climate september I 2010

--text posts are at the blistered orb--

CLIMATE EVENTS

Alaska: walrus herds flee inland from melting ice floes 9.17., also here
New York: tornadoes rip through NYC 9.17. and 9.18.
Mexico: hurricane Karl makes landfall 9.17.
Montana: September snow surprise 9.17.
Pakistan: dreadful problems in the wake of flood 9.16.Atlantic: hurricane Julia 9.16.
Atlantic: hurricane Karl 9.16.
Arctic: summer sea ice minimum reached, worse than last year 9.15.Atlantic: hurricane Igor 9.14.
Atlantic: tropical storm Karl 9.14.Colorado: most destructive fire in state history 9.9.
Texas: tornadoes and floods 9.9.Guatemala: torrential rains and lethal mudslides 9.6.
Atlantic: tropical storm/hurricane Hermine 9.6.Southern California: low temperature records 9.1.

TRENDS

US women more likely to accept climate science than men 9.15.
GULF OIL
... Alabama says BP denies its claim over oil spill 9.17.
... whistleblowers sue to find out why admin lowballed BP spill 9.16.
... five months after blowout, Macondo well being sealed 9.15.
... fish are dying at Louisiana coast 9.15.
... 'vanished' oil is piling up in the deep 9.14.
... oil industry lowballs bird deaths 9.7. (about Alberta oil shale)
... missing oil found on Gulf sea floor (UGA gulf oil blog) 9.5.
... Louisiana beaches and health problems 9.3.... another oil rig platform explodes in the Gulf 9.2.

CLIMATE SCIENCE

(keeping CO2 below 450 ppm needs 30 TW of clean energy)
M Hoffert farewell to fossil fuels?
Science 329 (2010): 1292-1294

(extraordinary efforts needed to keep emissions from rising)
S Davis future CO2 emissions and climate change
Science 329 (2010): 1330-1333

(failure to act brings world closer to disaster)
J Sachs the deepening crisis
Scientific American 303 (2010) issue 3 (September): 32

(climate change could reduce China's harvests by a fifth)
S Piao impacts of climate change on water and agriculture in China
Nature 467 (2010): 43-51
... see also big risks to China at daily grist 9.1.

(the first decade of extreme weather)
S Rahmsdorf das Jahrzehnt der Wetterextreme at klimalounge 9.1.

(arctic sea ice extent minimum lower than in 2009)
JAXA data of sea ice extent for September 15, 2010
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
... see also Tamino's death spiral at open mind 9.14.
... see also D Notz eisiger Rueckgang at klimalounge 7.2.

(new measures confirms Greenland/Antarctica ice loss trend)
D Bromwich sea-level rise: ice-sheet uncertainty
Nature Geoscience 3 (2010): 596-597

(new data show old Greenland/Antarctica ice loss estimates too high)
X Wu estimation of glacial isostatic adjustment
Nature Geoscience 3 (2010): 642-646
... see also slash estimate of icecap loss at yahoo 9.8.
... see also thinning of Greenland ice at treehugger (video)

(new data show overall arctic ice loss estimates too low)
D Asendorpf Eis in Arktis schmilzt schneller als befuerchtet
Die Zeit 9.14.

(interview w R Gerdes, Alfred-Wegener Institute, Bremerhaven)
D Asendorpf Morsches Eis am Nordpol
Die Zeit 9.15.

(humans up, nature down ... for now)
D Biello if the world is going to hell, why are humans doing so well?
Scientific American 9.1.
... see also C Raudsepp-Hearne the environmentalist's paradox
BioScience 60 (2010): 576-589

(why the corporate media love 'climatologist' Bjorn Lomborg)
H Friel the Lomborg deception
common dreams 9.1.

CLIMATE POLICY

US climate bill doomed this year 9.11.
China sustains blunt 'you first' message on CO2 9.2.US fails to implement deep drilling ban 9.1.IPCC's Pachauri continues to be hounded by corporate press 9.1.
IPCC's Pachauri cleared of financial misdealings 8.26.

CLIMATE MITIGATION

China and US plan clean energy research collaboration 9.16.
China pushes for clean energy 9.15.
Europe in the midst of wind energy boom 9.9.
Iran speed freight rail planned as overland link to China 9.7.
Greenpeace's occupation of Arctic rig 9.1.

CLIMATE PHILOSOPHY

Martin Schönfeld, "Metaphysics of Sustainability: Kant's Categorical Imperative," in Jack Lee, ed., Sustainability and the Quality of Life (Stanford/Palo Alto: Ria University Press, 2010), 1-18

AMERICAN DISENLIGHTENMENT / CLIMATE DENIAL

now ALL (!) Republican Senate candidates deny global warming 9.16.
poverty soaring, income gap increasing 9.16.
new-look GOP makes Bush look liberal 9.15.
C. Horner, "Recycling the Big Green Lie," at Breitbart 9.13.
Barack Obama says no to solar panels on White House 9.10. and 9.16.takeover of GOP by Serious Money moves into second stage 9.9.
US plans 150,000 miles roads ... and 4,000 miles rails 9.6.
more Americans are climate denialists in 2010 than in 2008 9.1.

CLIMATE ESSAYS

R Steinzor a year of regulatory disasters 9.16.
B McKibben notes on the White House enthusiasm gap 9.16.
D Brooks the gospel of wealth 9.7.
A Huffington America's infrastructure in need of extreme makeover 9.6.
J Confino how buddhism could be a way out of the mess we're in 9.2.
S Brown oil addiction and identity 8. 30.

CLIMATE NEOLOGISM

epistemic closure (J Sanchez)
the bottleneck century (K Cobb)

BEST CALL FOR ACTION

S Banerjee letter to young Americans 9.10.

CLIMATE QUOTES

"Without collective awakening the catastrophe will come."
Thich Nhat Hanh The Guardian 9.2.

"While the dynamic interaction between humans and climate is not new, the scale of the interaction has reached unprecedented proportions."
Earth Institute, Columbia University, front page of web site

"While American Republicans were turning climate change into a wedge issue, the Chinese Communists were turning it into a work issue."
Thomas Friedman, "Aren't We Clever?," NYT 9.18.


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