Pacific Standard July-August 2013 Cover

The Other “Cliff”

December 11, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
COP18

As Christmas approaches, the mercury here in Washington, D.C., has been flirting with 70 all month. On the day we decorated our Douglas fir, I went for a run in shorts, no shirt. The trees are skeletal, but songbirds still linger in the branches. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised—after all, November was the 333rd consecutive month of above-average global temperatures. Halfway across the world, in Doha, Qatar, the latest international climate conference, COP18, just wrapped up. Representatives from some 190 countries spent a fortnight trying to lay the groundwork for a post-Kyoto world; ... Read More

More like this: Environment
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Hurricane Sandy and the Presidential Election

October 26, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

An October surprise is usually something ginned up by a political campaign, but this year it seems that mother nature has one up her sleeve, in the form of Hurricane Sandy. What effect might this have on the election? Here are two data points that nature's oppo researchers might have considered. According to a historical analysis by the political scientists Christopher H Achen and Larry M Bartels, fluke natural disasters--droughts, flu epidemics, even shark attacks--tend to damage an incumbent by association: We find that voters regularly punish governments for acts of God, including ... Read More

More like this: Politics, The 101
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New Estimate for Climate Change-Related Casualties Released, Not Pretty.

September 27, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

A European humanitarian aid consultancy, DARA, has released a study that claims to define the various ways that 100 million people, most citizens of developing nations, could die from climate change-related events by 2030. Called "a guide to the cold calculus of a hot planet," the report detailing these bleak trends is available in chart and text form here, and a pdf can be downloaded. It's fascinating and benefits from a very cool graphical interface. Precisely when to click on the above links is somewhat of a challenging question. Diving in to the report is a bit like deciding to ... Read More

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Governing Geoengineering: Hot Topic For a Warming Planet

March 28, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

Research scientist Gail Osherenko is blogging for Miller-McCune from the Planet Under Pressure Conference in London. For other posts from her, click here. As I walked out of a panel on geoengineering governance this morning at the Planet Under Pressure Conference taking place in London, I was handed a flyer calling on governments to “Act Immediately to COOL THE ARCTIC.” I do not take the dire warnings of the Arctic Methane Emergency Group lightly, but a call to use geoengineering among other means to cool the Arctic is both premature and scary. As the panel’s experts explained, ... Read More

More like this: Environment
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Entering a Dangerous Epoch — The Anthropocene

March 27, 2012 • By •
Entering a Dangerous Epoch — The Antropocene

Research scientist Gail Osherenko is blogging for Miller-McCune from the Planet Under Pressure Conference in London. For other posts from her, click here. According to scientists studying global environmental change, the Earth is moving out of the Holocene — the period of remarkably stable climate that began roughly 12,000 years ago — into the Anthropocene, an era in which a single species, humans, are driving the Earth’s systems. “Can we return to the nice, steady Holocene stage where we know humanity can survive or will we be able to transition to a new, much hotter state?” ... Read More

More like this: Environment
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US, EU in Dogfight Over Airline Emissions

October 25, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

With the rest of the world's leaders repeatedly gridlocked in crafting a binding international climate change strategy, Europe has plowed ahead in tackling greenhouse gas emissions. The European Union designed its own emissions trading scheme, and starting Jan. 1, 2012, the piece targeting emissions from air travel is scheduled to go into effect. The Aviation Directive would slowly cap emissions on all flights landing and taking off from airports inside the EU. However, the system focuses not just on the emissions that occur within European air space, but on those associated with the entire ... Read More

More like this: Environment, The Idea Lobby
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Bipartisan Group Wants U.S. to Get Serious About Geoengineering

October 4, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

Geoengineering is the somewhat Orwellian term for mankind intentionally changing the dynamics of the planet's natural processes using technology. We stress "intentionally" because once man mastered the plow and fire, geoengineering on a slow scale commenced; spurred by climate change, geoengineering ideas these days are both intentional and, based on geological time frames, instantaneous. On Oct. 4, the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Bipartisan Policy Center issued a report that called for the United States to seriously examine geoengineering as a "climate remediation" strategy. The ... Read More

More like this: By The Way ..., Environment
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Developing Smart Cars, Roads for a Greener Drive

August 12, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

If you're the kind of driver who over-accelerates between traffic signals and jerks to a stop on red, you're a prime candidate to learn eco-driving, the steady-as-you-go technique that can cut down on fuel consumption by more than 10 percent. Eco-driving means "reading" the traffic flow as far ahead as possible so that you can maintain a consistent speed, anticipate stops and avoid excessive braking and accelerating. It means acting instead of reacting. You shift up as soon as possible. You don't barrel toward the intersection and slam on the brakes. You slowly coast to a stop, saving gas ... Read More

More like this: Environment
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Crazy Weather and Climate: Do Dots Connect?

May 23, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Climate change and weather

At the end of one of the Northern Hemisphere’s wildest winters in memory, we thought it would be a good time to ask a climatologist what’s up with such extreme weather. Even Australia’s normally calm summer has been anything but: First there was drought, then typhoons and then floods of biblical proportions. Granted, such extreme weather has been exacerbated both by recent El Niños (warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures) and La Niñas (colder-than-normal sea surface temperatures) in the equatorial Pacific. But it does give pause to wonder: Is this global warming on steroids, or ... Read More

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Demjanjuk Found Guilty of Nazi War Crimes

May 12, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

A German court has convicted John “Ivan” Demjanjuk, a man with several lives — Ukrainian collective farmer, Soviet soldier, Nazi concentration camp guard, U.S. autoworker and then international symbol of justice delayed — of being party to taking 30,000 or so other lives during World War II. Demjanjuk, now 91, has been entangled in the West’s legal systems since 1986, when the U.S. deported him for having lied about his wartime activities after he immigrated to America. He was shipped to Israel, tried, sentenced to death, released, returned to the U.S., and booted out again, this ... Read More

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