COP 20: Lima, Peru – Page 18 – Global Climate Change Mosaic: COP 20

September 9, 2014September 21, 2014

El Niño and the Peruvian Fishing Industry

The Pacific coast of Peru: one of the world’s richest fisheries. Because the southeast trade winds blow parallel to the coastline in this area, the Coriolis effect and the Ekman transport system deflect surface water to the left of the wind direction and out to sea. In its place, upwelling brings cold water to the surface. This cold water is rich in nutrients, which attract plankton, and in turn fish, to the area just off the shore of Peru.

This upwelling system results in one of the most productive fishing grounds in the world. Half of the world’s commercial fish come from the coast of Peru, which makes up only .1% of the ocean’s surface area. Since 1960, the weightof the Peruvian anchovy catch has exceeded that of any other fish species in the world. But this productivity is vulnerable to extreme variability and fluctuation due to El Niño, a prolonged warming of Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures that wreaks havoc on fish populations in the area.

During El Niño, weakening trade winds allow warmer water from the Peru countercurrent to flow east toward Peru. Sometimes the trade winds even reverse direction. The warm water brought in by these trade winds overrides the cold water present off the coast because it is less dense. It is also not as nutrient-rich, resulting in a large percentage of fish either dying off or dispersing further offshore toward deeper water that is more nutrient-rich, putting a huge dent in the Peruvian fishing industry. An El Niño event typically last nine months to two years, happening at irregular intervals of two to seven years.

This reduction of the production and exportation of fish from one of the most productive fisheries in the world has injurious effects around the globe. Both poultry and livestock prices spike worldwide, because the fishmeal that is used to feed poultry and livestock is now more expensive. More locally, in Peru, the catch is reduced and people are put out of work, while fishmeal plants and fishing boats remain idle. Workers need to find a way to support their families during these El Niño episodes, and payments must still be made on loans taken out to buy fishing boats and build fishmeal plants. El Niño has a damaging effect on not just the local economy, but on economies worldwide. It is just another way that climate changes in one area of the world can have very damaging effects worldwide.

The Coriolis Effect and Eckman Transport at work — The Coriolis Effect and Eckman Transport System at work

Annual catch of Peruvian anchovy catch, by weight, since 1960

El Niño conditions copared to normal conditions

September 8, 2014October 4, 2014

The Cost of Flying to Peru- INCORRECT

THE BELOW CALCULATIONS ARE INCORRECT. PLEASE GO TO THIS LINK TO SEE THE CORRECT NUMBERS.

During our first class of the semester, while discussing the coming trip to COP20, Neil asked the mosaic to think about the costs of traveling thousands of miles in order to be a part of high-level climate negotiations. For this part of the semester we will not be riding our bikes down the street for class, we will be flying. Air travel is an extremely carbon intensive way to get around, but our only realistic choice (we could sail?). He asked us to reflect on this and during this reflection to ask ourselves how is the carbon emitted from traveling there worth it?

In order to do this I needed to quantify those emissions. Using EPA values for air travel and the emissions per mile of CO2, N2O, and CH4. I then converted those three values into carbon dioxide equivalent values using an EPA calculator. The results are below in Table 1. If you would like the excel worksheet to use for yourself please comment below with an email address. For simplicity’s sake I used four flights as the entire trip. Some of the mosaic will be traveling elsewhere in South America or not returning to Washington DC after the meeting. The four flights are: Flight 1 from Dulles to Panama City, Flight 2 from Panama City into Lima, Flight 3 from Lima to Panama City, Flight 4 from Panama City to Dulles. While this may not be each member of the mosaics travel plans it is easier to group all of us into one. The results are in Table 2. Each flight assumes a total capacity of 177 passengers and spreads the emissions out, per passenger. This means that, according to the EPA, each passenger would be emitting the same amount of carbon as about 25 pounds of coal would, when burned.

The question I ask myself now is how do I make that worth it? It may not be a huge amount of carbon emitted, but it is still some and I the entire trip will only be resulting in more. This investigation also brought to mind an article in the Wall Street Journal about the coming “People’s Climate March” in NYC. The author points out the amount of emissions that will result in traveling to and from NYC for the marchers. This could be seen as a counterproductive practice, but I think that it is a good point to make. If we treat emissions from travel similar to an investment, can we assume that some sort of positive return will be had? When the mosaic flies to Peru, we have to work as hard as possible to make sure that the cost of our traveling there is not a negative impact on the atmosphere in the long-term, but that it leads to further reductions down the road. Whether that is from the readers of our blog or directly related to something learned from the COP.

September 5, 2014September 21, 2014

Who would like to turn right at Machu Picchu?

Mark Adams describes Machu Picchu as a sublime sight. From many google images (and I mean many) I too agree that it is quite a sublime site. From steep hikes, the changing of altitudes, and the deep history that lies here, why should we not turn right at Machu Picchu?

In Adams’ book “Turn Right at Machu Picchu”, he narrates his adventure in retracing the steps of Hiram Bingham in the process of studying Bingham’s life and Incan history. Bingham has been accused of stealing and just “rediscovering” Machu Picchu since there were people already living there once he got there. Adams set out to discover what Machu Picchu really was.

Throughout his journey, Adams encounters locals, comes across untouched Incan ruins, and a funny Australian guide John Leivers who wears the same clothes everyday. He does an amazing job in weaving together two stories and adding a nice kick to it. He truly discovered the lost city one step at a time.

Not only am I excited for COP20, but Machu Picchu has been on my list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites to visit. I am very happy and grateful that I have the opportunity to do two very wonderful things at such a young age.

http://www.spinal-research.org/events/trek-the-inca-trail-to-machu-picchu-april-2013/

September 5, 2014September 21, 2014

An Inconvenient Truth

In 1965, our 36th president Lyndon Johnson delivered a special message to Congress. He said “This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale though…a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.” These powerful words portrayed how many have known about this issue for a while now. But what has truly been done about it?

Science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway introduce us to this special message in the beginning of the book “Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issue from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.” Throughout the book, you can see how environmental issues have been just swept under the rug because of other pressing issues at hand that needed to be tended to. Newsflash! There will ALWAYS be pressing issues that need to be tended to! How much longer will we keep our lovely planet waiting?

Oreskes and Conway also point out that the media is responsible for how information is represented or should I say… misrepresented. Information is put out in an exciting way by journalists, which is not wrong. That captures people and engages them. However, somewhere along the lines of “exciting” the truth gets lost. Scientists depend on journalists to get it right because they honestly do not have time to deal with public relations. When information is tampered with, it is the public who goes and knocks on doubt’s door, enters and remains there until further information is released. Climate change and media have a very difficult relationship.

http://rabett.blogspot.com/2013/10/lewandowsky-invariance.html

http://claesjohnsonmathscience.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/scientists-and-science-in-cartoons/

September 3, 2014

Whither China and Climate Change at COP 20?

My first exposure to China’s climate policy position was at COP 17 in Durban, So. Africa. There I asked a Chinese delegate if shale gas would be in the mix of transition fuels to wean China off coal in order to ameliorate the air pollution which continues to be a major contributor to a growing public health problem in eastern China. His response was that shale gas was a minor resource in China and that coal would continue to be a major player in energy production. Clearly the implication was that China was not interested in resolving the air pollution that chokes major cities as much as the continuation of the pace of economic development that was rapidly bring China into the 21st century as a developed nation. This was not what I was hoping for at a climate change conference.

What a difference three years makes! Since COP 17 and over the past year I have spent a month exploring Yunnan Province in southwestern China looking at sustainability efforts through alternative energy and climate change effects on agriculture and water availability. While you see the reason their CO2 emissions are so high (construction of high rises with no tenants, multi-lane highways to small towns, and long rail and highway overpasses to avoid farmers fields and the energy needed to build all this) even in the relatively cleaner western parts of China, there is a sense that this pace of development is not sustainable if for not other reason then the environmental degradation it is causing to some very beautiful landscapes. Moreover a lingering drought has this mostly agrarian part of China reeling from lack of rain especially for rice production. Climate change may be taking hold and the Chinese sense it.

So what has changed? While we are not sure exactly what the China’s strategy will be, it is clear they want to slow the use of coal to improve the air quality of the major cities at the very least. We saw lots of reasons to believe that alternative, non-fossil fuel energy is being used especially at the personal level. In the large cities and small villages as well solar hot water is the name of the game. In Kunming, the provincial capital, every rooftop has a solar water heater; even apartment buildings string a dozen or two water heaters together to supply all the tenants. Biogas has become a staple of rural energy life in place of burning scare wood. And government officials at the local level are encouraging these changes.

So what can we expect from the Chinese at COP 20 where they will be even a bigger player in the negotiations than they were in Durban? It is hard to know as one is never quite sure what they will come up with and how they will approach climate change mitigation now. But from talking to the people in Yunnan province including the scientists doing biomass and solar heating research it appears that the Chinese are beginning to see the value of slowing development, encouraging well established alternative energy sources at the local level, and becoming more concerned about a pending public health crisis in their megacities. Will the Chinese find a way not only to play nice with the other “kids” in Lima but also be a positive influence in solving global emissions problems? Stay tuned.

Solar water heaters for home use are ubiquitous in southwestern China including the most rural areas

September 3, 2014September 21, 2014

Impacts of the Erratic Beast

Coming from a family of Bangladeshi immigrants who want better opportunities for their children and for them to know their roots, my parents made sure my sisters and I knew our culture, language, and traditions. My parents took my sisters and I to Bangladesh at a very young age so we can fully emerge ourselves into our culture.

This past summer I visited Bangladesh for the third time. It was truly a wonderful trip like all of the other times I have visited. However, during this trip I noticed the impacts of climate change; the Erratic Beast. Bangladesh is a beautiful country with so much green scenery but it will soon be gone due to rising sea levels. There was an interesting and thought-provoking film released about the impacts of climate change specifically in Bangladesh called Bangladesh: A Climate Trap. It is a climate trap because of rising sea levels, weather patterns changing, and biological systems being affected with the rise of CO2 levels.

In Spencer R. Weart’s book, “The Discovery of Global Warming”, he address the influences which cause impacts of the Erratic Beast. In 1980, it was found that CO2 played a vital role in climate change. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and nitrates are also influences.

With the melting of ice caps, many countries and islands will soon disappear…

Woman With Arms Outstretched — http://www.climatetrap.org/about/

September 2, 2014September 21, 2014

Climate change or no climate change? That is the question.

There is a group of people who are a climate scientist’s worst enemy: Climate Change Deniers. But what happens when the climate scientists become the deniers? Merchants of Doubt tells that story. A group of scientists effectively misled the public and denied scientific truths by using their deep ties in politics. The denial of climate change is similar to the denial of tobacco smoking linked to lung cancer. Merchants of Doubt shows that people will believe what they want to believe despite any scientific evidence.

Tobacco Smoking and Global Warming have a lot more in common than you would think; they are both intertwined with the global economy and both the smoke from tobacco and the manufacturing of tobacco are detrimental to the environment. Global warming is intertwined with global politics and the global market. Energy usage, a main environmental issue, is what keeps the economy going.

Scientists concluded evidence that tobacco smoking can cause lung cancer, which sent the tobacco industry into a panic. In fear they would lose profits from the new evidence released about the negative health effects of tobacco smoking, they hired a group of scientists to disprove these facts. The tobacco industry used science to manipulate consumers. This manipulation of science only delays the progress of climate change mitigation.

September 2, 2014September 21, 2014

Change and Complexity

This drawing illustrates two things.

1. Change is hard. People are often stuck in their own beliefs. It usually takes a generation or two of people dying out to change society’s beliefs. Just ask Ignaz Semmelweis, one of the first people to observe the germ theory. The scientific community thought his claims of hand washing to reduce mortality in hospitals were baseless and insulting. (Ironically, he was beaten by guards in a mental hospital and died at the age of 47 of blood poisoning when the staff treated his wounds without sterilizing their tools or hands.) The scientific laws and theories that we take for granted as accepted facts today were not always so widely accepted. There is always a struggle to gain acceptance of a truth that seems strange and complicated.

2. The science of climate change is extremely complex. Complex ideas are hard to grasp. They cannot be built up or taken down with just one accusation. They must be discussed and explained so that the public understands what “global warming” actually involves. In a study conducted by Bord and colleagues at Penn State, the correct understanding of the causes of climate change was what determined how the participants acted and voted on climate change.

The discovery of global warming was as complicated as content. It wasn’t straight forward at all; there were many false starts and persistent uncertainties. At first, scientists thought that there was too little CO2 to act as a greenhouse for the earth. Once that was disproven, no one thought there was enough CO2 in our atmosphere to make any difference in the climate. Then, no one imagined the industrial and population boom would be quite so big and quite so fast.Once global warming was even considered a possible threat, it was already the 1960s.

Getting the public on board with the warning of climate change was another task altogether. Scientists needed to convince the government, citizens, and industries that their findings on global warming were valid and urgent. This is not in most scientists’ comfort zones. Climate change is a complex issue, and it is difficult to transfer the scientific jargon into public knowledge. And today, scientists and citizens alike are arguing for action on climate change. The history of climate change is still being written today. Let’s make sure it has a happy ending.

September 2, 2014September 21, 2014

How to End an Awkward Dinner Conversation? – Talk about Climate Change

Everyone has experienced the endless question fandango. What school do you go to? Do you like it? What are you studying? What are you going to do with that? What’s next? Well, one day I hit a breaking point, so when one of my mother’s friend finished asking me those five questions. I went on an extended rant about the projected gloomy future of our planet. I discussed: the Arctic ice sheets completely melting by 2080, the rising sea levels that will engulf the Pacific Islands, the decreasing Amazon rainforest, the increase in frequency/intensity of hurricane and etc. Afterwards, I glanced over at my mother’s friend and she had a horrified look on her face. She made an excuse about “dying to see the renovation on the garage”. Mission Accomplished.

However, after reading Bill McKibben’s book, eaarth , I realize now what I did was wrong. Climate Change is apocalyptic enough, and the last thing I should be doing is crushing people’s moral regarding climate change. Climate change needs people’s interest, not dread. McKibben informs the reader about the anthropogenic alteration to Earth’s atmosphere, biodiversity, oceans and landscape. These changes will result in a new planet and there have been consequences that have already negatively impacted thousands of people.

Rather than my end of the world scenario with no hope, McKibben paints positivity on to his pages. He offers encouragement, hope and solutions. For example, he acknowledges the switch to local farming and the individual level changes. Like other climatologists, McKibben calls for political and global level changes to green house gas emissions. His website demonstrates the power of protesting and encourages people around the world to get involved. I gained a vast amount of positivity from reading earth and I hope to take McKibben’s approach towards climate change.

http://350.org/

September 2, 2014September 21, 2014

Do you want to live on a new planet?

Living on a different planet sounds exciting, right? I think of a space ship finally landing on its far traveled destination and discovering completely a new environment. This picture above is an artist’s depictions of Kepler-186f, a newly found Earth-size planet orbiting inside a red dwarf star’s habitable zone. It’s rocky, it might have water, it might even have life, but could we, evolved through Earth’s distinct conditions, ever thrive there? It’s likely not.

We may not have to travel light-years away to find a new planet- ours is transforming right before our eyes. Bill McKibben describes this new planet we are creating, Eaarth, in his book of the same name. This new world is plagued by drought, fires, and storms. The planet, as before, is primarily covered in water, but this time, the pH is slipping down, the temperature is creeping up, and the coastline is rising to cover the many cities of humans. Everything’s changing. The rise in global temperature means that the mountain pine beetle can survive through the winter and kill trees in the western United States. These huge tree kills increase mudslides and erosion and decrease forest carbon uptake. The snow and ice in Greenland and the Arctic are melting, swallowing up small island nations like the Maldives in the process. Other places become deserts. Depending on the nation’s affluence, people must either spend more money on desalination plants or spend more time traveling to gather water. Crops are frozen, parched, and diseased, increasing food costs and human starvation.

This new planet no longer seems exciting; it is menacing. The current seven billion humans that depend on a hospitable planet to are actually very temperamental. How do we survive this new planet? McKibben wants us to think small. We must shrink our economy, limit growth, and give our tired planet some space. New planets have new limitations and restrictions, these are some of ours. Now we have to learn how to adapt to living on this mad experiment we have created.