Shopping at the science store
Posted on | September 23, 2009 | 8 Comments
US Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has joined California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in an attempt to return inconvenient data to the science store, reports the New York Times today. They are not happy, not happy at all, with “biological opinions” of federal scientists to do with the health of California fisheries. They would like to hire expertise more to the liking of powerful Central Valley constituents served by water pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta — and more to the liking of one constituent in particular, Beverly Hills billionaire Stewart Resnick.
9/25/2009 Update: Senator Feinstein responds to her critics in the San Francisco Chronicle. Link after the jump.
Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger > chance of rain > Emily Green > NOAA > smelt > US Department of Interior
The Big Dry: After drought, dust
Posted on | September 23, 2009 | No Comments
Click on the image to be taken to the Earth Observatory.
A WALL of dust stretched from northern Queensland to the southern tip of eastern Australia on the morning of September 23, 2009, reports NASA’s Earth Observatory, while the Washington Post reports dust blanketing Sydney.
From NASA: Strong winds blew the dust from the interior to more populated regions along the coast. In this image, the dust rises in plumes from point sources and concentrates in a wall along the front of the storm. The large image shows that some of the point sources are agricultural fields, recognizable by their rectangular shape. Australia has suffered from a multiple-year drought, and much of the dust is coming from fields that have not been planted because of the drought, said Australian Broadcasting Corporation News. For a Reuters Q & A about the history of Australian dust storms, click here.
For Australian Bureau of Meteorology Drought Statements and rainfall records, click here. For Australian National Water Commission reports on trends in water use, click here.
Western eye
Posted on | September 21, 2009 | No Comments
"Storm over the Green River" taken in Canyonlands National Park, Utah. Photograph: Robert Turner. Image courtesy of the artist. All rights reserved.
ONE of the first things that people ask photographer Robert Turner on seeing “Storm over the Green River” is if it’s a painting or if it’s been photo-shopped to look like a painting.
“It’s absolutely a straight photograph,” he laughs. “I think there are several reasons it looks like a classic 19th century Thomas Moran landscape,” he says. “It was taken just before sunset during a storm. That clouding effect in the background is caused by rain. And it’s a five-second exposure, so it has a gauzy look to it.”
The composition also has much to do with the painterly quality, he thinks. “It has a very strong diagonal and a sort of implied diagonal going the other way, so it leads your eye way, way back in the picture. Nature created that white rim around the canyon in the background and then that gnarly piece of juniper does have a spooky sort of surreal quality. You put all that together and, for some reason, it does looks like a romantic painting.”
The image is part of a newly opened exhibit of Turner’s photographs “Rare Places in a Rare Light” at the G2 Gallery in Venice. It runs through November 8th and proceeds go to conservation causes. Click here to see the beneficiaries.
This post has been updated.
Tags: chance of rain > conservation causes > Emily Green > exhibits
Guardian on U.N. draft climate agreement: “Long, confusing and contradictory”
Posted on | September 21, 2009 | 1 Comment
White House Global Climate Change Report. Click on the cover then follow the prompts to download a copy.
MONDAY 9/28/2009: It is a blueprint to save the world. And yet it is long, confusing and contradictory. Negotiators have released a draft version of a new global agreement on climate change, which is widely billed as the last chance to save the planet from the ravages of global warming. Running to some 200 pages, the draft agreement is being discussed for the first time this week as officials from 190 countries gather in Bangkok for the latest round of UN talks. There is only one short meeting after this before they meet in Copenhagen aiming to hammer out a final version. Click here to keep reading Guardian environment correspondent David Adam’s “Countdown to Copenhagen“
THURSDAY, 9/24/2009: For Time Magazine on our current climate cycle, “The Long Summer,” and the human activity that is forcing the end of a 10,000 year-long temperate era, click here, via Aquafornia.
For Nature magazine’s news special “Planetary Boundaries,” click here.
TUESDAY 9/22/2009: President Barack Obama today addressed a day-long session of the United Nations on the importance of setting international goals for carbon dioxide reduction in advance of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December.
The New York Times and Los Angeles Times have the latest in what continues to be the Obama administration’s sharp reversal from Bush administration policy, which downplayed the notion that global warming was caused by human activity. From the New York Times:
“John F. Kennedy once observed that ‘our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man,’” Mr. Obama said. “It is true that for too many years mankind has been slow to respond to or even recognize the magnitude of the climate threat. It is true of my own country as well; we recognize that.”
From the Los Angeles Times: “We are determined to act. And we will meet our responsibility to future generations.”
Also according to the New York Times, China pledged “to cut carbon dioxide emissions by a ‘notable margin’ by 2020 compared to 2005 levels; massively increase the size of forests; boost nuclear or non-fossil fuels to 15 percent of power by 2020 and work to develop a green economy.”
For a New York Times / Federal News Service transcript of the address by President Hu Jintao of China to the UN General Assembly, click here.
Meanwhile, in California, conservationists from the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club and others are asking the California Air Resources Board to reject a strange but true proposed rule that could encourage forest clear-cutting as part of California’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To read their letter, click here. For background, read this article in the Los Angeles Times.
This page has been rewritten and will continue to change as “Climate Week” in New York progresses.
The week that was, 9/13-19/2009
Posted on | September 20, 2009 | No Comments
Burn scar from the Los Angeles Station Fire, September 16th, 2009. Photo: NASA. Click on the image to be taken to the Earth Observatory.
Most expenses are never assigned to the bottom-line costs of wildfire. — Comment piece in The Oregonian
By Saturday [September 19th] the arson-caused fire that claimed the lives of two firefighters was 93% contained and had cost nearly $84 million to fight. More than 700 firefighters remain on the fire lines. — Los Angeles Times
Although up to 15 percent of the city of Los Angeles’ water comes from local sources such as the Angeles National Forest, other neighboring communities in the San Gabriel Valley rely on the forest watershed for most of their water. — TreePeople press release
Click here to continue reading The week that was
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