WATER FILTER: An innovative effort in western Kenya is attempting to provide clean water as well as reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases.
Image: Courtesy of Vestergaard Frandsen
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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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Environmental, humanitarian and economic challenges do not exist in isolation, but that is how the world most often deals with them. To take just one example: one of the key challenges facing cities around the globe in the 21st century is flooding. Flooding is determined by environmental factors, from climate change to overcrowding of floodplains with habitation. Flooding is also often a humanitarian disaster when it strikes and can be an aftereffect of big development projects, like hydroelectric dams.
Or take the metals in a cell phone. As Judith Rodin, president of the philanthropic Rockefeller Foundation, noted at her organization's event about "resilient livelihoods" on September 25, tungsten is the "metal that puts the buzz in your cell phone." Mining that tungsten is an economic development opportunity but also too often creates a humanitarian crisis when such economically valuable minerals become a source of conflict—as has been the case in the eastern Congo. At the same time, the mining practices used to extract such metals can be more or less bad for the environment and human health.
The U.N. buzz phrase of the last decade—"sustainable development"—is slowly morphing into a new sustainable buzzword for the development and humanitarian communities: resilience. Resilience means, at its core, an ability to bounce back from stress in a healthy way, Rodin said. But, as development expert Edward Carr of the University of South Carolina rightly notes, resilience of what, to what? Enabling the poor to be resilient in the face of challenges like climate change may require a fundamental rethinking of the methods used to address both poverty and global warming.
After all, poverty and climate change are inextricably linked: The developed world has progressed, thanks to fossil fuels, and burning them has resulted in the elevated levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trapping heat, raising global temperatures and spawning weird weather. To resolve the energy poverty of billions will likely require burning more fossil fuels, but preventing catastrophic climate change definitely requires reducing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gas. "You cannot tackle one without the other," Rodin noted.
Thus far, despite some recent success in reducing poverty thanks to rising living standards in China, the world has mostly failed to truly tackle either. Although drought in the Horn of Africa is predictable and cyclical even under the present climate, famine still stalks the region. "To have drought at the level of 2011 and no deaths in Ethiopia? That was progress," argued Ertharin Cousin, executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme at the Rockefeller event. Yet, thousands perished of starvation throughout the region and populations in Somalia, Kenya and elsewhere remain reliant on aid—a decades-long failure that also encompasses civil war and political instability. "How do you eventually graduate from aid?" asks Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen, CEO of Vestergaard Frandsen, a Denmark-based company that makes disease-control products.
Plus, "we are not winning the war on hunger. We are losing it," argued European Union Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva at the Rockefeller event. One of the big reasons that levels of hunger have started to grow again is the impact of climate change—variable weather means variable harvests whereas programs to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of cars have ended up taking away food to make biofuels like ethanol. The lack of investment in agricultural innovation and the devastating impact of food aid on local farmers hasn't helped either. "Yes, we feed the hungry but we kill the farmers," Georgieva noted. Or, as food security specialist Amadou Diallo of the government of Niger said: "The basis of peace is food security." When people lack food, they turn to rebellion or terrorism.
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41 Comments
Add CommentMerely waving your hands and saying global warming doesn't impact flooding doesn't make that true.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI never wrote that a warmer world will not have more severe floods somewhere, sometime because it probably will. What I wrote is that it is NOT the issue that causes people to be harmed when it does flood. If someone wants to reduce harms to both people and property due to flooding, then you build proper infrastructure to protect against flood damage. When there are examples worldwide today where this is not done is obvious and the situation will not be any different if it warms slightly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe harms are not due to it getting warmer. The harms are due to bad local government which is NOT an issue for the US to fix.
To nmlevesque, But jumping on the "global warming bandwagon" doesn't give added validity to the proponent's flawed reasoning.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis issue and science around it has become so politicized that it's almost impossible to discuss rationally. The least of the third world's problems is climate change. Most of these countries don't even acknowledge basic individual rights and the governments totally abuse the citizens. The U.N. is a severely corrupt and pretty useless organization and always looking to ways to re-distribute wealth, usually to its own personal benefit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeeing as how comments are being deleted, I wonder if it is due to the hack of a writer David Biello, or the propaganda spreading folks at unScientific American?.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFacts are clean RE is less expensive than fossil fuels so there is no reason it shouldn't be the way to go.
A wind generator is far more simple than a diesel generator and it requires little ongoing costs.
Solar PV is now $1k/kw for panels so it too is cheaper than FF's now.
A solar steam engine is also less complicated than a diesel and can supply both heat and power and can use biomass as backup.
solar cooking can save so much time gathering wood, etc and costs little, just some reflective plastic, glass, etc.
And other than PV panels, these and many other RE can be made locally making jobs.
Fact is neither the thrid or first world can nafford the rising price of FF anymore and little reason for them other than it's the way things are done.
My EV's get 250 and 600 mpg equivalent. EV drive can plow, etc too at much lower costs than ICE's.
Best for the poor countries is start these industries locally saves the money going out and let's it stay at home making many more jobs.
While one will always need some FF's they can be greatly reduced and replaced by smart RE.
I think this question should be reversed, so that it is more aligned with the "null" hypothesis:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWILL COMBATING CLIMATE CHANGE COST LIVES?
The answer to this question is probably a big YES. GK
It seems combating climate change will have to cost at least some future lives, since the mother of all environmental problems is continuing increases in population, and opulence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisronwagn, CH4 is of course better for burning than other fossil fuels. But the industry says they expect to lose about 3% of what they pump and process. Meanwhile, some scientists say if we convert to CH4 in a big way and more than 2% is lost in piping and processing, it will be a bigger greenhouse problem than CO2.
You have not a clue of what you are talking about. Humans put up barriers to live in areas that should be left alone. If people live in flood plains, they should flood, not be kept clear. That is why we are depleting so many areas of...you know what? You are so set in your ignorance and unscientific knowledge, there is nothing you will listen to, anyway....not wasting any more on your bs
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo any of you have ANY background in environmental science? I do, and I must say that the responses on this are so full of troll garbage with no scientific basis, it's almost like looking at a Facebook page.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWired Rabbit
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps you should try learning a bit before writing comments.
Why do you believe there are so many deaths in India and Pakistan every year due to flooding?
Why do you think people live in the Netherlands?
The answer is that in the 1st example the local government are so corrupt that they do not build proper infrastructure and as a result their citizens die every year. In the 2nd example proper infrastructure has allowed a society to live well and prosper.
Building proper infrastructure IS the best, most practical worldwide solution.
Please think about this oh learned rabbit- If a few trilion was spend worldwide to reduce CO2 emissions what would the change in atmospheric concentration be in say 2060? It very well migh be 460 ppm instead of 475 ppm. What would be the difference in the climate? Nothing measureable.
Sorry to burst you bubble, but what I have written is factually correct.
Before anyone gets too excited about global climate models, they should carefully listen to what Bob Tisdale has to say. I have a lot of respect for Bob, and I guarantee, y'all will learn enough to make it worthwhile.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CM7IUkvT_Zg
Global temperatures are determined by the 80% of the planet covered by water, so SSTs are the one parameter of prime importance, climate wise. GK
The climate changes, and will continue to do so whether we try to hold it steady or not. I remember, as a kid in school the presentations dealing with "the future". Weather control was one of the topics. Like my promised "Jetson-style" flying car, our abilities have been somewhat exaggerated. I agree we should emit less of all our pollutants, however, I don't agree our climate can be held in some sort of stasis as we see fit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnfortunately, flooding is not the sole climatic anomaly we will be seeing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDroughts and freak storms, hot and cold spells, you name it. Warming means dynamizing: when water is put to boil, before boiling it churns vigorously; in the same manner, a whole list of frequently contradictory severe weather is to be expected.
Surely, unstructured societies (all of which were not unstructured prior to contact with predatory modern society) cannot be expected to climate proof efficiently in across all these areas. In fact, it will be a challenge for developed societies.
It is a good thing we know at least one factor in this cheerfully dynamic world, what spurred this state of affairs: the systematic, exploitative construction of Big Oil fortunes. Someone will have to pay for the significant emergency construction, such as desalinization, channeling and irrigation projects that will be required everywhere for drought proofing. And coastal relocation for sea rise proofing. And so forth.
The climate always changes, sure. It took 60 million years to shift from Warm (Eocene) to Cool (Quaternary). The last time the warming shift was as rapid as it is occurring right one, however, was in the Permian Extinction. It’s the speed of the artificial (or unusually coincidental with industrialized overpopulation) change that poses the problem. Rapid changes are mass extinctions.
It would be so infinitely simpler to just clear our act. Most of the chaos might very well still be reversible.
Mark656515: You are merely repeating an frequently mimed meme, without investigating whether there is any validity to the assertion at all. Seems an extraordinary claim considering there has been no significant warming for 15 years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere are two warming trends which are near identical. One before CO2 rapid growth and one after:
http://aaronsenvironmental.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/girma_image31.png
Yes we recovered temperatures rapidly from the cold depths of the LIA (little ice age - the coldest period in human history), thank-you gaia. The rate of warming caused no disruption other than a huge increase in crop yields. We went from feeding 2 billion to feeding 7+ billion souls.
http://www.longrangeweather.com/images/GTEMPS.gif
Abrupt warming and cooling are common characteristics of climate on all time scales. Climate is never static and change runs the full gamut of rates.
Only models can produce anything exceptional. The truth is most kids entering college, have never seen global warming at any rate. GK
Mark
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually you raise a key point but unfortunately you appear misinformed on the science. CO2 will by most estimates reside in the atmosphere for many decades. This means that there is no other choice but to adapt to a climate with higher CO2 levels since there will remain in place for longer than anyone is alive today.
There is no path by which worldwide CO2 emissions will not continue to rise for several decades regardless of US actions. In reality, people are argureing about whether it makes sense to implement mitigation actions that would slightly slow the rate of CO2 increase.
I ask everyone this simple question. In 50 years, does it matter if the atmospheric concentration of CO2 is at 460 ppm instead of 475 ppm? In terms of changes to the climate there is no measureable difference. In terms of the weather there is no measureabe change to the people who will be alive 50 years from now. In term of the cost, it will cost the people alive today an awfully lot to accomplish virtually nothing of importance.
In terms of the cost to the people
@Karst:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour "no warming in the last 15 years" reference demeans you, science, and readers of this site in general. I do not have to explain it to the readers. It is a fuck-wit comment and you should be embarrassed for it.
Your factually incorrect reference to the earth both being 80% covered by water (it is 71.1%) and that the water is the primary determinant of temp is tenuous; and that is me being generous.
Your reference to the increase in crop yeilds being the result of warming is idiotic at best (and funny, because an increase in numbers of an agriculturally dependent population would most likely result in an increase in agricultural productivity, not to add technology, division of labor, and land use into the equation).
Please stop trolling here. And Rabbit, I have a degree in environmental science, but have not used it to date, other than to comment upon things such as these.
"Please stop trolling here. And Rabbit, I have a degree in environmental science, but have not used it to date, other than to comment upon things such as these."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is a bit like saying you have a drivers license but have never driven a car. Provide your evidence, your qualifications carry no weight without it. Good luck with the job search... could be a long one.
Btw: Thanks for correcting 80% to 70%, I had just come from an atmospheric discussion 80/20 and the numbers tend to be sticky. It does not change the content nor the excellent link provided. GK
You say that warming is increasing yields. The U.S. Midwest did not see an increase in yields this year or last; quite the opposite. Russia did not see an increase in 2010. Australia had a stretch of bad years before that. The heat wave events associated with these bad years have increased from covering less than 1% of the globe on average to covering more than 10%. Your opinion is at odds with reality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe ocean heat content is many times that of the atmosphere; so, you are correct that it matters more. However, since ocean heat content is rising, you seem to be suffering some disconnect with reality, again.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ocean+heat+content
@Karst:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo you have a degree in environmental science, from a renowned institution? The fact that I do and am not currently in the field does not mean that I am ignorant on the subject. You ask for evidence that I have a degree in the field? . . . Silly; I do.
Facts tend to be "sticky"? What the hell does that mean?
Regarding crop yields, my main refutation of your post, you dodge the argument by asking about my qualifications. Regardless of my qualifications, I present something very simple that most would agree with.
I ask you to provide readers here with evidence that a small warming is the primary cause of increased crop yields. You can not.
No, I asked for your evidence for your assertions:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"CO2 will by most estimates reside in the atmosphere for many decades."
Best current estimates of CO2 persistence is 6-7 years half life. This means most has been recycled by 2-3 half lives. I want a citation for your assertion.
"and that the water is the primary determinant of temp is tenuous; and that is me being generous."
If water is 71% of the planets surface than oceans are 71% of the GMT signal. If you can calculate percentages any other way, your environmental studies have been for naught. Please provide your tenuous connection.
"Your reference to the increase in crop yeilds being the result of warming is idiotic at best (and funny, because an increase in numbers of an agriculturally dependent population would most likely result in an increase in agricultural productivity"
Look forward to your evidence of such.
Don't fixate on your environmental degree... no one cares... which is why you are not using it. GK
"You say that warming is increasing yields. The U.S. Midwest did not see an increase in yields this year or last; quite the opposite. Russia did not see an increase in 2010."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are conflating a warming climate trend with heat waves accompanied by drought. Two different animals.
A warming climate is accompanied by an increase in evaporation hence an increase in precipitation on the measured empirically (not modeled) at 6.5% per degree Celsius of warming. This is the greening effect of GW.
Read: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=planning-picnic-in-warming-world-satellite-forecasts-more-rain&posted=1#comments
As to heat waves with dry conditions - with an increase of 6.5%\C increased rain there will be less drought - more growth. Deserts will bloom. Birds will sing.
Now , in regard to ocean heat content your reference:
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/figure-1.png?w=960&h=707&h=707
Truth is ocean heat content has been flat almost as long as GMT. Look closely at the last 12 years.
As to your last point... if YOUR perceived reality is being referenced... then not much, I guess. GK
"You are conflating a warming climate trend with heat waves accompanied by drought. Two different animals."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, they are not different. You do not get a warming trend without an increase in the exceptionally hot (and sometimes also dry) events. You can't increase the mean without increasing the frequency of the higher numbers use to calculate it. The trend is warming, and exceptionally hot events are increasing; that's not a model, those are observations.
You don't comprehend the math, and Bob purposefully misrepresents it.
Ocean heat content from a reliable source:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/#null
Those trends are not different, as they consist of the same data. Examine chart 4, 0-700m.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/#null
- in any event that was not the link you provided. You provided:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ocean+heat+content
- if you wanted me to consider another graph then you should have provided a different link.
However, it was hardly the content of my request for the supporting evidence of your assertions. Rhetoric is cheap and it was empirical evidence of your quoted assertions I was looking for. Read my provided quotes again. All I can hear is the crickets chirping outside. GK
No response to my observation of your problem with math. OK, but if you can't understand basic math, then continuing this discussion is pointless.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI provided you with a link that demonstrates how easy it is to find accurate information. You chose to cheery pick the information that is available and pretend that the ocean is only 700m deep.
"and exceptionally hot events are increasing; that's not a model, those are observations."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA simple barchart would suffice then, indicating an increase in such observations, especially compared to the dirty thirties. Crickets outside seem to be getting louder. GK
Let's cut the crap, GK. You are pretending not to be aware of Hansen's climate dice paper in the hope that I will put it forward. At which point you will say that the paper is fatally flawed because Hansen has chosen a baseline that comes after the American dust bowel, which was very hot time here in the US. Then I'll respond by pointing out that a) the 1950-1980 baseline was chosen because of the availability of quality data, and b) the world is globally hotter now than it was then, and we are talking about a global trend, c) an upward trend is an upward trend regardless of the baseline chosen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAfter that, it will devolve into an argument about math, and you've already demonstrated you aren't very good at math.
Correction: The published version of Hansen's study does include the 1930s.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120811_DiceDataDiscussion.pdf
Here I will help you out. This is the scatter chart for the USA:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/screenhunter_68-jul-08-13-26.jpg
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0177435a93d5970d-pi
An explanation of the C3 chart may be found here:
c3headlines.com/2012/07/extreme-global-warming-noaa-confirms-modern-us-warming-not-as-hot-vs-1930s.html
Let me know if you can find some global stats.
Gobsmacked, I am. GK
Btw: Here is the NOAA displayed data on wet/dry area chart:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c016769141e48970b-pi
Kind of makes me wonder, where all this hype comes from?? GK
When you get a credible source of information, let us know.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo you understand your mistake with the math yet?
Or, are you still confused about the fact that we are talking about a global trend?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“There has been no significant warming for 15 years.” Sure. Rather than citing a minor blog, let me refer to credible sources.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNASA:
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
NOAA:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/indicators/
US Navy:
http://greenfleet.dodlive.mil/climate-change/arctic-and-maritime-security/
Royal Society
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1934.toc
And all the freak storms are our imagination, I suppose.
Sisko,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are right about the consensual prediction that CO2 will continue to rise even in face of a reduction in industrial pollution.
But no effort at change will merely extrapolate an already uncomfortable situation. And let us not forget that the effort to develop a post-oil logistics is unavoidable, in face of the fact that there are only limited oil reserves in the ground. If the transition could be done before the full depletion of oil reserves, this would leave our descendants a fallback resource if one day their complex technology fails in face of a crisis. It would be smart to leave some low-tech reserves such as in oil as a safeguard.
The fact of the matter is that our business “leaders” have zero concern for long-range planning and simply cannot replace public officers and democratic public decision making in large issues.
I can only agree with the basic assumption of this article, that only efforts to coordinate these three areas will make succsess in each of them posssible; they are all interdependent.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLook people, I made a comment and I have defended that comment. You guys are demanding that I untangle the entire mess, that constitutes climate debate, for you - right now...on one thread.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you want to tackle "DICEY", wait for a thread on that paper. We can't get into it here. I'm just one old man. GK
We are going to solve these problems over the next quarter century as we ad another 2 billion more of us!? If you think the Earth's problems can get any better as our population swells you are living in a fantasy land. An Earth of 9 to 10 billion will be a living hell, and only the 0.001 will have decent life; even they will not be able to buy a tuna sandwich when the oceans are lifeless from over fishing and acidification caused by Global Warming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe it's paranoia of the Third World, but tell me why anyone, inside or outside of Panama, want to pay the global launch of "OCEANOGENIC POWER" which is the better coordination to follow the development started with hydrocarbons; not help, at least, with the evident, climate change; and not send more; CO<sup>2</sup> into the atmosphere, killing, if possible, to all the poor of the world with wars and famine.<br>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAssuming that someone dismiss this discovery, coincidentally of one of those marginalized, because it considers a big lie: At least, this is a better lie than The Davinci Code, promoted worldwide with millions of dollars.<br>
¡This will be profitability, but it not intelligence!
Hooray for the sanity of Mark656515 after all the discourtesy of most other posters on this article, and their determination to have a go at anybody who wants to do something to stop the human species trashing our one and only home.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSisko and G. Karst - I just wish I understood why you want to believe that climate scientists are in some conspiracy to fool the rest of us.
And thanks to Deweye for trying to return us to the important subject of the article.
Here is an article which recently came out:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released--chart-prove-it.html