Posts tagged change
Climate change early warning system called for
Dec 3rd
Climate change has increased concern over possible large and rapid changes in the physical climate system, including Earth’s atmosphere, land surfaces and oceans, said Professor James White of CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and the chair of the National Research Council committee. Some abrupt changes and impacts already underway – including the loss of Arctic sea ice and increases in the extinction rates of marine and terrestrial species – and others could occur within a few decades or even years, said the committee.
“Research has helped us begin to distinguish more imminent threats from those that are less likely to happen this century,” said White, also a CU-Boulder professor in geological sciences. “Evaluating climate changes and impacts in terms of their potential magnitude and the likelihood they will occur will help policymakers and communities make informed decisions about how to prepare for or adapt to them.”
Other scenarios, such as the destabilization of the west Antarctic ice sheet, have potentially major consequences, but the probability of these changes occurring within the next century is not well understood, highlighting the need for more research, according to the committee.
In some cases, scientific understanding has progressed enough to determine whether certain high-impact climate changes are likely to happen within the next century. The report notes that a shutdown in the Atlantic Ocean circulation patterns or a rapid release of methane from high-latitude permafrost or undersea ice are now known to be unlikely this century, although these potential abrupt changes are still worrisome over longer time horizons.
But even changes in the physical climate system that happen gradually over many decades or centuries can cause abrupt ecological or socio-economic change once a “tipping point” is reached, the report adds. Relatively slow global sea-level rise could directly affect local infrastructure such as roads, airports, pipelines or subway systems if a sea wall or levee is breached. And slight increases in ocean acidity or surface temperatures could cross thresholds beyond which many species cannot survive, leading to rapid and irreversible changes in ecosystems that contribute to extinction events.
Further scientific research and enhanced monitoring of the climate, ecosystems and social systems may be able to provide information that a tipping point is imminent, allowing time for adaptation or possibly mitigation, or that a tipping point has recently occurred, the report says.
“Right now we don’t know what many of these thresholds are,” White said. “But with better information, we will be able to anticipate some major changes before they occur and help reduce the potential consequences.” The report identifies several research needs, such as identifying keystone species whose population decline due to an abrupt change would have cascading effects on ecosystems and ultimately on human provisions such as food supply.
If society hopes to anticipate tipping points in natural and human systems, an early warning system for abrupt changes needs to be developed, the report says. An effective system would need to include careful and vigilant monitoring, taking advantage of existing land and satellite systems and modifying them if necessary, or designing and implementing new systems when feasible. It would also need to be flexible and adaptive, regularly conducting and alternating between data collection, model testing and model predictions that suggest future data needs.
The study was sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Science Foundation, U.S. intelligence community, and the National Academies. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. They are private, independent nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter granted to NAS in 1863. The National Research Council is the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.
For more information and a copy of the report visit http://national-academies.org. For more information on INSTAAR visithttp://instaar.colorado.edu.
ESA: So much accomplished, so much to do
Nov 13th
BC1 news editor
The federal Endangered Species turns 40 years old this year. It was signed into law by Richard (“I am not a crook”) Nixon, in 1973, likely as a desperation move to garner public support for his collapsing presidency. The significance of this law is that, for the first time in history federal law recognized there are limits to economic development —i.e. when a species would be driven to extinction as a result of the activities. That, my friends, is a Line in the Sand.
The ESA has been incredibly effective, thanks almost entirely to the Center for Biological Diversity, which was instrumental in protecting more than 1,400 species and 200 million acres of critical habitat in the U.S. alone. Ninety nine percent of species protected by the ESA have been saved from extinction. The CBD uses law and science to make its case, bucking the trend of most major environmental groups, which rarely sue any longer for any reason. This happened because BIG OIL has undue influence in the environmental community by having representatives on the environmental groups’ board of directors and by funding these groups with the tacit understanding that the groups won’t oppose projects beneficial to oil and gas profits. Nevertheless, current trends are threatening to reverse the situation. Global climate change could be the most damaging threat in history, with profound implications for both animals and human beings. There are others.
To honor the ESA, Boulder Channel 1 will run a series of articles about the most serious of these threats.
By the Center for Biological Diversity
FRACKING THREATENS AMERICA’S AIR, WATER AND CLIMATE It poisons our water, contaminates our air and emits massive greenhouse gas pollution. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves blasting huge volumes of water mixed with toxic chemicals and sand deep into the earth to fracture rock formations and release oil and natural gas. This extreme form of energy production endangers our health and wildlands.
A fracking boom can transform an area almost overnight, creating massive new environmental and social problems. Fracking development is intensifying in Pennsylvania, Texas and North Dakota and moving into new areas, like California and Nevada. Will your state be fracked next? But as fracking spreads across America, communities are fighting back — and the Center for Biological Diversity is working to ban this growing threat. POLLUTING AIR AND WATER, KILLING WILDLIFE
About 25 percent of fracking chemicals could cause cancer, scientists say. Others harm the skin or reproductive system. Evidence is mounting throughout the country that these chemicals — as well as methane released by fracking — are making their way into aquifers and drinking water. Fracking can release dangerous petroleum hydrocarbons, including benzene and xylene. It also increases ground-level ozone levels, raising people’s risk of asthma and other respiratory illnesses. Wildlife is also in danger. Fish die when fracking fluid contaminates streams and rivers. Birds are poisoned by chemicals in wastewater ponds. And the intense industrial development accompanying fracking pushes imperiled animals out of wild areas they need to survive. In California, for example, more than 100 endangered and threatened species live in the counties where fracking is set to expand. DISRUPTING
OUR CLIMATE Fracking releases large amounts of methane, a dangerously potent greenhouse gas. Fracked shale gas wells, for example, may have methane leakage rates as high as 7.9 percent, which would make such natural gas worse for the climate than coal. But fracking also threatens our climate in another way. To prevent catastrophic climate change, we must leave about 80 percent of proven fossil fuel reserves in the ground. Fracking takes us in the opposite direction, opening up vast new deposits of fossil fuels. If the fracking boom continues, oil and gas companies will light the fuse on a carbon bomb that will shatter efforts to avert climate chaos. BAN FRACKING NOW To protect our environment from fracking, we must prohibit this inherently dangerous technique. That’s why the Center supports fracking bans and moratoriums at the local, state and national levels. Learn about fracking and please take action against it today.
CU study: Foreign students should stay
Nov 5th
foreign Ph.D. students to stay, CU-led study finds
Encouraging more talented foreign students to study at U.S. universities and encouraging them to launch entrepreneurial ventures here could help “revitalize innovation and economic growth” in this country, a trio of economists led by University of Colorado Boulder Professor Keith Maskus concludes.
Maskus and co-authors Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, associate professor at the Yale School of Management, and Eric T. Stuen, assistant professor at the University of Idaho College of Business and Economics, make this case in the Policy Forum of the Nov. 1 edition of the journal Science.
The economists’ perspective draws on their study of 100 research-intensive U.S. universities in 23 science and engineering fields, which found that both U.S. and foreign students are “essential causal inputs into scientific discovery.” The trio has also found evidence that increased student diversity boosts innovative research.
Maskus and his collaborators have found that high-performing foreign-born Ph.D. students improve the “creation of knowledge” in U.S. universities. When knowledge is created, it tends to drive entrepreneurial investment and economic growth.
In fact, the researchers found, “The productivity of the average American university science and engineering laboratory in generating publications is a bit higher if it has students from 10 different countries than if it has 10 students from one country.”
That might not seem intuitive, Maskus acknowledged. “What it comes down to is that people trained in different traditions tend to have different specialties in terms of how they come to a teamwork environment. And teamwork is more productive, more efficient if you have people with divergent ideas, so they can play off of each other.”
Such diversity of intellect, capacities and specializations makes a measurable difference, Maskus added. “It doesn’t matter so much on a factory line, but it matters a lot in an intellectual sense when you’re trying to be innovative and creative.”
The publication comes as Congress weighs whether and how to change the U.S. immigration system. A bipartisan bill that cleared the U.S. Senate in June but has stalled in the House includes provisions that partly mirror those recommended by Maskus and his team.
Based on data showing that highly skilled Ph.D.s in science and engineering tend to generate new jobs where they work, the bill would pave the way for Ph.D.s in science and engineering who are from foreign countries to gain permanent U.S. residency after graduation.
U.S. law requires foreign students to leave the country after earning their Ph.D.s unless they find employers willing to sponsor their visas, which, Maskus and his colleagues note, might not lead to permanent U.S. residency. In recent years, the percentage of foreign Ph.D.s remaining in the United States after graduation has declined.
The Senate bill would grant a green card, or permanent residence, to foreign students who get a Ph.D. in science or engineering at American universities. The bill would also facilitate green-card status to those who have recently earned doctoral degrees in science and engineering at recognized scientific institutions worldwide.
Maskus and his colleagues also recommend an entrepreneurship visa. Such a visa could be granted to those who have secured a patent and met certain milestones for getting that idea commercialized. The idea is similar to an investment visa—granted based on immigrants’ investment in the U.S. economy.
This year, Canada implemented an entrepreneurship visa that includes inventive foreign Ph.D.s. The program aims to attract science and engineering graduates from U.S. universities.
“Ultimately we think this is an important way of reinvigorating economic growth and technological change in the U.S.,” Maskus said.
Additionally, the trio contends that decisions to grant student visas to prospective graduate students from foreign countries should be granted on more factors than just their ability to pay. Historically, the ability-to-pay requirement has been used by immigration officials as an indicator that foreign students will return to their countries of origin.
In the case of foreign Ph.D.s in science and engineering, such a requirement “is short-sighted,” Maskus said. “The country should welcome people who can contribute in developing innovation and new technology and permit them to stay.”
“You have to have access to the best innovative inputs and resources in the world,” Maskus said. “The Europeans recognize that, the Australians, the Canadians.”
Addressing a commonly expressed fear, Maskus and his collaborators do not find evidence that granting green cards to high-performing foreign Ph.D.s would displace American Ph.D.s.
The research of Maskus, Mobarak and Stuen reinforces recommendations of groups ranging from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the National Academy of Sciences.
-CU-