Morning Read: Climate back on the agenda?
This morning the Kingston Ontario Whig-Standard is reporting that Ontario’s environment minister thinks climate change needs to be back at the center of the agenda.
“The climate is changing, it’s measurable right now and it will accelerate and change from the emissions we’ve already put out and will continue to put out,” [Gord Miller, the province’s environmental commissioner] said.
“We’re going to have more severe weather and we’re going to have more severe problems and we have to plan for that and look at our infrastructure.”
This includes implementing changes to roads by adding culverts to accommodate more water from intense storms, he said.
In an interview this morning with NCPR, activist and author Bill McKibben argues that groups like his 350.0rg are once again gaining some traction on climate issues, including President Barack Obama’s recent decision to cancel a controversial Canadian oil pipeline project.
Also, this week, state officials in New York state are hosting a national conference on the impacts of climate change on plant and animal species.
The National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy is geared toward providing a unified approach—reflecting shared principles and science-based practices—to reduce negative impacts of climate change on fish, wildlife, plants and the natural systems they depend.
Federal, state and tribal partners, with input from many diverse groups across the nation, are collaborating to develop a common strategy to respond to the challenges a changing climate poses for our nation’s species, ecosystems and natural resources.
So what do you think? Climate has been on the back burner as the US and other countries grappled with the recession.
In the midst of this warm winter and in the wake of epic floods, is it time to revisit the global warming debate?
Tags: climate change, environment, politics
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Walker I agree. I am just saying if you have to wait twenty years for development and licensing it probably will be too late for many of these things we may need. For a GMO that makes something for people you need to go through the USDA, the EPA, and the FDA (and others). This system stinks.
If you look over this thread one conclusion is that the educational system in this country has really failed us. In our democracy everyone has a say in where we are headed. So until we all understand what is at stake and how we maybe can address the problems we will continue to struggle along as we always have.
Now this “clean energy” alternative is one that can be put online quickly:
“The NRC voted 4-1 to allow Atlanta-based Southern Co to build and operate two new nuclear power reactors at its existing Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia. The units will cost Southern and partners about $14 billion and enter service as soon as 2016 and 2017.”
4 or 5 years. That is fast.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/09/usa-nuclear-nrc-idUSL2E8D9E820120209
“Too many people … hate genetic engineering.”
Then use artificial selection to find the organisms we need to capture CO2 and produce oil. We get oil from seeds already. It’s difficult to see how getting the seed to produce more oil and in the process capture more CO2 will be dangerous. But dangerous or not, we have to consider risk-benefit.
Conservatives will be happy about the new nuclear plant in Georgia (although maybe not because Obama approved it). I wonder if they will complain about the 8.3 billion dollars in loan guarantees the federal government is giving Vogtle?
I am not a fan of large scale genetic engineering because I don’t think we understand our impacts on the environment and the earth when we tinker like that.
However PNE is correct, I mean ALL of the grain based food we eat today is already genetically engineered by Monsanto and Cargill etc. They genetically change the seeds to be resistant to the poison that is dumped on our fields to kill everything, except the corn or soybeans.
So once again why not simply change them to suck up more carbon?
Well hey, gotta die of something after all. Might as well be an unforeseen complication of genetic engineering as a global climate catastrophe. Yer pays yer money, yer takes yer cherse.
You gotta admire those job creators at Monsanto and Cargill though. They make food seeds that are genetically resistant to their poison and you can only buy the seeds and the poison from them. There’s your free market at work.
True they are close to being evil. However they have REALLY increased corn and soybean yields in the past 20 years, its amazing from that perspective it has worked.
If they can increase yields by that much certainly they could engineer corn and soybeans to absorb more CO2 or engineer some other plants we could use around our cities.
I think it is kind of a cool idea.