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The Environment

Behind The Headlines: Prognosis for a Warming Planet, Part III

So there are three challenges here: 1) increase the likelihood of socioeconomic developments that present lower challenge to climate change mitigation and adaptation; 2) limit the rise in global temperatures; and 3) improve our ability to adapt to climate change.  Per the IPCC report, here are some ways to address all three challenges: 

Behind The Headlines: Prognosis for a Warming Planet, Part II

The earth has been warmer many times before. The biosphere survived and sometimes thrived. It’s just that humans are used to a cooler planet. So we have to change our ways. This is new for us. Coasts need to be protected; crops made more resilient, wild habitat expanded and better managed. We need to reduce some stressors unrelated to climate change (over-fishing, poor governance) to build resilience to the new stressors.

Help Flowers Help the Planet: Part II

In Part I of this series, we established that the biosphere was in trouble because close to a fifth of all land plant species are threatened with extinction; 90% of all living land plants are flowering plants; and, most of terrestrial life depends, either directly or indirectly, on flowering plants. Houston, we have a problem…So, let’s create and manage flower and pollinator habitat! Focusing on urban spaces, home gardens, and farmland…

GM Crops: Good News, Bad News, and Some Fixes

The USDA and National Institute of Food and Agriculture do have a bunch of suggestions on how to deal with insect resistance, many of which would also help protect vulnerable birds and non-target insects. As follows…

Truth-Value and Use-Value: The Case of the Always-Changing Climate

My point here is simply to highlight that disagreements about “facts” are often less about their accuracy than their use-value - that is, what would happen if a lot of people accepted these facts as true. And thus we have a whole industry of scribblers and pundits who provide “context” to uncontested facts. Of course, such context comes with its own truth-value and use-value.

Climate Change and Agriculture: The Case of Pests

…Ditto the development of increasingly resilient crops, which are better at enduring the slings and arrows of outrageous climate. As long observed, healthier plants are less vulnerable to insect infestations.

Moving Forward on Climate Change, Part VIII: Looking Back

This series consists of links and excerpts from my last 12 months of posts touching on the science and politics of climate change. Part VIII: Climate Change: Moral Communities and Divisive Rhetoric  Climate Change: Labeling People and Framing the Issues  How Not to Talk to a Climate Change Skeptic, Part VI  How Not to Talk to a Climate Change Skeptic, Part V  Straw Men and Their Variations, Part II: Comment on 'The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels'  How Not to Talk to a Climate Change Skeptic, Part IV 

Moving Forward on Climate Change, Part IV: Looking Back

This series consists of links and excerpts from my last 12 months of posts touching on the science and politics of climate change. Part IV: Mitigation Measures for a Less Warm Planet, Part IIIb: Reduce Black Carbon  Mitigation Measures for a Less Warm Planet, Part IIIa: Reduce Emissions of Short-Lived Pollutants  Mitigation Measures for a Less Warm Planet, Part II: Energy Efficiency  Mitigation Measures for a Less Warm Planet, Part I  Staying within a 1.5° C Rise by 2100 is Still Possible Plus the Obligatory Warnings