The Climate Change Office Pool
Researchers at the National Snow and Ice Center in Boulder, CO are running an informal office pool betting on whether this is the year that the Arctic Ocean is briefly ice-free during the summer. Several other researchers are putting the odds of this happening at between 25-50% chance this year.
Sure, these researchers are affiliated with one of the most notorious party schools in the USA, but the extent of the chance is what is important here. When I first became environmentally active, the best available projections suggested an ice-free Arctic by 2080, and here it is, 2008, and there are Office Pools on whether this is the year. The way things are going, we will need to look closely at developing our ability to adapt rapidly.
Here is a daily picture of Arctic ice cover. I'll be checking it daily!
On another note, we are making modifications to our site, working through the great feedback we have received. One thing several folks have asked for is a way to go back and check their carbon footprint histories - it's coming soon!
Danny Bloom // July 15, 3008
Yes yes yes, we must change / transform our concept of travel, like you said. It can be done. I myself have not travelled for over 15 years, and I don’t miss it at all. I just readjusted by ice cream gimme gimme needs, and I am content to live in one place, see friends every day, read voraciosuly on the Net and in the newspapers and magazines, email all over the world, and work on my polar cities concept. I’m in your camp, also Monbiot’s camp. We need to stop all air travel now. But as you say so well, we have become accustomed to our travel fixes, as if it is a human entitlement, BUT ONLY BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE INVNTED SHIPS AND THEN AIRPLANES…….but with global warming on the horizon, it’s time to reconfigure our travel needs. sure, we will miss it. travel broadens the soul. But there are OTHER ways to travel now, via the Net and email, and with climate change a possibily tragic event for the future, we need to rethink all of this. you should write a longer essay on this and submit it as an oped piece to the NYTimes……sure, the travel industry will say no, as will all the other people who profit from travel……BUT it;s over folks, we are in a LONG EMERGENCY and we must drop our travel needs, and go back to earlier kind of lifestyles revolving around where we live. We shall get through it okay. I have.
What are polar cities? In case you never heard of them yet, check here:
http://northwardho.blogspot.com
Danny
Tufts 1971
Posted by: Danny Bloom | July 15, 2008 at 03:36 AM