Climate Frog

Climate Frog transitions to pResilience

2008-04-16T13:07:00.000-07:00

Climate Frog is reincarnated as pResilience. If you're linked here or are getting a feed from here, please make the switch. You'll be glad you did. Thanks.

Climate Frog was my first effort at blogging about climate change and our responses to it as citizens, communities and governments. Since I began this blog in early 2007, the landscape has changed - both literally and scientifically - and so has my approach to blogging about it.

Over a year ago, I was curious about what - if anything - people were doing to prepare for the impacts that research was forecasting. I learned that those impacts would be specific to locations, not generalized across all locations. I went so far as to propose a business for building special purpose Web sites for use by local government in collaboratively planning to mitigate those impacts. I called the effort AdaptLocal and as some potential funders considered my proposal, I continued to inquire as to the likelihood that local governments would pay to have these sites set up for them.

Early this March, I came to the conclusion that very few local governments are currently ready to take such a step. Some might be, but most are buried in other more immediate obligations while struggling to fund even those priorities.

The driving force for local climate adaptation and building local resilience for approaching climate impacts will be the grassroots groups and organizers, not their local governments. There are exceptions, of course, and I've featured some of them here in Climate Frog, but I've concluded that the most useful purpose I can serve is to find and blog about the best examples of local organizing. And that's what pResilience is all about.

Today the sky is blue. Does the future matter?

2008-03-05T10:53:00.000-08:00

Today, I see a brilliant blue sky out my window. I can't tell that there' s more carbon dioxide up there then there was last year. It's tempting to think, "Why worry? Why change anything?"

I focus on local preparation for adaptation to a changing climate because I know, based on assurances by a preponderance of scientific investigation, that the impacts of climate change will come, probably sooner than we'd like to think. Most of us, it seems, choose to not think about it. And that spurs me further to do what I can to advance adaptation planning.

Who is responsible for educating and motivating the public about this stuff? There are countless other climate/green organizations, agencies and web sites. Al Gore got his Academy Award and Nobel Prize. The IPCC shared the Nobel and is now known worldwide for having substantiated the evidence of big problems ahead.

I have automatic web searches dumping more climate-related articleson my desktop every day than I can possibly read. The information to lead our actions is available and plentiful.

So why aren't things moving as they must to prevent catastrophic impacts in our future? You'll notice that none of the presidential candidates even mention climate change. Today's NY Times editorial urges Clinton and Obama to elevate their campaigns "to a serious debate about major issues," none of which happens to be climate related. This is absurd.

I'm thinking that the best way to penetrate the average U.S. citizen's crisis fatigue is to make the climate change threat a local one - to describe it in terms of what might happen in each person's back yard. The prospect of having to abandon one's lush landscaping or of upsetting one's ability to commute to work or of having high tide covering the local high school's athletic fields is a lot less abstract than presenting the threats as "global." Which is not to say that the global perspective deserves to be ignored; billions of lives are at stake.

And who should be bringing the challenge back home? I propose that it's our local elected leaders and public servants. Here in Marin, the local government has been very visible in promoting its Get Ready Marin initiative, which is aimed at elevating disaster preparedness across the county. Hundreds of weatherproof banners were produced and hung in high visibility locations, resulting in the training and recruiting of hundreds of neighborhood volunteers.

Marin should expand beyond emergency planning and bring the same level of urgency to long range planning. The future matters and for the first time in human history we have forecasting abilities that can warn us about emergencies long before they happen.

Major H2O Utilities Want Fed Research Help

2008-03-04T16:22:00.000-08:00

Now we're talking. But will the Feds respond, at least before Bush is gone?

Quoting from Climate Science Watch:

An alliance of eight major water utilities that provide drinking water to 36 million people is calling on the US Climate Change Science Program and the science community to aid in assessing and managing risks to water infrastructure and supply from impacts of warming, diminishing snowpack, bigger storms, drought, rising sea level, and potential abrupt climate change.

This is about the US Global Change Research Program, which the Bush Administration has done its best to disempower. The alliance calls itself, logically enough, the Water Utility Climate Alliance, and they need "access to the best possible climate change research as they prepare to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure over the next 15 years."

OK, water comes first, especially for the regions most threatened by water shortages. (Interestingly, neither Georgia's nor Alabama's water utilities are among them.) But wouldn't just be right for the federal program to fund research to provide the best risk assessment for all potential climate impacts across the U.S.?

Flood season in the upper Midwest

2008-03-03T09:15:00.000-08:00

I have a Google News Alert for "flood" that delivers a daily list of stories to me. Here are some of what shows up today:

Flooding closes I-280 A weekend warm-up caused rivers to rise in their banks and some areas to flood, causing the closure of Interstate 280

Local flooding prompts closures Area flooding prompted flash flood warnings from the National Weather Service and road closures by the city of ...

Forecasters Monitor Weiser River for Flooding Such a storm would cause the snowpack to melt rapidly and increase flood danger. Right now forecasters are closely watching certain rivers that wouldn't be ...

Southeastern Minnesota Prepares for Possible Spring Flooding The town of Houston, Minnesota was fortunate that it avoided major damage from last year's flooding, but the flood served as a wake up call to the community ...

Strong Storms... Flooding... Several Inches of Snow... ALL Possible First of all due to the already saturated ground and the enormous amount of rain showing up on forecast models a Flood Watch is in effect. ...

Freezing Rain, Sleet, Snow, Flooding A Concern High water and localized flooding due to ice action and snow melt will continue along sections of the Elkhorn through Monday. ...

New San Francisco planner, no mention of climate

2008-03-02T17:53:00.001-08:00

The only reason I point to this story in the San Francisco Chronicle is its lack of any mention of environmental concerns in the list of urgent issues the new hire will need to tackle. This in spite of the fact the the Chronicle just launched its online Green publication.

Yes, that's one of the points of Climate Frog - we'd better begin our adaptation planning now because every place has a long list of important issues already on the table. If adaptation has to wait in line until the impacts are upon us, we may find that most of today's big zoning and housing debates were lacking some key considerations.

Environmental economist: "Work locally to diversify our ecosystems"

2008-03-02T17:45:00.000-08:00

No, local actions don't make a difference in the climate change process, which is principally driven by worldwide trends. But Charles Perrings, a professor of environmental economics at Arizona State University, says there's a lot we can do locally to lessen impacts at the local level.

The trick is to work locally to diversify our ecosystems to make them more resilient for what is to come.
Perrings' argument, which he presented 17 February at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting, is based upon the findings of the 2005 United Nations' Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA). Like the IPCC report, the MA is a comprehensive synthesis of existing information, scientific literature and data; but whereas the IPCC report discusses climate change generally, the MA focuses on improving ecosystem management and human well-being.

'The MA points to the value of regulating ecosystems locally to function over a range of environmental conditions,' Perrings says. 'The challenge now is to deepen our understanding of diversity's impact on both the supply of valued goods and the severity of harmful events.'

Understanding the value of ecosystem change is one more tile in the global climate change mosaic, one that, according to Perrings, scientists and policymakers must understand if they are to accurately assess costs and benefits of proposed actions, track ecological assets and develop means of remedying the problem.

Europe holds roundtable on adaptaion

2008-03-02T17:30:00.000-08:00

A multi-stakeholder roundtable on climate change entitled Adapting to Climate Change in Europe – Options for EU Action took place on February 27. The pre-conference story described the format this way:

Climate change concerns us all. Therefore all actors, in the widest possible sense, from the individual citizen to public authorities, the private sector, businesses, towns and cities, academics, networks, policy makers and authorities at all levels, associations and NGOs are invited to participate actively during the roundtable.

Broad participation builds resilience.

800-year drought in South Carolina?

2008-03-02T17:28:00.000-08:00

That's what the state climatologist told the newspaper. Tree ring data says it's so.

Flooding in the U.S. Midwest - climate impact?

2008-03-02T16:49:00.000-08:00

It's not your imagination; there have been more reports of flooding in the upper Midwest lately. It's impossible to say for sure that it's a climate change impact, but conditions have certainly changed.

The Findley (Ohio) Courier interviewed Robert McCall, an Ohio State University Extension educator who focuses on watershed management about the more frequent flooding they've been experiencing. The uncertainty McCall expressed is indicative of where we're all at now, as we deal with new patterns of extreme weather, although he sounds like he could use to follow Climate Frog and learn some stuff.

Q: We have flooded seven times in the last 14 months. Is this a fluke, or have we entered a new era in which flooding will permanently be a much bigger problem than in the past?

A: We are in an new era, that's for sure. What era that is, speaking from a climate standpoint, I'm not sure. The researchers, the scientists, the national figureheads, nobody can really come to an agreement, I don't think, across the board as to what that is. If global warming ... is caused by man-made, land use practices, I'm not sure what's going on there. Or ... it's just the natural cycle of things. I don't know how much influence, obviously we probably have some influence, but to what degree I'm not sure.

What? No truffles?

2008-03-02T16:40:00.000-08:00

Yes, sorry, epicures. The European truffle hunters are blaming the shortage on global warming. I've been telling you that the impacts would be diverse, hitting you in places you never expected. And there you have it. Get ready to pay through the nose for your next truffle experience.

Now, foodies and tourists buying truffles by the piece have replaced the bulk-buying middlemen, and most transactions at the once-bustling market are measured in grams. At the Aups market, the black truffle's price has more than doubled over the past five years, to about €850 per kilo ($560 a pound).

One 76-year-old trufficulteur pinned the blame on climate, and is ready to believe it's permanent.

"Climate change has got the seasons out of whack, it's hotter than it used to be and it rains lots less. I want my grandson to take over, but if things continue like this, who knows if there will be anything left."

Complexities of drought planning

2008-03-02T16:32:00.000-08:00

Most of North Carolina is still dealing with extreme drought conditions, and a plan proposed by the governor - which would impose water use restrictions uniformly on counties based on what "level" of drought they are in - is getting plenty of pushback from local resource managers.

"There is no one size fits all [answer]. Every community and the situation of every water system is different," said Ellis Hankins, director of the League of Municipalities.

Hankins is recommending his own plan to the governor, that will take into consideration other factors in assigning restrictions. Some counties, for example, are at an "extreme level" of drought, but still have water in their reservoirs, while others at that same level have empty reservoirs.

When it's dry everywhere, a little bit of available water makes a difference.

Entropy - another adaptation challenge

2008-03-02T15:56:00.000-08:00

Climate change is far from the only change we're going through. Our national infrastructure is aging, crumbling and falling behind fast in the maintenance required to keep it safe and usable. The collapse of the interstate bridge into the Mississippi river last year was a spectacular failure, but it's only an indicator years of neglect of infrastructure built long ago.

A recent editorial in the New York Times appealed to presidential candidates to pay attention to this growing threat to lives, transportation and the economy. Check out these numbers:

....a federal commission put a jaw-dropping price tag on starting to attend to America’s crumbling foundations: $225 billion a year for the next 50 years just to maintain and upgrade surface transportation

The editorial wonders - as we all should - why this was not mentioned by anyone running to be the next president. Yes, it's bad news, but it's here now. It's not even bad news from the future, as climate change impacts are framed by those excusing their absence from the debates.

Desalination - Backup for the Long Dry

2008-03-02T15:37:00.000-08:00

The first large-scale desalination plant in the U.S. recently began operating in Tampa, Florida. With a production capacity of 25 million gallons per day, it's much bigger than the plant currently going through public comment and EIR for my home county of Marin in California, with its initial capacity to produce 5 million gallons per day.

The price comparison: Tampa's plant, $150 million; Marin's, and estimated $115 million. One main difference is that Tampa's plant gets its water from the cooling system of a nearby power plant.

Both locations have gone through extreme water shortages and rationing in the not-too-distant past, and neither has access to backup water supplies. Marin has not yet made the decision to proceed, but has no other alternatives except conservation. Both locations have steadily increased their per capita water usage.

USA Today on Climate Changes

2008-02-21T10:30:00.000-08:00

Our national daily newspaper calls its section "Weather and Climate Science," and on the Feb 17 page from that section it provides two interesting features.

First is an animated map of the Northeast U.S. that illustrates how scientific projections see local climate changing over the course of this century under reduced emissions and constant emissions scenarios. Worst case for Massachusetts: its climate toward the end of the century will be like South Carolina's climate today. Imaging adapting to THAT! The original version of the map can be found in this report by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Second is an article inspired by the latest update from the Pew Center for Global Climate Change (PDF), which surveys cities, states and counties that have begun pursuing adaptation planning. All of these places are, in turn, inspired by their membership in ICLEI, which has focused for years on sustainability planning but has begun to emphasize adaptation planning.

The clear leader in local sustainability and adaptation planning is King County, WA, whose Executive, Ron Sims, has launched these initiatives and was just named to the board of ICLEI-USA.

Lakes Powell and Mead dry by 2021 - Odds: 50/50

2008-02-12T20:18:00.000-08:00

It's way beyond a slim possibility. Fifty percent odds make for an appreciable risk. This was the finding of a study by Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. To reduce those odds, cities, farmers and industry that rely on water from the Colorado River had better change their water use habits immediately. Not to mention the loss of electricity generated by the lost water.

The results underscore the importance of water-conservation measures that many communities throughout the region are putting into place. Other studies, some dating back nearly 20 years, have projected that Lake Mead could fall to virtually useless levels as climate warmed, but they lacked a sense of the timing. The new results, the Scripps scientists say, represent a first attempt to answer when lakes Mead and Powell would run dry, squeezing water supplies in Arizona, California, Nevada, and New Mexico.

"We were stunned at the magnitude of the problem and how fast it is coming at us," notes Tim Barnett, a research physicist at Scripps who led the effort. By "dry," the team means that water levels fall so low behind the Hoover and Glenn Canyon Dams that the water fails to reach the gravity-fed intakes that guide it through turbines or out through spillways. In addition, the report estimates that the lakes stand a 50 percent chance of falling to the lowest levels required to generate electricity by 2017.

Call them "Tipping Elements"

2008-02-12T15:14:00.000-08:00

This Science Daily article seems to unveil a climate change twist on "tipping points."

"Society may be lulled into a false sense of security by smooth projections of global change," the researchers around Timothy Lenton from the British University of East Anglia in Norwich and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research report. Global change may appear to be a slow and gradual process on human scales. However, in some regions anthropogenic forcing on the climate system could kick start abrupt and potentially irreversible changes. For these sub-systems of the Earth system the researchers introduce the term "tipping element".

Here's the short list from the UK-based team of researchers with their calculated tipping times:

Melting of Arctic sea-ice (approx 10 years)
Decay of the Greenland ice sheet (more than 300 years)
Collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet (more than 300 years)
Collapse of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (approx 100 years)
Increase in the El Nino Southern Oscillation (approx 100 years)
Collapse of the Indian summer monsoon (approx 1 year)
Greening of the Sahara/Sahel and disruption of the West African monsoon (approx 10 years)
Dieback of the Amazon rainforest (approx 50 years)
Dieback of the Boreal Forest (approx 50 years)

And this interesting description of their projections for the Greenland ice cap, which I'd been getting the impression lately losing ice at an accelerated rate. Total melt-off will take at least 300 years and a 7-meter contribution to sea level rise:

Warming over the ice sheet accelerates ice loss from outlet glaciers and lowers ice altitude at the periphery, which further increases surface temperature and ablation. The exact tipping point for disintegration of the ice sheet is unknown, since current models cannot capture the observed dynamic deglaciation processes accurately. But in a worst case scenario local warming of more than three degrees Celsius could cause the ice sheet to disappear within 300 years. This would result in a rise of sea level of up to seven meters.

Good language - Center for Climate Strategies

2008-02-12T14:45:00.000-08:00

If new civic space is going to open up around climate change issues, an open process for making decisions and setting priorities is going to be essential. The Center's web site does a good job of describing the process it uses in working with state-level governments on climate mitigation planning. Often working through the governor's office, they convene teams of stakeholders who meet for a year in meetings open to the public.

Here's how answer the question Why was CSS created?

Many governors and other state leaders are addressing the problem of climate change by planning and implementing proactive solutions to the pollution caused by greenhouse gases (GHGs). CCS was formed to help these leaders develop effective, consensus based policy solutions through analysis, planning and collaboration with stakeholders, state agencies and other institutions. CCS has provided assistance to 18 US states involved in state or regional climate action planning, as well as Canadian Provinces and the border states of Mexico.

And What does CSS do?

The CCS team provides a forum for advanced learning and joint decision-making on climate strategies and solutions in an open, inclusive, non-partisan, fact-based, and collaborative environment. We provide impartial and expert analysis, planning, facilitation and technical assistance toward development of highly customized, consensus-based policies and plans to reduce GHG emissions. CCS works jointly with state officials, agency staff, and stakeholders to develop actions that meet or exceed state or regional GHG emission reduction goals and targets through a “portfolio” of coordinated actions, developed through the consensus building process. CCS provides similar assistance for the development of response actions and plans for adaptation to climate change impacts.

Stakeholders Help Plan Florida's Survival

2008-02-12T14:15:00.000-08:00

Most of Florida has an elevation not much above sea level, and I've seen more than a few maps illustrating a largely submerged peninsula. Not surprisingly, the state government is trying to do something to help slow the warming, the melting, the resultant rise of sea level. This article describes the two-phase project that aims toward reducing the state's greenhouse gas emissions. Now beginning its Stage Two, the governor has assigned a 21-member Action Team to come up with a list of recommended actions.

The process will be facilitated by the Center for Climate Strategies, which is "working in 16 states to build consensus and develop comprehensive action plans."

The Center was quoted about its role in the process of helping the Action Team make the most worthy recommendations:

"We are not advocates for particular approaches with vested interests, and we do not take positions on policy or legislative issues. We assemble and facilitate complex decisions among diverse stakeholder groups."

Energy Expert prescribes, "fundamental shift in how we do things at every level."

2008-02-12T13:46:00.000-08:00

A post on the CleanTech Blog by Richard T. Stuebi, the BP Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at The Cleveland Foundation, caught my eye because it's so rare that you see anyone with any influence acknowledging that there's sacrifice in our future.

Virtual Civic Centers for Local Resilience and Climate Adaptation

2008-02-08T19:06:00.000-08:00

Why aren't we doing more to get ready for climate impacts? We know they're coming. They may already be here. We've seen from Katrina how lack of adequate preparation can leave a place vulnerable to even the most obvious risks. We know these impacts won't just come through once and be over. Sure, we need to slash carbon emissions, but we can do that and learn to adapt at the same time. In fact, they should go together.

Having been following the news and the science so closely over the past year in my research for Climate Frog I've learned a few things that are calling me to action:

The timeframe for many key forecasts has been compressing; the pace of change seems to be accelerating
Many locations have had - and are still having - extreme weather that may as well be climate change impacts even if they're not referred to as such
We're not going to reverse the climate change process and impacts for a long, long time
We're going to go through at least a decades-long period of "unstable" and extreme weather
Adaptation is defined by the location where climate impacts take place
Local is where the rubber meets the road in terms of government involvement with its constituents
Local governments have yet to begin addressing adaptation planning for their local conditions and populations
The Web is being underused as a local information and collaboration medium on climate

I'm proposing that we begin building a global network of local civic center sites that operate through enlightened (or at least willing) local government agencies to:

inform their citizens about the latest science, news and commentary on climate change
involve them in risk assessment and civic deliberation on planning issues
support collaborative activities among citizens, businesses, groups and government

At the same time, these local sites will be networked to share knowledge and experience about risks and situations they have in common. All sites will contribute knowledge to a global knowledge base that anyone can draw from.

Yes, this is actually a serious business proposition. I'm taking the unorthodox path of announcing it here for anyone who might be interested in helping to get it off the ground. I'm calling it AdaptLocal, and here's a short version of the proposition.

Please circulate. Contact info is on the site or just comment here. Ciao.

Naomi Oreskes - A History of Denialism

2008-02-08T14:57:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Joe Romm at Climate Progress for pointing us to this video of a presentation by science historian Naomi Oreskes. Joe has some good background on the lecture.

This meticulously put together presentation explains a lot about the uncertainty expressed by the America people when asked to describe their feelings about global warming. You've heard all these same tired arguments for years now. Oreskes reveals the original script writers.

Here's the YouTube intro:

Polls show that between one-third and one-half of Americans still believe that there is "no solid" evidence of global warming, or that if warming is happening it can be attributed to natural variability. Others believe that scientists are still debating the point. Join scientist and renowned historian Naomi Oreskes as she describes her investigation into the reasons for such widespread mistrust and misunderstanding of scientific consensus and probes the history of organized campaigns designed to create public doubt and confusion about science.

The link between strange and extreme weather and climate change. Does it matter?

2008-02-07T13:37:00.000-08:00

The powerful killer tornados that blasted across the Southeast on Tuesday were - according to Dr. Jeff Masters, the most deadly mid-winter tornados in recorded history with the exception of a storm in January, 1949. The drought that continues to plague northern Georgia, Alabama and the Carolinas is equally unusual in that region's history.

Scientists and responsible science writers (such as Chris Mooney) are admitting that in both cases - and in general - they must be very cautious about attributing these oddball extremes to climate change.

Fair enough. That's how science should and must be. But really, does it matter? If we are witnessing hundreds of broken records for temperature, rainfall and drought in the course of a year, there's a gut level instinct that tells you something is changing in the world. No one has yet defined how we'll mark the official, scientifically sanctioned and approved beginning of Climate Change. No one has described how we will someday look back on history and set a pushpin on a timeline and declare, "This is when the climate began to change."

We certainly can't say that just because over 50 people were killed in February tornados this year, we can expect to see such patterns repeated from now on. The most certain thing we can say about climate change is that its behavior will be uncertain. Our weather patterns may change, but they may not settle into any patterns at all.

I think it's fair to say that having the Arctic ice cover disappear, having countless glaciers retreat, having severe flooding in England, catastrophic drought in Australia and shrinking snowpack in the Rockies all represent changes in...something. We can studiously avoid blaming these facts on global warming, but not if it means denying that they are happening.

UK leading citizens in local flood protection

2008-02-04T10:35:00.000-08:00

The Goole region of Great Britain was heavily flooded last year and is a high risk area for flooding in the future, if recent weather patterns persist. Britain's Environmental Agency is issuing guidance for local Members of Parlaiment for how to lead their constituents in preparing for floods and mitigating damage from them. As the Goole MP described it,

"Flooding is a real threat to people living in my constituency and it is vital that they listen to the Environment Agency's advice on protecting themselves and their home.

"Signing up to Floodline is a great service that will give you the best possible warning of a flood.

"Making a flood plan and getting a flood kit together takes a few moments, but can make an enormous difference if there is a flood."

As ever, the EA is trying to balance the need for building new homes with the risks of building them in known floodplains. (I still don't understand how new homes can be built on floodplains. It just stretches the bounds of reason!)

Take a class; get to water your lawn

2008-02-04T10:26:00.000-08:00

Here's a new twist in drought adaptation from Georgia, where citizens who have been under a lawn watering ban since last September may be allowed a limited reprieve in exchange for attending a class on water conservation.

Green attitudes: same old action

2008-02-04T10:09:00.000-08:00

The good news from a USA Today article reporting on a recent poll, is that a majority of Americans considers global warming to be "a very serious problem. The bad news is that it's a slim majority (62%) and that a very small percentage of those who support taking "green" action to mitigate global warming are taking the actions they advocate.

The author of the study, Edward Maibach - head of the climate center at George Mason University - observed that there's a strong need to raise more awareness of the situation and cited growing concern among behavior experts that "there has been too much fear-mongering and not enough emphasis on what people can do." Unfortunately, the acknowledgement of the problem reflects the political divide in the country.

Democrats are about three times more likely than Republicans to see high danger in global warming and think they can do something about it. But Democrats are living only slightly more green than Republicans.

Hey, folks, the climate is non-partisan!

This is where I'm convinced that local focus on the potential impacts of climate change on the places where people live and work is the most direct route to getting them to engage in the issue. It's not abstract when you look at global warming through the lens of your own experience. If you can visualize dramatic change in terms of how it may affect your daily life, it's that much more real to you. And it frames the answer to the question, "what can people do?"