Adapting to climate change -- Facing the consequences

Global action is not going to stop climate change. The world needs to look harder at how to live with it

Nov 25th 2010 | from the print edition

 

Climate change -- How to live with climate change -- It won’t be stopped, but its effects can be made less bad

Nov 25th 2010 | from the print edition

Peters G, Marland G, Le Quéré C, Boden T, Canadell JG, Raupach RR (2012) CO2 emissions rebound after the Global Financial Crisis (pdf, 252kb). Nature Climate Change 2: 2–4

doi. 10.1038/nclimate1332.

Le Quéré C, Raupach MR, Canadell JG, Marland G et al. (2009) Trends in the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide.  Nature Geoscience 2,

doi: 10.1038/ngeo689

Friedlingstein P, Houghton RA, Marland G, Hackler J, Boden TA, Conway TJ, Canadell JG, Raupach MR, Ciais P, Le Quéré C (2010) Update on CO2 emissions. Nature Geoscience 3: 811-812.

DOI 10.1038/ngeo_1022

Climate Change: Ice-Free Arctic Sea May Be Years, Not Decades, Away

Science 337, 1591 (2012)

Race Is On as Ice Melt Reveals Arctic Treasures

By Elisabeth Rosenthal

Published: September 18, 2012 -- NY Times

 

Ending Its Summer Melt, Arctic Sea Ice Sets a New Low That Leads to Warnings

By JUSTIN GILLIS

Published: September 19, 2012, NY Times

Reconstructed changes in Arctic sea ice over the past 1,450 years

The Economist

Special report: The Arctic

US Energy policy

NYTimes

Greenhouse gases

Japan Split on Hope for Vast Radiation Cleanup, NYTimes Dec 6, 2011

At Climate Talks, a Familiar Standoff Emerges Between the U.S. and China, NYTimes Dec 7, 2011

 

Arctic ozone "hole" in early 2011

Nature Abstract: Chemical ozone destruction occurs over both polar regions in local winter–spring. In the Antarctic, essentially complete removal of lower-stratospheric ozone currently results in an ozone hole every year, whereas in the Arctic, ozone loss is highly variable and has until now been much more limited. Here we demonstrate that chemical ozone destruction over the Arctic in early 2011 was—for the first time in the observational record—c omparable to that in the Antarctic ozone hole. Unusually long-lasting cold conditions in the Arctic lower stratosphere led to persistent enhancement in ozone-destroying forms of chlorine and to unprecedented ozone loss, which exceeded 80 per cent over 18–20 kilometres altitude. Our results show that Arctic ozone holes are possible even with temperatures much milder than those in the Antarctic. We cannot at present predict when such severe Arctic ozone depletion may be matched or exceeded.

Thanks to Eliana Ritts for finding this article!

News story suggested by Brendan McHugh about sea level rise and Philadelphia

Thanks to Daniel Urdaneta for giving us a conservative view from a WSJ columnist. 

BRET STEPHENS, who writes the column in the WSJ, is a pretty widely read although highly controversial conservative writer. Found this interesting not just because of the connections of some of his arguments (exaggerated rhetoric aside) to some of the assertions made by republican hopefuls, but also because it’s  number one on the most emailed article list (quite a big deal for as big a publication as WSJ)—could be an indicator of shifts in public opinion on the issue, especially among conservatives.

 

'This house believes that climate-control policies cannot rely on carbon capture and storage.'

 Eileen Norton brings to our attention that The Economist has an interesting debate posted on carbon control and carbon storage

NYTimes Dec 4, 2011

Global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning jumped by the largest amount on record last year, upending the notion that the brief decline during the recession might persist through the recovery.

Emissions rose 5.9 percent in 2010, according to an analysis released Sunday by the Global Carbon Project http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/, an international collaboration of scientists tracking the numbers. Scientists with the group said the increase was almost certainly the largest absolute jump in any year since the Industrial Revolution, and the largest percentage increase since 2003.

The researchers said the high growth rate reflected a bounce-back from the 1.4 percent drop in emissions in 2009, the year the recession had its biggest impact. In the United States, emissions dropped by a remarkable 7 percent in the recession year of 2009, but rose by just over 4 percent last year. In China, emissions grew 10.4 percent in 2010.

NYTimes Opinion Page December 2, 2011

 

After Fukushima: Now, More Than Ever The primary lesson from Japan’s recent trauma, however, is that a tsunami is dangerous to everything in its path, nuclear plants included. Consider the growing needs for reliable energy, the fact that nuclear is probably the safest form of power that can meet those needs, and the unfortunate truth that fossil-fueled alternatives emit so much pollution that they arguably pose a much greater threat than the darkest nuclear accident scenario.

NYTimes Opinion Page December 2, 2011

After Fukushima: Enough Is Enough  The nuclear power industry has been resurrected over the past decade by a lobbying campaign that has left many people believing it to be a clean, green, emission-free alternative to fossil fuels. These beliefs pose an extraordinary threat to global public health and encourage a major financial drain on national economies and taxpayers. The commitment to nuclear power as an environmentally safe energy source has also stifled the mass development of alternative technologies that are far cheaper, safer and almost emission free — the future for global energy.

A Hard Day’s Night: Director Richard Lester gives a very interesting perspective on the 1964 comedy, A Hard Day’s Night. Like many other sources, it comments on the music, The Beatles, and “Beatlemania”, but unlike most sources, it looks at the film through a very refined cinematic lens. One chapter, for example, takes a deep look into Richard Lester as an auteur, in which he is credited for making “something of a breakthrough in communicating the spirit of popular music in film.” Lester’s technique in filming A Hard Day’s Night is also considered to be incredibly unique. “[His] approach to pop music in cinema was a world away from earlier attempts. The music, here, dictates the image completely; it is not in the background, nor is it an aimless interlude with the performers spotlighted. Lester fits whichever image most suits the songs, thereby giving visual expression to the spirit of the songs.” Instead of using the music as a means of enhancing the image on the screen, Lester instead used the image on the screen as a means of enhancing the music. This book also goes into detail on the narrative, characters, and even cinematography of A Hard Day’s Night when it claims that the film’s cinematographer, Gilbert Taylor, shared with Lester a strong “interest in the cinema verite style” and an inspiration “by the French New Wave directors such as Jean-Luc Godard.” With such influences, A Hard Day’s Night includes cinematography such as “depth of field, framing, shot duration, camera angles” and many of the shots are “shot from all sides: from above, below and sideways.” Even “The experimental approach to lighting complemented the camera work and the two together are key aspects to the film’s style.”
This book looks at A Hard Day’s Night from the perspective of a filmmaker, and with such a view, it complements and notes what was so innovative about this film. Lester, along with his cinematographer, Gilbert, created a film that had its own unique style, one that complemented the true subject of the film: the music. With such a cinematic approach to music, this book supports my claim that A Hard Day’s Night was in fact the first true rock and roll film because although there had been movies before it about music, this was the first to use the medium of film in a way to enhance the music it portrayed.

    Andrew Sarris' introduction to book, A Hard Day's Night: A Complete Pictorial Record of the Movie, tells the story of how this 1964 comedy changed pop culture and how "nothing would ever be the same again."  Sarris discusses what it was in particular that made this film so revolutionary.  In his opinion, the score for one thing "surpass[ed] in emotional lucidity and melodic invention every other musical show of the sixties from every medium."  Sarris doesn't stop with the music, however.  He goes on to comment on the revolutionary filming style used in the film that differentiated it from all of its predecessors.  "The success of the film is attributable not only to the Beatles and their music, but to a genuinely modern style of film making.  Even at the time I was aware that A Hard Day's Night would turn out to be the Citizen Kane of jukebox musicals, a brilliant crystallization of such diverse cultural hand held camera, frenzied cutting, the cult of the sexless sub-adolescent, the semi-documentary, and studied spontaneity."  In addition to this introduction, however, the book includes a lenghty interview with Richard Lester, the film's director.  In the interview, details of the film are revealed and we can learn what the motivations were behind many of the scenes and characters.

    In the interview, Lester claims "the general aim of the film was to present what was apparently becoming a social phenomenon in this country."  This quote is the root of my thesis: that A Hard Day's Night was the first film to successfully unite the pop cultures of film and music and therefore was the first true rock and roll film.  The movie was made with the intention of portraying the social phenomenon on screen, and Lester chose to do this by capturing the unscripted essence of the "Fab Four."  "I think the classic example of this is the boys playing in the field.  It says in the script, "Ringo... fire escape... space." [...] It doesn't say what they are going to be doing."  Lester's reflexion on the loose filming process is further evidence that this film was intended to portray The Beatles, not a fictional set of characters in a fictional world in the same way the Elvis films did, for example.  This new approach at filming a musical is what led A Hard Day's Night to be so influential.