Climate280
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Whole-Earth Management
The issues that emerged at the Copenhagen climate conference serve to remind us of the difficulty of solving complicated cross-national environmental problems. Ever since Rachel Carson and Barry Commoner first popularized the idea of a single interconnected biosphere, it’s been obvious that national sovereignty would make it difficult to solve some global environmental problems. The…
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There Was No Big Bang, and There Won’t Be
The three pages of text that emerged after years of preparation and two weeks of intense negotiation in Copenhagen signally fail to address what the document correctly calls “one of the greatest challenges of our time” – global climate change. To many, the Copenhagen Accord will seem a setback; actually, it is a continuation of…
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Cities Are Moving Ahead
Although critics have given harsh assessments of from the international summit at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, most probably would have concurred with the positive message flowing out of Copenhagen City Hall, the site of the Climate Summit for Mayors. The mayors’ summit emphasized local action to address climate change […]
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The (Welcome) End of Unanimity
The most common reaction to Copenhagen is dismay at the failure to reach binding emission reduction targets. But Copenhagen actually represents a major success. Why? It signals, finally, the abandonment of an experiment in hyper-multilateralism that never had much chance of success. From the early days of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the…
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The Many Fights Ahead
Last week ended with high drama and muddled results. As Friday’s workday began, Danish television was trained on the convoy of vehicles that would take President Obama to the Bella Center as soon as Air Force One landed. The landing took place around 9 a.m., and the president was immediately taken to a meeting of…
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What Does the Science Say?
The negotiations in Copenhagen have been handled by politicians and policy makers. But there would be no climate negotiations if climate scientists had not identified evidence that humans could disrupt the natural carbon cycle, and affect the climate system. The fact that some 50,000 people and the heads of most nations have come together indicates…
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Complex Models, Simple Solutions
Everyone knows that climate change is complex. The multitude of potential impacts, the uncertainties in projections, the intersection of historical responsibilities and current political realities all make negotiations fiendishly difficult. But can the very complexity of the subject be helpful in finding solutions? The answer might be […]
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Soot Adds to Melting of Earth’s ‘Third Pole’
Himalayan Glaciers Absorbing More Sun
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The Current May Be Shifting
As I write this a little after midnight on Thursday, less than 24 hours remain before the close of the Copenhagen talks. Local television is playing continuous loops of an English-language TV movie (with Danish subtitles) about an evil oil company that is trying to sabotage the “Kyoto 2 talks at Calgary” by pressuring the…
By studying thousands of buildings and analyzing their electricity use, Columbia Climate School Dean Alexis Abramson has been able to uncover ways to significantly cut energy consumption and emissions. Watch the Video: “Engineering a Cooler Future Through Smarter Buildings“