Climate Lynx

  Why we must act now. Five points.          It is time for a national carbon pollution fee coupled with a citizen dividend . For details, visit www.citizensclimatelobby.org Here is why it is time to act: 1.    Climate Tipping points are thresholds, once reached, which cannot be reversed. There are at least a dozen physics and biological climate tipping points being monitored. At least three are on their edges ready to fall. Once we have toppled them, they will run their course of destruction with no help from us. 2.    Humanity can survive economic collapse, world-wide pandemics, wars, and any number of cataclysms but we cannot survive multiple ecosystem collapses. Nature sustains our air, water, and climate systems. If we ignore nature, it will not sustain us. 3.    While the task of avoiding ecosystem collapse is the responsibility of all nations, the United States has the largest economy. No soluti...

                              Planning for the next Generation Man has trouble understanding the element of time. We are particularly unable to visualize the consequences of our actions on future generations.   While we may, or may not, love our children we have trouble doing today, what is best for their tomorrow. We are especially negligent at recognizing our responsibilities to future generations in the collective. Time, on the other hand, for scientists is always “Of the Essence”. For instance, if the current warming was slow, climate scientists would simply report their findings in a journal, and few would take notice. But scientists know the warming is rapid and will accelerate each year. They have been warning us, and especially our elected leaders, for years…..it is sad so few of our leaders and so few of us have taken notice. With...

                                Heroes in their Own Time When someone is awarded an honor posthumously it always saddens me the person of merit is not able to bask in their earned glory. When Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselman, and Giorgi Parisi were honored with science’s most coveted award, the Nobel Prize in Physics, I was elated. Scientists Manabe’s and Hasselman’s awards were especially pleasing as they are 90 and 89 years of age, they are climate scientists, and they endured a lot of right-wing criticism for their groundbreaking work.   Today, while they are still alive, their tireless work has been granted the recognition deserved. Climate modeling was their pioneering creation. Climate modeling is just a short term used to describe what the scientific process does: Identify a question, form a hypothesis or explanation, crea...

  For seven years I flew support for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. Biologists were my customers. Working with these professionals was both a pleasure and a great opportunity. One thing I picked up from NDOW biologists was habitat, the land, and waters, and climate are key to the health of the plants, animals, fish, and birds they oversee. Recently, I met another biologist, Brian Jackson. He oversees the 1,180,000-acre wilderness called Quetico Provincial Park. This pristine park sits above the American Boundary Waters Canoe Area of near equal size. Arguably, these are two of the best canoe wilderness parks on the planet. Wilderness areas, like these and our Porcupine Mountains, are set aside for us and our progeny to enjoy. The rough guideline for wilderness management is for park biologists and employees to maintain the “ecological integrity”, or E.I. of the park. Expanding on this, E.I. means conserving biodiversity, maintaining intact and functioning ecosystems, and r...

  I am lounging in the shade at my relative’s cabin on Shebandowan Lake, Ontario. Shebandowan is a 24 mile long lake an hour’s drive northwest of Thunder Bay. The Morrow family of Canada has had a camp on the lake since well before I was born. Shebandowan and Quetico Park were my family’s destination nearly every summer when I was a K-12 school student. As I type, it seems a bit strange to be lounging in shorts, on the lee side of the lake, on September 19 th . It is 80 degrees F in the shade even after the wind crosses the cool lake. This contrasts with my experience as a kid. My dad generally scheduled our two-week family vacation the first two weeks of August. The weather was generally warm and the bugs, while still on the prowl, were receding in numbers. It was the perfect time to camp on a lake. One year, due to my dad’s work schedule, we had to postpone our trip to the last two weeks of August. This was risky north of the border as the weather could quickly turn cold in...