Hummingbird604.com » climate change

Bush’s environmental legacy a marine protected area? LOL

Raul — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 01:36:59 +0000

Considering the role that Bush has played in the international environmental arena and the appaling state of affairs with US climate policy, I find it incredibly funny to read this Vancouver Sun story about his establishing the largest marine protected area as an environmental legacy. I’m sorry. His legacy will be having given the US the worst climate policy of the developed world. I am hopeful Obama is serious with his climate policy. I really am.

Adaptation to extreme climatic events in Vancouver

Raul — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 18:45:17 +0000

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you should have recently noticed a cold snap in Vancouver that has brought us a White Christmas and a really cold month of December 2008 and now January 2009 starts with more snow. Vancouver is, of course, a mess because “it never snows in Vancouver” (the now infamous phrase that people have been using to tell me why Vancouver is so ill-prepared for snowy and icy conditions)

There are two inherent problems with having this somewhat-delusional view of the world. First, while it may be true that this weather is not common, the mere fact that we are seeing such dramatic fall in temperature should have triggered an “Emergency Preparedness Action Plan”. Which apparently, we don’t have. But don’t get me wrong – we don’t have tools to prepare and adapt to extreme weather events. We do (as I researched it) have Emergency Preparedness workshops that are more targeted towards earthquakes and other kinds of catastrophes.

Second, it’s not really about the drop in temperature itself. A lot of climate skeptics have been laughing “global warming? see.. it is freezing and snowing in Vancouver!” You see, the problem with climatic change is not as much just a question of “global warming” but a question of extreme climatic events. And as you can see (from all the people who have been stuck in the snow, whose travel plans have been delayed by icy road conditions, the homeless people who have been perishing in an effort to try and keep warm), we NEED an adaptation plan towards extreme climatic events.

I’d be more than happy to point my readers out to the literature on adaptation to climate change (I had to read these for my PhD dissertation), but one accessible resource you can access is Natural Resources Canada’s website on Adaptation. Give it a read, you might find it interesting.

The death of environmentalism?

Raul — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:13:27 +0000

A recent post by Rebecca on “is blogging dead” and a comment by Darren on that particular post (echoed by other commentators) made me remember that I once wrote a post about “The Death of Environmentalism”. Since it never made it past the drafts, I am now I’m resurrecting it in an updated form.

Now, to provide additional context, I just found out via Jonathon Colman from The Nature Conservancy that only 18% of survey respondents (I’m assuming all Americans) strongly believe that climate change is human-caused and harmful.

While I do hold my own opinion on the causes of climate change, that’s irrelevant for this discussion. The thing is that there seems to be a very small proportion of the population who believe in climate change (or at least, so would appear from the data shown). Now, the title of this post is associated with a paper by Schellenberger and Nordhaus titled “The Death of Environmentalism: Global Warming Politics in a Post-Environmental World”.

The gist of this paper (and surprisingly, the evidence presented by The Nature Conservancy) seems to suggest that American environmental NGOs have not had much success with galvanizing public opinion on climate change in the United States. If you read the work of Aaron McCright and Riley Dunlap, they find increased support to the hypothesis that Conservatives have influenced public opinion on climate change (as a non-problem or a non-issue).

McCright, Aaron M., and Riley E. Dunlap. 2003. “Defeating Kyoto: The Conservative Movement’s Impact on U.S. Climate Change Policy.” Social Problems 50(3): 348-373.

But the thing is – regardless of whether it’s the ENGOs fault or the public’s fault (I don’t really want to blame anyone) – one of the main reasons why the Schellenberger and Nordhaus paper was so controversial is because it talked about “environmentalism being dead“. And I’m pretty sure that they intended for the paper to spark controversy (and make environmental NGOs try to work harder at educating the public about the need to adapt to climate change). That’s where I’m bringing the connection.

If you think about it (and as accurately said by the commentators on Rebecca’s site), the best way to spark a discussion about a topic is to say that X or Y is dead. Environmentalism is NOT dead. Much less here in Canada, and in Vancouver. For starters, Greenpeace started here! Environmental NGOs have a place and there is a need for them in the global environmental movement. The thing is, the Schellenberger and Nordhaus paper (as the other post mentioned by Rebecca) did serve to galvanize people, make them react to the issue and write about it.

Now, if we all did that about municipal and provincial politics in Vancouver and British Columbia, if we did that about climate change and other environmental issues in our own turf, THEN I think we would see a revival. And I’m hoping I’m contributing to this debate, and look forward to other’s contributions.