mybigearth» Global Evolution

Statistical Analysis Shows 2 Degree Temperature Rise Zones in North America

myBIGearth.com — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:00:51 +0000

Climate scientists have made it easy for skeptics to poke holes in theories about global warming. Every model includes slightly different assumptions, conditions, calculations, or other parameters — leading to differing results. Skeptics point at the differences to justify their conclusion that nothing is known with certainty.

A new advanced statistical analysis by researchers at Ohio State University bridges the differences between various climate change models in order to show the areas where a future two degree Celsius temperature change can be expected by 2070 with 97.5% probability.

As you can see in the image above, that zone covers almost all of the United States of America, excluding a narrow strip along the Pacific coast and a good size chunk around the Gulf of Mexico. The full statistical analysis shows that almost all of Canada will also be affected, excluding Canada’s southern Pacific coast and the lower half of Newfoundland Island.

The areas outside of the 2 degree zones will also experience higher temperatures, as depicted by a second graphic, in which the color intensity corresponds to hotter zones.

Noel Cressie, professor of statistics and director of Ohio State’s Program in Spatial Statistics and Environmental Statistics, and former graduate student Emily Kang, now at the University of Cincinnati, present the statistical analysis in a paper published in the International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation.

Cressie pioneered the statistical techniques used in this analysis which combine spatial models with Bayesian hierarchical statistical analysis, a method that gives researchers tools to quantify the certainty of various outcomes. Cressie’s observation on the value of his research:

We show that there are shared conclusions upon which scientists can agree with some certainty, and we are able to statistically quantify that certainty.

Although the current paper combines a small number of models, the techniques developed can be scaled up to bridge all of the major climate science models, extending those shared conclusions and certainties to the point where doubts can finally be dispelled and action to reduce global warming can proceed with haste and conviction.

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at Tree Hugger

Technorati Tags climate scientists, color intensity, degree celsius, newfoundland island, statistical analysis, temperature change, temperature rise

Marlo Thomas: A Letter To The President

myBIGearth.com — Sat, 12 May 2012 11:00:27 +0000

Dear President Obama,

Before midday, Wednesday, May 8th, America was a different place. Millions of our people in all states were living in torment. They’d not only spent their young lives hiding who they were, they’d grown up to discover they had to hide who they loved.

How could that have ever fit the promise of “the pursuit of happiness?”

Thank you, President Obama, for being a true descendent of our Founding Fathers, and for living up to the ideals they set forth two-and-a-half centuries ago.

When you announced your support of same sex marriage, you did more than listen to your heart. You listened to the impassioned voices of millions of our citizens — gay, straight, family members, lovers, your own circle of friends — and you made the journey to this historic decision.

And I can’t help but hope that, by your example, others will look into their hearts and make that same journey.

Yes, this transforming event is about love. But it is also about life and death. We read daily about children and teenagers who are dying on the battlefield of homophobia, mocked for who they are and what they feel. Taunted and bullied for what they hold in their hearts. And driven to end their own lives because of it.

But now the leader of our nation has sent out the message that we, the people, acknowledge their right to be who they are, love who they want to love, and live with dignity and pride.

Thank you, Mr. President, for this remarkable triumph.
Marlo Thomas

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at The Huffington Post

Technorati Tags dignity and pride, letter to the president, marlo thomas, Obama, pursuit of happiness, same sex marriage

Garbology: How our everyday trash eventually becomes our food

myBIGearth.com — Sun, 06 May 2012 11:00:25 +0000

You’ve probably heard the saying, “you are what you eat.” Soon it may have to be rephrased as, “you are what you throw away.”

That’s one eerie consequence of our modern-day culture of waste. Not only do Americans generate more trash than any other society in the history of Earth, but growing evidence now suggests that our garbage — plastic waste in particular — is re-entering the food chain. In a roundabout way, we are quite literally eating what we throw away.

In his new book, “Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash,” Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes chronicles the long journey that our trash takes around the world, and eventually back into what we eat. In a recent interview with NPR, he discusses some of the shocking findings detailed in the book.

According to Humes, Americans produce about 7 pounds of trash per person each day, the vast majority of which is packaging and containers — mostly plastics. About 69 percent of our trash ends up in landfills (the rest is either recycled or, in some cases, left blowing in the wind). What you may not realize, is that those landfills are not always local. In fact, there is a growing export industry for our trash. A lot of it ends up as far away as China.

“They’re finding value in material we’re not able to find value in and paying relatively little for it — shipping it immense distances with enormous environmental impact involved in that, and then using it to manufacture products they’re shipping back to us. And we’re buying and basically turning it into trash again, and then it’s an endless cycle,” Humes told NPR.

That endless cycle just increases the likelihood that trash will escape and contaminate the environment. Much of what gets discarded eventually ends up in the ocean.

“What we’re actually seeing in the ocean is this kind of chowder of plastic — these tiny particles that are the size of plankton,” said Humes. “It’s plastic that has been weathered and broken down by the elements into these little bits, and it’s getting into the food chain.”

Humes is referring specifically to the world’s 5 massive ocean gyres — stirring ocean currents which trap our trash like a giant pot of murky soup. The gyres become both a depository for our trash and a means for breaking it down into plankton-sized bits. Those bits are then consumed by fish and other organisms that mistake them for food. It’s in this way that our trash re-enters the food chain. In fact, about 35 percent of fish in the north Pacific Ocean are now found with plastic in their stomachs. We then eat the fish that ate the fish that ate the plastic, etc., thus ultimately consuming our own waste through bio-accumulation.

“The scarier part is that these little bits of plastic become sponges for some potentially dangerous chemicals that are released into the marine environment, and we may be ingesting that, too,” said Humes.

Perhaps the biggest tragedy of this poisonous cycle is that most of the waste that we throw away can be recycled and reused, but we are either too lazy to recycle it, or our recycling programs are not efficient enough to account for it all.

Of course, if we don’t recycle it, nature eventually finds its own means to recycle. Unfortunately for us, that means as our food.

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at Mother Nature Network

Technorati Tags endless cycle, Environmental Impact, landfills, long journey, shocking findings

Rick Steves: Small-Town Grudges And Mother Nature’s Nudges In Cinque Terre

myBIGearth.com — Fri, 04 May 2012 11:00:48 +0000

I woke to the sound of miniature cement trucks and jackhammers. These were happy sounds to me: Monterosso and Vernazza are being put back together after the recent devastating flood.

Socially, too, it’s been a time of reconstruction for both communities. Being small towns, they were rife with cliques and ancient grudges. With the challenge presented by the flood and recovery period, locals marvel at how everyone came together. Today, many locals enjoy better relations with old enemies, but there is a new divide: between people who joined in the community-wide effort, and those who only took care of their own business needs (or even left town during the chaos). In both towns, while a large percent of the businesses were essentially destroyed, lots of people and hotels that were on higher or luckier ground came through unscathed, losing only their water and electricity for a while. Some of them ignored their business needs and became heroically involved. And, as it goes in small towns, those who didn’t will long be remembered for turning their backs on neighbors in need.

People commented on how, having experienced this tragedy, they have a new empathy for distant people dealing with similar natural disasters. Others commented on how, now, every time there’s a big rain, anxiety sweeps through the community.

The tourist business in 2011 was very strong. October 25 was at the end of the season, when locals were ready for a much-needed winter break. While the flood hit at the perfect time from a business point of view, locals, already exhausted after a very busy season, had to immediately plunge into a nonstop rebuilding period, pushing to be ready for the 2012 season.

For travelers wondering if it’s OK to travel to the Cinque Terre, here’s my take: Three of the towns were unaffected (Riomaggiore, Manarola, and Corniglia). They have plenty of tourism and don’t need your business as much. I’d choose between the two flood-ravaged communities. Monterosso is completely ready. Vernazza, with a few hotels and restaurants already open, expects to be ready for prime time by June. Crews have worked tirelessly to get the trails put back together and the best hikes are wide open. This is a great time to visit, to both stoke and celebrate the recovery, and to be one of the first to enjoy the charms of either town, post-flood. There’s a camaraderie in the air and an appreciation of tourists that is palpable. Even in late April, over the course of several days, I saw countless travelers enjoying their visits as they would if there had been no flood.

The people of the Cinque Terre are being taught a tough lesson. It’s their beautiful land that brings the tourists. With the affluence brought by tourists, locals abandoned their land — leaving the vineyards unplanted and the centuries-old dry-stone terracing to crumble — for less physically demanding, more profitable work in tourism. (Grapevines are lighter on the land and have far-reaching root systems to combat erosion. Traditional vintners keep the stone terraces in good order.) But after a generation of neglect and abandonment (while the Cinque Terre enjoyed profited from tourism), the land was washed by violent weather into the towns. It’s like nature was speaking: There will be no tourism to harvest without proper stewardship of the land. The question that remains: Will the lesson be learned, remembered, and heeded? (Tomorrow: the last in this three-part flood series.)

Groups of expat American women (who fell in love both with the towns and their men) are helping organize relief and communications in the aftermath of this disaster (Rebuild Monterosso and Save Vernazza). For all the latest in both towns, see these websites or reach them through the Cinque Terre News page at www.ricksteves.com.

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at The Huffington Post

Technorati Tags cinque terre, flood, recovery period, tourist business

Fracking Did Contaminate Wyoming Town’s Wells, Independent Review Confirms

myBIGearth.com — Thu, 03 May 2012 11:00:13 +0000

Remember that EPA report that said fracking was likely responsible for the contamination of wells in Pavillion, Wyoming? Well, a new review, commissioned by NRDC, the Wyoming Outdoor Council, Sierra Club and the Oil & Gas Accountability Project, concurs and confirms what the EPA report found.

NRDC sums up the findings of hydrologist Tom Myers:

Chemical contaminants found in Pavillion domestic water wells and EPA’s monitoring wells have been linked to either the gas well production or hydraulic fracturing process.

The EPA’s investigation is scientifically sound and demonstrates in a scientifically reliable way that chemical contaminants from the gas production zone reached the geologic formations between the gas production wells and the domestic water wells in the area.

There are higher than background concentration levels of potassium and chloride that support the conclusion that the source of those chemicals is hydraulic fracturing fluid emanating from the gas production zone.

Several synthetic organic compounds found in the EPA monitoring wells are apparently linked to hydraulic fracturing fluids, as there is no scientifically viable alternative explanation.

The EPA report demonstrates that it is the gas production process itself that has caused contamination in the domestic water wells of the Pavillion area.

EPA’s monitor wells were carefully constructed and sampled using proper purging methods and could not have affected the existing groundwater chemistry.

The commissioning groups are submitting the finds as technical comments to the EPA.

Spread this one far and wide.

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at Tree Hugger

Technorati Tags accountability project, domestic water wells, groundwater chemistry, synthetic organic compounds, tree hugger, wyoming town

The Indispensable Social Entrepreneurship Skill

myBIGearth.com — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:00:36 +0000

Being a social entrepreneur is tough work. Money hard to come by. Most before you have failed. Even your own family doubts your mental health.

The bracing happy talk at social investment conferences and cheerleading predictions about social investment capital poised to flood into the developing world begs for a reality check. Meet Liberia-born Chid Liberty, Founder & Chief Executive of Liberty & Justice.

Liberty & Justice is Africa’s first Fair Trade Certified apparel company. Built on a shoe-string budget since its founding in 2009, Liberty & Justice is starting to attract both notice and investment capital.

For the iOnPoverty cameras, he described the raw truth about impact investing. “People are very attracted to social entrepreneurship right now. They spend a lot of money flying to conferences all over the world to talk about how great an idea social entrepreneurship is, but, when it comes to check writing time, they start coming up with reasons not to write the check.”

“At some point, if we want to create something [good] in places like Africa, Asia, India, we need to take some very serious risks,” he soberly adds.

To start his social enterprise, Chid tossed a solid Silicon Valley career with a great salary, a nice car, a comfortable place to live in swanky Sausalito, California and a seemingly endless capacity for late night drinking with his buddies. He talks about those days as essentially fooling himself about his happiness, but even then sensing the “seeds of misery.”

Click here to watch and listen to Chid describe his life.

Clear as the brightest African diamond, Chid’s life is the living embodiment of a new kind of Return on Investment (ROI). Not financial ROI, not even social Return on Investment (SROI), but PROI = personal ROI.

Today, Chid advises “know thyself” — the indispensable missing skill for new social entrepreneurs. If you know yourself, you can “really understand people” – both the impoverished client and, of equal importance, the potential impact investor.

In poignant homage to his mother, “When I really think about why I could bet my money and my career on Liberian women, it’s because of my mom. If the goal is to work on economic justice so kids can go to school or get healthcare, if I bet on their moms, we win.”

Chid’s life certainly honors his mother. She must be so proud of him.

Who inflames your courage to be who you are?

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at the Huffington Post

Technorati Tags developing world, happy talk, social entrepreneur, social entrepreneurship

Rick Steves: A Traveler’s Take On Europe’s Economic Crisis

myBIGearth.com — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 11:00:46 +0000

As I update my “Europe Through the Back Door” guidebook for next year, I’m trying to distill Europe’s economic problems into layman’s terms. I want to help travelers get their minds around the struggles there-giving their visit a little more context. It’s dangerous to simplify these things, but for a guidebook, it needs to be simplified.

Here’s my attempt at Euro Econ Crisis 101:

After seeing news reports of violent demonstrations, angry marchers, and frustrated workers rioting, some are wondering if this is still a good time to travel in Europe. I’m certainly not an economist. But here’s my take on the situation from a travel writer’s perspective.

When assessing the seriousness of any civil unrest, remember the mantra of commercial news these days: “If it bleeds, it leads.” In the era of Walter Cronkite, network news contributed to the fabric of our society by providing solid journalism as a public service without worrying about their bottom line. But today, commercial TV news has to make a profit. In order to sell ads, it has become entertainment masquerading as news. Producers will always grab video footage that makes a demonstration appear as exciting or threatening as possible. Unrest is generally localized-it looks frightening with a zoom lens and much less so with a wide-angle shot.

And also remember that, while we in the U.S. and Europe may consider ourselves in an “economic crisis,” the vast majority of people on this planet would love to have our economic problems. By any fair measure, as societies, both the U.S. and Europe are filthy rich. Still, if you’re unemployed or if your retirement is suddenly in jeopardy, your times are, indeed, tough.

Europe’s economic problems are much like ours here in the U.S. It seems on both sides of the Atlantic we’ve conned ourselves into thinking we are wealthier than we really are. Enjoying wild real estate bubbles, we’ve had houses that were worth half a million suddenly worth a million. Then, when they dropped in value by 50 percent, we felt like we’d lost half a million dollars or euros. Truth be told, we were never millionaires to start with, and what we “lost” we never honestly gained in the first place.

As societies, we’ve been consuming more goods than we’ve been producing for a long time. We import more than we export-and things are finally catching up with us. Here in the USA, our priorities are warped. Many of our best young minds are going to our finest schools to become experts in finance: Rearranging the furniture to skim off the top…aspiring to careers where you produce little while expertly working the system in hopes of becoming unimaginably rich. (Recently, surveying the extravagant châteaux outside Paris-such as Vaux-le-Vicomte-I was stuck by how many of them were the homes of financiers. Lately, the U.S. is reminding me of old regime France. It’s striking that over 10 percent of the U.S.’s economy is tied up in the financial industry.)

Europeans and Americans have some of the most generous entitlements in the world combined with aging societies. Because of that, our comfortable status quo is not sustainable. Whenever a society gets wealthy and well-educated, it has fewer children. That’s simply a force of nature. Western Europe, being one of the wealthiest and best educated parts of the world, logically has one of the lowest birth rates.

Europe’s generous entitlements were conceived in a post-war society with lots of people working, fewer living to retirement, and those living beyond retirement having a short life span. That was sustainable…no problem. Now, with its very low birth rate, the demographic makeup of Europe has flipped upside down: relatively few people working, lots of people retiring, and those who are retired living a long time. The arithmetic just isn’t there to sustain the lavish entitlements.

Politicians in Europe have the unenviable task of explaining to their citizens that they won’t get the cushy golden years their parents got. People who worked diligently with the promise of retiring at 62 are now told they’ll need to work an extra decade-and even then, they may not have a generous retirement waiting for them. Any politician trying to explain this reality to the electorate is likely to be tossed out, since people naturally seek a politician who tells them what they want to hear rather than the hard truth. And any austerity programs necessary to put a society back on track are also tough enough to get people marching in the streets.

I expect you’ll see lots of marches and lots of strikes in Europe in the coming years as they try to recalibrate their economy. Europeans demonstrate: It’s in their blood and a healthy part of their democracy. When frustrated and needing to vent grievances, they hit the streets. I’ve been caught up in huge and boisterous marches all over Europe, and it’s not scary; in fact, it’s kind of exhilarating. “La Manifestation!” as they say in France. All that marching is just too much exercise for many Americans. When dealing with similar frustrations, we find a TV station (on the left or right) that affirms our beliefs and then shake our collective fists vigorously.

When Europe united, the poor countries (Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Greece) received lots of development aid from the rich ones (mostly Germany and France). I remember when there were no freeways in any of the poor countries. Now they are laced with German-style (and mostly German-funded) superhighways. These countries traded in their lazy currencies for the euro (which is, in a way, the mighty Deutschmark in disguise, as the European economy is driven and dominated by Germany).

It’s no coincidence that the European countries that have received the most development aid are the ones who are the most debt-ridden and at risk of failing. Even with that aid, their productivity has lagged far behind the stronger economies. And, while their workforce doesn’t produce as much per capita as German workers, they have a mighty currency tied to Germany. By earning wages and getting aid in euros, these nations enjoyed a false prosperity that they might not have merited-and the bursting real estate bubble made it worse. Before unity, if a nation didn’t produce much and slid into crippling debt, the economy could be adjusted simply by devaluing that nation’s currency. Today, there’s no way to devalue the currency of a particular county on the euro, so this fix is not an option. It’s much easier to get into the eurozone than to get out. (One of the biggest questions facing Europe today is: Can and should an economically weak country-namely Greece-leave the eurozone?)

Will Greece and other struggling economies within the E.U. be safe and stable places to visit as they work out these problems? No one can predict the future for certain. But, as a traveler, I don’t worry about it. True, I wouldn’t want to be a Greek worker counting on a retirement that may not come. But as a visitor, I expect you’ll be scarcely aware of these problems. I was just in Greece and enjoyed a warm welcome, great food, and wonderful beaches. Expect a few demonstrations and a few strikes. Expect your loved ones to be worried about you if you are in a country when there’s a demonstration. (So be in touch.) But you can also expect rich travel experiences and a society thankful that you decided to spend a slice of your vacation time and money in their country.

Offered by our myBIGearth friend Rick Steves at the Huffington Post

Technorati Tags economic crisis, economic problems, economist, europe through the back door

The Bluefin Tuna: What’s to Be Done?

myBIGearth.com — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 11:00:24 +0000

The other day, a ninth-grade student e-mailed me to ask about the plight of the bluefin tuna. What, he wanted to know, should the government be doing to help keep those endangered fish alive?

As a journalist with an interest in marine conservation, I’ve written extensively on the (mostly unsuccessful) international negotiations to protect the bluefin. But I’m not an expert on fisheries science. The question about what should be done is one I have regularly posed to marine scientists, N.G.O. policy advisers, government officials and fishermen themselves. Maybe it’s is also a question for Green blog readers.

I can note that virtually everyone I’ve spoken with on this question does say that the stock of bluefin will collapse if the giant purse seiners that fish the Mediterranean are not reined in. These factory ships – mostly French, Spanish or Italian – vacuum up entire schools of bluefin for fattening before the tuna are sold to Japan.

And as I reported in October, the conservation measures that have been put in place are widely flouted, with a huge black market in the fish making a mockery of international protection efforts. A number of governments, particularly in Europe, have turned a blind eye to that trade.

Some would go as far as to ban trade in bluefin altogether. Since Japan consumes about 80 percent of the world’s bluefin catch, that would probably reduce fishing pressures. A ban backed by the United States failed to win approval two years ago at the United Nations Conference on International Trade in Endangered Species in Doha, Qatar.

Even the Japanese delegation, which led the effort to defeat the measure, agreed that the bluefin needed protecting. But it argued that the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, or Iccat, a regional fisheries management organization, was the proper entity to regulate the fishery.

The only problem with that idea is that Iccat governments almost always set fishing quotas far above the recommendations of the scientists who are supposed to be guiding them.

So a first step might be to address those practices and to actually listen to the scientists.

Others, including many scientists with whom I have spoken, simply don’t believe that there can be such a thing as sustainable fishing for any wild fish. They say the only way to save fish is to quit eating them altogether. This is a view that Paul Greenberg, the author of “Four Fish,” makes fairly forcefully.

So let’s put this question to readers of the Green blog. What should the United States and other nations do or not do to keep Mediterranean and Atlantic bluefin tuna stocks healthy?

Offered by our myBIGearth friend David Jolly at NY Times Blog

Technorati Tags BlueFin Tuna, Fishing Quotas, Sustainable Fishing

Camels to Chomp Down Runaway Mangroves

myBIGearth.com — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 11:00:12 +0000

Dubai is considering biological control: camels to dine in Dubai’s Ras al Khor wildlife sanctuary overrun by mangrove trees

Too many mangroves is not a good thing – at least not at the Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary in Dubai, where they were introduced in 1990. So an ecologist at Dubai’s Wildlife Protection office has proposed using camels to trim back the excess canopies that have buried wader feeding areas. Kevin Hyland told The National that camels used to have access to the sanctuary before it was fenced off in 2002, and that reintroducing them would help restore the site’s sensitive ecology without disrupting bird life.

Greedy Grazers

Hyland emphasizes that the camels would be introduced as part of a careful management program, and that they will not be left to run amok.

“The key phrase in the whole proposal is ‘managed camel grazing,’” the ecologist told the paper. “It’s not, ‘let’s just chuck in 100 camels’, because we don’t want to destroy the mangrove canopy.”

According to Hyland, BirdLife International opposed the plan to introduce mangroves to the Ras Al Khor Sanctuary in 1990 as part of a “greening” program, and now, 20 years later, the wildlife protection office and Dubai Municipality are beginning to glean the error of that initiative.

Although spoonbills have proliferated as a result of the invasive mangrove canopies, feeding grounds for certain species have been buried by five meters of mangroves. So now they want to reverse some of the damage.

Instead of employing 20 workers to cut back mangroves, which is likely to scare off spoonbills and other bird species, the camels can munch on the green leaves. And just in case too many mangrove leaves are bad for camels too, the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory will be on hand to monitor the animals.

Camelback Tours

And when ground-nesting birds breed, the camels will be removed. Hyland also likes the idea of using the camels to create a new eco-tourism initiative. Instead of putting the sanctuary’s rangers in 4x4s, he told the paper that they could lead bird tours on camelback instead.

Camel milk may also become available at a new visitor center that is being floated as a potential part of the new management plan, which would help to educate visitors about the importance of the wetland reserve so famous for attracting a great number of migratory species amidst Dubai’s urban sprawl and for its 500 flamingos.

As long as mangrove fodder is healthy for the camel trimmers, Ras Al Khor camels face a better fate than that of Falaj Mualla camels, half of whom die from eating plastic despite concerted efforts to draw awareness to this situation.

And the birds will be grateful too.

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at Green Prophet

Technorati Tags Camel, Dubai, Mangroves, Wildlife Sanctuary

Climate change: How to cope with salty soil

myBIGearth.com — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 11:00:39 +0000

In some coastal areas climate change means a rise in sea levels, leading to an increase in water salinity, which in turn means a high salt content in soil.

Increasing salinity in fresh water and soil poses problems for agriculture and fish farming. This is a particularly tricky aspect of climate change adaptation, but coastal communities as well as scientists are finding ways to cope.

Hardy varieties of rice, wheat and vegetables are one way, as is shifting from freshwater fish farming to raising saltwater species such as crabs.

In Sri Lanka, rice farmers, together with the United Nations Development Program, are attempting to produce more rice more efficiently by better soil and water management and growing stronger varieties of rice. These practices can also address droughts, which are believed to become more frequent and/or severe due to climate change.

Offered by our myBIGearth friend Graham Land at … GreenFudge

Technorati Tags Australia, Bangladesh, farming, fish, India, rice, salty soil