How Does Climate Change Affect Animals?

This video gives a few examples of animals and bugs that are being affected by climate change. It's projected that 1 in 3 species will die out as a result of climate change! I was surprised that one insect benefitted from climate change, the bark beetle. But as the video explains, this means that they are growing and destroying more trees which in turn destroys the habitats of other species. It's a short video  but raises concerns about animals from different areas of the world! Climate change affects everyone!

Crossfire Debate

Crossfire hosted a discussion between Bill Nye, a well known scientist, and Nick Loris an environmentalist on the urgency and seriousness of climate change. Most of it was Nye attempting to get out there that climate change is a serious and prominent issue, while Loris was arguing against mitigation and costs. Loris also said that he does not think that we are on our way to "catastrophic warming" and mentioned that human influence are only a small part (FALSE) of the warming. The debate is heating and everyone is talking over each other, but if you have time to watch the video (about 9 minus) or read the transcript, it's an interesting perspective (here). The hosts also show an interesting split, just like Nye and Loris. Another note, I liked seeing that at the bottom of the screen it said "join the discussion" instead of debate (yay baby steps!!) because really this is a discussion now and should not be a debate about whether or not climate change is happening: it is!

Coffee Production Hit Hard

Drink coffee? Climate change is already affecting that, and with changes in air temperature and pest control, coffee production is dropping fast. Coffee beans grow in a certain climate, as do most products, and because of the changing temperatures and climate around the globe the production of coffee is decreasing. Bummed that soon coffee may become scarce? I would worry more if you were a coffee bean farmer. It's projected that hundreds of thousands of people who are part of coffee bean farms and families will soon be negatively affected. Many already are. Check out a video to learn more about it here!

Carbon Tax

This video gives a short explanation about how a carbon tax works. Specifically this video talks about the carbon tax that is being implemented in Australia. The animations and language make it easy to understand and it's short, so you don't have to sit around all day to learn about carbon taxes, just two minutes!

IPCC Super Summary!

This extremely brief video captures what the IPCC has said about climate change in their most recent updates. We've talked a lot in our class about how it has been noted that if we continue on the path we're on we're setting ourselves up for a rough future. It was decided that the Earth's temperature will increase another 2 degrees Celsius if emissions of greenhouse gases much decrease by at least 40%. This would be a very BAD thing! I thought this video was nice, short, and to the point, although like everything else it doesn't answer the question: what do we do to stop that from happening?

Video 1: Emissions Rising!
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAo-iS1kCok
This video gives a quick summary about what the IPCC has to say about climate change and what needs to happen in terms of the amount of GHG we emit, if we're going to stay below or 2 degree increase limit.

What is an REC?

After completing a homework assignment where I had to explain what REC's (renewable energy certificates) were, I found myself second guessing my understanding so I decided to look more into it. I found this short video which explains how REC's are created from renewable energy sources, such as wind turbines, to prove that they are being used to help create clean energy and how you can help fun these sources to ensure that renewable sources continue to be used. I thought it was a simple and fast way to explain and break down what a REC is and how they work. Watch below!

Video 1: What is a REC?

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsT9cMnIecM

The video above explains what an REC is and how it works. 

What can YOU do about Climate Change?

This video gives understandable explanations and tips on what we, the average person, can do about climate change. In the video the narrator explains what a carbon foot print is, and how some of the things we do each day can actually have a significant effect (especially factoring in millions of people doing these things). The video has funny animations and is very easy to understand; using common language at a slow pace. A huge question that I and many of my peers have had while learning about climate change this semester is, what can I do? This video finally gave me some straightforward and realistic answers. Just don't forget to help spread the word about climate change!

Chickadee Distribution Affected by Climate Change

Click here to watch a 2 minute video done by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. It briefly describes how within the past 10 years, as a result of changing temperature, some of the common breeds of Chickadee are being affected.

Diatom Algae Populations

In this video we see scientists collect diatoms from lakes and examining the sediments at the bottom of the lake. Because of the nature of the diatoms they examine, they are able to see which diatoms were present in the past. Using diatoms as a tool, they are able to see how climate change and global warming affect lake ecosystems, including the surrounding plant life.
To see the video click here!

"How Do We Know?"

This video features different scientists describing the different ways we can reconstruct climate history. Some of the things they talk about are coral reef cores, sediment layers in a lake basin, ice cores, and deep sea sediments. With all these kinds of data collection, scientists can reconstruct a decent amount the Earth’s past climates.
To watch the video click here!

Ice Core Records

In this video, Richard Alley shows us how examining ice can show us about what happened on this Earth thousands of years ago. Scientists can analyze the gases, especially carbon dioxide, present in the ice to figure how much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere at that time. Over time they’ve been able to see how the levels of carbon dioxide correspond very closely with the temperatures of that time. Their relationship is not something to be ignored.

To watch the video click here!

Global Warming and Weather

If I were to answer the question, “what are the connections between climate change and the extreme weather we’ve been having?” I would have to use Kevin Trenberth for help. Kevin Trenberth is a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He’s spent a lot of time studying climate variability. More recently he studies the global water cycle and how it’s responding to climate change. He has written many scientific reports as well as currently leading a world climate research program. In his talk at the 2013 Seattle Science Festival he explained that because of the increase in temperature over the past century the water cycle is actually speeding up. Water is evaporating more quickly and forming into clouds which become more dense more quickly, causing intense rain. This is also the reason for drought in many places; water has evaporated quickly with higher temperatures, so if there is no moisture in that area the drought is more intense. He continued to explain that because there is more evaporation there is more moisture in the atmosphere, meaning heavier rains, which is what is happening recently. Furthermore as Richard Keer stated in his article in Science Magazine “In the Hot Seat”, that, “global warming has increased the chance of extreme events” but there is not one event in particular that can be directly linked with global warming alone.

I think an excellent but simple analogy to help explain this is one that Trenberth used during his talk in Seattle. He related the Earth and global warming to a person taking a hike in the Summer. If that person fails to bring water with them, they will only be sweating and not taking in any moisture, which could lead to a heat stroke. If the Earth quickly evaporates without rain, we see extreme droughts. Another analogy that was mentioned in Dan Satterfield’s article “Welcome to the New Climate” relates the weather and climate to a baseball player taking steroids. He explains, “Can you say that he hit a home run because of the steroids? No, he likely hit quite a few before he was on steroids. The steroids just made it more likely he would knock the ball out of the park. Increasing greenhouse gases make it more likely that we will see heat waves like this.”

If you'd like to watch all of Kevin Trenberth's talk at the Seattle Science Festival click here!

Brilliant or Crazy?

"The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See"

This gentleman created a video that quickly broke down our (extreme) outcomes if we act or do not act on global warming (which he claims may or may not happen). He used a decision grid to show our possible outcomes. Although he claims that we cannot be sure that global warming is happening, he raises a good point in that the costs of acting and nothing happening much outweigh the costs of not acting and global warming hitting us head on. So even though I disagree some of his thoughts, for example I believe that global warming is already in full swing, I agree that we need to do something about rather than not. I think this video can really speak to people who are skeptical about global warming and who do not want to “waste money” trying to counter it with renewable resources, nuclear power, etc. As far as if I think he’s brilliant or crazy? I think he’s something in between.  

A Debate on Nuclear Power

TED Talk

This is a video of a TED talk that features Stewart Brand and Mark Jacobson in a debate on nuclear energy. Both men bring up valid and very interesting points on nuclear energy as well as renewable sources such as wind and solar. A few members of the audience also weigh in briefly on either side of the debate. In the beginning the host asks, by a raise of hands, who is for and who is against nuclear power: the results are about 75:25 for. At the end he asks again and some people change in both ways. Watch and see if this debate influences your thoughts at all!

Video Source:

http://www.ted.com/talks/debate_does_the_world_need_nuclear_energy.html via Carsten Braun's posting for a class assignment

                      

Richard Alley

Richard Alley is a professor at Penn State. He works in teaching, science, and public outreach. He studies ice sheets and analyzed ice cores to show climate change occurs. He is also an author The Two Mile Time Machine and hosts a PBS show “Earth, the Operator's Manual”.

After watching him in a talk at the Seattle Science Festival in 2013 (Click here to watch!) I really enjoyed how he described how science changes when new things are discovered and the world changes but sometimes “zombie” ideas come back and dominate. Those zombies could be hundreds of years old, ideas that have since become irrelevant but people “wake them up”. I thought his analogy and description of that process of people bringing up old scientific ideas and them having to work so hard to “put them back to sleep” was really clear and understandable.

Another thing I took away from this talk is how he analyzed the graph that shows how the world has warmed. He broke down his life to show how that could look as if we are in global cooling. His direct attack on those kind of interpretations is not only eye opening but makes you think about what other kinds of statistics and graphs have been cut down by the media and the government to show what they want to show.

Something that I thought was really powerful was his quote, “If we burn before we learn, we leave our grandchildren without a safety net”. He continues on to say that “if we burn while we learn” we can make the world a better place, we can give the next generations a safety net. He reiterates that the resources are there, even Lincoln saw that we have forces to be tamed (wind). We just have to take advantage now.

If I could ask him one question I think it would be:

What can I, one person, do to help Global Warming, to help the world “learn before we burn”?