Sunday, May 20, 2012

Living on a Planet with a Fever

You may have missed this over the weekend.  It was a commentary on CBS News by science and environment contributor M. Sanjayan.  If you don't want to read about climate change, this sums up the situation well.  This is a must see video:



Note: Those on IPads and IPhone may have to go to the following link to see the video .

M. Sanjayan is the lead scientist for The Nature Conservancy, where he specializes in human well-being and conservation, Africa, wildlife ecology and media outreach and public speaking on conservation issues.  In addition to being the Conservancy’s lead scientist, Sanjayan holds a doctorate from the University of California, Santa Cruz and has a research faculty appointment with the Wildlife Program at the University of Montana.  His scientific work has been published in journals including Science, Nature, and Conservation Biology, and he co-edited the book Connectivity Conservation (Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Dr. Sanjayan is correct in saying that this is our sink or swim moment.  The next 25 years are already baked into the cake.  If we want to affect the rate of climate change beyond that, we have to start now.  Many of the projections you see are for 2100, but the change will not stop there.  Change is already occurring and the changes will likely accelerate in the near future.

Recently the Heartland Institute in Chicago aroused the anger of many with a billboard trying to tie belief in climate change to the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.  It was a poor attempt to associate such belief with murderers, tyrants, and madmen.


Peter Sinclair, the originator of the Climate Crock of the Week series, has put together an interesting rebuttal entitled "This is not Cool: Murderers, Tyrants, and Madmen.  It is part of the Yale forum on Climate Change and the Media series "This is not Cool".  I highly recommend watching the video.