Elizabeth Kolbert recently interviewed Jane Lubchenco (pictured), appointed by President Obama as head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Kolbert comments that when Lubchenco was appointed the reaction among climate scientists was an almost audible sigh of relief. During the Bush administration the work of NOAA staff was frequently ignored or even suppressed, and Lubchenco’s appointment was seen as a sign of the new administration’s resolve to finally take NOAA’s work seriously.
Author: Bryan Walker
Copenhagen 6: taking up the challenge
The earlier sections of the Copenhagen congress synthesis report are, in this final section, summed up in forthright terms: “business-as-usual is deadâ€. Small marginal changes to the way society currently operates socio-economically and technologically won’t keep climate change within the 2 degree guardrail. Section 5 of the report affirmed that the tools are available for the transformation needed. Section 6 focuses on how societies can be engaged in making the transition to a more sustainable future. This has to be done on many scales, from individual to institutional and governmental, and at many levels, from changes in everyday behaviour to a reexamination of core values, beliefs and worldviews. It lies in the domain of the humanities and social sciences, which were represented at the congress.
TV3 on track this time
I was quick to condemn TV3 news for its gratuitous introduction of denialist claims into its item last week on the Greenpeace ship Esmeralda’s Pacific climate impact tour. It’s a pleasant duty to be equally quick to report that their story tonight on Oxfam’s concerns at the suffering of northern Ugandans from the effects of climate change was told straightforwardly and without any nods in the direction of denial. Mike McRoberts was on the scene and provided a report sympathetic to the plight of the unfortunate people he was taken to see.Â
Oxfam’s just-released report was the subject of the item, and it was made clear that Mike McRoberts presence in Uganda was as a result of an Oxfam invitation. It was straight reporting, in which TV3 was not itself required to take up any position on climate change, though it was clear from the manner of the presentation that they took Oxfam seriously. And they went to the trouble to make the report available on their website.
 I hope it means that TV3 has given up the notion that because it is reporting an organisation that takes climate change seriously it needs to insert a caveat that some don’t.
Copenhagen 5: inaction is inexcusable
The fifth section of the Copenhagen congress synthesis report  asserts that inaction is inexcusable. It calls for a combination of mitigation and adaptation strategies.  There is little that will not be already familiar to those who follow such matters, but the importance of the report is that it articulates a consensus of many professionals and carries a consequent authority. The intention is to give policy makers an up-to-date picture of the means open to us to deal with the reality ahead and to declare them adequate when properly integrated.
Go with the flow: NZ algae pioneers spark US interest
New Zealand company Aquaflow, which I wrote about in this post, has received praise in an article in Yale Environment 360 describing a project to use the city of Minneapolis’s sewage as a feedstock for algae from which biofuel can be derived. A University of Minnesota professor, Roger Ruan, is engaged in the research and speaks optimistically of its prospects. Early in the article comes this acknowledgement:
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