tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1029160846131679322024-03-08T00:45:54.038-05:00The Nature of Our HouseA scientist's perspective on some of the contemporary Great Issues of Environment often ignored, or misconstrued, in the daily news.George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-66047259673433359142017-04-17T15:09:00.000-04:002017-05-14T13:35:10.096-04:00<div class="MsoNormal">
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Of
Oliver Cromwell, Snow <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 5.0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">And
Electric Power in 2017<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> Oliver
Cromwell and the trials of the Donner
Party, came to mind recently as I floundered through snow and what seemed to be
a cascade of misfortune in restoring electricity to my farmhouse in southern
Maine, isolated and in danger of freezing after a gale-blown late February blizzard
. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> Cromwell,
bless him, not necessarily overwhelmed with mercy but glad of a chance to
finance his revolt, sold the Scots he
had captured in 1650 in the Battle of Dunbar into slavery as bond servants and
got rid of them by shipping them off to the colonies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> Among
them was a Micum McIntire who completed his servitude in Dover ,New Hampshire,
and ultimately settled in York, Maine.
By various means over years he and his progeny acquired substantial land
holdings in the south western parts of the town. More than 250 years later I
find myself the grateful heir of a McIntire farm originally established around
two knolls, drumlin-like hills well off the road running out Beech Ridge on the
southern side of the York River estuary.</span><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> I
enjoy that farm, now largely woodlot except for about ten acres of the higher
ground around The Knolls, which named the site from the earliest days. I keep a garden, fruit trees, a small young orchard, and occasionally sell
or barter wood and lumber. I have many
wild friends including a substantial deer herd, coyotes, woodchucks, a fisher, at least one owl, turkeys and, to my
surprise, bluebirds in late February this year. In winter I visit regularly,
keep the long driveway open and the house heated with a ground source heat pump
I built myself. Sixteen solar panels
provide all the electricity used on the farm.
I have a substantial farm tractor that keeps the road open when
necessary and does virtually any other big job.
A smaller tractor, a Farmall, is an antique but convenient adjunct for
trimming the fields and other usually light jobs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> In
February I had a flat front tire on the John Deere tractor. The heavy front wheel was repaired by
professionals and rode in the back of my truck as I drove to the farm to
restore electricity before the house froze. The Town does a good job of keeping its roads
open and I was not surprised to find the
end of my long lane blocked by a hard-packed four-foot snow bank which I
expected to have to move to find a place to take my small truck off the road
while I opened the lane with a
snowblower, a sorry substitute for the
immobilized John Deere. But the packed
snow was frozen and yielded not at all
to a furious attack with a snow
shovel. Perhaps my snow blower would open a path from
the back side when I made my way back down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> I
struggled into an insulated set of high, rubber-bottomed boots, slithered over
the berm into the softer snow beyond to make my way, one step at a time, more than a tenth of a mile uphill to the barn. It was heavy going through
wind-packed snow that proved the wisdom
of knee-high boots that laced more or less snugly. Each packed step was deliberate, measured,
balanced. The foot went, with
resistance, through the dense surface
into the softer snow beneath and found a firm basis for a step ahead without a
stumble. It was slow progress, slowed
further by four trees the storm had felled across the lane. I had to remember to
carry a chainsaw on my return, not the most convenient encumbrance when
managing a snow blower, which appeared to be the only possibility that seemed
realistic in moving this depth of snow. I continued, slowly up the hill, thinking of the Donner
party and their decision to stop their struggle, not to try either to push on
further or to retreat but to settle in for the winter where they were. I had a sure refuge in the barn, not warm but
certainly free of snow and equipped with a substantial snow-blower that promised freedom to move
around outside and recover my ill-parked
truck. Not so, the Donner Party
who found themselves immobile and without recourse. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> At
last in the barn, the snow blower was a new challenge. Normally it is started easily with electric
power, 110 volts. But the storm had broken
the connection to the power line and my panels were not producing sufficient
power to replace the normal supply.
Hand cranking was the only possibility.
Previous experience had not been encouraging, but I thought persistence
would ultimately succeed. It did not,
and energy for cranking ebbed early after the struggle up the hill.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> The
best solution would be the John Deere tractor with its four-wheeled drive and
ample power. But the all-essential wheel
was in the truck below and there was little interest or possibility
of rescuing a two-hundred pound burden
short of moving the truck. The immediate
alternative was to test the antique Farmall and its snowplow, regularly used in
light snows to scrape the driveway and clear space in front of the barn. There appeared to be a high probability of
finding the light tractor inadequate part way down the lane, stopped by the
depth of snow ahead and without traction to back out of the mess. I was apprehensive, envisioning a week’s work with
hand winches and chains in returning with the tractor through the snow to the
barn. I tested the potential for moving
snow in front of the barn and, with care and persistence, cleared the yard.
Encouraged, and boldly, with the plow raised to clear only the hard-packed
surface snow, I pushed my way to the downed trees, cut them away and to my
surprise pushed on the full length of the lane
to the road. Opening a free space there I was able to batter my way through the frozen snowbank and reach the dry, town-plowed
surface. Several passes with the plow
opened a single lane for the entire length of the driveway. Finally,
I praised myself mightily for skill in negotiating that narrow lane with the
t</span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">There
remained the core purpose: electricity to restore heat in the house.</span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">The generator is seldom used and sits on a small
Gravely trailer in a dark corner of the barn behind a heavy, wheeled, wood
splitter that must be moved to release the generator.</span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">The splitter is awkward to move in the best
of circumstances.</span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">This time it seemed
especially immobile.</span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">A cursory
examination with a flashlight revealed a flat tire, impossible to reach in that
dark and crowded barn.</span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">“Of course!” I
thought as misfortune accumulated.</span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">A
garage jack with wheels under it enabled</span><span style="color: #222222;">
</span><span style="color: #222222;">enough mobility to warp the heavy monster into a pocket and allow the
generator to come out onto the barn floor where it could be dusted off and tested.</span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">The battery, of course, was quite dead. A
jumper cable to a battery from a Gravely garden tractor in the barn </span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">did not energize the starter.</span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">Surprisingly, however, and against all odds, the
second pull on the hand crank, brought life to the generator, a handsome,
yellow, “Robin 6100”, that produced 220 volts in the proper places. The day was
late and cold. I was encouraged that I could now start the snow blower and
there might soon be power in the house….and heat.</span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">But the generator had to be at the
house.</span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">Several passes with the snow
blower opened a sufficient path to the house to man-handle the generator,
trailer and all, to the cellar door. A heavy cable from the generator to a
fitting in the 220 circuit put power back in the house.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Within
an hour the house was warming as the temperature outside dropped again. The
generator rewarded all that struggle by running on one tank of gasoline for 12
hours, restoring the new “normal” to The Knolls 367 years after Cromwell triggered
all these events by selling an ancestor into slavery.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> George
M. Woodwell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Woods
Hole, Massachusetts<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> April
5, 2017<o:p></o:p></span></div>
George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-29512668300544708652016-12-16T14:15:00.001-05:002016-12-16T14:15:04.335-05:00
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Nuclear is Not the Answer</span></b></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;">George M. Woodwell</span></b></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: center;">
<span style="margin: 0px;">December 2016</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The remains of the Chernobyl reactor
in the Ukraine have been sealed <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>recently
with a giant steel cap constructed at a distance and moved into position over
the still highly radioactive reactor core. The reactor exploded on April 26,
1986, more than 30 years ago.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The site and
its environs, many square miles, were heavily contaminated at the time. The
remains of the reactor are still a festering hazard and will be dangerous substantially
forever. The site, now expensively covered to contain the radioactive debris, constitutes
yet another segment of a finite and already densely occupied Earth, sacrificed to
a failed industrial venture. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Ionizing radiation is a biological
hazard because it breaks up molecules and makes them chemically active.
Chromosomes are large and especially vulnerable. Human exposures of any
intensity at all puts the integrity of the genetic structure at hazard. It
increases the frequency of mutations, not an attractive or even acceptable
circumstance. Exposures can be external as from an xray machine or from a
segment of a reactor core after an accident, or from radioactive particles incorporated
into tissues. Both routes are of continuing concern at Chernobyl and the giant
cover is designed to contain all the hazards of the reactor site. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It does nothing of course to restore the vast
areas contaminated with radioactive debris at the time of the explosion.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Meanwhile, global industries
struggle with the necessity for replacing fossil fuels as the principal source
of energy driving an energy –dependent industrial world.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Nuclear power is attractive to some because
it appears to offer large sources of electrical energy without releasing carbon
dioxide or methane, both heat trapping gases and the cause of the climatic disruption.
The industry also appears to be a mature in that there are now about 400
reactors operating in the world, presumably safely, despite the inherent
dangers of radioactivity.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Those dangers,
especially the hazards to the human genome, make the fuel cycle and operation
of the reactors necessarily “closed” systems that, at least nominally, contain
all wastes and other radiation hazards.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Closing” the system, while
necessary, is difficult to the point of impossibility. There is leakage and a
series of<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>hazards at virtually every
stage starting with the open-air mining of the uranium ore, its transportation,
refinement, and <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>continuing through to
the disposal and storage of used reactor <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>fuel rods and associated equipment. Accidents
are inevitable at every stage and the wastes accumulate and must be
accommodated. The system, carefully monitored as it is, cannot be perfect.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Although it is the model of a closed
industrial system, it is not closed and cannot be made so.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Despite major efforts, the
United States has not been able to establish a long-term burial site or other
safe disposal for radioactive wastes.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Used fuel rods, highly radioactive, are now cooled continuously in
special water-cooled tanks at each reactor, a “temporary” solution used for
decades. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The long-term burial site at
Yucca Mountain in Nevada has proven unsatisfactory because of potential leaks
and political objections. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="margin: 0px;">While we do make compromises as a matter of necessity, we assume
correctly that low exposures are safer than high exposures and carefully limit
all exposures.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And we aspire to keeping
the industry as a closed system, in fact the model of a closed system, thereby
protecting the integrity of the human genetic system.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="margin: 0px;">Closure must be perfect, but it cannot be so. Even containment is
difficult. Worse, there is no way to avoid the possibility of using the
enriched uranium designed for reactor use as the basis for developing bombs of
various types ranging from a simple rain of radioactive debris in a ‘dirty’
bomb to a nuclear weapon.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There is no
way of policing an increasingly crowded world of 7-10 billion people to keep
the highly toxic wastes of a proliferating nuclear power industry safely
contained. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The attractiveness of large reactors
is understandable, especially if one takes the perspective of an industry that
generates and sells electricity.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A large
central source of electricity distributed over extensive power lines to
thousands of users is an attractive investment.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>If fossil fueled plants are to be avoided, as is now clearly necessary,
a nuclear-powered plant might confer some of the same advantages and feed the
same delivery system.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So the arguments
in favor of nuclear power emerge repeatedly despite the complexities of the </span><span style="margin: 0px;">industry.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>One of the
possibilities often advanced is the development of small “fail-safe” reactors
that can be scattered over the landscape close to points of major demand. These
reactors present the same set of issue, if smaller scale than large
reactors.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Both, when operated, mark a
spot on the earth that is from that moment on irrevocably committed to continuous
care in protecting the public from radioactive debris, a very expensive
“sacrifice zone” not available for any other use.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Economic gradients favor common
sense in this instance. Nuclear power plants are<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>expensive to build and require years for
construction as well as extraordinary efforts in assuring safety. The energy
involved in the mining, transport and refining of fuels, and<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>in virtually all other aspects of
construction and maintenance, is fossil fuels, not a trifling matter<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>By comparison with rapidly emerging
renewable energy sources that can be widely dispersed and require little
maintenance, nuclear fails again.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>As
techniques for storage of electricity improve and the efficiency and variety of
renewable sources of energy increase, the interest in and viability of nuclear
energy will drop rapidly away. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The nuclear power industry is an
excellent model of a closed industrial system that is “clean by design” but can
never be clean enough or even reliably safe. As a model for other industries
that must also conform to closed-system standards, it stands alone, rich with
experience and insights and endowed with more than 400 special sites globally
that are sacrifice zones,<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>areas of an
increasingly crowded earth available now for no other purpose. Nuclear energy
is fascinating and rich in lessons, but it has no potential in resolving the
crisis of climate.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Adapted from: G.M. Woodwell 2016<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">. AWorld to Live In: An Ecologist’s Vision
for a Plundered Planet. </b>MIT, Cambridge<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<br /></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-89550006080333821172016-10-21T16:47:00.000-04:002016-10-21T21:19:27.257-04:00<div class="WordSection1">
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<b>THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE TO OPTIMISM<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
<b>George M. Woodwell <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
<b>Building the NEW WORLD <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
<b>Lessons from our Own Time<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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This election makes it very clear that it is time for a new
hard look at objectives in government and economics and that we and our
students should be leading the way. Here is an opportunity to have a look at
what one ecologist can offer in a sense of optimism and hope for the next
decades, a new world consistent with the transition away from fossil fuels and
into a world of restored environmental integrity. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The book: <b>A World To
Live In: An Ecologist’s Vision For A Plundered Planet </b>is available for a
short time from MIT Press at a substantial
discount.<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> (30% discount at </span>Writes:<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">mitpress.mit.edu/world with digital
discount code MWORLD30 through
11/30/2016)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">New from the MIT Press:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 30.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A World to Live In: An Ecologist’s Vision for
a Plundered Planet</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #231f20; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">George
M. Woodwell</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">century</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">of</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">industrial development</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">is the</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">briefest</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">of</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">moments</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">in the</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">half bil- lion</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">years of the earth’s</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">evolution.</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And yet our</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">current</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">era has</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">brought greater changes</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">to the</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">earth than</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">any</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">period</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">in</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">human hist</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ory.</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">biosphere, the globe’s</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">life-giving</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">envelope of air and climate,
has</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">been changed</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">irreparably.</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In A</span><i><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> World to</span></i><i><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i><i><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Live</span></i><i><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i><i><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In</span></i><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">,</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> ecologist George</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Woodwell shows that the</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">biosphere</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">is now a</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">global</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">human protectorate</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and that its</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">integrity</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">of</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">structure</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">function</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">are</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">tied closely</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">to the</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">human</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">future. The earth is a living system, Woodwell
explains, and its stability is threatened by human disruption. Industry
dumps its waste globally and makes a profit from it, invading the global
commons; corporate interests overpower weak or nonexistent governmental
protection to plunder the planet. The fossil fuels industry offers the
most dramatic example of environmental destruction, disseminating the
heat-trapping gases that are now warming the earth and changing the climate
forever. The assumption that we can continue to use fossil fuels and “adapt” to
climate disruption, Woodwell argues, is a ticket to</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: 1.25pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">catastrophe.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But
Woodwell points the way toward a solution.</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: -.35pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: -.35pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">must respect the full range of life on
earth—not species alone, but their natural communities of plant and animal life
that have built, and still maintain, the biosphere.</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: -.35pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: -.35pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">must recognize that the earth’s
living systems are our heritage and that the preservation of the integrity
of a finite biosphere is a necessity and an inviolable human</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">right. And he outlines how to go about it.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #231f20; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; font-size: 7.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">George
M. Woodwell</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; font-size: 7.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; font-size: 7.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">is
Founder, President, and Director Emeritus of the Woods Hole Research Center,
Woods Hole, Massachusetts. He is a member of the National Academy</span><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; font-size: 7.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">of
Sciences, a former president of the Ecological Society of America, a former
Vice Chairman of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the author of</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; font-size: 7.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><i><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; font-size: 7.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Forests in a Full World</span></i><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; font-size: 7.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">,</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; font-size: 7.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><i><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; font-size: 7.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Nature of House: Building a World That Works</span></i><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; font-size: 7.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, and
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<b><span style="color: #231f20; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Woodwell
calls for a fundamental rethink </span></b><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">to ensure the protection of the global commons. . . [He] is
to be commended for clearly outlining the threats and sketching out a
bold solution" </span></b><b><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—Julia</span></b><b><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></b><b><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; letter-spacing: -.2pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fahrenkamp‑</span></b><b><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; letter-spacing: -.2pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></b><b><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Uppenbrink,</span></b><b><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; letter-spacing: 1.85pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></b><b><i><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: ""serif"","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Scienc</span></i></b><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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| $29.95 Trade | £19.95 | 978-0-262-03407-4 | 248 pp. | 6 x 9 in eBook | $20.95
Trade | 978-0-262-33367-2 | 248 pp.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-55222451349954933762016-10-12T09:28:00.001-04:002016-10-21T16:51:04.785-04:00<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Of Money, Biophysics and Government<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">2016<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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Jane Mayer’s new
book, <b><i>Dark Money,</i></b> sets forth with
frightening clarity and compelling detail how sinister the problem of money in politics has become<a href="file:///C:/Users/GeorgeM/Documents/A-Op-Ed%20Mss/Of%20Money%20%209.11.16.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>.
The issue has been amplified in various tracts \ , none more simply stated and powerful
than Bill Moyers’ widely circulated essay deploring the concentration of wealth
in the hands of one percent of the populace while the majority is systematically
impoverished<a href="file:///C:/Users/GeorgeM/Documents/A-Op-Ed%20Mss/Of%20Money%20%209.11.16.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> .<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"> </span>Mayer<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"> </span> deplores the conspiracy of the Koch brothers and allies in advancing that
transition and supporting the patently false proposition that the free
enterprise capitalistic system assures the welfare of all without governmental
interference or regulation. She shows how corporate interests have used
tax-free "public interest" institutions to advance the 1980 Reagan
mantra of "getting government off
the backs of the people". Their
efforts have produced the neo-conservative
congressional leaders who refuse to perform the duties of their elected
offices. These same seditious officials have also frustrated efforts to correct
corporate exploitation of environment for profit including in particular all efforts
to control the climatic disruption now wreaking havoc globally. . </div>
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Neither author considers the biophysical limits of the earth
as now limiting, if not defining, core political and economic objectives. Growth of the human enterprise alone generates
a soaring need for rules to protect not only public health and welfare but also
corporate safety and welfare. Here I am
guilty of blatant self-promotion for I have written about these limits recently
<a href="file:///C:/Users/GeorgeM/Documents/A-Op-Ed%20Mss/Of%20Money%20%209.11.16.docx#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>. I join in showing that it is now essential to invert the Reagan mantra and to restore the
integrity of governmental function. The objective becomes building a government
that works in assuring the full functional integrity of the global environment to
accommodate growth in all aspects of the human endeavor. We who thrive on growth travel a one-way
street into a compelling need for regulation of human affairs in the interests
of protecting welfare, including civil rights, as human numbers swell,
corporate aspirations expand and the human undertaking intensifies. There is no turning back to simpler times on this
road into life in an ever tightening world whose core functions demand a
delicately defined set of circumstances to support all life.</div>
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These developments are products of biophysical reality, ineluctable products of growth, not to be set
aside by what amount to bribes from corporate interests aimed at turning
governmental purpose to corporate advantage.
Roots of the changes required to correct these trends lie in the
realities of the physical, chemical and biotic integrity the earth, whose
continued function is ever more important to human welfare and challenged as
never previously. Answers lie not only
in a new economy and a restoration of
responsibility and reason in government but also in using scientific insights
into the elementary biophysics of
crowding a planet with 7-10 billion humans. </div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/GeorgeM/Documents/A-Op-Ed%20Mss/Of%20Money%20%209.11.16.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Jane Mayer. <b><i>Dark Money</i></b>. Doubleday,
N.Y. 2016</div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/GeorgeM/Documents/A-Op-Ed%20Mss/Of%20Money%20%209.11.16.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176184/tomgram%3A_bill_moyers%2C_money_and_power_in_america/#more"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt;">http://www.</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; text-decoration: none;">tomdispatch</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt;">.com/post/176184/tomgram%3A_bill_moyers%2C_money_and_power_in_america/#more</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"> </span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/GeorgeM/Documents/A-Op-Ed%20Mss/Of%20Money%20%209.11.16.docx#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
George M. Woodwell. <b><i>A World to Live In.</i></b> MIT. Cambridge, MA. 2016<b><i><o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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George M. Woodwell</div>
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Woods Hole, MA Sept. 11, 2016</div>
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George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-56805469369546575842013-10-02T10:55:00.001-04:002013-10-02T10:55:38.378-04:00Warren on the Republican Defection<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Elizabeth Warren on the Republican
Derogation of Duty</span></b></div>
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Congress
passed the Affordable Care Act to solve a real, honest-to-God problem.</div>
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Our
health care system was broken. 48 million people in this country had no health
insurance. Women couldn't get access to cancer screenings. People with diabetes
were denied health insurance because of pre-existing conditions. People with
cancer hit the caps on their health insurance spending. And health spending in
this country was growing far too fast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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So we
worked hard, we compromised, and we came up with a solution. A solution that
will substantially improve the lives of millions of Americans <span style="font-family: Tahoma;">–</span> because that's the way a democracy
works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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It's
time to end the debate about whether the Affordable Care Act should exist and
whether it should be funded.</div>
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Congress
voted for this law. President Obama signed this law. The Supreme Court upheld
this law. The President ran for reelection on this law. His opponent said he
would repeal it <span style="font-family: Tahoma;">–</span> and his opponent lost
by five million votes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Right
now, Republicans are taking the government and the economy hostage, threatening
serious damage to both unless the President agrees to gut the Affordable Care
Act. For days, they even tried to change the law so that employers can deny
women access to birth control coverage.</div>
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I am
the mother of a daughter and the grandmother of granddaughters. I will never
vote to let a group of backward-looking ideologues cut women's access to birth
control. We have lived in that world, and we are not going back. Not ever.</div>
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I see
things like this and I wonder what alternate reality some of my colleagues are
living in.</div>
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So
let me be very clear about what is happening in the real world: The Affordable
Care Act is the law of the land. Millions of people are counting on it <span style="font-family: Tahoma;">–</span> people who need health care coverage, people
who need insurance policies that don't disappear just when they are sickest.</div>
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The
law is here to stay, and it will stay.</div>
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Now
the government is shut down. We haven't fixed the sequester because of all the
obstruction. We haven't finished a budget because of all the obstruction. We
haven't even passed a single appropriations bill because of all the
obstruction.</div>
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The
least we can do <span style="font-family: Tahoma;">–</span> the bare minimum we
can do <span style="font-family: Tahoma;">–</span> would be to pass a
"continuing resolution" to open the doors back up and turn the lights
back on. We could ensure that over a million federal workers aren't staying
home for no reason. We could end the government shutdown.</div>
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But
the Republicans have refused to do even that. They have shuttered the
government unless the President agreed to de-fund the Affordable Care Act.</div>
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The
threats may continue, but they are not working and they never will. In a
democracy, hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can't win their
fights through elections, can't win their fights in Congress, can't win their
fights for the Presidency, and can't win their fights in Courts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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For
this right-wing minority, hostage-taking is all they have left <span style="font-family: Tahoma;">–</span> a last gasp of those who cannot cope with
the realities of our democracy.</div>
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The
time has come for those legislators who cannot cope with the reality of our
democracy to get out of the way <span style="font-family: Tahoma;">–</span> so
that those of us in BOTH parties can get back to working on solving the real
problems faced by the American people.</div>
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George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-49439986022120309992013-09-22T10:03:00.001-04:002013-09-22T10:03:28.807-04:00The Circle Closes<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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. The Circle Closes. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The NY
Times closed its environment desk but Tom Friedman has not stopped thinking. Here
is one of the most important political insights in recent months. It flings a
challenge to science, both in defining the problem and in opening channels for
solutions. But governments have to be able to hear, to understand, and to
respond. Never previously has the basic knowledge of the biosphere been so
important or so forthrightly challenged. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>GMW</div>
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<h1>
Mother Nature and the Middle Class</h1>
<h6>
By <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/thomaslfriedman/index.html" title="More Articles by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN">THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN</a></h6>
<h6>
Published The New York Times: September 21, 2013 <span class="commentcount"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/opinion/sunday/mother-nature-and-the-middle-class.html?ref=thomaslfriedman&_r=0#commentsContainer">14
Comments</a></span></h6>
IF you fell asleep 30 years ago, woke up last week and quickly scanned the
headlines in Iran and Egypt you could be excused for saying, “I didn’t miss a
thing.” The military and the Muslim Brotherhood are still slugging it out along
the Nile, and Iranian pragmatists and ideologues are still locked in a duel for
control of their Islamic Revolution. So go back to sleep? Not so fast. I can
guarantee that the next 30 years will not be the same old, same old. Two huge
new forces have muscled their way into the center of both Egyptian and Iranian
politics, and they will bust open their old tired duopolies. <br />
The first newcomer is Mother Nature. Do not mess with Mother Nature. Iran’s
population in 1979 when the Islamic Revolution occurred was 37 million; today
it’s 75 million. Egypt’s was 40 million; today it’s 85 million. The stresses
from more people, climate change and decades of environmental abuse in both
countries can no longer be ignored or bought off. <br />
On July 9, Iran’s former agriculture minister, Issa Kalantari, an adviser to
Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, <a href="http://iranpulse.al-monitor.com/index.php/2013/07/2353/iran-becoming-uninhabitable-says-former-agriculture-minister/">spoke
to this reality in the Ghanoon newspaper</a>: “Our main problem that threatens
us, that is more dangerous than Israel, America or political fighting, is the
issue of living in Iran,” said Kalantari. “It is that the Iranian plateau is
becoming uninhabitable. ... Groundwater has decreased and a negative water
balance is widespread, and no one is thinking about this.” <br />
He continued: “I am deeply worried about the future generations. ... If this
situation is not reformed, in 30 years Iran will be a ghost town. Even if there
is precipitation in the desert, there will be no yield, because the area for
groundwater will be dried and water will remain at ground level and evaporate.”
Kalantari added: “All the bodies of natural water in Iran are drying up: Lake
Urumieh, Bakhtegan, Tashak, Parishan and others.” Kalantari concluded that the
“deserts in Iran are spreading, and I am warning you that South Alborz and East
Zagros will be uninhabitable and people will have to migrate. But where? Easily
I can say that of the 75 million people in Iran, 45 million will have uncertain
circumstances. ... If we start this very day to address this, it will take 12
to 15 years to balance.” <br />
In Egypt, soil compaction and rising sea levels have already led to
saltwater intrusion in the Nile Delta; overfishing and overdevelopment are
threatening the Red Sea ecosystem, and unregulated and unsustainable
agricultural practices in poorer districts, plus more extreme temperatures, are
contributing to erosion and desertification. The World Bank estimates that
environmental degradation is costing Egypt 5 percent of gross domestic product
annually. <br />
But just as Mother Nature is demanding better governance from above in both
countries, an emergent and empowered middle class, which first reared its head
with the 2009 Green revolution in Iran and the 2011 Tahrir revolution in Egypt,
is doing so from below. A government that just provides “order” alone in either
country simply won’t cut it anymore. Order, drift and decay were tolerable when
populations were smaller, the environment not so degraded, the climate less
volatile, and citizens less technologically empowered and connected. <br />
Both countries today need “order-plus” — an order that enables dynamism and
resilience, and that can be built only on the rule of law, innovation,
political and religious pluralism, and greater freedoms. It requires political
and economic institutions that are inclusive and “sustainable,” in both senses
of that word. Neither country can afford the old line that Hosni Mubarak used
for so many years when addressing American leaders: “After me comes the flood,
so you’d better put up with my stale, plodding but stable leadership, otherwise
you’ll get the Muslim Brotherhood.” <br />
That is so 1970s. As Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie
Endowment, puts it: In the Middle East today “it’s no longer ‘After me, the
flood’ — Après moi, le déluge — but ‘After me, the drought.’ ” Syria’s
revolution came on the heels of the worst drought in its modern history, to
which the government failed to respond. <br />
Iran’s Islamic leadership seems to realize that it cannot keep asking its
people to put up with crushing economic sanctions to preserve a nuclear weapons
option. Mother Nature and Iran’s emergent middle classes require much better
governance, integrated with the world. That’s why Iran is seeking a nuclear
deal now with Washington. <br />
And that’s why two of the most interesting leaders to watch today are
President Rouhani of Iran and Egypt’s new military strongman, Gen. Abdul Fattah
el-Sisi. Both men rose up in the old order, but both men were brought into the
top leadership by the will of their emergent middle classes and newly empowered
citizens, and neither man will be able to maintain order without reforming the
systems that produced them — making them more sustainable and inclusive. They
have no choice: too many people, too little oil, too little soil. <br />
And pay attention: What Mother Nature and these newly empowered citizens
have in common is that they can both set off a wave — a tsunami — that can
overwhelm their systems at any moment, and you’ll never see it coming. <br />
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George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-32403784822555432162013-08-06T18:05:00.000-04:002013-08-06T18:44:12.289-04:00Science Leads Government! <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<h2>
</h2>
<h3 itemprop="name">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="5929337061594102061"></a>Science Leads Government! </h3>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Science and the Purpose of Government </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">in </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">A<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Crumbling Biosphere <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>II</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>The purpose of government is rarely debated yet it is
before us daily in legislatures, committees, boards of selectmen, our courts
and in all the news. And purpose changes profoundly with time, with the growth
of the human population, with technology and with experience and aspirations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no doubt: the purposes of government
are manifold and complex and ever mutable. And they are tested ever more
intensively as<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the biosphere comes under
greater pressures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the moment,
however, for simplicity I focus on civil rights, the protection of each from the
activities of all, and all from the activities of each. The golden rule in some
form has been the core of governmental purpose for all of time in every
civilization worthy of respect. It has many formulations. Much of the world
recognizes it as the principle of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sic
Utere</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas</i>)“Carry yourself in such a way
as not to interfere with others”</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That charge
has stood the tests of time and continues to emerge as the core of civil rights
whose protection we steadfastly assign to governments the world over.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yet the
world of the 21<sup>st</sup> Century is a new world,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>crowded beyond precedent with 7 billion
humans whose numbers continue to expand. It is changing drastically as humans
disrupt<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>climates globally and change the
chemistry of air, water and land, and invent ever new ways of interacting and
communicating with one another. The mechanical demands of life in this new
crowded world are ever more stringent, esoteric, difficult to interpret, let
alone to see through to a just conclusion protecting the interests of all. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That point
became abundantly clear in the United States in the 1950’s and 1960’s as<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the world recognized for the first time that
humans had made an indelible mark on the earth with radioactivity and a global
contamination with agricultural poisons and industrial chemical wastes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The US government responded wisely with
famous legislation that became a model for the world. We established the
Environmental Protection Agency and a series of laws designed to protect air
and water and land and people from industrial and other poisons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recognizing the technical difficulties, the
Congress also established within itself and for its own support in legislating,
a special Office of Technology Assessment in 1972. The office accumulated a
superb staff of specialists who functioned in helping the Congress develop
insights and laws in a more and more complex world, quite beyond the ken of
most citizens and lawmakers. It was a brilliant move and a very valuable agency
until short sighted, conservative interests in the Congress in 1995 managed to
snuff it out in favor of allowing industrial interests greater license to
intrude on human welfare for profit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Meanwhile,
the issues become more intensely threatening, more complicated, more subtle.
Large corporations have money enough to control government at the cost of the
public welfare. Corporations can effectively claim and use the entire global
atmosphere for their wastes and extract a subsidy from the global public in the
form of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a disastrously eroding climatic
system. The exploitive interests thrive on public and governmental
ignorance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And government, too, becomes
an offender as various agencies pursue their missions with narrow purpose. The
Navy, for instance, enters the oceans with very high energy, low frequency
sound used to detect submarines, and kills marine mammals over large areas. .
There are many other effects of that intrusion , difficult to determine, but
real enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The counter-pressures in
the public interest come from non-profit, non-governmental agencies such as the
conservation law groups, some, such as the NRDC and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the EDF, brilliantly staffed with<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>scientists and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>lawyers<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>who struggle with the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>politically
possible moment by moment. They cannot change the context, only modify the
direction at the moment. Changing the context requires much more fundamental
insight, scientific power, and persistence in advancing basic ecological
facts.. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I use these
as examples of the complexity and range of interests in <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>environment that emerge as the human occupancy
of the earth intensifies. There is no easy flow of information on how the world
works supporting legislators, who, no matter their academic experience, are
bound to be behind the frontiers of demand for information. Their sources are
limited. By far the bulk of the scientific community resides in universities
whose purpose, not surprisingly, is to offer students as wide and interesting a
menu in education as possible. It is not focused specifically on issues before
the government, although universities can do anything they wish. But the point
is that the university has an educational mission, not a public service mission
in government, whatever the needs of government at any time.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There is a
new and urgent need for science in the public service, specifically aimed at
protecting the public welfare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although
buried in confusion and complexity, respect for the golden rule persists and
requires well focused attention in the context of biophysics. That realm is the
scientific world of environmental research, ecology, and it sets the
requirements for governmental effectiveness. . It is, or should be,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the realm of the national laboratories with
specialized missions such as the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the
one-time Nuclear Energy Laboratories of the Department of Energy, the NOAA
laboratories and the EPA research programs.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It is also
an array of non-profit laboratories and agencies that address specific
environmental topics from energy and basic ecology to the global oceans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Laboratories in Woods Hole fit that class,
especially The Woods Hole Research Center,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Ecosystems Center, and The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for examples. The Carnegie Institution of
Washington has long served that function, although its recent programs have
been more limited than in the earlier years when they made major advances over
decades in basic ecology, agriculture and land management.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Rocky<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Mountain Institute serves those purposes in energy magnificently. These
scientific enterprises define purpose, methods and success in government.
Economics and politics are tools, not objectives<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>per se. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Once again
there is a screaming need for insights into the issues of ecology now emergent as
issues of global human welfare. The most important is the restoration of the
integrity of function of the biosphere as a whole. That array of topics
requires the development of experts cultured deliberately over time. It may
take private financing for they will be challenging corporate interests at
every turn, forcing the government to do its core job in protecting the public
interest over corporate interests. This argument is not for the fusion of such
interests into the university structure. Quite the opposite. It is for the
proliferation and encouragement of such independent laboratories operating with
the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>express purpose of providing
scientific insights into global biophysics. It is a tragedy that we do not have
arguments raging at this moment and searing the skin of political leaders who
are reluctant to take the steps needed immediately to reverse the climatic
disruption. The scientific community should be up in arms and offering the
steps to effectiveness. Instead they are wilting into a suicidal policy of
Adaptation. The industry could not ask for more!</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The human
future now entrained assures the melting of all the ice in the world and a sea
level rise of 225 feet. No one knows for sure the time schedule. The melting is
proceeding far more rapidly than anticipated as are other transitions. Problems
exist now and will only be intensified in years to decades. There are not many
who would set that transition as an acceptable objective for the common purposes
of mankind, already challenged by seven billion people. Avoiding it requires
action now, concerted action in reversing current global trends. Science has
defined the problem and must be engaged in developing a plan for a New World
that can assure support for a vigorous human presence into the foreseeable
future. Defining that world and how to build it is an urgent mission. It will
not flow easily from the free-enterprise science of the university system. Nor
will it flow from conservation interests focused on “biodiversity” in all of
its myriad meanings and forms commonly preserved in parks and refuges. It must
become a core purpose of government, assigned as a responsibility to each
nation to preserve the functional integrity of its land and water in the
interest of preserving a biosphere as the habitat of all life. Success is not
simply defined for the chemistry required is in fact detailed and
demanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many industrial processes
rely on dumping wastes that are inconsistent with these interests and must be
abolished or changed fundamentally. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Science has
s big role in defining purposes, methods and tools of government in meeting its
obligations in protecting the public welfare, now and into the future. That role
is not the business of universities, although they can and do claim it on
occasion. And it <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>does not necessarily
flow automatically from government or governmental agencies which become from
time to time political tools and must be redirected. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is now a new, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>soaring need not only for non-governmental environmental
action agencies pursuing conservation law <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(NRDC, EDF, CLF) but adjunct agencies defining
the essential qualities of the biosphere and how to restore and protect them.
Those are biophysical essentials, some esoteric such as pheromones and some as
common as bees and pollination. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Scientists
have a large new job to pursue on an emergency basis. Our institutional <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>job is leading that transition. Well defined <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it will be well supported with private as well
as public funds. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>George
M. Woodwell</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>Woods
Hole</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>August
8, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2013</div>
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George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-26709873201274493062013-07-24T10:25:00.000-04:002013-07-24T10:25:03.942-04:00Saving the Earth from Climatic Disruption<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Saving the Earth from Climatic Destruction</span></b></div>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
George M. Woodwell*
and Richard A. Houghton**</div>
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The annual tax on GDP around the
world from the climatic disruption has now reached well into the hundreds of
billions of dollars and tens of thousands of early deaths. While economists
have hardly led the world in acknowledging the emergency and in deflecting
it, their recent annual field day in Davos produced some lucid and
welcome insights. They had a World Bank report and a new World Bank president
calling for immediate action.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a> <span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>Christine
Lagarde of the IMF was unequivocal in her response to a question: “Unless
we take action on climate change, future generations will be roasted, toasted,
fried and grilled.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The question is what to do.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The popular discussion seems to
revolve around accepting a two-degree C rise in the global <span class="BodyTextFirstIndent2Char">temperature as tolerable and controllable. The
suggestion is that the two-degree goal has</span> been blessed as safe by
a consensus of science. It is not a consensus of scientists nor is it correct
that a rise to two degrees would be benign. The two-degree threshold was
emphasized in the negotiations during the 15<sup>th</sup> Conference of
the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen in
December 2009. It was an economic and political compromise that appeared
to offer some room to establish effective action in reducing emissions
globally. It does not have a scientific consensus behind it. It is,
unfortunately, an attractive trap in that the current atmospheric burden
exceeds the 1992 agreement under the Framework Convention to prevent dangerous
interference with the climate system. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The warming to date has been about
0.8 degree C and the effects are conspicuous. The glacial melting in particular
is moving more rapidly than most scientists had anticipated and considerably
more rapidly than assumed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A thoroughly detailed report by the US
Geological Survey compiled over years and dealing with the world’s glaciers
observes that “… since the late 19<sup>th</sup> century, all of Iceland’s
glaciers have decreased in area and thickness…. Since 1995…the decrease has
been quite dramatic…. [They] will virtually disappear by 2200.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[4]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Greenland and West Antarctic ice caps are also melting much more rapidly than
earlier predictions. They contain in total as much as forty feet of sea level
rise.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[5]</span></span></span></span></a> A
continuation of the accelerating rise in temperature will melt all the glacial
ice and raise sea level by 75 meters, more than 225 feet. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The big issue that forecloses
limiting an increase in mean global temperature to 2 degrees C, or even the
present 0.8 degree, is the warming itself, most threatening in the
Arctic. It is a double threat in that the warming is greater in the
higher latitudes than elsewhere and the Arctic contains a massive quantity of
carbon potentially vulnerable to release as carbon dioxide and methane. The
largest carbon pool is in the soils and peat of the tundra. There is also a
significant pool in the soils and vegetation of the boreal forest. Both are
circumpolar. Much of the peat in these landscapes is several too many feet
deep. Some of it, containing an estimated 1700 billion tons of carbon,<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_edn6" name="_ednref6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[6]</span></span></span></span></a><sup> </sup>twice
the current amount in the atmosphere, has been frozen in permafrost for
thousands of years. Thawed, the carbon in peat and mineral soils is
vulnerable to decay with the release of both carbon dioxide and methane.
Substantial quantities of methane have accumulated through slow decay over
thousands of years in frozen soils and are released as the thawing proceeds.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_edn7" name="_ednref7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[7]</span></span></span></span></a> Some is
in crystalline form in shallow coastal waters that are also vulnerable to the
warming. The total quantities of carbon dioxide and methane available from
these sources are uncertain. They are, however, large enough to affect the
current atmospheric burden and to be a major factor in the array of positive
feedbacks associated with the warming.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_edn8" name="_ednref8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[8]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
While the Earth has warmed by less
than 1 degree C, the Arctic has warmed by 2-3 degrees, more in some places, and
the process of thawing long frozen soils is underway. The thawing of soils is a
significant immediate source of methane. If organic decay is also
stimulated, it has the potential for flooding the Earth with carbon dioxide far
beyond any capacity we have for controlling it by reducing human
emissions. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The alternative is an overt,
immediate, effort to stop the warming and ultimately to re-freeze the Arctic.
The first step is a rapid stabilization of the concentration of carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere as agreed to by all the nations in 1992 when they signed and
ultimately ratified the Framework Convention on Climate Change. The
action now requires reductions in human emissions from deforestation and
combustion of fossil fuels. Ultimately, a reduction in the
heat-trapping gas content of the atmosphere will require abandonment of fossil
fuels and a major effort at reforestation of the earth to sequester as much
carbon as possible over the next decades.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
It may not be possible. The Arctic
release may not be controllable at this late date. There is no
alternative to attempting to check the process by cooling the earth now with
the most powerful and safe methods. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The following are the facts. The
total current releases from human activities are more than 10 billion tons of
carbon from burning fossil fuels and from deforestation and degradation of,
largely, tropical forests. The deforestation is contributing more than one
billion tons of carbon. Burning fossil fuels is the rest, about 9.5 billion
tons in 2011.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_edn9" name="_ednref9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[9]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Of those ten billion tons between 4
and 5 billion tons accumulate in the atmosphere. This accumulation is the
immediate problem. It is rising. In the past year it was more than 5 billion
tons, the second highest ever.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_edn10" name="_ednref10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[10]</span></span></span></span></a> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The remainder of the 10 billion ton release is
absorbed into the oceans and into terrestrial vegetation, largely forests.
Those marine and terrestrial “sinks” amount currently to about 5 billion tons
of carbon annually. They are vulnerable, of course. Forests are
vulnerable to disease and fire and drought as temperatures rise. The oceans
absorb less carbon dioxide as the surface waters warm and become more acidic.
And yet, we can, at this moment take advantage of the present
circumstance to, first, stabilize the atmospheric composition, and, ultimately,
to reverse the trends in climate. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
There is no escape from reducing
the use of fossil fuels. On the other hand, management of land and forests to
conserve carbon is essential and will be significant. The first step is to stop
further degradation and destruction of primary forests globally.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_edn11" name="_ednref11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[11]</span></span></span></span></a> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That single step would remove more than 1
billion tons of carbon from the current emissions and from the annual
accumulation. Second, natural forests can be restored to deforested lands
in the normally naturally forested zones. A newly forested area of 2-4
million square kilometers stores, conservatively, about a billion tons of
carbon annually during the phase of maximum growth of trees. Such an area or
more can be found globally. Those two steps, desirable in any analysis of beneficial
land management policies, would account for more than 2 billion tons of carbon
annually from the 5 billion tons in excess currently. Thirdly, in an emergency,
harvesting of secondary forests globally could be curtailed to avoid carbon
releases during a transition period to ease pressures on use of fossil fuels.
The combined effects would absorb and store in plants and soil 3-5 billion
tons of carbon, annually, a major increment in starting the return toward the
300 ppm of the atmosphere at the beginning of the 20<sup>th</sup> century.
Simultaneously, reductions in use of fossil fuels are essential, beginning at
once.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Those steps would constitute a
totally appropriate recognition of the urgency of stabilizing the biosphere,
opening a new era in the industrial age with new industries with local foci,
new jobs and new economic opportunities globally. There is no question
that the human enterprise can be operated successfully and beneficially on
renewable energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Within the last five
years the cost of wind and direct solar energy has dropped to make it
attractive in many circumstances on the basis of price alone. The transition
must be now and rapidly advanced to deflect the drain on national GDPs from
climatic disruptions now underway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Uncorrected, environmental chaos will consume the last vestiges of
global GDP and the world will be redefined by cascading environmental, economic
and political catastrophes.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_edn12" name="_ednref12" style="mso-endnote-id: edn12;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[12]</span></span></span></span></a> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Notes and References</b></div>
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a> J.Y.
Kim, president of the World Bank, offered a strong statement based on the
report: <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2012/11/18/new-report-examines-risks-of-degree-hotter-world-by-end-of-century">http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2012/11/18/new-report-examines-risks-of-degree-hotter-world-by-end-of-century</a></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a> J. Romm.
2013. ThinkProgress 2/6.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/02/05/1546471/imf-chief-unless-we-take-action-on-climate-change-future-generations-will-be-roasted-toasted-fried-and-grilled/">http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/02/05/1546471/imf-chief-unless-we-take-action-on-climate-change-future-generations-will-be-roasted-toasted-fried-and-grilled/</a></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a>
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Climate
Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability</i>. Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, UK. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rahmstorf, S.,
Foster, G., Cazenave, A. 2012. Comparing climate projections to observations up
to 2011. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Environmental Research Letters</i>
7:044035. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/7/4/044035</div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ednref4" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[4]</span></span></span></span></span></a>
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Williams, R.S., J.G.
Ferrigno, B.H. Raup., J.S. Kargel. 2012. Glaciers: The Earth’s Dynamic
Cryosphere and the Earth System. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper
1386-A. Washington, DC. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/WAIS.jpg"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">http://thinkprogress.org/wpcontent/uploads/2012/12/WAIS.jpg</span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="edn5" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ednref5" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[5]</span></span></span></span></a> <span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">USGS. 2012. <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">State of the Earth’s Cryosphere at the
Beginning of the 21sr Century: Glaciers, Global Snow Cover, Floating Ice, and
Permafrost and Periglacial Environments</span>. U.S. Geological Survey Professional
Paper 1386-A. Washington, DC. A 461.</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="edn6" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ednref6" name="_edn6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[6]</span></span></span></span></a> <span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Hugelius, G., Tarnocai, C.,
Broll, G., Canadell, J. G., Kuhry, P., and Swanson, D. K. 2013. The Northern
Circumpolar Soil Carbon Database: spatially distributed datasets of soil
coverage and soil carbon storage in the northern permafrost regions. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Earth System Science Data</i>. 5:3-13, </span><a href="http://www.earth-syst-sci-data.net/5/3/2013/essd-5-3-2013.html"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">doi:10.5194/essd-5-3-2013</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="edn7" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ednref7" name="_edn7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[7]</span></span></span></span></a> Anthony,
K.W., P. Anthony, G. Grosse, J. Chanton. 2012. Geologic methane seeps along
boundaries of Arctic permafrost thaw and melting glaciers. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature Geoscience </i>5:419-426. <a href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n6/full/ngeo1480.html">doi:10.1038/ngeo1480</a></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="edn8" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ednref8" name="_edn8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[8]</span></span></span></span></a> <span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Woodwell, G.M., F.T.
Mackenzie, R.A. Houghton, M.J. Apps, E. Gorham, E.A. Davidson. 1995. Will the
Warming Speed the Warming? in G.M. Woodwell and F.T. Mackenzie (Eds).
1995. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Biotic Feedbacks in the Global
Climatic System</i>. Oxford University Press, New York. p 406.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="edn9" style="mso-element: endnote;">
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ednref9" name="_edn9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[9]</span></span></span></span></a>
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Le Quéré et al. 2012.
The global carbon budget 1959-2011. Earth System Science Data Discussions
5:1107-1157.</span></div>
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</div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ednref10" name="_edn10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[10]</span></span></span></span></a>
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">CO2Now.org. Feb. 2013.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ednref11" name="_edn11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[11]</span></span></span></span></a> <span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The World Commission on
Forests examined that question extensively and found that at that time (the
late 1990s) there would be no serious influence on the availability of timber
or fiber globally. 1999. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Our
Forests Our Future: Report of the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable
Development</i>. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. While growth
in all aspects of the global economy may have changed that conclusion, the need
for action on climate has become acute.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
</div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ednref12" name="_edn12" style="mso-endnote-id: edn12;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[12]</span></span></span></span></a> <span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Oreskes, N., and E.M. Conway.
2013. The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Daedalus</i>. Winter. p 40.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See also Ehrlich, P R., and A.H. Ehrlich.
2013. Can a Collapse of Global Civilization be Avoided? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Proceedings of the Royal Society B</i> 280(1754):20122845.</span></div>
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*G. M. Woodwell is Director Emeritus of the Woods Hole
Research Center and currently Distinguished Scientist, Natural Resources
Defense Council, 40 West 20<sup>th</sup> St., New York, NY 10011.</div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">**Richard
A. Houghton is Senior Scientist, Woods Hole Research Center, 149 Woods Hole
Road, Falmouth, MA 02540.</span></div>
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George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-41424762428128223032013-06-07T12:42:00.002-04:002013-06-07T12:42:42.526-04:00What to Do on Climate<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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What to Do on Climate?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
George M. Woodwell</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Bill
McKibben and his 350 organization are correct……and as close to effective as
anyone can be in pushing a distracted administration to constructive
action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But what
action?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What can we
tell the administration to do right now after rejecting the Keystone Pipeline
and withdrawing all support for the disastrous Canadian tar sands project? </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The answer
is straightforward, well defined, and already<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> ratified by the Congress of the US and by the rest of the world.</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We must implement the agreement reached in
1992 when we and all other nations signed the Framework Convention on Climate
Change. All agreed to stabilize the composition<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>of the atmospheric burden of heat-trapping gases at levels that would
protect human interests and nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>While we have passed that level, the objective remains and stabilization
remains the first step in correcting a disastrous trend. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We, the US,
can take large further steps in reducing emissions, celebrate the steps already
taken that are effective, and announce an aggressive series of policies in
moving<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>rapidly toward other steps. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The steps must include reduction in methane as
well as carbon dioxide emissions, but they require no further action by the
Congress which has made the Convention the law of the land. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The moment
is now and the initiative is in the hands of our presidential leadership. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Let’s
remind him that he’s in charge and the stakes are very high.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>Woods
Hole,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>June 7, 2013</div>
<br />
George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-27734564463622647332013-05-13T11:48:00.001-04:002013-05-13T11:48:53.209-04:00President Obama at the 150th Meeting of the National Academy of Sciences<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">President Obama at the 150<sup>th</sup>
Meeting of</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">the National Academy of Sciences</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">George M. Woodwell</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b>It
was an overflow crowd in the Auditorium in the newly renovated building of the
National Academy at 2101 Constitution Avenue on the 29<sup>th</sup> of April.
It was first come, first served and some had been waiting for hours to hear the
President of the United States address the Academy on its’ 150<sup>th</sup>
anniversary. Electronics expanded the audience to those far away who could
listen as I did. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many remembered when
John F. Kennedy as President had taken the same podium just 100 years after
Abraham Lincoln had founded the Academy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>John Holdren, President Obama’s Science <br />
Advisor and a member of the Academy, said a few brisk, well spoken words of
introduction before Ralph Cicerone, President of the Academy, introduced Mr.
Obama. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Expectations
were high. There has never been a moment when a sitting president<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>faced more intense scientifically defined and
obviously dangerous challenges to the public welfare than this president faces
at this moment. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The global addiction to
fossil fuels has been allowed to run its course beyond the limits of safety to
the moment when the climatic change is tipping beyond the point of
reversibility. Once that point has been<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>passed, if it is in fact real as experience suggests and many believe,
the feedbacks will be in control and the earth will warm by many degrees
despite our attempts to mitigate the process. We will have made a commitment to
a rapid warming that can melt all the glacial ice in the world and raise sea
level by considerably more than 200 feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Continental centers, already afflicted by persistent droughts, will be
parched. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Regions will be periodically
flooded. Millions will starve. Chaos will reign. The timing for these changes
is not the indefinite future. It is now, today, conspicuous, and it is the next
decades and the lifetimes of people now living. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>To deal
with this catastrophe we have powerful resources in the form of scientific
insights and talents and energy. But all of that must be led and fed with
political insights and skill, which is the realm of government. The initiative
lies uniquely with the President of the United States and the Congress. It is
true that this president has been repeatedly rebuffed by a House of
Representatives dominated presently by vandals, a faction of Republicans, who do
not believe in government and have done their best to dismantle it. But no one
should yield to such vandalism, least of all a president. And a president
addressing the pre-eminent scientific institution can assume he is among
staunch friends and supporters. He can and must call on those colleagues to join
him in a rapid national, and ultimately international, shift away from fossil
fuels toward a world of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>renewable energy
and landscapes carefully managed to preserve their massive carbon stores in
plants and soils.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Scientists can, and
must, join in leading the way with new technology and existing insights into
global biophysics, now ignored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alas, the President offered none of that. It
was friendly talk. No challenge, no inspiration, no hope beyond soft
platitudes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He urged scientists to
generate “science-based initiatives to help us minimize and adapt to global
threats like climate change”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a
gracious, fine talk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But on the most
important scientific issue of his time in office and the next century he gave
the day, and possibly the world, to the Republicans and their congressional and
corporate friends.</div>
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Woodwell is<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Distinguished Scientist at the NRDC and Emeritus Founder and Director of
the Woods Hole Research Center, Woods Hole, Massachusetts. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is a member of the NAS.<span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;">e is He is </span></div>
George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-16728502579371413282013-04-03T23:22:00.002-04:002013-04-03T23:22:42.432-04:00The Ultimate Subsidy: Giving the World Away<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The Ultimate Subsidy:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Giving the World Away</span></b></div>
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George M. Woodwell</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There has
been a great deal of discussion of just how we subsidize the various segments of
the fossil fuel business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The basic
assumption is that the energy is a necessary public resource and the
corporations providing it do a public service. Access to the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>raw material is facilitated at modest cost to
the companies. Taxes are often either not assessed <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>or minimal. And mines and drilling sites are
often not regulated or controlled to protect other resources or even the workers.
In some cases direct subsidies are provided nominally to encourage production. Mines
are notorious for disasters, all of which are predictable and preventable in
well run operations. Similarly, oil and gas drilling are noteworthy for spills
and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for air and water contamination as
well as for serious accidents. The BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 was
the worst of many, but was also the product of careless management. These “accidents”
all carry public costs that are not assigned to the industry but are virtually
all accepted by the public as part of the cost of having the industry and the convenience
of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>cheap energy. They are in fact,
public subsidies paid by all of us, but some more than others.. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In other
cases direct financial subsidies have been provided by legislatures, including
the US Congress to encourage local businesses. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But the
largest subsidy of all is the acceptance of the wastes of the industry,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the carbon dioxide and methane and black
carbon and noxious hydrocarbons dumped into the atmosphere globally at no cost to
the industry and without limit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cost
is appearing now: it is the cost to the public of the corruption of climate globally.
Inasmuch as the climates of the earth are both result and cause of the natural
communities that are the biosphere,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>this
corruption undermines all life on earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It threatens human welfare globally, destroys agriculture, increases mortality
rates, and renders increasing areas uninhabitable for part or all of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Worse, the warming triggers feedback systems that speed the warming and
make it more severe. If the warming continues it will melt all the ice on earth
and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>raise sea level by more than 200
feet. This subsidy is the ultimate in subsidies, the whole earthly environment,
handed free of charge, to the fossil fuel industry to feed industrial profits.
And those industries have not hesitated at all to deny the effects, obscure
them, and insist on continuing the corruption as long as they can. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We have
handed the fossil fuel industry the entire future of the earth and all of human
welfare. And we have done it willingly and openly, accepting the arguments of
the industries that it should be that way.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It is time
now for an abrupt change starting with heavy taxes on fossil fuels as we close
down their use rapidly and totally. Globally.</div>
George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-26357072426742371182013-02-27T09:56:00.000-05:002013-02-27T09:56:22.105-05:00Dear President Obama February 27, 2013<br />Dear President Obama:<br /><br /> We are scholars long involved in exploring the causes, effects and potential cures of the climatic disruption We are certain that you are aware that the crisis of climate is devouring the GDP’s of nations, and human welfare outside the GDP’s, as inexorably as its swollen storms and rising seas are filling New York’s subways. We deplore the hoax of Adaptation, and its forlorn corollary of muddling through, advanced by corporate interests in preserving the lucrative fossil fuels business as long a possible. We observe that you are, uniquely, in the most powerful position at this moment to check the momentum and start a correction of the chaos that will end this civilization. The long-term objective, of course, is a re-stabilized climatic system and a revitalized civilization built around renewable energy. But for the moment we urge:<br /><br />1. Reject immediately the proposal for any pipeline or other innovations to support the tar-sand oil development.<br />2. Simultaneously announce a major US effort to meet the objectives agreed to by all nations under the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change, namely, stability in the composition of the atmosphere.<br />3. That objective must be supplemented by a national program designed to help all nations join us in reducing the atmospheric burden of heat-trapping gases, especially carbon dioxide, over the next century, to 1900 levels. <br />4. That objective will require an abrupt turn away from fossil fuels and their further production anywhere. Developing the alternatives opens large opportunities to industry that the US can subsidize and encourage in various ways, using those opportunities to leap over the fiction of a US financial crisis.<br />5. The initiative will require a revision of forest management to the world’s everlasting advantage. All remaining primary forests must be preserved to avoid further releases of carbon from deforestation. Second, forests can be restored to all normally naturally forested regions. That is a necessary step to provide in part for the continued removal of carbon from the atmosphere over the next decades. (The human benefits in land and water management globally are prodigious.)<br /><br /> This transition is an essential turn in human affairs if we are to avoid a cascade of substantially irreversible changes in the structure of the biosphere that will make it far less congenial as a human habitat as the arctic and boreal zones warm over the next years and flood the world with carbon The world is no longer large enough in proportion to human needs for us to shrug off corporate profligacy and assume all will be well. Our world is now, as the subways of New York, yielding and shrinking before a rising sea of troubles.<br /><br /> Yours truly, s/ 7.2 billion of us<br /><br /><br />George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-7904503813968619552013-01-16T17:51:00.003-05:002013-01-16T17:51:45.392-05:00GUNS<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">GUNS</b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2013</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Guns have
one purpose. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There was a
time when I, as a young naval person stood deck watches in port on a small
oceanographic ship. The Officer of the Deck normally carried a gun as part of
his badge of office. But the rule was never to remove the gun from its very
secure holster unless you intend to load it and use it. In my three years of
experience it was never removed from the holster by anyone on duty. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Several
months back I had an occasion to stay overnight in Riverside, California. The
morning paper announced that the previous day two young men had been killed,
shot dead , by two different police officers<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>in two different parts of town. Both young men had been driving and each
had been stopped for a traffic violation. Each got out of his car carrying a
gun. Each police officer, well trained, aware of well defined assumptions about
guns and their only purpose, did his duty. Two armed fools died, killed by
their own guns.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Carrying
guns does not provide safety or security. It opens a large new realm of
hazards, insecurity, that few gun owners have given much thought to at all and
the gun culture, gun clubs, and gun salesmen all want to deny. Further it
invites the more foolish to treat guns as toys and indulge in play that can easily
turn accidentally lethal, if not criminally so.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And there
are guns that should not be allowed at all. Automatic weapons have no use in
hunting. Anti-aircraft weapons have no business in public circulation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cars have
the same lethal potential. We register them and license their drivers. We also
tax both. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We regulate the quality and
safety of cars and the competence of drivers. There is every reason to do the
same with guns and those who own or use them for any purpose. And the
ammunition can be labeled as well, each projectile and shell can be marked
indelibly so there is no question as to ownership. These innovations are not
intrusions on freedom. They are an obviously necessary step in protecting the
freedom of all, the health and safety of the public. Such regulations are an
essential part of civilization, a reason for establishing and maintaining
competence in governments. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The size of
the gun lobby and the magnitude of the economic interests in guns only confirm
the propriety of putting the entire industry under a clear and fair regulatory
regime immediately. We must do that to avoid the obvious dangers we all face
from an unregulated industry that is poisoning society as surely as any other
unregulated industrial poison that can circulate in the biosphere and corrupt
all life.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>G.M.Woodwell.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>Woods
Hole. Massachusetts</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>January 10, 2013</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-61303595009228648252013-01-09T17:02:00.003-05:002013-01-09T17:02:46.659-05:00HAITI 2013<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b>HAITI<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2013</b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Why?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Why does
Haiti remain, year after year, leader after leader, hope after dashed hope,
program after program, perpetually a candidate for the top place, the most
impoverished and wretched of the three or four conspicuously failed nations of
the world?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why is there no reprieve
despite the millions, billions in fact, in aid and the activities of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>countless benevolent agencies and the
sympathy of all the world? Why? Why? Why?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Philippe
Girard, an historian with a background of experience in the French Caribbean,
has provided a richly detailed political and economic history of the nation in
a 2010 book: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Haiti: The Tumultuous
History – From Pearl of the Caribbean to Broken Nation.</b>. It is a fluent, astonishing
account of the contagion of corruption including mass murders that have dogged successive
regimes in Haiti’s 500 year history. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even Aristide, who started as an humble
priest, three times arrived as President and found himself drawn into the
murderous culture of his predecessors and competitors in ultimately losing
attempts to stay in office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The erosion
of public purpose and public welfare in favor of personal interest and welfare
was persistent if not universal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over-population
and a chaotic free market destroyed the landscape, the fuel supply, the water
system, the fisheries and ate all the agricultural land under slums and
erosion. Storms, the flood of September 19<sup>th</sup> 2004 following tropical
storm Jeanne, washed soils off the treeless slopes and filled valleys with feet
of sediments. Three hundred thousand were said to have been left without
housing.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a> Fifteen
hundred were killed. It was but one storm. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
earthquake of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>January 12, 2010 was
worse. It may have killed 250,000. It <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>left the government and the public in a
hopeless chaos of collapsed buildings and homeless citizens, broken families
and thousands of severely injured survivors. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Water supplies were non-existent or
contaminated with sewage. Early in the efforts at recovery<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>cholera, not surprisingly, entered the mix
and added to the mortality<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a>.
Haiti, the nation, had no resilience, no capacity to restore itself, no
effective governmental leadership and no potential to implement a plan if a
plan for recovery were available. The free market system sold food to those who
could pay, wherever the food came from. Others starved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Murderous,
brutal governmental corruption in Haiti appears to be contagious and universal
and extends to the destruction of the government itself and its potential for
restoration of the public welfare as a purpose. One cannot avoid a comparison
with current political trends in the US as historic barriers are crossed by political
leaders in and outside government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
elections distortions and slander on one side invite similar<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>responses from opponents. The process moves
to a newly depraved low in performance<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>and in expectations. Inside government, when civil rights are abrogated
by an administration, as they have been, a new administration, although
committed to correction, finds it difficult to impossible to stop the machinery
established earlier and the corruption becomes the new standard, the new status
quo. The quality of government erodes and the erosion becomes irreversible. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Education
is ever a victim and has been in Haiti. A viable democracy requires an educated
populace aware of the issues and capable of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>understanding the reasons for having a government and how a government
must behave to assure the public welfare. Starving school systems of money,
even closing schools, is an excellent way to destroy all public purpose and
deflect resources to enrich those in office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So, too, in the US efforts to defund school systems and issue “vouchers”
to be used in any “school” are clear steps in that direction…. and intended to
be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
solutions to the Haitian nadir by historical economists including Girard are
stereotyped: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>move a simple factory to
Haiti and hire the unemployed to build an economic success which will enable a
political and economic recovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>South
Korea is the example, a glowing one, so far successful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But South Korea had not reached the depths of
the Haitian debacle with a virtually totally dysfunctional landscape vulnerable
to any storm and a complete breakdown of social and political order. There are
real environmental limits on economic and political ventures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One essential resource is a reliable system
for supplying clean water. Another is food for all at prices and in
circumstances that assure that those who need food are fed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both require the functional integrity of the
landscape, the physical, chemical, and biotic integrity of land and water. The
requirement is even more demanding on an island where resources are obviously
finite and the marine resources are a part of the support system of the entire
island. In Haiti the marine resources have been destroyed by the siltation of
coastal waters carried from the eroding landscape. It is a futile hope that civilization
can be restored<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>through a few jobs from a
shot of industrial exploitation without a comprehensive plan for restoring a
functional landscape and accommodating all the human population. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The answer
to “why” is too complicated, too expensive, and too intrusive in that it will
require a renovation in land use, a restoration of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>functional landscapes, drainage basins that
are stable, land appropriate for small scale agriculture, the re-establishment
of public schooling for all, and rebuilding the infrastructure, the roads and
public buildings required for contemporary civilization. And it will require a renewable
energy supply system. All of these innovations will be futile if there is no
acknowledgement of the necessity for limiting the human population and a plan
for doing so. The challenge is of the order of, but far greater than, the
original Tennessee Valley Authority, to rebuild a landscape and its occupied
places into a sustainable future. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Interest in
success extends well beyond the geographic boundaries of the nation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world shares not only the human misery of
a failed state but must also respond to the inevitable and continuing hegira in
search of alleviation<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in any degree..
Few nations are prepared to accept the human overflow which is turned back to intensified
misery at home. Beyond that, the nation is a necrotic sore, a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>biophysical as well as a social and political
and economic burden <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>on the world as a whole.
The world does not need a model of national failure. Quite the opposite. It
needs an example of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>restoration, the
Pearl of the Caribbean restored as a model for the New Post-Industrial World
of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>self-sufficiency, renewable energy,
and closed-cycle living. Where better to do that than on an island? And who can
better do it than the wealthy industrial world as it moves into the post fossil
fueled age?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It can be
done, but the challenge is a large one, far larger than most economic
historians or even practicing politicians are willing to contemplate. It is an
appropriate new vision, a mission for science, politicians and economists, all
focused on rebuilding civilization in the ultimate failed state. No one is in a
better position to show us all how than Jim Kim in the World Bank as he sets
forth in the next stage of his longtime mission in advancing human welfare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world needs an example of that sort of
success. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>GM
Woodwell</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>Woods
Hole</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>January
6, 2013</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 261.0pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a> Girard,
P. 2005. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Haiti</b>. Palgrave Macmillan.
New York. p203.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a>
Farmer.P. 2011. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Haiti After the
Earthquake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b>Perseus Books, NY</div>
</div>
</div>
George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-42050650073612018442012-12-07T20:14:00.000-05:002012-12-07T20:15:23.867-05:00THE TRANSITION<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">THE TRANSITION</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">OPPORTUNITY AFTER</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">FORTY YEARS OF OBTUSE DENIAL</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></b>In the summer of 1970 a small
group of ecologists and climatologists met as a part of a larger group
assembled by Carroll Wilson of the Sloan School of MIT to consider the agenda
of the first Earth Summit planned for Stockholm in 1992.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the most prominent topics was the accumulation
of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere and its implications. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a rich discussion. By then
the trend of accumulation of carbon dioxide had been well established by David
Keeling’s data from Mauna Loa and the South Pole. Infra-red gas analyzers had
been in use for more than a dozen years.My colleagues and I had been using them
to measure the metabolism of plants and plant communities, especially forests,
and had watched the changes in the atmospheric burden in central Long Island
over a decade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we had never had a
chance to explore with climatologists what they saw as the implications. And
here they were, climatologists from their own new, enviably nurturing institute,
the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was delighted and found them wonderful
friends and colleagues.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>We
talked. The story seemed clear enough to me. The heat-trapping capacity of
gases such as carbon dioxide and methane is great enough that it can be used as
the basis for measurements of those gases in air with precision, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>virtually at the molecular level. By then we
and others <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>had such measurements from
many places in the world extending over more than a decade. The data were
unequivocal. The concentrations of both gases in the global atmosphere were
rising and the implications were that the earth would warm substantially in the
coming years. To an ecologist there seemed to be no question of the
implications: the earth would warm and the effects could be devastating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The trend was alarming and we had an
obligation to say so. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My
climatologist colleagues, much senior to me and distinguished specialists, were
adamant. Yes the gases were accumulating but there was no evidence of an
effect. There were no data showing a change in the temperature of the earth and
we could not say then that we had a serious problem. They were scientists,
fundamentally conservative,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sensitive,
perhaps at that time to the unbridled barbs being aimed at environmental
interests challenging industrial rights to poison the public realm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
was astonished, even alarmed. For me at that time it was the equivalent of
holding a hammer, finding a new large spike that needs to be driven to
strengthen the scientific structure of civilization, and denying its use
because, while it has in fact <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>worked on
smaller nails, jt has never been used on larger ones. I found myself appalled
and withdrew from the conference, more than disappointed. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
Conference produced a report, objective, reasonable, not alarming, although the
information was from my perspective devastating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a major challenge for science in
developing effective techniques for measuring the temperature of the earth. It
took more than another decade for enough measurements to accumulate that Jim
Hansen would announce that he could show that the earth was warming. His
announcement in a Congressional hearing brought ire from the Reagan administration
and praise from all others.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Since then
as a result of the activities of scientists the Framework Convention on <br />
Climate Change was signed in Rio in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1992
and ultimately ratified by all nations. The world <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>acknowledged the problem and agreed t o stabilize
the composition of the atmosphere at safe levels. No progress has been made in
those twenty years. The 18th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the
Convention is underway in Qatar at this moment. No further progress is expected
from this meeting.. Meanwhile, the world is suffering grievous change with
further prospects that are frightening. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The world
of 2012 contains just twice as many people as the world of 1970. And we have
set in motion a series of changes in global climates that systematically
undermine the potential of the earth for supporting such a population. The
prospects for the next decades are now well documented as the climatic
disruption proceeds along predicted lines. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There are
many changes in the world when additional energy accumulates in the atmosphere.
I emphasize but two of these for they are compelling. First,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the changes in climate are continuous, not
simply a change to a new climate to which all life can adjust and continue
under slightly different circumstances. There is no prospect of adaptation or
accommodation to continuously accelerating and severe disruption. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Second, the
warming has built into it a powerful feedback system that will take over the
climates of the earth and move the potential for control outside our reach.
That transition is now in process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
the differential warming of the high latitudes<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>that guarantees that there will be a large and increasing release of heat
tapping gases as the earth warms. While the total release possible is probably
unknown, it<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is far in excess of the
current atmospheric burden. The current burden, if not reduced, is enough to
have triggered the thawing of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Arctic
soils and the initial stages<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of the
massive feedback releases from the northern forests and from the extensive
Arctic tundra. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
Antarctic is vulnerable, too, but the vulnerability extends less to climatic
feedbacks than to sea level rise as the southern oceans warm and the
continental glaciers<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>collapse, contributing
to raising sea level by feet in decades. The now famous storms Katrina and
Sandy have been early warning signs of the transition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How much ADAPTATION can we afford at<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>$50 billion per storm and one coastal city at
a time?</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Such is the
transition of all of civilization at the moment as we proceed with allowing
both the human population to expand toward 9 billion and the climatic
disruption to devour resources in monster gulps as it devoured New Orleans and
sections of New York and New Jersey.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>While the
combination of sea level rise and the increase in severity of storms works on
the coastal regions, the continental centers become increasingly arid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rich food basket of the continental US,
despite the richest soils in the world and their<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>potential for agriculture, is vulnerable and
already affected. Again, ADAPTATION? To what?</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Such is the
transition underway. It is a transition to chaos and universal poverty. It is
brought to us all by the grace of the fossil fuels industries that have allowed
their greed to undermine systematically the facts of the transition and the
reality of the threats to human welfare globally. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There is
one cure and one cure only. It is to make the TRANSITION, a change not to
progressive impoverishment and global chaos, but to a fossil fuel free world,
powered by renewable energy . The transition must start now. Immediately. While
we have several helpful tools such as the management of forests and soot and
other heat-trapping gases, the key is fossil fuels whose waste products can no
longer accumulate in the atmosphere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It must
start in the US, which can offer both a model for the world and a massive
program of assistance to others in making the transition globally,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is necessary, the only course open, and
it is an unbelievably<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>rich opportunity
to turn the world to constructive pursuits in the interest of all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The transition is the end of the fossil
fueled age and the beginning of the Age of Renewable Energy and its host of new
opportunities. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
George M. Woodwell</div>
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Woods Hole</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>December 3, 2012</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>. </div>
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George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-8368127458756866852012-12-07T20:07:00.002-05:002012-12-07T20:07:21.855-05:00THE TRANSITIONGeorge M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-28682720704035349592012-10-13T19:47:00.000-04:002012-10-13T19:47:26.693-04:00Civilization: Is It Worth the Trouble?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Civilization: Is It Worth the </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Trouble?<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">George M. Woodwell</b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></b>I n 1946 the world faced the
troubling thought that the new weapon that had destroyed two Japanese cities had
raised the potential stakes in warfare to mutual annihilation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John Sloan Dickey left a high position and a brilliant
career in the Department of State to take the presidency of Dartmouth College.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He opened that first post-war year with an
address to the College under the title: “Cassandra Sits in High Places Today”. We
have been successful now over nearly seventy years, albeit at prodigious
expense, in preventing another intemperate use and restricting the hazard,
however menacing, to mere threat. Meanwhile, a host of other changes have
occurred in fact that have moved the world as a whole several increments toward
the devastation we once envisioned as uniquely associated with a global nuclear
catastrophe.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Today’s daily
global news is a triumvirate of major crises of government, economics, and
environment. A world that was until recently thought to be large enough to
sustain virtually any experiment in government or industrial economic
development has suddenly proven vulnerable far beyond expectations or wishes of
political or economic leaders. The crises are linked through environmental
failures in ways that tax our best minds and assure that we are building a
potentially new world of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>misery and
chaos.Worse, the changes are rapid, accumulating, and potentially irreversible
in time of interest to those now living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Seven billion of us today, nine billion tomorrow, are entering a new
world that is increasingly unattractive.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There is
nothing subtle about the changes that are bringing this new world. They are Hurricane
Katrina, strengthened by a super-heated Gulf of Mexico to the point of
destroying New Orleans;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>BP and its
pollution of the Gulf<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of Mexico,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the largest single pollution event in history
and one of the most devastating; the destruction of the boreal forests of the
Athabasca <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tar Sands of Alberta<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for oil to drive the global fossil fuel-based<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>industrial world;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters that
each removed thousands, possibly ten thousand, square miles of land from safe
human occupation;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the sacrifice zone of
the Southern Appalachians where coal has been mined, the mountains pushed into
the valleys and the land left barren, useless in agriculture or as habitat for
people,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the streams poisoned with
acid;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Bhopal Accident in central
India that killed outright in one evening<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>2-3,00 Indians in December, 1984; the heat of summers that raises the
death tolls of nations such as France and Germany in 2003 to a total of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>many as 30,000; similar heat and drought is said to have killed 50,000
Russians in 2010 when fires in the boreal forest kept<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moscow under a cloud of smoke for weeks; and
they include the lives of thousands of substantially enslaved Mexican<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and other <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>workers trapped in menial jobs in a
poisonous<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>industrial agriculture in the
US for a lifetime. These are corporately generated waste lands, waste waters,
and waste lives , sacrifices to a totalitarian trend in a political-economic
system that is destroying itself while undermining the life support system of
the planet and corrupting the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>purpose
and potential of a rich and advanced civilization.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The entire
earth is caught in this corporate scramble for profits. It is most conspicuous
in dealing with fossil fuels. The raw materials are drawn from publicly-owned
resources, extracted from the earthly crust using various techniques that
affect the sites in various ways, often profoundly. Easily available oil and
gas supplies have been exhausted. Newer supplies are sought now at greater
depths and by new techniques such as high pressure fracturing to release both
oil and gas from tightly-packed shales. This ”fracking” involves serious
contamination of large quantities of water at great depths and on the surface
as well as destructive surface activities. Hazards from spills are serious and
spills are common as occurred in a deep water oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.
Coal mining on the surface devastates extensive areas as does the surface
mining of tar sands and oil-bearing shales. Those areas can usually never be
restored, at least in time of interest to us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They, too, are industrial sacrificial zones, impoverished, even poisoned
in the extreme, that are released into public care, well off the accounting
records of the industries. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Profits, of course, depend on avoiding as many
costs as possible. Costs that can be pushed into the public realm increase profits.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But then
there are the wastes produced in the use of the coal, oil and gas.. The wastes
are primarily, but not only, carbon dioxide and methane. These two gases are
accumulating in the atmosphere and, through the warming of the earth, poisoning
the world. The effects also are not part of the financial accounting of the
industries. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the industries, aware of
the problem, want to keep it that way and have worked diligently to deny any
problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile profits accumulate
and government, ever sensitive to the sentiments of business and run by
politicians whose re-election hinges on money to run political campaigns,
sustains the process. But the product, a degraded global biosphere, is clearly
not what one might call sustainable use of the biosphere. The climatic
disruption is especially acute in the Arctic where there are large deposits of
organic matter accumulated over thousands of years in tundra soils and in
marine sediments of the coastal zone. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The thawing of the Arctic increases the rates of
decay of all organic matter and potentially releases the methane accumulated
through slow decay over thousands of years. The total amounts available<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>are prodigious, enough to overwhelm any human
potential for controlling the crisis of global climate. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Civilization
stands on a triumvirate of systems that must function together complementing
one another in the interest of public welfare. They are:</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>1. A <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Governmental System</b> that assures the
human birthright to clean air from the first breath forward throughout a lifetime, clean water, food and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>a place to thrive in peace and safety. That
latter, peace and safety, has been <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>protected
in every culture by some form of the golden rule well known in our own <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>legal culture as the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Principle of Sic Utere</b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sic
utere tuo ut alienum non laedas.</i><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Use
what belongs to you in such a way as to protect the interests of others.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In the
nominally democratic nations we elect, from the public, individuals to work <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>in government<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to set the rules under which we live in
equity with one another, <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>have equal
access to resources, and to <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>protect the
public welfare in general.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>(Some
nations operate outside such norms with a “bunch of thugs in power”. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>These <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ABOTIP</i>
nations are outlaws, not models.) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Protecting corporate profits at<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the expense of human morbidity and mortality is not
forthrightly a governmental <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>purpose.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2. An <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Economic System</b> that offers the tools
for negotiating the necessities of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>life in a finite world. The economic
system requires firm regulation by<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>government
to deflect the persistent dream that the free market is adequate to<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>protect human rights and common property
such as air, water, and land as well <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>as human
aspirations. It is essential to realize and accept that the purpose of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>business
is profit, not human welfare. Many fail to realize that the free market<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>system
has produced slavery persistently in the past and produces it in the present <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>when allowed. It has also produced a
chain of corporate disasters, all fed by <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>greed.
It is entirely possible to establish corporate interests and businesses that <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>serve, and are <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>required
to serve, the public welfare. J.G. Speth in his recent book <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">America
The Possible </i>(Yale 2012) treats the topic in detail. He points to the lax <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>regulation of corporate purpose by
pointing to a corporation chartered in Virginia<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>under the title: “License
To Kill” with the purpose of using tobacco to kill <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>400,000 people a year.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>3. An <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Environmental System</b> that is intact and
functional in maintaining a <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>biosphere
that is self-sustaining and stable as the habitat of all life. Such an <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>objective requires continuous insights from
science as to what is functional and<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>what<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>These
requirements seem simple enough as the core expectations of civilization. But
they are not now met, locally or globally. And the New World entrained and
already emerging promises far more difficulties than we have seen so far….as
the basic laws of a biophysically limited Earth<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>are compromised to accommodate political and economic interests.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The core
failure here is the corruption of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>governmental purpose by political and economic interests largely focused
on profits. The growth of the corporate culture now dominates. It has grown so
large and wealthy as to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>constitute what
the political philosopher Wolin at Princeton has called “inverted
totalitarianism” . The Citizens United decision of the U.S. Supreme Court only
closes the loop and reinforces the trend. It has put the government in the
hands of corporate interests whose primary purpose is financial profit, not the
public welfare. Corporate interests argue in self-interest that <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>poisoning the world is a small issue,
necessarily secondary to profits, for, of course, if profits fail, so does the
business. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Can we
change this course from a cascading disaster to a New World we can admire and
enjoy with pride as we pass it on to our children?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We can.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Wolin insight defining the inversion of structure as corporate
totalitarianism is appropriate and, once identified, must be corrected. It is a
fundamental change, essential in an ever tighter world. Money must be taken out
of politics and the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>core purpose of
government restored. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sic utere</i></b> applies at all levels. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a finite world the basic laws of
biophysics are immutable. We can return to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>recognizing and defending the physical, chemical and biotic integrity of
the biosphere. Several big changes are necessary, two immediately:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 1.25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-list: Ignore;">a.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>Reverse
the trend in climate and return over the course of the next century to the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1900 level of heat –trapping<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>gases in the atmosphere, about 300 ppm carbon
dioxide.. (It can be done as I show below.).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 1.25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-list: Ignore;">b.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>Correct
trends in industrial activities that lead to chemical corruption <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of the biosphere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Close industrial and municipal cycles to
contain wastes specifically to preserve the physical, chemical and biotic
integrity of the biosphere.) There can be no more sacrifice zones, giant mines,
or callous industrial corruption of atmospheric or marine chemistry as we bring
the fossil fueled age to an abrupt close.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What will
it take to reverse the climatic disruption?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At this late date it is a major challenge for a world that has so long
steeped itself in the indulgence that nothing need be done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, with a world crisis underway, the change
is the only sensible course.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Here is
what can be done now.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The annual
accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere is between 4 and 5 billion tons. That
is the amount to be removed from current emissions to stabilize the atmosphere
at the present carbon dioxide concentration now approaching 400 ppm. That
residue, 4-5 billion tons of carbon,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is
about 50% of the total annual release of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>10 billion tons as shown in the table below. It can be removed, reduced
to zero, within a few years by global action in. The first step is clear and
simple: stop further deforestation of primary forests, globally. Such a step
desirable in any case for these forests are one of the earth’s great wonders.
They have many functions in running the biosphere and should be passed intact
to our successors.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Second,
reforestation of normally naturally forested zones to the extent of 1-2 million
square kilometers will store a billion tons of carbon annually. Again, there is
nothing but good for the world in such a change. That leaves at most <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1,5-2.5 billion tons of carbon to be removed
by reducing the use of fossil fuels immediately, a 20-33% reduction on a global
basis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can be done almost immediately
by firm steps in conservation without great harm to any aspect of human welfare
and with many immediate advantages.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #29303b;">-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Total Emissions of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Carbon into the Atmosphere Annually<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>~10 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Components<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Burning Fossil Fuels:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>~8.5</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Deforestation:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>~1.5</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Residue accumulating in the Atmosphere Annually<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>4-5 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>NB<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>about 50% of total emission is absorbed into</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>oceans and terrestrial vegetation..The
residue </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>accumulates and is the current problem.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Potential for Correcting</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Stopping deforestation:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>~1.5</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Reforestation: 1-2<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>million. sq km
1-2</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Residual to be removed from fossil</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>fuel emissions now to reach </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>stability now:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> 1.5 – 2.5<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>or </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>20-33% of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the remaining 7.5 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>emissions under the
least </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>favorable assumption.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: center; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #29303b;">Table 1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Annual
Global Carbon as Carbon Dioxide in billions of tons of Carbon.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Such a step
will meet the objective agreed to by all the nations in the 1992 Framework
Convention on Climate Change .The Convention has been ratified by all nations
including the US, so it is universal law.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But we must
go farther almost immediately to return over the next decades to the approximately
300 ppm carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that existed in 1900, only slightly
above the 280 ppm that had existed for 800,000 years before we started the
current excursion of atmosphere and climate. That means an abandonment of
fossil fuels starting immediately and extending over the next very few decades
with the objective of </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
reducing the atmospheric burden. Speed it important to
deflect the Arctic carbon bomb whose fuse is already burning. There will be
pains in such a transition, environmental, economic, and governmental pains.
But the alternative is an open-ended, accelerating disruption of the earth with
all the sequelae of drought, storms, heat, hunger, disease, sea level rise,
civil unrest and human misery. The New World, if we reach for it effectively,
will be a treasure. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
transition will entail:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>-An
immediate shift away from fossil fuels toward energy conservation and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>renewable sources of energy using
technologies already available.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>-Immediate
steps to produce conveniently available solar powered hydrogen as a way of
storing energy and moving it around.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>-A massive
program to put solar hot water panels on every roof nationally and around the
world to provide hot water for all purposes including heating needs.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-A parallel program with solar electric panels
and simple technologies for using the power. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
- Developing fleets of solar
charged small<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>electric vehicles for
short-distance travel<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>including
commuting.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
- Develope local agricultural
production along with local markets for food. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
- Institute major programs for
closing municipal cycles of water, wastes and energy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
The possibilities are<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>infinite and the pleasures, too, But the core
change is in recognizing that the biosphere is, first, a living system, the
product of evolution just as the rest of all life. And it requires our close
attention and care.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 180.85pt 5.5in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I came on a book by Diane Dumanoski
recently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She wrote, “For some, including the
distinguished physician and science essayist Lewis Thomas, the picture taken of
Earth from the moon left little doubt that it was a living whole that inspired
reverence and wonder:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[Lewis Thomas
wrote) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Viewed from the distance of the
moon, the astonishing thing about the Earth, catching the breath, is that it is
alive. The photographs show the dry, pounded surface of the moon in the
foreground dead as an old bone. Aloft floating free beneath the moist, gleaming
membrane of bright blue sky, is the rising Earth, the only exuberant thing in
this part of the cosmos… It has the organized, self-contained look of a live
creature, full of information, marvelously skilled in handling the sun’. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 180.85pt 5.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 180.85pt 5.5in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It is absurd:” she wrote “to insist upon the
sanctity of humans while denying the sanctity of this larger life that enfolds
us. Of the overarching process that gives the Earth its green vitality and has
done so for a longer time than the human mind can conceive, is there not
sacredness as well in the living Earth?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 180.85pt 5.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>- </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div align="center" class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a>
Edwin Way Teale Lecture, University of Connecticut, Storrs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>October 4, 2012</div>
</div>
</div>
George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-19179032969663462072012-07-25T09:59:00.003-04:002012-07-25T09:59:53.903-04:00A Committee on The Future - July 2012<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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g</div>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">A Committee on The <br />
Future</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">July 2012</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I came back
to my real life this morning from the relative isolation of a day on the farm
in Maine to discover that the world had changed<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>quite suddenly and drastically. The front pages of the papers looked pretty
much the same except that the Mayor of New York, Mr. Bloomberg,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>was asking our two candidates for president
just what they proposed to do about the widespread availability of guns like
the automatic weapon used recently to kill and maim Coloradans at a movie. And
both the candidates were bumbling about what a bad thing it was to treat
Coloradans that way but without a single suggestion that anything might be done
to stop such outrages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And on the web Bill
Moyers was pointing out that it was costing the nation billions, perhaps 75
billion, to kill tens of thousands of citizens with guns annually. And the gun
lobby was saying the shooting might have been stopped if there had only been
more guns around to stop him by, presumably, have a gun battle in the movie
house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of this seems a bit beyond
the edge of civilization.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But then I
turned to the OpEd page of the NYT where a major full column article asserted
that the banks are too big to be regulated, a new thought. They have made a
terrible mess internationally and have lied about their activities. Then they
lobby the Congress and protect their rights to cheat the public and make large
profits for their officers. The article, by Gar Alperovitz, a professor of
political economy at the University of Maryland, says the banks should be
nationalized because “With high-paid lobbyists contesting every proposed
regulation …big banks can never be controlled as private businesses.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That explains a lot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I thought we had financial matters well
worked out at his stage in the progressive development of civilization. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Then
daughter Caroline called my attention to Bill McKibben’s latest outburst on the
climatic disruption in which he says all the things we scientists predicted
thirty years ago and wrote about and delivered in testimony to the Congress as
threats are now facts of our world and the sure cause of chaos yet to come
unless we get quickly about the obvious solutions. But those who would cure
demented murderers with more guns would cure environmental destruction and
misery with more heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere. McKibben proposes
appropriately that a tax on fossil fuels would help. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If only we could extract such sense from
political leaders who are heavily influenced by the wealth of the corporate
lobbyists who have different objectives. McKibben suggests that <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a systematic effort be made by universities
and retirement funds to divest themselves of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>investments in those rogue corporations. They are rogues because they
are still promoting and profiting from oil and coal and gas and clearly wrecking
the earth not only in mining but also by dumping their wastes into the
atmosphere without corporate cost or consequence. The efforts at dis-investment
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>worked in changing the politics of South
Africa and it might work now here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Bill is <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>right on almost all points. But a careful
scientist might say “He is probably wrong”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>on the assertion that there is still room for more releases of carbon
into the atmosphere. The present burden is already triggering significant
further releases of carbon dioxide and, worse, methane, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>from soils globally but especially from the
extensive peat of Arctic and boreal forest soils. That statement is fact. Even
the careful scientist would agree that release is likely to grow large enough
to snatch the cure out of human hands and….. assure the collapse of this
civilization. The probability of that event is great enough and the horror of
it is sufficiently real that a shrill warming from science is appropriate. Bill
needs to refreeze the Arctic!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now. that
objective has nothing to do with the dream that a 2 degree C rise might be
tolerable. There is no safety in the 0.8 degree we have now. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We seem again to be allowing our corporate
institutions and our governmental control to slip well out of the normal
context of modern civilization. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Then I
stumbled into the discussion between Bill Moyers and Chris Hedges about Hedges
new book. Hedges picks up in that discussion on the same theme: the corporate
wrecking of the earth driven by greed and profits. The wreckage includes the
gross and irreparable impoverishment of land and people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is rich with examples: the Southern
Appalachians,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>destroyed completely as a
viable landscape by coal mining; Camden, New Jersey, once a thriving commercial
manufacturing center, now a waste land with wasted people; the Athabasca Tar
Sands, another landscape destroyed for energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He marches on:to the whole earth,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>climates destroyed undermining all life, by greedy corporate interests
allowed to mine and sell their products without any responsibility for their
wastes that poison the atmosphere of the entire earth. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The cure he
says is a renewal of faith. Faith in people and their interest in treating
others as they wish themselves to be treated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The responsibility must apply as well to corporations whose systems must
be closed to prevent poisoning or otherwise corrupting the interests of others.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The list
goes on: the future is at risk and there is no clear course. It is time for an
earnest reappraisal of just where we are going. What will work in keeping a
civilization, not on the edge of collapse, but clearly developing onto an earth
capable of supporting organized life indefinitely. It is a scientific challenge
as well as a political and economic conundrum. But the biophysical requirements
seem seriously in question. It is time to organize a high level scientific <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Committee on the Future. </b>Right now. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-54287057621907502522012-06-17T17:17:00.000-04:002012-06-17T17:17:10.870-04:00Harper’s Canada Rips a Hole in the Global Ship of State<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Harper’s Canada Rips
a Hole in the Global Ship of </div>
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State</div>
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George M. Woodwell<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
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Woods Hole,
Massachusetts</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Sometimes
we have to ask just what the purpose of government is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the nominally democratic nations we elect
our fellow citizens to public office to help define and defend the public
welfare. In the normal course that welfare starts with establishing and
defending rules under which we live with one another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rules provide equity in human affairs,
including our dealings with each other, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and in access to essential resources,
especially those resources that we take as a human birthright:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>air, water, land, food and a place to live in
peace. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rights are embraced in every
culture and commonly start with the golden rule: deal with others as you would have
them deal with you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Governments build
elaborate laws around that purpose. Courts amplify the laws over decades. And
the rules apply in a well-regulated world of thoughtful and responsible
nations.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As human
numbers increase and technology expands, so do the interactions and points of
friction. Corporate and national and personal interests compete. The frequency
of interactions rises much more rapidly than the numbers of people. It rises in
fact exponentially and the need for regulations protecting the interests of all
soars with it.. Simple arithmetic puts the lie to the common assertions of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tea Party conservatives in the US and of all
others, including Canadians, who<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>claim
that growth in all aspects of human affairs is possible with fewer regulations.
Destruction of laws and regulations developed over decades is willful
destruction of a nation and puts the nation on a rapid slide toward chaos. Commerce
does not regulate itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Worse, wise
regulation requires detailed insights from science as to how the world works, a
continuing flow of insights as to what will work in defending welfare of the
public.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So it is at the moment in Canada as
the Harper administration systematically destroys laws, regulations and
institutions developed over a century to protect public resources.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia;">Jim
MacNeill, a well known Canadian diplomat and former OECD officer in Paris
recently suggested to me that Canada is a model of what the Tea Party and the
rabid right are trying to bring to the U.S.: </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10.0pt;">“….(Harper)</span> is
now …stripping the statute books of the environmental laws and regulations that
we have fought for since 1968. He is eliminating one environmental program
after another and reducing the environment department to a shadow of its former
self.</div>
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<br /></div>
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“At
first… he talked like a disciple of George W. Bush -- environmental protection
is a burden on the economy which reduces economic growth and kills jobs…..</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span></div>
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“A
month ago his Natural Resources Minister, Joe Oliver, on the eve of the
environmental hearings into the Gateway pipeline to China, wrote condemning ‘environmental
and other radical groups’ …(who were later called) ‘terrorists’”.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Elizabeth May,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a brilliant and fearless Member of the
Canadian Parliament and long-time conservation leader, wrote to me <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>recently. She could have been writing about
our own House of Representatives which stripped our Science Advisor, John
Holdren, and his Office of Science and Technology Policy:of funds: <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black;">“…One of
his first decisions was to unburden himself of the Science Advisor to the Prime
Minister. Dr. Arthur Carty…... When his term ended, it was not continued,
and the position dissolved.”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Harper administration also has
been cutting budgets for climate science for more than a year. March
ended funding for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences.
A $110 million program over tend years for research on climate in Canada’s
major universities has been eliminated. The entire Adaptation to Climate Change
Research Group was disbanded along with the group within Natural Resources
Canada <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>working on Arctic ice
cores. An 80,000 year climate record in ice cores is to be abandoned </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Canadians have a long and
distinguished and widely used record of research in the Arctic. The global
scientific community was stunned to learn that the Polar Environmental and
Atmospheric Research Laboratory on Ellesmere Island is to close. At 80
degrees north latitude, PEARL was the closest such lab to the North Pole</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Canadians also have a unique
background of experimental data on aquatic ecosystems largely through the
efforts of a single scientist, David Schindler, who had the vision as to what
should be done and led the way through his own distinguished career. Now a rich
resource, the Experimental Lakes Area in Ontario is to close. Fifty-eight
fresh water lakes 250 kilometres east of Winnipeg have been the testing ground
for freshwater research since the late 1960s. .In the House a week ago,
the Parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Fisheries announced that it will
be sold to private interests.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The list goes on. The Yukon Research Lab at Yukon College
in Whitehorse is to close. The $2.7 million facility only opened last
fall – October 2011- is to focus on research that is “business-led and
industry-relevant”.The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is ending its
national <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>contaminants programme. 75<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>scientists, many with long careers invested studying
marine toxicology across Canada, are being laid off. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to Dr. Peter Ross “The entire
pollution file for the government of Canada, and marine environment in Canada’s
three oceans, will be overseen by five junior biologists…” These cuts are being
made as huge areas of the Beaufort Sea are being leased for oil drilling.<span style="color: black;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The common assumption of such libertarian
views is that the market system is adequate to protect essential resources and
ration them to all users. But the failures of the market to protect the public
welfare are legion and conspicuous around the world. The market system gave us
slavery and will again, given the chance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Management of human affairs and essential resources lies at the very
core of governmental function. Harper’s minions and the US far right, including
the Tea Party, deny the core purpose of government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black;">G.M.
Woodwell is Founder and Director Emeritus of the Woods Hole<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Research Center in Woods Hole
Massachusetts,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>scientist, member of the
NAS , author <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and lecturer.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a>
Woodwell<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is Founder and Director
Emeritus, The Woods Hole Research Center; Member, NAS; conservationist,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>author, lecturer.</div>
</div>
</div>George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-76411182721359315652012-04-16T15:59:00.001-04:002012-04-16T16:03:50.767-04:00IPCC 2012 A Reasonable Objective-An Unfortunate Emphasis<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">IPCC 2012</b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A Reasonable Objective-An Unfortunate Emphasis</b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">George M. Woodwell</b></div>
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<br /></div>
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The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been regularly attacked by
critics for representing the scientific community’s experience and data on the
global disruption of climate as a global problem. Their treatments of that
topic, however, have been scrupulously probing and objective despite the
obvious threats to human welfare. Their
objectivity has been guarded by scientists who in my view have weakened interpretations
of existing data, sometimes their own, and limited their presentations unnecessarily
to avoid criticism from more conservative scientists and from the political
right, ever poised to leap on any sign of opinion. The entire process of
publication is open to political review and criticism before publication,
further extinguishing any flicker of bias or opinion. The institution has done well in suppressing
judgments and presenting well-defended data. One of the effects of that highly
refined approach has been to limit
participants, excluding de facto potential scientific participants. Some
scientists of whom I am one, are alarmed by the consequences of changing
climates out from under all life. They are impatient and unwilling to concede
ignorance of consequences that are known to be real, however unpopular with others.
Eliminating such perspectives introduces
a clear bias never discussed. </div>
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A new
report appears in its title to abandon that carefully crafted objectivity.
“Managing The Risks of Extreme Events and Disaster to Advance Climate Change
Adaptation” can be interpreted as accepting the awkward but unfortunately
popular conclusion that nations can muddle through by accommodating the
climatic disruption…and the scientific community will help tell how. The report
itself does little to alter that impression offering as it does a clinical
dissection and interpretation of ‘risks’ in
500 page document. It might have been much more effective as well as
appropriate to avoid the suggestion of
“adaptation” as a policy and emphasize “mitigation’ of both cause and
effects throughout. Otherwise the merchants of poison appear to get all that
they want. Mitigation is in fact the
only realistic objective, for the disasters discussed are unacceptably multiplying
tragedies, however modulated in the dissection . A journalistic propensity for
a balanced treatment might lead to a discussion of what can now be done to
stabilize the composition of the atmosphere.
All nations have agreed to do so under the Framework Convention on
Climate Change of 1992, a very important treaty that was virtually universally
ratified and cannot be ignored. Such an analysis might reach even further to what
might be done to reverse the trend, however difficult and long-term that process
may be. </div>
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“Adaptation”
to accelerating continuous climatic disruption as a policy is optimism run
wild. Those advocating it set conditions that make it sound reasonable: ‘we
must accept the changes already induced and correct for them”; “we shall continue
to work to halt the trend and reverse it, but meanwhile, we must adapt”. Alas,
those palliatives are attractive but misleading. This document unfortunately
suggests the acceptance of a decision to allow the continued accumulation of
the tragedy. Such an acceptance would be a confession to the industrial world
that we shall continue on a suicidal course and the scientific community will
help. Surely, the IPCC can emerge with a more powerful statement of the most
serious disruption of life on earth short of social and political collapse into
universal war.</div>George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-25425983527523101862012-02-21T15:22:00.001-05:002012-02-21T15:29:12.853-05:00The Upper Amazon: February 21, 2012<br />
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The
Upper Amazon: February 21, 2012</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The following is a brief word from
Foster Brown, the WHRC’s staff member and decades-long resident of Rio Branco
in the southwestern Brazilian Amazon Basin. He offers a glimpse into the future
of climatic disruption’s ramifications. GMW</div>
<br />
Here in the southwestern Amazon we are undergoing floods of historic proportions. Already more than five thousand displaced persons are living in public shelters. The flooding in the Peruvian border town of Inapari extended more than an kilometer from the normal banks, a flood exceeding all previous floods in living or recounted memories. I had the strange experience of cruising up main street in a civil defense boat, watching our wake lap against shopping windows.<br /><br />We are anticipating that the flood crest of the Acre River should peak today in Rio Branco, which is already at the second highest level in 40 years. My job has been to help implant a early warning system for flooding; the system worked but needs improvements. However, since everyone in the region has been hit with the metaphorical two-by-four to get our attention, my guess is that we will have a better system working shortly, just in time for the fires of the dry season.<br /><br />About 200 Haitians in Inapari have suffered a double whammy of being barred from entering Brasil and then flooded out of their temporary refuge in a Catholic church. I have met several who manage one meal a day, if they are lucky."<br />
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It is becoming virtually impossible
to write realistically, or to report honestly, the details of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>systematic global disruption now underway
without appearing to be slipping into hyperbole. The statement below on “Adaptation”
for instance<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>was rejected recently by
Bruce Alberts, Editor of Science, as “unbalanced”. One wonders what “balance”
might be and just how objective perspectives are even at Science.GMW</div>
<br /><br />George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-13018543852999818412012-02-06T16:52:00.001-05:002012-02-06T17:00:19.353-05:00ADAPTATION: Adrift in a Cloud of Fantasy<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;">________________________________</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14pt;">ADAPTATION: Adrift in a
Cloud of Fantasy</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">January 2012</span></b></div>
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There is virtually no aspect of
human affairs that is not affected by the cloud of uncertainty enveloping the
earth as the climatic disruption proceeds. The density of the cloud varies with
the beholder. At one end there is imaginative and vigorous denial based on financial interests in the commerce
of energy. Among scientists, too, there is a range of views
from skepticism to hyper-objectivity bordering on denial, to deep concern. Many
of these latter recognize that changing climate out from under all life,
including oceans, forests and agriculture, presents a lethal threat to this
civilization in the short term of years to decades. They understand that the
current slide can easily become a cascade into a chaos that will reduce the
human population to a fraction of its current
seven billion. That slide may be anticipated as the large pools of
carbon stored in the Arctic peats and in the trees and soils of the Boreal
Forest are mobilized by the warming and cook the planet. The fuse of the potential
carbon bomb of high latitudes in the northern hemisphere is now lit. The only sure cure is stabilizing, and then
reducing, the temperature of the earth.</div>
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The most common response appears to
be exasperated cries for “realism” and for simply adapting to the changes as
they occur: business as usual. “Realism”
as envisioned by economists and an increasing number of scientists asserts no
chance of success in abandoning fossil fuels. In that view there is the
necessity for adaptation, accepting the changes already experienced and
anticipating more. That process becomes the policy, sustained by the hope of
muddling through. But the “policy of
adaptation” is blind to the lethal feedbacks that take the climatic disruption
to new and unacceptable extremes. A
limit on the extent of the warming has already been established in the public
eye as a two degree C rise in the average temperature of the earth. That limit
was a compromise established as a political and economic convenience, not a
scientific consensus. The possibility of allowing the earth to warm to that
level and not higher has never been established, only asserted on the basis of
dreams supported by wishful thinking. The warming that has already occurred is
at least marginally controllable by bold action now. Would control still be possible after an
average change in the temperature of the earth of two degrees and the Arctic
warmed by as much as 4-6 degrees? Almost
certainly not.</div>
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Despite the success of the
Framework Convention on Climate Change signed in Rio in 1992 and subsequently
ratified universally, seventeen Conferences of the Parties have failed to
produce progress. Progress would
constitute effective action toward
stabilizing the composition of the atmosphere with respect to the heat
trapping gases, especially carbon dioxide.
Over the years immediately following such a success, emissions from
fossil fuels would have to be reduced further to maintain the equilibrium and,
if the concentration in air were to be lowered further as it should be, fossil
fuels would have to be substantially abandoned over several years.</div>
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While an honest judgment may
require skepticism as to the possibility of political action in abandoning
fossil fuels, this skepticism should not be confused with skepticism towards the evolving facts of climate
science. Basing policy on political or
corporate opposition and the myth of adaptation amounts to an abandonment of
hope and is a commitment to runaway climatic disruption. The response to such
an assertion is, of course, denial: “we shall take every opportunity to reduce
emissions and deflect the course of the warming”. Meanwhile, that policy
accedes to the skeptics’ position and reduces substantially to zero any
possibility of success in deflection. It assures the economic, social and
political chaos of environmental collapse. </div>
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The only viable stance for
scientists and politicians is persistent, relentless optimism supported by
imaginative and equally relentless efforts in research and public affairs: insistence that the
remaining primary forests globally be conserved as is, that 1-2 million square
kilometers of normally naturally
forested land be reforested with natural
forests, and that fossil fuels be systematically abandoned within the decade
before 2020. The transition can be to a new world, one our children can, and
will want to live in. It will not be the analog of Haiti and Somalia of this
moment, but a variant of new “green cities” and “transitional towns”
set in an environment wherein forests
and fertile soils and all other life are as protected as in a park. We must
envision, design and start building them now. There is no other way.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
George M. Woodwell</div>
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Woods Hole, Massachusetts</div>
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January
2012</div>
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<br /></div>George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-79789570999798408132011-12-11T21:14:00.001-05:002012-02-06T16:28:39.129-05:00Durban: Disaster # 17<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Durban:
Disaster # 17</span></b></div>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">George M. Woodwell and Richard A.
Houghton<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">[1]</span></b></span></span></a></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> There are many ways to destroy nations and spread human
misery in this world, already crowded and struggling with seven billion human
occupants. One of the most effective is by simply moving the climate out from
under all of them, in all latitudes and corners of a wide, wide world.
Recognizing that possibility in the latter decades of the 20<sup>th</sup>
century scientists managed to persuade governments to meet under auspices of
the UN in Rio in 1992 and to sign, and ultimately universally to ratify, the
Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC).
All the governments agreed to collaborate in “stabilizing” the
atmospheric burden of heat-trapping gases at levels that would protect human
interests and nature. As treaties go in the international realm, it was a
highly successful initiative.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> Seventeen Conferences of the Parties to the FCCC have
utterly failed in meeting the clear goal set forth in the treaty despite mighty
efforts and various schemes designed to protect specific national interests.
The most recent discussions in Durban have focused on accommodating with
financial aid crises of nations that see themselves especially vulnerable to,
for instance, the flooding and storms now clearly a problem. Negotiators and others have assumed, first,
that the world can tolerate a two-degree C rise in the average temperature and,
second, that stability can be achieved at that level. Neither assumption has any basis in science
or in fact. The assumption is a dream advanced, not from science or any sure
knowledge, but from wishful thinking from political and economic interests. Stabilizing
at two degrees is almost certainly impossible. The world has already warmed by
nearly one degree. Feedbacks are already conspicuously engaged and contributing
to the acceleration of warming that may quickly proceed beyond human control. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> The potential for political, economic, and environmental
chaos and misery is almost unimaginable.
The time scale is not a century. It is now, as we experience spreading
continental droughts that devastate agriculture, violent storms that destroy
dwellings including cities, and floods such as those in Pakistan over the past
two years and those of the eastern US of 2011and elsewhere. And heat alone
kills, as it has done annually with greater and greater frequency over the last
decade.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> What is clear is that there is no plan and no action
possible at the moment as long as economic and political issues float to the
top of all agendas. Venality rules much of the corporate world. Politicians are cowed…or purchased. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> The FCCC was a direct product of scientific research and
insights followed by public initiatives. It is time for a new set of insights
and initiatives quite beyond what has become the agenda of governments. “Adaptation”,
now popular, is absurd as a conclusion and totally unacceptable as a solution.
There is no possibility of “muddling through”. There is only disintegration and
chaos, the seeds of which we see germinating now. The objective set forth in
1992 was sound and is achievable now, substantially immediately. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> The net annual accumulation of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere is currently about 4 billion tons of carbon, the residual of a total
release from burning fossil fuels and from deforestation globally of about 10
billion tons. Reducing emissions globally by 4 billion tons would, for the
moment, achieve the stabilization needed as the first step. It is necessary and
important and possible. Deforestation, a change in land use from forest to
non-forest, produces about 1 billion of
the 4 we seek. Preserving all primary
forests remaining globally would be a great blessing in any context and should
be done if only to preserve water supplies. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> Restoring natural forests to 2-4 million square kilometers would store an
additional billion tons of carbon annually on land.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> The remainder, 2-3 billion tons of carbon must come from a
reduction in the global use of fossil fuels, now 8-8.5 billion tons of carbon
annually. It is not a trivial change,
but it is not at all impossible immediately simply on the basis of conservation
and improved efficiency. A 25-30% reduction in use of oil and coal and gas is
possible almost immediately, given the will and the means. The industrial nations are already shifting
electrical loads from fossil fuels to renewable sources rapidly, largely on the
basis of costs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> This immediate
effort must be followed by further reductions in emissions but immediate success
will bring insights and energy and time for the future steps. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> It is time for the scientific community again to rise to
the challenge and enable governments and other public agencies to rise above
the present morass of subsidiary problems and demands and purposes by showing how
to bring the core purpose of the 1992 treaty into effect and the consequences
and extraordinary costs of failure to do so.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> John M. Broder, writing in the December 11 New York Times
(p11), quotes the redoubtable Mary D. Nichols of the California
Air Resources Board as asserting, correctly, that effective action must come
now from the bottom up. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> Again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Immediately.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">December 11, 2011</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></div>
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<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=102916084613167932#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt;">[1]</span></span></span></a> Woodwell
is Director Emeritus and Houghton is Senior Scientist, The Woods Hole Research
Center, Woods Hole, MA.</div>
</div>
</div>George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-42380059331469452552011-11-15T10:10:00.001-05:002011-11-15T10:27:36.262-05:00Life Under a Turbine (Wind)<br />
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Much
has been said recently in my town about the miseries of living a thousand feet
or more south-southwest of a large municipal wind turbine which is accused of
producing through intolerable sounds, pulsating pressures and subtle unmeasured
factors, a variety of serious illnesses among its neighbors. The complaints are
numerous enough and the complainants persistent enough that there can be no
denial that there is a problem for some, despite the distance between them and
the turbine. The solution, according to these critics, is to shut down the
turbines (the second has not yet been operated) or move them somewhere far
away. The cost to the town of either would be
significant, perhaps as much as ten to twenty million dollars, assuming a place
that is sufficiently remote is available somewhere within the town. (It is
not.) For the moment they are both shut down. </div>
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I
, too, live near a large turbine and have, with several colleagues experience
over three years with all the vagaries of such a machine. To be sure, the Woods Hole Research Center’s
100 kw turbine is substantially smaller than the 1.6 megawatt machine of the Town of Falmouth, but
it is still a large turbine, much closer to dwellings than the Town’s. The municipal turbine was quite reasonably placed
on town-owned land at what was thought
then to be a comfortable distance from any residence. </div>
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While
I think it fair to say that my experience reflects that of colleagues, I report
only my own. I live very comfortably
under the wind turbine, often quite literally under it, for we have held major
public gatherings on the grass in front of our main building, without even a hint of difficulty with sound
from the turbine directly overhead. Even in a high wind when the turbine is
turning at its maximum speed (held deliberately at about 60 rpm ) and making
the most power, the dominant sounds are
the wind in the trees and the traffic on the highway, two hundred feet or more
beyond the turbine below our building. On the SEA Campus 500 feet away the
sound of the turbine can be distinguished from other sounds but it never
dominates or intrudes. The general attitude there, amply reported to me from
diverse sources, some very enthusiastic, is to take encouragement from the churning
turbine, recognizing that each watt it produces displaces a watt from the
coal-fired plant on Brayton Point
near Fall River that showers
us all with mercury and soot brought on the south-westerly winds
directly from the plant. The mercury is
measurable in soils by intricare techniques, but the soot appears as a black
film to be scrubbed off the white decks and cabin of my boat weekly and
power-washed off twice annually. It comes perpetually in the rain. If it were
not for the boat I would have hard time proving its presence unless I were
hanging out wash regularly and watching it gray over time. Meanwhile, that soot
accumulates in our lungs with every breath.
The rustle of wind in the trees has always been reassuring and
refreshing; now there is a reason to look at the turbine and take courage that
the air is that much cleaner and….with more such innovations, will be cleaner
yet. Except that….. </div>
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To be sure, the
shadow of the blades produces a potentially troublesome flicker when the sun is
just right. No one enjoys the flicker and my office and our two buildings are
the major recipients. The flicker is greater, of
course when the sun is low in the
morning and throughout the winter. But in any particular place the flicker,
however distracting, is short-lived, for the sun moves rapidly. I find that we either
ignore the flicker or shut it out with window shades. It is no longer a problem
for anyone in our buildings that I am aware of. And in a short time, the sun
has moved. A neighbor with a glass wall in their house finds the flicker troublesome,
quite understandably. The turbine has been programmed to shut down for the times
the problem exists throughout the year.
Trees growing nearby will ameliorate even that problem in time.</div>
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The
sound is enough that when the turbine is
not operating, I notice and wonder and look for a reason. But there is no time
when the sound interferes with any function or exceeds the sound of Woods Hole
Road about 200 feet to the eastward or the wind in the trees. People
often gather for lunch on the porch of the main building, substantially under
the blades of the turbine, and have no trouble with normal conversation. No one
has reported to me any sub-sonic or otherwise subtle effects on health or
disposition over the many months of operation, although I know that some far
more distant neighbors object, quite possibly to its presence as opposed to its
operation. And to be sure, our well insulated institutional buildings exclude
substantially all outside sounds, the noise of heavy trucks and the howling
winds of storms. Houses, too, can exclude sounds. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Looking up at the turning blades as
the sun settles into the horizon shows them gleaming as the rest of the
landscape shrinks into darkness. All
enjoy those moments and most find the
turbine an object of beauty and welcome it into the neighborhood as clear
evidence that we are headed into a renewable world that is cleaner and much healthier and agree
that the turbines are objects of beauty,
to be admired and celebrated, not scorned. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
G.M.Woodwell <br />
November 15, 2011</div>
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Woods Hole, Massachusetts</div>George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102916084613167932.post-20369175736911006152011-09-06T16:44:00.000-04:002011-09-06T16:44:08.778-04:00Ozone, Oil and The Drift of Governmental Purpose<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">Two decisions by the Obama administration have left me and many others profoundly disturbed. The most recent advice to the EPA to delay further limits on ozone, long in process and widely anticipated, is a clear abandonment of governmental leadership in restoring the integrity of the human environment. Worse, the support the administration appears to be giving the Canadian Tar Sands oil development is a clear sign that no progress in deflecting the climatic disruption can be expected any time soon. What’s to be done?</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: center; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ozone is trouble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On earth ozone is toxic to just about everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a serious cause of respiratory problems and a contributing cause of various other ills. Experience is extensive and data define human morbidity and mortality from<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>exposures common from industrial sources.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But virtually all life is vulnerable and ozone exposures are to be avoided categorically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">Ozone occurs in the high atmosphere, well outside the normal limits of life, and there absorbs incident radiation from the sun that would otherwise be a problem on earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So it has been for a very long time and life is dependent on that circumstance. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">Industrial activities have changed the chemistry of the atmosphere and the more or less stable layer of ozone in the high atmosphere is being destroyed largely but not exclusively by fluorocarbons used mainly as refrigerants. In the lower atmosphere where we and all the rest of life occur, ozone is being generated in toxic quantities by burning fossil fuels at high temperatures. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both processes are serious matters but the generation of new sources on earth is exposing all life to a serious toxin with especially threatening direct effects on people. Serious efforts have been made over years to avoid the problem. But that simple objective turns out to be more complicated by far than it should be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">Governments, that is, all legitimate governments beyond the ABOTIP<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(A Bunch O Thugs In Power)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>stage, are established to define and defend the public interest. The public interest is commonly defined, first, as civil rights: rules establishing fairness in dealing with one another and in managing common property for the advantage of all. Those interests are variously defined, of course, but they have been set out explicitly enough recently in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948. The statement constitutes a broad vision as to the core purpose of government. It seems a reasonable extension of those expectations and responsibilities of governments to say that rules are established to protect each from all and all from each. I am not allowed to poison my neighbor’s well nor is he allowed to poison mine. And if he has a business, the business is not allowed to poison mine or anyone else’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such rights are commonly established not only in legislation, but also in case law, as legal rights systematically defined by court trials. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">Meanwhile, businesses have grown very large over time and become corporations that hire many people and accumulate much wealth and influence. Profits of the businesses are greater if the costs of doing business can be ignored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The costs often, perhaps regularly, include wastes that are difficult, or even expensive, to make innocuous and can most conveniently be discharged into the environment nearby and ignored. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My well is poisoned after all and when I object, the business denies responsibilities and asserts that even if true, the jobs and money brought into the community are more important. Government, pressed to support the “economy,” agrees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Governmental purpose has suddenly shifted from civil rights to economic interests. Morbidity and mortality of citizens is now secondary to corporate financial security. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">Just as we realize that fossil-fueled corporate industrialization has inverted the global distribution of ozone to human disadvantage we also discover that the flows of money have corrupted governmental purpose and potential. Suddenly, for whatever reason there is pressure on governments to produce jobs at any cost. Neo-conservatives argue that environmental regulations that protect people from ozone are expensive and force industries to close down or reduce activities as profits decline. In the interest of protecting profits and, presumably, jobs, environmental regulations should be voided.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The President of the United States has recently agreed, at least with respect to ozone. He and the neo-conservative right are saying that public suffering from poison, enhanced morbidity and mortality, are acceptable in the off-hand chance that corporations will gain profits and hire more people and improve the economy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the longer run, he asserts, the objective has to be to clean up the air and protect the public welfare. But for the moment, economic interests are more important. Such demanding moments never pass. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">So, too, strangely enough, with the climatic disruption. The heavy reliance on fossil fuels is poisoning the world, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>changing climates globally and generating toxins such as ozone. Here the economic costs as well as the human costs are conspicuous. One of the many long-recognized effects of the climatic disruption includes an increased frequency of large, severe storms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Katrina, fed with energy from a super-heated Gulf, cost us New Orleans, a city whose economic and human costs continue to accumulate and whose salvation is at best doubtful. Irene left a trail of destruction along the East Coast from Florida through the Carolinas, New Jersey and New York into Canada. The damage tallies in billions of dollars. A third tropical storm, Lee, is right now flooding southern Louisiana and Mississippi once again. Flood damage in Vermont from Irene remains today at unprecedented levels and costs that will probably never be tallied or recovered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In such cases the largest costs are diffuse and accrue to the public at large. The causes, however, are industrial activities whose profits are well focused and are supported by the cheap fossil fuels that are in fact poisoning all of the earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, governmental purpose has drifted and the public welfare has been redefined as corporate economic welfare. So we have, apparently, imminent presidential approval of a pipeline connecting the Athabasca Tar Sands of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alberta to our Gulf Coast refineries. That oil is the dirtiest and most expensive in the world in that its mining destroys large areas of the northern forest, dumps that carbon into the atmosphere, and requires a large further direct expenditure of energy in extracting the oil and refining it. Such a decision by the US president would commit the nation to support of production and use of the dirtiest oil on the planet for the foreseeable future and be a clear statement that the US has no plan for mitigating the already raging climatic disruption! </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">There is nothing right about these decisions. Nominally, they support the public welfare by encouraging economic development. Actually, they both degrade the resource base, corrupt the air, water, land, and health of all. They poison my well, and the wells of all others, now and for the everlasting future. They produce systematic, incremental impoverishment, universal biotic impoverishment, corruption of the human birthright so clearly affirmed in the </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and they scorn the very purpose of government. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What’s wrong here? What is wrong is a fundamental intellectual and political failure, a failure to recognize that civilization requires not only a functional government and a working economic system, but also a functionally intact environmental system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is that last that is the mystery, not sufficiently defined in our culture and not put forth by our intellectual and political leaders as a compelling model of what must be if we are to continue to occupy the earth in peace and comfort for the century to come. The insight and the shift in emphasis may come now, if it comes at all, from the scientific community expressed in powerful, demanding terms that reach far beyond economics and greed as motivating factors and call on all to acknowledge and respect the core requirements of life as a moral responsibility in protecting the human birthright. This new vision will deal with how to preserve life on earth, not as a casual objective after all profits have been assured, but as the first objective, everywhere.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So far in science and conservation we have only begun the job, just scratched the surface, and our government is still actively poisoning my well and everyone else’s. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>Woods Hole</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>September 4, 2011</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br />
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</div>George M. Woodwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05024297790197562235noreply@blogger.com0