Kit Stolz

Amaranth: An answer to climate change in Mexico

Strange but true: the grain that supported the Aztec empire, amaranth, also turns out to be a grain far better suited than corn for the heat waves of climate change in Mexico.

As we've seen in recent years with heat waves in the Midwest, during pollination corn can be set back badly by heat waves. Amaranth can handle it, as Sam Eaton explained for PRI last year:

…according the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, amaranth packs more protein than any other plant on earth. [Biochemist Mary Delano] says there's a reason NASA selected it as part of its astronauts' diets.

"It's even better than milk," Delano says. "It's also a substitute of meat and a substitute of eggs".

Amaranth leaves are also edible, packing more iron, vitamin C and calcium than spinach. And here in Mexico, Delano's effort to revive amaranth is getting some help from the climate.

Strange that Cortez wouldn't allow the traditional grain — part of the logic of conquest perhaps? To take strength from the native peoples?

It's also strange that Eaton, who deservedly won an award for his radio work tonight at the Society of Environmental Journalists, has only 250 or so followers on Twitter. Not only has he been great on various radio shows for several years now, and mentions his feed, but he's moved on to PBS and television.

And he's smart, good-humored, reasonable — what's not to like?

Perhaps seriousness must be its own reward.

Regardless, here's an enticing recipe for an amaranth risotto, which I hear from reliable sources can be wonderful. And here's the star of the post, the grain itself.

Conservative media can’t handle climate change news

In a column today in the Washington Post, Michael Gerson, who once wrote speeches for George Bush, Jr., complains to the Tea Party, re: Obamacare, "You can't handle the truth!"

Gerson puts it a little more politely, saying that the Tea Party in Congress "is against anyone who accepts the constraints of political reality."

The exact same charge could be levelled against the conservative media in regard to the science of climate change, specifically the IPCC's Fifth Assessment of the climate, which was released last week, and which has drawn all sorts of slings and arrows from the right. Media Matters thoroughly and patiently refutes the charges, with footnotes, links, and quotes every step of the way.

For instance, Media Matters compiles four different attacks that charge that the slowdown in global warming over the last fifteen years means that the general circulation models used to project future warming now are "useless." To wit:

Numerous conservative outlets seized on a Mail on Sunday article, titled "Global warming is just HALF what we said," that claimed a leaked IPCC draft said the temperature was rising at just half the rate predicted in the 2007 IPCC report. [The Mail on Sunday, 9/14/13] [Hot Air, 9/16/13] [Investor's Business Daily, 9/17/13]

In fact, as the graph below shows, the temperatures recorded are still well within the IPCC's first estimates. (One must remember that climatology is almost as far-sighted as geology, and that a single unit in the science — a single "climatology" — is thirty years worth of weather. So a slowdown in warming over fifteen years means a reduction in one half of one unit. Not a big deal, when computed over centuries and eons, past and future.)

They quote the IPCC's answer in the report to this charge:

As in the prior assessments, global climate models generally simulate global temperatures that compare well with observations over climate timescales (Section 9.4). Even though the projections from the models were never intended to be predictions over such a short time scale, the observations through 2012 generally fall within the projections made in all past assessments.

And you can see it below in the graph, which depicts the first (FAR) second (SAR) third (TAR) and fourth (AR4) assessmentz for three different emissions scenarios, against observations.

Results stil fall well within the estimates' error bars. If the slowdown continues for another forty or fifty years, well, in that blessed event, we can talk.

Edward Hopper’s mom, drawn by Edward Hopper

From a fascinating exhibit at the Whitney Museum, here's a drawing by the great American realist of his mother. The curators mentioned in a note on the wall that Hopper was considered by his peers at art school, including Rockwell Kent, to be literally the best in his class at drawing.

He used this talent as part of his slow, meticulous work as a painter, but occasionally apparently simply drew for the sake of drawing. Think you can see in this work his raw ability/talent. It's not an example of his famous melancholia, which so angers people, so perhaps that's my point — that Hopper was an artist first, that his melancholia was an expression, not an attitude.

A choice, not an affliction. Does that make any sense?

Patzert: The history of the world is written in droughts

From the most prominent and respected expert on climate and weather in Southern California:

Our water supply depends on the snowpack in the northern Sierra and the eastern Rockies. It also depends on the population growth in the Southwest. We share the Colorado with seven states and six Indian nations. Everybody gets an allocation and we leave a couple of drops down at the bottom for Mexico. That’s the background info on water in the West. We capture it, we ship it.

Let’s look back over the last 20 centuries: We’ve seen tremendous droughts in the American West. In the 11^th century there was an 80-year drought along the Colorado. This is before global warming by anthropogenic—or man-made—sources. The 20^th century, which is when we built our civilization in California, was one of the wettest in 2,000 years. It was an anomaly. We know this from tree ring records. We have built a civilization, which is the sixth- or seventh-largest economy in the world, based on imported water in a wet century. How do you like that?

We have built a civilization in an extremely dry place. The limiting factor in any civilization is primarily water. Look at all the great civilization collapses. The 11^th century is when the Anasazis had to disperse because of the 80-year drought on the Colorado. The same is true for many civilizations in Mesoamerica. This story can be told for the civilization that built Angkor Wat in Cambodia. It can be told in the Middle East. One of the primary determinates of human civilization has been drought: natural climate variability. We’ve seen this is our history. The history of the world is written in droughts.

Which is alarming, given the recent behavior of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. When it's negative we tend to have droughts in California, especially SoCal.

How to dramatize climate change: Eric Holthaus

When I met Eric Holthaus at the American Meteorological Society's convention about six months ago, he was a journalist reporting on weather for New York City to the Wall Street Journal. At the time he was a little frustrated, I think it's fair to say, because he wasn't able to talk about big picture issues like climate for the national audience. Now he's working for the interesting Quartz/Atlantic publication — and telling a big story.

In tweets this week re: the fifth assessment (on climate) from the IPCC:

I just broke down in tears in boarding area at SFO while on phone with my wife. I've never cried because of a science report before. #IPCC

10:43 AM – 27 Sep 2013

I realized, just now: This has to be the last flight I ever take. I'm committing right now to stop flying. It's not worth the climate.

This second tweet came two minutes later. Always interesting, deeply committed, and highly recommended: Eric Holthaus.

His tweets raise a crucial question for reporters who care about the climate — how to do more than relate facts, and find ways to dramatize our concern. I can only admire Holthaus for his decision (though I wonder how he'll cover the news, if he can't fly to conferences, such as the AMS or the AGU).

Crying weatherman vows to get vasectomy over climate change

A weatherman breaks down in tears and vows NEVER to fly again due to grim climate-change report

Eric Holthaus, Meteorologist, Tweets That He Will Never Fly Again

Who is Eric Holthaus, and why did he give up flying today?

Murder or wilderness? A choice for October

Have been distracted from the PCT by a reporting assignment — covering a murder trial. Alex Medina, age eighteen, is on trial for the killing of Seth Scarminach, age sixteen at the time of his death 2009. Here's a story I wrote for the local paper on this for Wednesday:

An eyewitness to a slaying at a party in Meiners Oaks in 2009 testified Tuesday morning that he saw accused killer Alex Medina stab Seth Scarminah repeatedly and then kneel over him and “cut his throat.”

Alexander Gabriel, who was 18 at the time of the slaying, testified that he was standing behind the back porch, urinating, at a late-night party in the 2400 block of Maricopa Highway when he heard the defendant approach Scarminach.

“I finished and I turned around and Alex approached Seth saying, ‘What do you claim?’” Gabriel testified. “Seth said ‘Meiners Oaks.’ Alex said ‘OSL 13’ and they were about to fight.”
Gabriel testified that Scarminach gave him his hat and went with Medina to a driveway to fight, followed by Gabriel and two other partygoers.

“I had seen a lot of fights and was expecting a regular fight,” Gabriel testified. “They started fighting and there were a couple of blows each and then within 10 seconds I saw Alex make a stabbing motion. I saw a shiny thing and I knew it was a knife. Seth dropped to the ground and Alex got on top of him and cut his throat.”

Yikes! Lots of fascinating issues on the table — gang violence, rapping on such from both the accused and the victim, life in prison without the possibility of parole, mental health, legal strategies, the dark underbelly of Ojai…but not much beauty! Here's where I would like to be…

Though now that I think about it, if there's a government shutdown — as is expected Monday — then the national parks will close. So maybe it's not such a choice after all!

[pic From the generous and irresistible Jeff Sullivan]

Science: As certain of climate change as of smoking

Will Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press ever get the respect he deserves as a science writer?

Doubtful. He's too popular, I guess, and too unpretentious. Covers breaking news still. But let me put it this way: Who has framed the question of the science of climate change more effectively than this?

WASHINGTON – Top scientists from a variety of fields say they are about as certain that global warming is a real, man-made threat as they are that cigarettes kill.

They are as sure about climate change as they are about the age of the universe. They say they are more certain about climate change than they are that vitamins make you healthy or that dioxin in Superfund sites is dangerous.

They’ll even put a number on how certain they are about climate change. But that number isn’t 100 per cent. It’s 95 per cent.

And for some non-scientists, that’s just not good enough.

Nothing in his AP story is new — except the effectiveness of the framing.

WSJ Expert: We need an alternative to coal for AGW

Because the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) editorial page consistently has found reasons to scoff at the risks of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), it's notable when an expert vetted by the paper — Robert Rapier, an energy specialist – declares that global warming is a problem.

In order to address the carbon dioxide problem, we either have to develop low-cost, convenient, and scalable sources of power so developing countries can continue to develop (otherwise they will continue to develop with coal), or we have to find a way to start sucking a trillion metric tons of carbon out of the atmosphere and sequestering it. There are some strategies for sequestering carbon, but so far none that can significantly impact the problem.

A trillion tons! That's how much we all have put into the air since l965. Holy cow.

From Robert Rapier.

How Yosemite fire crews saved the giant Sequoias

Awe-inspiring story from Diana Marcum at the Los Angeles Times. Here's a part of it:

Two days later, on Aug. 17, flames exploded over a ridge above the Tuolumne River. Whitewater rafters navigating the canyon of buckeyes and bald eagles said it sounded like bombs.

It was about 20 miles in the distance, but Yosemite Fire Chief Kelly Martin, a specialist in predicting fire behavior, knew it was headed their way.

"This is it," she said. "This is the Big One."

Now, it had pushed 30 miles inside the park, moving south toward California 120 — the main east-west route through Yosemite. In one day it had burned 50,000 acres inside the park. The biggest fire since the park began keeping records in 1930 had burned 46,000.

The sequoias evolved to face wildfire. But officials feared that this fire could kill even trees that had been shrugging off flames since before Rome burned.

[snip]

A lot could go wrong. If the backfires were too hot, they could cook the groves. If they did not burn enough ground in time, the Rim fire would roar through unblocked. Those two groves and the Merced Grove to the south would burn, the lookout tower and helicopter base would burn, and the firefighters would have to run.

"We knew it was a longshot," [Taro] Pusina, [deputy fire chief] said. "But no amount of bulldozers or planes or crews had stopped this fire. We were out of options."

Firefighting has come so far since the total fire suppression days — great to see the firefighters who took these chances honored for their success.

Speaking of “Biblical” flooding in Colorado…

Chris Mooney is now reporting on climate for Grist, which is great news in and of itself. His latest post looks at the huge and deadly floods of this past week in Colorado, and tries to answer the obvious question — did climate change contribute to or worsen these floods?

The answer is not a simple yes, the experts say, but correlative and suggestive, as a central graph he posts shows:

But a good writer such as Money also has an ear for language, and he notes a couple of interesting points in commentary this week. A forecaster for the National Weather Service pointed to "major flash flooding" with "Biblical rainfall events." Words perhaps chosen to make the point to the deeply religious area of Colorado Springs?

And Mooney notes that evenmeterologists and small government advocates and Republicans such as Paul Douglas are seeing a new atmosphere overhead — an atmosphere created by climate change.

In his exploration of causes, Mooney makes the usual points — more warming means more water vapor in the atmosphere, means more potential for heavy rains — but stops short, as the phrase du jour goes, of pointing the finger or affixing blame. This is the responsbile, scientific choice.

But free spirits — artists such as Tom Toles earlier this week — aren't as constrained.