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Seeing Climate, Seeing Change

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• October 12, 2009 – Fall 2009 STEP Seminar Series – “Seeing Climate, Seeing Change”

Heidi Cullen, Director of Communications, Senior Research Scientist, Climate Central,

Heidi Cullen is an excellent speaker: She needs more "soap boxes" She deserves many more platforms and communication devices! Climate Central is one: It’s "a new nonprofit science and media organization created to provide clear and objective information about climate change and its potential solutions."

She has excellent graphics, representative studies and anecdotes. Perhaps with Climate Central’s website, they will reach and convince lots more of us. As a "big picture" climate scientist of the Holocene, she could recite instances where climate change has drastically affected civilizations: the Anasazi, the Maya, the Great Drought of 1272-1298. People rely on climate stability.

A couple of worrisome publications: Raupach and Canadell, PNAS, 2007, illustrating CO2 data results beyond the "worst case" scenario, and Peter Stott, Nature, re: the hot summer deaths in Europe in 2003.

Human contribution to the European heatwave of 2003

Peter A. Stott, D. A. Stone, M. R. Allen

Nature 432, 610-614 (2 December 2004) doi:10.1038/nature03089 Letter

Abstract | Full Text | PDF | Rights and permissions | Save this link

Biological Sciences – Sustainability Science:

  • Michael R. Raupach,
  • Gregg Marland,
  • Philippe Ciais,
  • Corinne Le Quéré,
  • Josep G. Canadell,
  • Gernot Klepper,
  • and Christopher B. Field

Global and regional drivers of accelerating CO2 emissionsPNAS 2007 104:10288-10293; published online before print May 22, 2007, doi:10.1073/pnas.0700609104

Biological Sciences – Sustainability Science:

  • Josep G. Canadell,
  • Corinne Le Quéré,
  • Michael R. Raupach,
  • Christopher B. Field,
  • Erik T. Buitenhuis,
  • Philippe Ciais,
  • Thomas J. Conway,
  • Nathan P. Gillett,
  • R. A. Houghton,
  • and Gregg Marland

From the Cover: Contributions to accelerating atmospheric CO2 growth from economic activity, carbon intensity, and efficiency of natural sinksPNAS 2007 104:18866-18870; published online before print October 25, 2007, doi:10.1073/pnas.0702737104

She gives credit to GFDL, who, with the IPCC, is developing new climate models.

She offered the questions: how can we convince the public to have the credence and trust in scientists that they profess to have? How can we get more local news sources to educate people about climate change?

("Global warming" has too many political connotations, it seems.)

Notable websites, blogs, etc., mentioned in the presentation:

http://www.propublica.org/ ProPublica represents "journalism in the public interest"

http://www.climateprogress.com/ "An insider’s view of climate science, politics, & solutions" The writer is Joe Romm, who was recognized by Time magazine as "One of the heroes of Environment 2009, and the Web’s most influential climate-change blogger".

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/ A website with ideas for everyone on becoming green, the the areas of fashion & beauty, food & health, home & garden, tech & transport, travel & outdoors, and work & connect.

Dr. Cullen hopes for the establishment of a National or World Climate Service, much like the National Weather Service.