[GWSG] Gore on TED; Mulkey's blog; Hansen polar videos; 1/2 the C budget; coral prospects; thermal batteries; Adaptors

[Tilley, Al]

1.  Al Gore summarizes our climate situation in a TED talk and gives his reason for optimism.  He is well informed as always.  https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/ideas-worth-spreading?utm_source=email-AG-TED&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TED



2.  Ecologist Stephen Mulkey has returned to FL from his term as President of Unity College.  He is maintaining a blog, Environmental Century.  This posting on the necessity of planning for sea level rise in Florida, and on the forms it should take, will probably earn him a bookmark on your browser.  http://environmentalcentury.net/2016/02/23/decision-time-for-florida/



3.  In a three-minute video James Hansen explains why the polar ice sheets pose the threat of multimeter sea level rise within decades.  http://climatecrocks.com/2016/02/24/new-video-james-hansen-on-ice-sheets-2016/  Peter Sinclair has reposted this eight-minute video of Hansen accounting for the global heat spike 65 million years ago, the last time the polar ice sheets melted.  http://climatecrocks.com/2016/02/25/the-earth-has-changed-before-whats-the-big-deal-hansen-on-deep-time/



4.  The amount of carbon we can release and still limit warming to 2C is half as great as we had thought, according to a paper in Nature Climate Change.  We need to accelerate the pace of our transition to renewable energy.  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/25/fossil-fuel-use-must-fall-twice-fast-thought-contain-global-warming



5.  It might be possible to save a very little coral in isolated and protected bays and lagoons through environmental engineering, but the only way to save most coral from acid seas is through cutting fossil fuel usage.  http://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-corals-idUSKCN0VX2E3?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews



6.  Electric water heaters can be used as thermal batteries to spread the energy load more evenly, obviating the use of occasional power sources.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/02/24/the-secret-power-of-your-most-boring-home-appliance/?postshare=2641456353202396&tid=ss_tw



7.  The Adaptors is a series of 10-15 minute online video (2) and audio (7) programs about proposed measures (many desperate) to deal with climate change.  Topics include engineering our eyes to be more light sensitive (and so reducing nighttime energy use), generating electricity from artificial tornadoes, fostering heat and acid tolerant coral, and the future of yaks and rats.  After their first year the producers are looking for further funding.  The production style is genial, entertaining, and professional.   http://www.theadaptors.org/  ?

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.unf.edu/pipermail/gwsg/attachments/20160226/51ced9fa/attachment.html