Yesterday the NYTimes’ lead op-ed in the Sunday Review was about how California is Winning the Drought (as discussed here a couple of days ago) from a respected author on water issues. Today the lead op-ed in the editorial pages of the LATimes comes from a well-known expert on drought, who argues that California isContinue reading “CA leading on climate as well as water: LA Times”
Tag Archives: Climate
Blogging the Pope’s “Praise Be”: on Nature as a book
In Chapter 12 of Pope Francis' encyclical, "Praise Be," in our language, just before he launches into an appeal to all people to come together to save the world, the pontiff brings up the idea of nature as a book. He writes (in a passage that is, may I say, too rich to be truncated): 12.Continue reading “Blogging the Pope’s “Praise Be”: on Nature as a book”
Blogging the Pope’s Encyclical: Praise Be
Where do we start with a document as vast and thought-through as Pope Francis' "Praise Be?" With listening, I think. Try this, from the Vatican's translation into English, section 11: If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beautyContinue reading “Blogging the Pope’s Encyclical: Praise Be”
For Earth Day, Obama goes to Florida
Prez Obama appears to be really trying to reach the public re: climate change. He gave his usual good speech about the subject on Earth Day, but this one suspects his most convincing point on climate change may be a simple recitation of some personal facts. As he said yesterday: Just last weekend, Michelle andContinue reading “For Earth Day, Obama goes to Florida”
What would Reagan do about climate change?
Ronald Reagan, the most beloved Republican president of our era, would act to avoid the oncoming train wreck that is climate change. Believe it or not. That is the contention of George Shultz, Reagan's long-term Secretary of State, and by God, Shultz has data to back up his viewpoint. He writes (in the Washington Post thisContinue reading “What would Reagan do about climate change?”
Is a climate disaster inevitable? Adam Frank/NYTimes
Astrobiologist Adam Frank looks at climate change from a deep time perspective, and speculates that perhaps the reason we're having difficulty with adjusting is that it's a really hard problem that few if any civilizations in the history of time have managed to figure out. Frank points out that science now knows that virtually everyContinue reading “Is a climate disaster inevitable? Adam Frank/NYTimes”
even death can be beautiful under the heartless stars
A whitebark pine at Crater Lake. Photo and commentary below by TJ Thorne of the Guardian: This is the second image from my two week long artist-in-residency appointment at Crater Lake National Park in October of 2014. The whitebark pines, such that you see in the photo, are one of the more astounding features ofContinue reading “even death can be beautiful under the heartless stars”
A really dumb reason not to believe in climate change
From Congressman Jeff Miller of Florida, who doesn't believe in climate change, and somehow thinks this has something to do with the dinosaurs. Via a year-end wrap-up of dumbness by Steve Brodner at GQ: Yes, he really does believe that humans can't cause climate change, because the dinosaurs went extinct. Go figure.
Charles Krauthammer, skeptic, now calls taking action on global warming “prudential”
To deny climate change in 2015 puts any thinking person in a distinct minority in this country. According to a Pew Research poll published this time last year, 67% of adults believe that our atmosphere has been warming in recent years. That comes out to 84% of Democrats and 46% of Republicans. So when lastContinue reading “Charles Krauthammer, skeptic, now calls taking action on global warming “prudential””
NYTimes: What is killing the forests of the world?
The biggest and most horrifying story I stumbled across at the AGU involves forest mortality, as mentioned in this 2012 story in the NYTimes: Los Alamos National Laboratory studies tree deaths
It's good on the technical aspects, and really helped me understand the mechanism of "hydraulic failure" — how heat can not just challenge, but kill trees. The story doesn't want to be the last word on the subject, perhaps to its credit. It helps us understand the details:
To monitor how trees might succumb to thirst, researchers are measuring water flow inside each trunk. Normally ropes of water molecules are pulled up from the soil and roots by the atmosphere, moving through very small channels called xylem. When the air is warm, it exerts a greater pull on the water, increasing tension. If the tension gets high, the rope breaks and air is introduced. Like an embolism that can kill a person, air bubbles can block the flow of water. A tree can dry out and die.
It's helpful but I must say,it's not what the researcher in question, Nate McDowell, said at the at the AGU a couple of weeks ago. He framed it differently: as forest mortality.
In which case, the Times' approach almost literally misses the forest (mass mortality) for the trees (how individual trees succumb to climactic conditions).
In any case, talking to McDowell at the AGU, I mentioned that I was walking the Pacific Crest trail and had seen one burned out forest after another walking north through Southern California. Many huge fires have hit the trail before and after I have been walking just these past two years. Just weeks after myself and Chris Nottoli passed through the San Jacinto Mountains they were hit with a major fire, the Mountain fire, that consumed over 30k acres of pines near Idyllwild,and forced a long difficult roadwalk detour for those coming on the trail post-June 2013.
In Section C, I encountered another large area –more than 16k acres – of burned forest to the east and north of Big Bear Lake. Huge pines. Big Bear Fire. 2007. Took a full day or more to walk through the dead and twisted trees and scorched earth.
In Section D, coming down from the San Gabriel Mountains and turning north towards Agua Dulce, I had to walk through the vast scar left by the Station Fire of 2009, which burned over 160k acres and filled the sky with the life of thousands upon thousands of trees.
Then in Section E about thirty miles of trail north of Green Valley were completely destroyed by the Powerhouse Fire. A ranger told me that the soil itself had been changed by the extreme heat of the blaze. The trail had simply vanished.
Joe Anderson, who with his wife Terry takes care of hundreds of hikers passing through the trail near his town of Green Valley, told me that one hiker who did go through the burn emerged entirely blackened below his shoulders after walking through miles and miles of chaparral and pinyon pine turned to charcoal.
"It's like that the whole length of the trail, all the way up to Canada," said Nate McDowell, a couple of weeks ago, in the press room at the AGU.
I don't want to be alarmist, but McDowell and his friend and fellow scientist Craig Allen believe that the forests of the Southwest are doomed. They have a date in mind, for when they will have died off.
2045-2050.
[for those curious about the mechanism of this catastrophe, the hypotheses and the studies, I've put some resources below the fold.]
Kit Stolz 