Kit Stolz

Abrupt Climate Change Drowns Land in North Sea

An English friend, Oliver Butcher, alerts me to a fascinating/alarming story that came out of the University of Birmingham in the UK last month. Turns out that about 8,000 years ago, global warming induced sea levels to rise, swallowing up a prehistoric culture that lived on land that is today beneath the North Sea. ResearchContinue reading “Abrupt Climate Change Drowns Land in North Sea”

“A Friend Acting Strangely” — Smithsonian Exhibit on Arctic Changes Avoids Global Warming

Someday we will look back on this Bush administration era of global warming denialism in Washington and shake our heads and ask: What were we thinking? How could we let that happen? Except that some writers don’t have to look back. Some noticed when it was happening. This week a former Smithsonian museum offical, RobertContinue reading ““A Friend Acting Strangely” — Smithsonian Exhibit on Arctic Changes Avoids Global Warming”

Gary Snyder: James Lovelock’s Arguments for Nuclear Power “Demented”

This past weekend the Ojai Poetry Festival featured the great American poet Gary Snyder, who read to a large crowd of listeners mostly from work written this century, especially his 2004 book of haibun called "Danger on Peaks." (Haibun, we learned, is a mix of prose and haiku: Japanese professor Nobuyaki Yuasa has described itContinue reading “Gary Snyder: James Lovelock’s Arguments for Nuclear Power “Demented””

Looking for a New Climate Change Metaphor: Canaries Exhausted

While on a book tour recently, Bill McKibben made an interesting point in an appearance in Santa Barbara. McKibben–a former New Yorker writer who wrote his first book on climate change back in l989–in an aside told the crowd that to expect the Sierra Club and traditional conservationists to take on global warming with "theContinue reading “Looking for a New Climate Change Metaphor: Canaries Exhausted”

Sunday Morning on the Planet: A Poet Speaks

Maria Melendez, one of the featured poets at this weekend’s Ojai Poetry Festival, had a line worth remembering on this lovely Sunday: Nature is an exercise in depth perception. More on the festival soon (time permitting). For now, an example in the mists of the Berkshires, via fotographicpoetry.

Graph of the Week

Much-linked, and deservedly so, this graph via Ezra Klein from the Center for Economic and Policy Research shows how little time we Americans give ourselves. We are the only nation in the industrialized world not to legislate paid time off for workers. Even the notoriously workaholic Japanese mandate ten days a year. Us? Zero. Pathetic.

CO2 Worry of the Week

Nicely put WSJ headline: Next CO2 Worry: Less Absorption The ability of the world’s southern oceans to absorb carbon dioxide isn’t keeping pace with the rate of emissions due to human activity, which means that future concentrations of the gas in the atmosphere may be higher than what current projections suggest, a new study finds.Continue reading “CO2 Worry of the Week”

Sea Monsters and Scientists

For the first time in at least a month, I just came across an environmental and scientific news story that includes not just the data gathered, but how the scientists gathered it, more or less, and a little bit on who they are and how they feel about it. So refreshing. I’m grateful to D.K.Continue reading “Sea Monsters and Scientists”

NPR Answers Questions on Climate Change

NPR science correspondents take questions from listeners on climate change — an excellent idea. One question they answer I heard asked to Bill McKibben just two weeks ago, about the effect of population on global carbon emissions. McKibben made a strong point that NPR glosses over in their answer. Most of the population growth inContinue reading “NPR Answers Questions on Climate Change”

Try to Praise the Mutilated World

A Ventura County poet, Mary Kay Rummel, sends along the following spectacular poem from the great Polish poet Adam Zagajewski. It’s called Try to Praise the Mutilated World: Try to praise the mutilated world. Remember June’s long days, and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew. The nettles that methodically overgrow the abandoned homesteads ofContinue reading “Try to Praise the Mutilated World”