The future of forests
Giant Sequoias at Redwood Mountain, Kings Canyon National Park, CA, in the largest grove of this species. Photo courtesy of John Evarts, Cachuma Press
Ronald M. Lanner has explored the forests of the Western United States for 50 years. In the course of this, and in devoting five of his six books to the region’s trees, he has revealed that no where else on the planet has the same diversity of conifers, be it the oldest (bristlecone pines) or the tallest (redwoods) or the biggest (sequoias).
So Chance of Rain asked environment reporter Ilsa Setziol to interview Lanner on the future of the region’s timbered ranges in the face of climate change. Her discussion with the author of “The Pinon Pine,” “Trees of the Great Basin,” “The Conifers of California,” “Made for Each Other: A Symbiosis of Birds and Pines,” and “The Bristlecone Book…
‘Charismatic megafauna’ arrive in Copenhagen
For the Guardian's climate conference feature Copenhagen in pictures: Day 9, click on the body-builder turned actor and politician with the persistent tan that prompted LA Times columnist Steve Lopez to wonder if the governor of California had been "dipped in a bucket of Tang."
Until today, Copenhagen’s most famous citizen was a girl with a fishy tail sitting on a rock, reports the Guardian’s John Vidal. No more. The day saw the big beasts of the green jungle arrive — what ecologists would term the “charismatic megafauna,” intent on adding their weight and lustre to the struggling climate negotiation.
First up was “Governator” Arnold Schwarzenegger, who arrived at the conference centre with 10 men in black with wires sprouting from their ears, a phalanx of cameramen and a perma-tan. Lesser beasts, like mere ministers, diplomats, UN chiefs and state governors, bowed before him.
“Arnie is a climate activist …
Casting daily: ‘Brad Pitt is saving Planet Earth in Copenhagen’
From the London Guardian's daily picture gallery of the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen: "The director Tue Biering (right) and assistant Marijana Jankovic (left) go through the script with a potential actor wearing a wig and sunglasses during the casting for a film called Brad Pitt is saving Planet Earth in Copenhagen. Every day someone is chosen to act in one scene, culminating in 12 scenes making a movie which will be screened on the internet at the end of the climate conference." Click on the image to be taken to the entire Guardian photo gallery. This photo: Adrian Dennis / AFP / Getty Images
Copenhagen
Global warming video is projected onto a floating cube. The scale of the CO2 cube installation represents one tonne of carbon dioxide, the amount an average person in an industrialized country emits each month. Photo: Peter Dejong, Associated Press. For the rest of the Copenhagen photo gallery from the London Guardian, click on the image.
Click here for the home page of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cophenhagen.…
Earth and us
This week WaterWired posted a lecture by philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore in which Moore asks the question that sticks in the caw of any environmentalist:
How can we be aware of impending cataclysm and still be doing so little, if anything, to lessen the impacts of climate change?
“We know that immediate action by us is the thing that can change the direction of this asteroid,” she says, “But that knowledge hasn’t moved us to action … So the question I would ask is: What’s missing?”
According to Moore, the ever louder warnings of scientists aren’t enough. We need to actively decide that it’s wrong to wreck the world.
To hear the whole lecture, click here. As enticement, WaterWired also has Jon Stewart on “Climategate.”
This posting has been updated. The headline has been changed and the Stewart link added.
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