Dear eco-loggers,
isn't it amazing how we pile up more and more knowledge, and still, change
is so slow that it becomes less and less likely that we will manage to turn
in time before major tipping points in the earth's system have been
transgressed? As the German Advisory Council on Global
Dear Anders,
Absolutely, we urgently need a change in the structure of how scientists
are evaluated. The fact that at the moment people who just publish,
without any involvement in public education, even within the fields of
ecology and conservation, are regarded as better scientists than
The fierce urgency of now, the fact that we are just short of passing
irreversible tipping points in our climate system, the fact that
emissions have to peak in 6 years, led to this statement from Nobel
Laureates and scientists that participated at a symposium last week:
All scientists should
I must admit I am a bit amazed that even within our community of
well-educated ecologists, learned in understanding connections between
different parts of nature, and able to think critically and
independently, we again and again encounter people who dare not to open
their eyes to the facts.
Dear Ecologgers,
I greatly enjoyed the discussions last week. I did note, however, that
people who feel strongly opposed to what I am saying feel a lot more
compelled to comment by private email than those that agree (which - based
on the survey - greatly outnumber those that oppose).
I believe
That's an interesting question which I recently discussed during a
presentation of mine at a church.
Of course we are part of the natural system. But we have the ability to
think about what we are doing, know our impact in the future, and thus
make decisions about the well-being of our children
The precautionary principle is probably THE best all-encompassing argument
to act in the face of climate change.
For those interested in further exploring this argument, and for great
short movies on the issue of risk management, please see
The Manpollo Project (http://www.manpollo.org/).
As
Dear Robert,
You are absolutely right that habitat loss is one of the major problems of
today. Focus on climate change is not because it is the only problem the
world faces. There is a number of planetary boundaries that all will lead
to catastrophic outcomes if we continue on our non-sustainable
to best stand on
that rope, and that our priorities at the moment are often too selfish and
short-sighted, myself included.
Thank you to all those who have participated in the survey so far! And
thanks for those who will.
Maiken Winter
for your participation!
Maiken Winter
--
The significant problems we face cannot be solved with the same level of
thinking we used when we created them (Albert Einstein)
350 - know it and do something about it! www.350.org
The question I've been asking is, why didn't we save ourselves while we
Dear all,
I am afraid that in the midst of yesterday's heat island effect the
important post about 350 might have been neglected.
Let me just shortly introduce it to you again:
350, as in 350 ppm, as in yes, we are way above that already (385 ppm)
is the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere
Interesting article. It would be almost too good to be true. A decrease
of 1.5 C due to lower sun-spot activity? That would just about balance out
the about 1.5 2 C warming that we can expect to happen even if we reduce
all greenhouse gas emissions today. What a wonderful coincidence! So we
Dave's message reminded me of a comment from a friend that I didn't take
to heart, and didn't apply yet: tell people that you earn nothing by
giving talks on climate change, not for any of your work. Ok, I tell you
know. If anybody wonders, Al Gore's cavalry, how he called us, the
climate project
26, 2007 5:53 am, Maiken Winter wrote:
Dave's message reminded me of a comment from a friend that I didn't take
to heart, and didn't apply yet: tell people that you earn nothing by
giving talks on climate change, not for any of your work. Ok, I tell you
know. If anybody wonders, Al Gore's
There are all kinds of types of deniers.
There are those who don't believe cc exists, some believe it is not
human-caused, some believe the main cause is population growth, some that
it is too expensive, some that they don't have time to do something, some
are scared of loosing scientific
Hi Kelly,
I don't think the article had an unbiased view on the issue of funding -
to compare funding that people receive from oil and gas companies with
funding that researchers receive after a peer reviewed process of research
proposals is like comparing apples with oranges. Of course many
Hi Malcolm,
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I will forward the information
to people in The Climate Project in California - they have connections to
levels that will make it easy to give that study a more adequate place
on the webpage, if at all.
I don't think there is any place on an
Here is a call for scientists to address congress about funding research
on how to best protect species in the face of climate change. - Maiken
October 16, 2007
Dear Colleague:
We are inviting researchers and practitioners from the various disciplines
of biological science to join in a letter
Thank you for all your responses. I am quite intrigued by the variety
of thoughts and opinions, and it partly reconfirms my impression that we as
scientists are trained to be critical to a degree that might sometimes
make us forget our responsibility and wisdom.
Even if we do not fully
Dear all,
One issue in the states which I don't understand is, why the other side
is mostly a lot more outspoken, and has a lot more aggressive strategies
to get their point across. The urgency of combating climate change is
huge, we are risking not just our children's future, but our own.
But I
As an addition to my previous post:
Just at the right time, this editorial was published today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/opinion/10friedman.html?_r=1hporef=slogin
What I see as the job of academic scientists is to instill students with
enough inspiration, understanding, commitment,
Hi all,
After spending 1 hour trying to find valid proof of what I had written 2
days ago about Larouche and Kunstler, I must shamefully admit that I could
not find a single webpage that clearly describes a connection between the
two. The search engine's results gave quite the wrong impression,
I would like to caution not to put too much weight on people who speak
about the end of civilization. James Howard Kunstler used to be part of
LaRouche's political organization which is more a sect than anything else.
They preach the end of civilization and total chaos, and the only way to
We all are hipocrits. And we all have our one thing that we just cannot
give up. Such as for me flying to see my family. We all can feel
tremendously bad about many part that we and others do. But that does not
help. The trick is, I think, to make it fun, and to give people choices to
do what
Hi all,
I believe it can be dangerous to rely on politicians whose main interest
is their own profit, especially for us living with Mr. B. I do strongly
believe that our behavior could have the power to influence politicians
and industries. If we consume less of energy wasting appliances and
Hi all,
In addition to the book Stan recommended, there is a book by George
Monbiot, Heat, that is sitting on my desk to be read, and was highly
recommended to me to read. It is available in the Canadian and British
Amazon.com.
On its back it says:
To those who say that the requirements of the
is a hoax, shouldn't we speak up, also for the
sake of the remaining prairies that might be at stake?
Maiken
Maiken Winter
Cornell Laboratory of Orntihology
Ithaca, NY 14850
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