Starting a 8pm EST on Wednesday night, the Al Gore's Climate Reality Project will be doing a 24 hour live broadcast of people around the world talking about climate change. Here's their pitch:
24 Presenters. 24 Time Zones. 13 Languages. 1 Message. 24 Hours of Reality is a worldwide event to broadcast the reality of the climate crisis. It will consist of a new multimedia presentation created by Al Gore and delivered once per hour for 24 hours, representing every time zone around the globe. Each hour people living with the reality of climate change will connect the dots between recent extreme weather events — including floods, droughts and storms — and the manmade pollution that is changing our climate. We will offer a round-the-clock, round-the-globe snapshot of the climate crisis in real time. The deniers may have millions of dollars to spend, but we have a powerful advantage. We have reality.
I'll be taking part in some of the expert panels back in the studio, discussing some of the science and some of the issues after the on-site presenters are finished (for updates on times, follow me on Twitter: @simondonner).
As regular readers of Maribo, or people who heard my talk at AMS this spring know, I've been an advocate of what one might call a "humbler" approach to outreach about climate change. That approach is informed by my field research in the Pacific Islands, some related historical research over the past five years, and my outreach experience; the argument for it is described in a paper currently in press with the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (more on that later). I'll be bringing some of that thinking to portions of the broadcast.
In case you are not a child of the 80s... the title of this post is a play on a Robin Williams comedy album from the Mork and Mindy days.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Climate reality... What a concept.
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
Joining the twitter-verse
Following up on a promise made earlier this summer to expand to other online "media", I've joined Twitter (@simondonner).
I was initially quite skeptical of Twitter. That should come as no surprise; I am a scientist, an academic one at that, and skepticism is what we do. But the last thing the world needs is more academic curmudgeons.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Was Hurricane Irene caused by climate change?
And every time, some prominent name or public figure, fed up with media coverage or with the persistence of skepticism about science or the lack of action, throws statistics out the window and says yes. Or says something like "Irene’s got a middle name, and it’s Global Warming", as 350.org founder Bill McKibben wrote in the Daily Beast. That in turn draws legitimate pushback, further polarizes the public discussion about climate change, and makes some long-time participants of the debate want to smash their head against a wall.
The good news is that this cycle has been going on for long enough that people have finally began to reword the question. In Climate Central, Michael Lemonick tried "Is climate change making this storm worse than it would have been otherwise?". That is a slightly better than the staple question, but still demands more certainty than can really be provided by the evidence.
The New York Times asked the subtly different, but far more sensible question: "Are hurricanes getting worse because of human-induced climate change?". By shifting from the particular storm to the sequence of storms over time, it becomes a question we can actually answer with data and statistics. As the article by Justin Gillis finds, scientists including NOAA's Tom Knutson, who I worked with on a related subject, are divided on the interpretation of past data on hurricane intensity.
Hurricane Irene was a reminder of one of factor that should draw more attention in the climate change and hurricanes discussion: rain. The worst damage from Irene came from the heavy rains and floods in Vermont and surrounding areas (the above photo is from CBC News). You can see the data yourself on the USGS real-time streamflow page for the state, a fantastic resource for everyone from regional planners to recreational paddlers (my old haunt the Millstone River in New Jersey reached almost triple the flood stage on Sunday) which may be subject to budget cuts.
If I had to place money on which feature of tropical cyclones or hurricanes would increase the most because of climate change, I'd bet on rainfall, ahead of other metrics like intensity (wind speed) or surge height. Warmer water means more evaporation; warmer air can hold more water.
That doesn't mean the flooding in Vermont was caused by human-induced climate change. But it might mean that we can get more agreement on the answer to the New York Times question.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Another Friday afternoon, another buried climate/energy policy decision
It may very well be an unfortunate coincidence. Or perhaps it may be the start of a trend. In a move that could appear in a dictionary under "burial, as in a controversial decision", the U.S. government has announced support for the much-debated Keystone XL pipeline, which will carry oil from the Alberta oil sands to the central U.S. and the Gulf Coast, on a Friday afternoon in the summer when the news media is less active. And not just any Friday afternoon... a Friday afternoon when a hurricane is bearing down on the several of the largest metropolitan areas of the country, including New York City.
Storm surge calculus
Jeff Masters' latest forecast for Hurricane Irene, besides warning New York City and coastal New England of damage, serves as a reminder of something to consider whenever you see a static map depicting what your community would look like if sea level rises by X m: the level of the sea is constantly varying, because of the astrononomical tides, storm systems and ocean currents.
On Sunday, New York City could be seriously damaged by the storm surge from Irene, even though the storm will have weakened to Category 1 at most, because the passage of the storm could coincide with a high tide:
At 9:30am EDT this morning, a wind analysis from NOAA/HRD (Figure 1) indicated that the potential storm surge damage from Irene rated a 5.1 on a scale of 0 to 6. This is equivalent to the storm surge a typical Category 4 hurricane would have. While this damage potential should gradually decline as Irene moves northwards and weakens, we can still expect a storm surge one full Saffir-Simpson Category higher than Irene's winds. Since tides are at their highest levels of the month this weekend due to the new moon, storm surge flooding will be at a maximum during the high tidal cycles that will occur at 8 pm Saturday night and 8 am Sunday morning. At those times, Irene is expected to be near the NC/VA border, then close to Long Island, NY, respectively. Thus, storm surge damage rivaling that experienced during Hurricane Isabel in 2003 is likely in northern NC, southern Maryland, and up Chesapeake Bay on Saturday night. It looks like Irene will pass New Jersey during low tide, which may limit the storm surge inundation to 3 - 6 feet there. Coastal New England from New York City to Massachusetts may also see storm surges characteristic of a Category 1 hurricane during Sunday morning's high tide, even if Irene has weakened to a tropical storm. I continue to give a 20% chance that a storm surge high enough to over-top the Manhattan flood walls and swamp the New York City subway system will occur on Sunday.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
The reality of Canada's new regulations on carbon emissions from coal-burning power plants
On Friday, the Canadian Minister of the Environment announced new emissions rules for coal plants which supposed encourage a shift to effective capture and storage of carbon. And, yes, you may be right to be suspicious about any new regulations announced on a Friday afternoon in the middle of August, when the vast majority of Canadians are planning for the weekend and ignoring the news. According to Minister Peter Kent:
These proposed regulations take into account the fact that many electricity facilities across Canada are old and need to be replaced soon. We're acting now to ensure that power companies understand today, the rules that will affect the new investments they have to make tomorrow. It allows for an orderly process - the bedrock of certainty.
The scant news coverage pointed out that the new standards only apply to plants built after July 1, 2015, thus exempted some proposed new coal plants.
That includes Calgary-based Maxim Power Corp.'s contentious proposal for a 500-megawatt expansion at its HR Milner facility, which received final approval from the Alberta Utilities Commission earlier this month and must be built by July 31, 2015 - a condition of the go-ahead (Calgary Herald)
So, again, if I am reading this right, you can gain an exemption from the regulations if you are able to conduct a study showing that the CCS system will be capable of meeting the new emissions regulation by 2025.
Putting this all together:
1. Any coal plants built before July, 2015 which have not reached the end of their useful life [ed - see comment #1] are exempt. Given the expected shift towards natural gas in the next few years, it is entirely possible that the regulations will not end up applying to
2. Any coal plants built after July, 2015 are exempt until 2025 so long as it is technologically possible to install a CCS system by 2025. Therefore, CCS systems are unlikely to be operating at any large scale coal plants in Canada for another 15 years. This delay may reflect the technological challenge of CCS or the values of the current government, or both.
Hopefully, I'm wrong.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Science and communication post-doctoral fellowships at UBC
The University of British Columbia’s new TerreWEB program is interested in engaging a scientist to facilitate challenges in building research and training involving TerreWEB researchers and collaborators. Highly qualified candidates interested in developing innovative research programs and fostering Graduate Student training are invited to apply. Appointments can range from 2 to 3 years. Click on the image for the full ad.
This is a great program. A large range of UBC faculty, including myself, are a part of program, so applicants have a terrific choice of potential supervisors.
The one drawback: The applications are due on August 31st! If you're interested, get cracking on that application.
Potential students interested in the program should contact a TerreWEB faculty member for more information about applying to UBC (and to the program).
Friday, August 12, 2011
Canada's sham of a federal climate policy
In yesterday's Globe and Mail, Marc Jaccard wisely pointed out the gaping flaws in the Canadian pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17% by 2020. The pivot point is a proposed new coal-burning power plant in B.C.Alberta:
Stephen Harper can’t allow new coal-fired electricity plants to be built, such as the one Maxim Power is proposing in Alberta, and achieve his promise to reduce Canadian greenhouse-gas emissions 17 per cent by 2020. As a researcher of energy-economy systems, I say this with virtual certainty. I also know that any scholar in my field would agree with me, and that the Prime Minister’s expert advisers would tell him the same thing.
There are two stories here. The first is that Canada has made many emissions pledges but repeatedly failed to enact any plan to meet those pledges. This is not a partisan issue. It happened under majority and minority Liberal governments, and it is happening under minority and now majority Conservative governments:
In 2007, Mr. Harper committed Canada to a 2020 target for greenhouse-gas reduction but hasn’t implemented policies that would achieve it. Like Mr. Chrétien, Mr. Harper must know his scant policies will fail. Recently released internal government documents show he’s receiving information from civil servants telling him his current policies are not transforming the energy-economy system in the direction he’s promised.
The second story is that climate policy is ineffective and meaningless without short-term and long-term goals. With no short-term emissions target, we end up delaying shifts in the energy infrastructure, and in the case of the coal-burning power plant, committing to future emissions which make meeting the long-term goal more difficult if not impossible. Jaccard praises the approach taken by the Campbell government in B.C.:
In 2007, then-B.C. premier Gordon Campbell also committed to a 2020 emissions reduction target. But to convince people of his sincerity – especially after two decades of climate policy failure by all Canadian governments at all levels – Mr. Campbell acted very differently. First, he got an independent body to set interim targets for 2012 and 2016, so people would know within a political time frame if he were on track to keep his promise. Second, he asked his advisers what investments needed to happen in 2007, and every year thereafter, to meet the 2020 target. On that basis, he immediately implemented a zero-emission electricity policy, which caused the cancellation of two proposed coal-fired electricity plants that had signed preliminary supply deals with BC Hydro.
Granted this approach is certainly easier, and more politically palatable, in a jurisdication where hydro-power is abundant. Nevertheless, it is a good model to follow.
Friday, August 05, 2011
The complexity of climate change policy
Buried in a couple recent news stories, which themselves were buried by the news of the debt standoff in the U.S., were a couple fascinating nuggets that reveal a lot about how climate change mitigation policy does, and does not happen.
One is an agreement to raise fuel efficiency standards in the U.S., which will presumably also become the rule in Canada. The... greement to that vehicles sold will average 54.5 mpg by 2025, although with loopholes related to measurement of efficiency, the actual average will be more like 43 mpg.
Why did it happen? (NY Times):
It is an extraordinary shift in the relationship between the companies and Washington. But a lot has happened in the last four years, notably the $80 billion federal bailout of General Motors, Chrysler and scores of their suppliers, which removed any itch for a politically charged battle from the carmakers...
The new mind-set in Detroit has been helped by some give and take on the government’s side. G.M., Ford and Chrysler pressed for less onerous mileage goals for their profitable pickup trucks and got them. And the administration agreed to revisit the new requirements halfway through their course, with the possibility of adjusting them. In the end, though, Detroit was faced with an undeniable political reality: there was no graceful way to say no to an administration that just two years ago came to its aid financially.
The auto bailout as climate policy: investing in the companies provided some leverage in the battle to reduce emissions from passenger vehicles. Was the Obama administration prescient here, knowing that there were little odds of carbon tax on fuel? More likely, the U.S. government was merely taking advantage of an opportunity to use some leverage to push an emissions reduction effort. Of course, the idea of "nationalizing" companies in hopes of enforcing a climate change policy would cause the "Tea Party" to self-combust.
The other example is the Alberta government's approval of a carbon capture and storage project (Globe and Mail):
Calgary-based Swan Hills Synfuels LP aims to use an unproven method, coal gasification, to reach 1.4-kilometre-deep coal deposits in central Alberta, convert them to gas underground, capture the emissions before they ever see daylight and use the gaseous coal to run a power plant. The new plant would serve a whopping 300,000 homes while producing one-third the emissions of a similarly sized regular coal plant – or about the same carbon output as a natural-gas plant. Because the project will divert 1.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year – providing the cost certainty of coal and environmental performance of natural gas – Alberta coughed up $285-million for the $1.5-billion development.
Now, investment in a CCS project in Alberta is not a huge surprise, especially considering the particular plant can aide in oil recovery. But then there't this nugget:
Industry members, politicians and academics said provincial funding is necessary because there’s little incentive to reduce emissions. CCS is “viable, but it comes at a cost,” said Don Lawton, a University of Calgary geophysicist who studies CCS. “But until there’s a price on carbon, it’s an expense that has to be borne by somebody.” Mr. Lambert said the project would die without provincial money. “I don’t think I could deliver the returns investors would need to put their money up,” he said.
So the CCS projects go ahead, but solwly, and at great expense to the province of Alberta because of the lack of a federal carbon price, which was strongly opposed by politicans from Alberta. Unlike the automobile case above, pricing carbon is critical to making CCS work.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Organic vs. conventional agriculture
The new Scientific American blog Science Sushi dispels some myths about large-scale organic agriculture. Here's one example:
Some people believe that by not using manufactured chemicals or genetically modified organisms, organic farming produces more nutritious food. However, science simply cannot find any evidence that organic foods are in any way healthier than non-organic ones – and scientists have been comparing the two for over 50 years.
Better for the environment does not necessarily mean better for you (or for the climate). Not that the environmental benefits are clear either:
Yes, organic farming practices use less synthetic pesticides which have been found to be ecologically damaging. But factory organic farms use their own barrage of chemicals that are still ecologically damaging, and refuse to endorse technologies that might reduce or eliminate the use of these all together.
It's worth a read.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Is it time to start holding virtual conferences? The case of the International Coral Reef Symposium
The only thing hotter than the U.S. and Canada (east of the Rockies!) in the past week was the discussion on the Coral-List, the NOAA-managed read by pretty much anyone that does research related to coral reefs, about the cost of attending next year’s International Coral Reef Symposium. The ICRS is THE meeting in the world of coral reef research. Thanks to the Olympian once-every-four-years timing, attendance is, I’d argue, as mandatory as it comes in the sciences. Miss an American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting, and you can attend another in six or twelve months. Miss an ICRS, and, well, you’ve got four full years to train for the next one.
The full week registration fee for the meeting has been set at AU$960 - AU$1250, depending on membership in the scientific society and the date of purchase. While registration fees of $1000 or more are not unheard of for scientific meetings in other branches of research, like say medicine, the price is extraordinary for the natural sciences, and especially for a sub-field in which many of the researchers are based in developing countries. Naturally, people from small NGOs in SE Asia to large academic instituions in North America are upset and stating that they will not attend.
Shocking as they be to many, the real story is not the registration fees. The real story is is the travel.
In addition to timing, the ICRS shares a logistical challenge with the Olympics. There is no optimal site for the event. Coral reefs are found throughout the tropics and subtropics, and that is excluding the cold water reefs in places like our own BC coast. Coral reef researchers are even more widespread, with scientists dotting every continent save Antarctica (I think - anyone at McMurdo care to correct me here?). No matter where the ICRS is held, be it Florida (2008), Okinawa (2004) or Bali (2000), a majority of top researchers in the field will have to travel long distances to attend. That means a lot of money – I estimate a weeklong trip to Cairns for the meeting from this part of the world could cost CAN$3500-4000 with registration. Moreover, that means a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. All for a scientific meeting about an ecosystem which many argue is existentially threatened by climate change and ocean acidification.
Hence the question on many people’s minds. Should the ICRS go virtual?
Of any scientific conference, there are certainly strong arguments for making the ICRS virtual: no optimal location for the meeting, cost being a significant barrier for many potential participants, travel restrictions being problematic (e.g. Middle East researchers requiring special visas for places like the U.S. and Australia), and of course the subject of conference being sensitive to atmospheric CO2. A counterargument is that the meeting is held only once every four years, in part for some of these very reasons, so rather than make ICRS virtual, other annual meetings should go virtual and adopt an Olympic schedule for the “live” meetings. A compromise first-step would be a hybrid meeting in which people had to option to participate "live" or online.
Society has adapted quickly to tectonic shifts in the way we communicate. Virtual conferences, which so many disdain for missing that personal connection of a live meeting, will become perfectly normal to us at some point in the future, just as e-mail, web browsing, Google Earth, Facebook, and Twitter have. It's a question of when, not if.
My question is: Which scientific society is willing to be the early adopter?
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Climate impact of different foods
Earlier this week, the Environmental Working Group, a research and lobby group in DC, released a report on the “environment” and "health" impact of different foods. It found that lamb is the worst offender, followed by grain-fed beef, pork, cheese and farmed salmon.
The report was brought to my attention by a writer at the Huffington Post, who subsequently published this story which includes thoughts on the report a number of outside experts on the issue. I commented on the climate impacts of feed production and the logic of farming top-of-the-food chain fish like salmon, both issues that have been discussed frequently here at Maribo.
Here's a more complete list of my thoughts upon examining the short report:
1. “Environmental” impact or “health” impact can be very different than “climate” impact. For example, I’d expect lamb to be much lower on a list based purely on greenhouse gas emissions (i.e. per gram of food produced). I can't comment on "health" impacts as it is not my area of expertise.
2. What I call the “land use cascade” is potentially the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions from food production, but also the hardest to calculate. That’s why GHG emissions from dairy relative to beef cattle tend to be overestimated (more methane from dairy cattle, more land required to grow feed for beef than dairy products). It’s also why any study like this should have large positively skewed error bars.
3. All meat is not created equal in terms of greenhouse gases. Grain-fed beef is far less efficient than pork, which is again far less efficient than poultry.
4. If your food choices are motivated purely by concern about greenhouse gas emissions, eating less grain-fed beef is more important than eating locally.
5. Historically-speaking, we are just starting to develop industrial-scale farming of fish, as discussed in the recent Time cover story. Farming the ocean is, in a sense, thousands of years behind farming on land. Right now, many of the choices we are making are, as I put bluntly in the Huffington Post story, “stupid”. Cattle are logical choice for farm animals. They eat grass, so they are only one step away from the sun. Salmon are much higher up the food chain. That’s why many of us say farming salmon is like farming wolves or tigers – you need the whole ecosystem to support the one salmon.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Eliminating the US corn ethanol subsidy is no panacea
One possible casualty of the endless U.S. budget fight may be the federal subsidy for corn ethanol production. There's been a lot of quiet, and some not-so-quiet, cheering from the environmental community, based on the premise that eliminating the subsidy will lessen nutrient pollution from growing so much corn.
In reality, cutting or repealing the 45-cents-per-gallon ethanol tax credit is unlikely to have much of an effect on planting decisions. As a recent article in the NY Times nicely explained last week, the subsidy is, at this point, unnecessary. Between laws requiring blending of ethanol into gasoline, the federal ethanol mandate, the tariff on imports, the size of the ethanol production industry, and the high price of corn, there's already enough incentive to maintain the status quo in corn production and corn ethanol production.
There are certainly good reasons to eliminate the subsidy. No one should pretend that doing so will solve of the problem of nutrient levels in the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. That is a far greater challenge.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Housekeeping and new links!
I wanted to draw people's attention to the updated list of links on Maribo. I've added a few new links which I learned of at the terrific Google Science Communication Fellows workshop last month: Alan Townsend's new blog State Factors, Jon Koomey's blog and Eugene Cordero's effort Green Ninja.
Maribo itself is likely to change in the next few months. I'm considered new formats for the blog, and also alternative approaches to online outreach about climate issues. Feel free to pass along any suggestions!
Monday, July 11, 2011
Farming the sea
Especially troubling, many of the most popular farmed species are carnivores, meaning they need to be fed at least partly with other fish. By one count, about 2 lb. of wild fish ground up to make fish meal is needed on average to produce 1 lb. of farmed fish, which leaves the ocean at a net loss.
I've written about this before: A substantial proportion of the wild harvest is used to maintain marine aquaculture of carnivorous species like salmon. It is wildly inefficient, the marine equivalent of farming wolves rather than herbivorous cattle. This is why many experts conclude that the future for pescetarians is probably the blander, lower-on-the-food-chain species like tilapia and catfish.
In coverage of aquaculture, we tend to focus on the sexier and scarier subjects: pollution from farms, genes mixing with the wild population, PCBs in farmed salmon, etc. Certainily, no doubt, these are all serious concerns (except perhaps the PCBs). But the feed-to-fish ratio is the very core of the matter; if you get less fish protein out than you put in, aquaculture doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense.
Walsh gets to this central dilemma in the second half of the article:
When producers began raising fish intensively, they picked species that people like to eat: salmon and sea bass. But those species are high on the food chain, and raising them on a farm is a bit like trying to domesticate tigers. [ed - nice. I always say wolves] The aquaculture industry has gotten better at replacing fish meal with plant-based feed, but not fast enough. You're not feeding the world sustainably if you need to remove the base of the marine food chain to do it.
The solution that many propose is expanding the use of plant-based products in fish food. That brings it's own complications. For one, salmon certainly didn't evolve eating soymeal, cornmeal or wheat, so shifting to a majority plant-based diet will likely involve further genetic engineering, which has supporters and detractors.
And second, feeding plant products to fish would add another player in the struggle for the world's productive croplands.
Forget food vs. feed. Or food vs. fuel. In the future, it will be a battle of the 4 Fs: food vs. feed vs. fuel vs. fish.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Canada upsets other countries at climate negotiations
Though news of Canada's selective emissions reporting drew little attention here at home, other countries took notice. From Post Media News:
OTTAWA — Foreign diplomats bombarded Canadian climate change negotiators with questions Thursday in Bonn, Germany, as they challenged the Harper government's transparency and policies to fight global warming.
In the wake of media coverage highlighting missing and conflicting information in an Environment Canada submission to the United Nations, officials from Australia, China, Lebanon, the United Kingdom and the Philippines questioned government policies regarding fossil fuel subsidies and the Alberta "tarsands," a lack of investment in clean energy and the scientific evidence used to determine its greenhouse gas emissions target...
Representatives from other countries pounced on Canada after Michael Keenan, an assistant deputy minister at Environment Canada, delivered a presentation suggesting that the government was showing "significant ambition" in its proposal to crack down on greenhouse gas emissions.
But his presentation appeared to generate more questions than answers.
"I was also struck that the colleague from Canada didn't refer to the tarsands issue or at least only once in passing," said Peter Betts, the lead European Union negotiator and a director at the United Kingdom's Department of Energy and Climate Change, during the session. "This has been an issue featured much in the press, and I know there have been allegations from the press that the emissions from that sector have not been included in Canada's inventory (report submission to the UN)."
His remarks were followed by a delegate from Australia — traditionally a Canadian ally at climate negotiations — who questioned how Canada could increase its "level of ambition" when it was turning away from engaging international markets. Lebanon also jumped in, questioning the pace of a commitment to phase out subsidies for fossil fuels, including the "tarsands," and raising doubts about Canada's intention to harmonize its policies with the U.S. without matching its partner's proportion of investments in clean energy.
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Honesty in Canadian emissions reporting
For five years, Canadian government represnetatives have claimed they are meeting all the obligations under the Kyoto Protocol... except the emissions target. In other words, Canada has met the reporting deadlines but achieved little else. The claim has been subject of much ridicule, here and elsewhere. [it is, incidentally, a classic and well-documented problem with international policy; governments viewing success as filling out the paperwork, not achieving the goals of the actual policy]
It turns out, we are now aren't even filling out the paperwork properly:
OTTAWA — The federal government has acknowledged that it deliberately excluded data indicating a 20 per cent increase in annual pollution from Canada’s oilsands industry in 2009 from a recent 567-page report on climate change that it was required to submit to the United Nations...
The numbers, uncovered by Postmedia News, were left out of the report, a national inventory on Canada’s greenhouse gas pollution. It revealed a six per cent drop in annual emissions for the entire economy from 2008 to 2009, but does not directly show the extent of pollution from the oilsands production, which is greater than the greenhouse gas emissions of all the cars driven on Canadian roads.
... Environment Canada provided the oilsands numbers in response to questions from Postmedia News about why it had omitted the information from its report after publishing more detailed data in previous years. A department spokesman explained that “some” of the information was still available in the latest report, which still meets Canada’s reporting obligations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
“The information is presented in this way to be consistent with UNFCCC reporting requirements, which are divided into broad, international sectors,” wrote Mark Johnson in an email.
He was not immediately able to answer questions about who made the decision in government to exclude the numbers from the oilsands or provide a detailed explanation about changes in emissions.
To be fair, maybe this is a common problem this past year, and the reporting by other UNFCCC signatories was also limited or delayed.
Although the report was due in April, during the last election campaign, Canada was the last country to file its submission. Environment Canada even filed its submission after earthquake-stricken Japan, and was unable to explain in detail why its report was late.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Climate communication: Shaking things up
I've been advocating that scientists need to experiment with new ways of communicating with the public. Now I don't know whether this video will work as a communications strategy, or whether I even agree with what they are saying ("we're scientists, you're not" could come across asarrogant), let alone the language they use to say it. But let's not be too academic here. Regardless of what you think of the finished product, this group deserves props for at least trying something different: