antarctica →
Gorgeous. Melting.
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WatchJohnny Knoxville visits destroyed Detroit to glorify (perhaps justify) the magic of gentrification.
stillmindstillcosmos:
Detroit Lives
The Motor City has been declared dead more times than Rasputin. But over the last few years, while The News Media (and Dutch tourists) were hemming and hawing over a few neglected streets that had started to look more like meadows, a bunch of creative badasses...
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WatchIn one of my all time favorite TED talks, James Howard Kunstler makes the argument that urban planners, fueled by their constituents, have created a nation barely work defending. He asks, What, exactly, are the kids in Iraq spilling their blood in the sand protecting, Walmarts and Chucky Cheeses? I would ask you, - when was the last time you went to a city planning meeting?? He introduces the core...
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WatchIn one of my all time favorite TED talks, James Howard Kunstler makes the argument that urban planners, fueled by their constituents, have created a nation barely work defending. He asks, What, exactly, are the kids in Iraq spilling their blood in the sand protecting, Walmarts and Chucky Cheeses? I would ask you, - when was the last time you went to a city planning meeting?? He introduces the core...
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