Tag: #climate action

Drone-eyed view of a melting ice sheet: Greenland

By GREG OLMSTED

Greenland, the world’s largest island, supports “one of the biggest and fastest-melting chunks of ice on earth,” according to an article in the New York Times.  And it’s quickly melting away.  The ice melts and forms lakes.  The lakes feed rivers.  The rivers flow into moulins or giant holes in the ice.  And the sea level rises.  Watch Josh Haner, a Pulitzer Prize winner in feature photography, drone along a beautiful, fast flowing river that vanishes into a moulin. 

______________________________

Drone update:  In my earlier blog (Breakfast with weather researchers and drones, October 17), I reported on the difference between hobby and commercial drones.  Since then, Anthony Fox, U.S. Secretary of Transportation announced that the Department of Transportation will be “Having a national registry of folks who are owners of drones and users of drones.”  Drone owners and users be advised: According to Mr. Fox, the Federal Drone Registry will include retro-active registration, too.  In fact, the control of drones is being fast-tracked: a task force will make recommendations before Thanksgiving and the federal government will require registration before Christmas sales of drones.  This is a major undertaking.  Both Amazon Prime Air and Google X’s drone delivery programs/businesses are task force members, along with Best Buy and Walmart.  But who is representing journalists and videographers?  In addition to the registration requirement, the FAA is working with CACI to develop a program that will track use of drones near airports and identify their owners.

A switch — Americans accept climate change

By GREG OLMSTED

“Please give us something optimistic to take away, here,” Seth Borenstein, the moderator asked his panel. “Something a little … less pessimistic than we have been hearing.” Berrien Moore, the Director of the National Weather Center replied, “There are tipping points politically. And I point only to the Tobacco case. For how many years were we told, ‘Oh no, there is no health risk.’ And then finally the body politic said, ‘That is just idiotic. Clearly there is a health risk.’ And it switched.”

Well, the switch has occurred among Americans, including the majority of Republicans, too. Survey results by the University of Texas show that three quarters (75%) of Americans accept the science of climate change. Similarly, the National Surveys on Energy and Environment results show that seventy percent of Americans believe in climate change.

But what of the body politic? When will the body politic switch, too?

____________

Seth Borenstein and Berrien Moore, question and answer, recorded at the Opening Plenary, Climate Change and Extreme Weather: Planning for an Uncertain Future, October 9, 2015, Society of Environmental Journalists 25th Annual Conference, Norman, Oklahoma, by Greg Olmsted. From left to right: Kathleen Tierney (Director, Natural Hazards Center and Professor, Department of Sociology and the Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado, Boulder), Berrien Moore (Director, National Weather Center; Dean, College of Atmospheric & Geographic Sciences; Chesapeake Energy Corporation Chair in Climate Studies; and Vice President, Weather & Climate Programs, University of Oklahoma), Seth Borenstein (Science Writer, The Associated Press; moderator), Kathryn Sullivan (NOAA Administrator and Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), Jonathan Overpeck (Thomas R. Brown Distinguished Professor, Regents’ Professor of Geosciences and Atmospheric Sciences, and Co-Director, Institute of the Environment, University of Arizona).