That was a great representative line from an article recently published in Discover magazine (July/August 2011) about risk perception entitled “What You Don’t Know Can Kill You” by Jason Daley.  Although climate change is only mentioned in the article briefly, naturally my mind made that extension right away.

I had just finished my Master’s thesis, which was an analysis of Chinese state media coverage on the effects of climate change on China’s food and water security.  Climate change, media programming, and educational communications have constantly been on my mind.  So this very topic – trying to understand why people aren’t as worried about the risks of anthropogenic climate change as the scientific data show we should be – is something that keeps ME “up at night.”

Something I’ve been concerned about regarding the messages the scientific community manages to get out to the public about environmental issues in general, and climate change in particular, is that scientists are not trained to “sell themselves,” especially not to non-scientists.  It has always seemed obvious to me that generally people aren’t interested in things they aren’t already interested in, to be glib.  So if we try to serve a hot steaming dish of threatening-sounding FACTS and DATA to a public a) not interested in science, b) heavily influenced by politics in ]]> “Earthquakes? Tsunamis? Those things seem inevitable, accepted as acts of God. But an invisible, man-made threat associated with Godzilla and three-eyed fish? Now that’s something to keep you up at night.”

That was a great representative line from an article recently published in Discover magazine (July/August 2011) about risk perception entitled “What You Don’t Know Can Kill You” by Jason Daley.  Although climate change is only mentioned in the article briefly, naturally my mind made that extension right away.

I had just finished my Master’s thesis, which was an analysis of Chinese state media coverage on the effects of climate change on China’s food and water security.  Climate change, media programming, and educational communications have constantly been on my mind.  So this very topic – trying to understand why people aren’t as worried about the risks of anthropogenic climate change as the scientific data show we should be – is something that keeps ME “up at night.”

Something I’ve been concerned about regarding the messages the scientific community manages to get out to the public about environmental issues in general, and climate change in particular, is that scientists are not trained to “sell themselves,” especially not to non-scientists.  It has always seemed obvious to me that generally people aren’t interested in things they aren’t already interested in, to be glib.  So if we try to serve a hot steaming dish of threatening-sounding FACTS and DATA to a public a) not interested in science, b) heavily influenced by politics in the media and from Capitol Hill, and c) much more worried about more immediate problems like home foreclosure, we’re really setting out on a fruitless venture.

Climate scientists and communicators MUST GET BETTER AT COMMUNICATING WITH THE PUBLIC in ways that are simple, articulate, entertaining (yes, I said entertaining) and possibly consumable; if we do, we’ll have a much more effective go of it.  We need to learn some lessons from the business world: anything is sale-able as long as you sell it right. How else did bottled water become one of the biggest industries in the United States in the 1990s?

In addition to figuring out how to sell our cause, we have got to get a clearer look at the psychological processes that affect how people understand risk.  The work done by social scientists, and in particular a study done by Paul Slovic, Baruch Fischhoff, and Sarah Lichtenstein (cited in “What You Don’t Know…”), shows that:

a) people do not make risk judgments based on logic

b) in order to change a person’s judgment of risk, one must appeal to the part of her brain that governs emotion.

Another great quote: “We like to think that humans are supremely logical,  making decisions on the basis of hard data and not on whim.  For a good part of the 19th and 20th centuries, economists and social scientists assumed this was true too.  The public, they believed, would make rational decisions if only it had the right pie chart or statistical table.  But in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that vision of homo economicus – a person who acts in his or her best interest when given accurate information – was kneecapped by researchers investigating the emerging field of risk perception.  What they found, and what they have continued teasing out since the early 1970s, is that humans have a hell of a time accurately gauging risk.”

What they learned:

- We have a particular fear of the man-made (perhaps because man-made creations should be things we have control over?).  Like the opening line of this post states, natural events seem inevitable and completely out of our control, and much less worth the worry.  The irony is that climate change in the modern era IS man-made.  According to the social science, it should be as frightening as nuclear energy, genetically modified crops, and nanotechnology have been.  But so many climate deniers have found a perfect solution – admit to the public that climate change could be happening (since it becomes harder and harder to completely deny these days), but that if it is, it’s a completely natural planetary process.  According to this “logic,” we shouldn’t waste our time worrying about it, because it’s “an act of God.”

- Gut instincts tend to win out over logic.  We are most heavily influenced by preconceived emotional connections to situations or ideas.

- We are more afraid of things we can imagine most vividly because those things are more concrete or because we are exposed to images of those things in the media, on television, or in movies.  People are terrified of shark attacks, aliens, and Communists – things we’ve seen in movies for decades – but not as worried about the global effects of climate change, because, to be fair, we’ve never seen those things before.

- We are more likely to believe things (including the riskiness of our behaviors) if they fit into our current worldview, or align with the opinions we already have.  We have a particular challenge in communicating with people who firmly believe climate change is a non-issue*.

- We are less likely to attribute single events to the continuance of whole systems if those events do not intuitively reflect the direction in which the system is supposed to be moving.  In other words, people think in terms of stereotypes.  The example in Discover – “John wears glasses, is quiet, and carries a calculator” – he must be an engineer or a mathematician.

An example relevant to climate change – extra cold winters do not intuitively fit into people’s expectations for “global warming” so those events often are not accepted as signs of systematic climate change.  This is yet another perception challenge that could easily be met with clearer communications.

- We are more likely swayed by positive emotions associated with a behavior choice than negative emotions.  The example used in Discover: although most people in the U.S. today intellectually understand the grave risks of smoking, thousands of people every day smoke their first cigarette.  The positive associations with smoking win out over the negative associations and affect the behavior to choose to start smoking, although objectively, the negative consequences of smoking are far more impactful than the positive effects of smoking.

An example relevant to climate change: although choosing a renewable energy program with a local power company could have objectively more important positive benefits in the future (for example, on a grand scale, preventing climate change will alleviate a lot of suffering around the world), the behavior choice is too often focused on the “now.”  The positive associations with choosing the cheaper, dirtier energy and having more money leftover in the bank at the end of the month to use on a new car or at the mall outweigh the negative consequences of continuing to emit unnecessary greenhouse gases.

- I think the last point also brings in the idea of proximity – now seems much more relevant than next year, ten years from now, or several decades from now.  It is difficult to influence people to  make decisions that don’t seem to have positive affects on today, especially if they don’t clearly understand the risk of negative effects 40 years from now.

I would love to see climate change communicated in novel, gripping, and easy-to-understand ways.  I think so much emphasis gets put on R&D, political action and public policy, and scientific debates that we forget how effective advertising, a tool right at our fingertips, can be in swaying public opinion, whether the point is to sell bottled water or to reduce tobacco use.  The field of risk perception is just one from the greater genre of social science, which also includes psychology, sociology, anthropology, and economics, that could be extremely useful as a guiding star toward building effective communications campaigns centered around climate change education.

* Some in the sustainability field call these people “late-adopters” and place them low in the ranks of priority because they are the least likely to be swayed.  I would argue that many of these people are the people who have the  most at stake if public policy were to turn friendly toward climate change mitigation and therefore play some of the larger roles in contributing to climate change and have some of the greatest influence on other people.  For example, an oil and gas CEO is likely to be one of these “late-adopters” and is also responsible for massive greenhouse gas emissions; yet, when an oil and gas tycoon turns around and enthusiastically adopts a pro-renewable energy attitude and makes the related changes to his/her industry, the general public is much more likely to take note.

Is Arctic Ice Melting?

National Snow and Ice Data Center. This graph shows the extent of the Arctic with normal warm-season sea ice coverage for 2007, 2010, and the average of all years from 1979-2000. It is obvious that Arctic sea ice coverage in 2010 has been significantly spottier this year than in previous decades.

Outside the Arctic and Antarctic, the Greenland Icesheet is the largest concentration of glacial ice on our planet. Over the last ten or twelve years, the Greenland Icesheet has fallen out of equilibrium (or a phase where yearly averages for ice coverage remained roughly steady with no major or long term perturbations). Since the late 1990s, the yearly averages for Greenland’s total ice cover have decreased exponentially every year. This ice-loss ]]> Ice, and particularly that of the Greenland Icesheet, can be compared (perhaps tritely) to a canary in a coal mine. The retreat of our Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine icesheets and glaciers can be one of the most useful signals in our studies of the effects of global warming, and one of the most illustrative tools in the process of making predictions on future ice retreat, the subsequent rise of sea levels, and compounded temperature increases due to Albedo Effect and the thawing of the permafrost (which releases sequestered methane gas, one of the most powerful greenhouse gases). Aside from the disastrous effects on the terrestrial biosphere, the melting of the Arctic places a real and serious financial burden on the global economy.

Is Arctic Ice Melting?

Outside the Arctic and Antarctic, the Greenland Icesheet is the largest concentration of glacial ice on our planet. Over the last ten or twelve years, the Greenland Icesheet has fallen out of equilibrium (or a phase where yearly averages for ice coverage remained roughly steady with no major or long term perturbations). Since the late 1990s, the yearly averages for Greenland’s total ice cover have decreased exponentially every year. This ice-loss is accelerating.

The Albedo Effect
The science is fairly straightforward. Increased levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases released through the burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of terrestrial forests have resulted in a) higher global temperature averages (with the Arctic feeling double the global average temperature increase) and b) altered precipitation patterns (longer summers and shorter winters mean less annual snowfall and more annual rainfall). Due to higher temperatures, more glacial ice melts during summers, and less ice builds up during cold seasons which are shortened from both the autumn and spring ends. Due to the combination of lower snowfall levels during the shorter cold seasons and higher rainfall levels during the longer warm seasons, it is difficult for glacial ice to replenish enough during cold seasons to make up for the unusually high summer melt rates.

All of this is compounded by the Albedo Effect, which can be explained simply by evoking an image of wearing white clothing during the summer versus dark clothing. White reflects light and therefore heat, whereas dark colors absorb light and therefore retain heat. Just so with ice: when ice is present, it reflects light from the Earth’s surface, therefore reducing heat absorption. If ice melts, it leaves behind dark rock, blue-black sea, or tundra, which absorbs more light and retains more heat, therefore adding to the excess heat already applied by atmospheric greenhouse gases.

Melting of the not-so-permafrost leads to methane and carbon dioxide release
But, as the Albedo Effect rolls on inexorably gaining strength, the melting of the planet’s icesheets brings yet another compounding consequence. The arctic regions are comprised of vast areas of tundra, areas of sparse vegetation growing from thin topsoils covering permanently frozen subsoil layers called permafrost.

The effects of this should be obvious. CO2 and methane are greenhouse gases; their accumulation in the atmosphere (due mostly to fossil fuel burning) is what has caused global temperature rise in the first place. The melting of the arctic tundra, therefore, is one of the deleterious positive feedback loops we will become more and more familiar with as the earth’s normally self-regulatory climate systems continue to break down.

Sea level projections
Obviously, if land-ice melts, that volume of water enters the ocean. One of the most bemoaned effects of global warming over the last decades has been predicted sea level rise due to melting ice. Most scientists now concur that we should expect a sea level rise from 0.8 to 2 meters (or 2.6 to 6.7 feet) over the remainder of the century. Also, it is important to note that while the sea level may only rise 6 feet by 2100, that is only the beginning of the total sea level rise from the melting of the Greenland ice sheet; global sea levels will rise approximately 27-30 ft due to the complete melting of the Greenland ice sheet throughout the 22nd century and beyond.

Although we tend to think rather shortsightedly when it comes to political and economic policies, 2100 is only ninety years away. Since we are doubtlessly still affected by events and policies today that occurred in 1920, it is rather foolish, frankly, that we continue to fail to make plans for our increasingly warm, watery world and the people (some of whom will be our very own sons and daughters) who could still be living in it 90 years from now. But don’t be fooled, even today we are already paying the [very real] financial cost of replacing our global air-conditioning unit.

To bring all of this together:
1. Greenland represents the largest icesheet on the planet, aside from the polar sheets.
2. Since it represents some of the southern-most of the Arctic ice, its decline has been extra dramatic: glaciers on Greenland have been shown to be melting at record rates.
3. Ice melt both on Greenland and from the great Arctic region causes increased warming through the Albedo Effect and the release of greenhouse gases from melting permafrost.
4. It is an excellent representation of what we should expect of other Arctic regions in coming years if global warming is allowed to continue unfettered.
5. Eventually, ice melt will cause rises in sea levels which will be disastrous for low-lying coastal regions and scores of island nations.

How long will it take, and how great of a mess will be required before our persons of political influence take meaningful note of this body of evidence? If we are to survive the next few centuries happily, and allow the rest of Earth’s inhabitants to do the same, we cannot afford to sit on our hands (and weak excuses) any longer.

Odd, since we thought increased marmot size was due to graham crackers.

The initial idea was to figure out how we could get rid of lag in the scientific process. How to decrease the time between when information is discovered and the time it is used, in politics, economics, etc. Most of the information used by politicians comes from the reports by the IPCC, because they are the largest and most globalized organization of climate scientists working collaboratively in the world. So, if the information published by the IPCC could be made available more quickly and transparently, then it follows that it could be used when it’s still fresh (not 3 and 4 years old).

So, here’s what we came up ]]> We came up with a really interesting idea the other day. We’ve been thinking about the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), and the way they publish their findings, which is every 6 years. The last report was published in 2007. Something that is problematic with this structure is that once the information is published, some of the data used in the reports is 3 or 4 years old. Consequently, policies made using this data are outdated from their very outset; policy-makers in 2010 are using the 3 year-old 2007 IPCC report, which itself contains 3-4 year-old information. So we’re now lagging behind by 6-7 years from the latest science. This is an alarmingly significant lag time considering how quickly the world around us is changing specifically due to climate change. We talked about how this problem could be addressed….

The initial idea was to figure out how we could get rid of lag in the scientific process. How to decrease the time between when information is discovered and the time it is used, in politics, economics, etc. Most of the information used by politicians comes from the reports by the IPCC, because they are the largest and most globalized organization of climate scientists working collaboratively in the world. So, if the information published by the IPCC could be made available more quickly and transparently, then it follows that it could be used when it’s still fresh (not 3 and 4 years old).

So, here’s what we came up with. What if the IPCC findings could be published in “real time,” and separate pieces were made available for peer review immediately, instead of waiting to publish ALL the findings all at once, every 6 years? We discussed 2 ways to go about this.

1. Create a dashboard of live interactive information that would present “beta” versions of data sets that had not yet been reviewed, vetted, and polished. These beta sets would come with heavy disclaimers to users, reminding them that the data was not yet fine-tuned or corroborated. Beside these Beta sets would be older, polished, and officiated sets presenting vetted information in formal, report-like formats. The point of making these Beta sets available prior to peer review and publishing would be to allow other scientists external of the IPCC to access the data to allow them to input their reviews or use the preliminary data set in their own research (as long as they acknowledged these Beta sets were raw and as yet unsubstantiated). It would also decrease the lag time between data compiling and final publication that we see now. The peer review and approval of each set could be done while other sets were still being worked on behind the scenes.

2) A less “real time” version where sets of data and reports were published together in related groups, so that each set of data could be presented in context with other, related sets, and analyzed in synthesis with one another.

(For the first model, the IPCC would risk allowing dishonest “scientists” or politically motivated “climate deniers” access to unsubstantiated data sets, where they might be able to publish them and turn them into media sensations before the IPCC or other scientists could rebuke them and cite the disclaimers made clear for this information on the dashboard – this is no different than what goes on now with IPCC reports and the cherry-picking of reports by climate deniers. The second model somewhat assuages this problem, but the site would be far less “real time,” and the information would not be accessible to external scientists for analysis nearly as quickly.)

The reason decreasing the lag in the publication of information is so important is that right now, time is the single-most important limiting factor we have to deal with to succeed in the fight against climate change. Many corporations already use very real-time reporting to make business decisions efficiently, using the most up-to-date reports/analysis possible. For a business, money = existence. Depending on how a business is run, next week could bring bankruptcy. Obviously, then, people who run businesses are very motivated and very efficient in using their business data and analysis to make quick decisions for practices so as not to run out of money, and to secure the sustainability of their business.

While for a business, money is the driving force behind efficiency, we, as a planet faced with impending climate disaster, are driven to make policy decisions by the threat of running out of time before it’s too late. Since we are so pressed by time, it’s too bad the government doesn’t use a business-like model of efficiency. It makes sense that policy makers should use the most up-to-date information possible to make quick and efficient decisions in climate policy so as not to run out of time, and to secure the sustainability of our civilization. (This is a difficult sell, because unfortunately, time is a little more abstract as a concept than money; while money is a concrete idea, and losing it is a pretty visceral thing to imagine, time, and running out of it, are comparatively murky concepts. Herein lies the problem with our current policy making habits. Everything takes FOREVER because from a psychological perspective, people have trouble envisioning our current connection to long-term futures, and therefore fail to grasp the immediacy of our problems.)

So, all teeth gnashing aside, the IPCC is receptive and is actually making some changes for the release of their next report which is due in 2013. These have just been some of the more radical/imaginative changes we’ve ruminated on. Any thoughts?

“Sustainability Education” is the subject of a lot of debate amongst environmentalists, activists, and academics. It could be defined in a lot of ways by lots of different people, but basically it is the idea of teaching students, starting in grade school, to innately understand how to help our species and the other organisms with whom we share our planet to survive and thrive in the future. In short, if we want to be around in 300 years we need to learn how to change the way we live…and the earlier we begin teaching our children these ideas, the higher our chances of survival.

(Something to note going into this: we’re not really trying to talk about what should be taught, but how it could be taught. There are people who write whole books about what the content of sustainability education should be, so that’s not what we’re really interested in here. We’re just throwing around some idealistic ideas about how to go about doing it at all…)

So, what do we do now? How do we get there? We have some ideas.

E: We realize that a lot of our ideas are unrealistic/Utopian/naive/etc. Many of these ideas ]]> One of the objects of our blog is to have a place to “write down” the conversations we have, and this post is about a topic we discuss regularly: how to transform education to prepare future generations to deal with and reverse the effects of anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change.

“Sustainability Education” is the subject of a lot of debate amongst environmentalists, activists, and academics. It could be defined in a lot of ways by lots of different people, but basically it is the idea of teaching students, starting in grade school, to innately understand how to help our species and the other organisms with whom we share our planet to survive and thrive in the future. In short, if we want to be around in 300 years we need to learn how to change the way we live…and the earlier we begin teaching our children these ideas, the higher our chances of survival.

(Something to note going into this: we’re not really trying to talk about what should be taught, but how it could be taught. There are people who write whole books about what the content of sustainability education should be, so that’s not what we’re really interested in here. We’re just throwing around some idealistic ideas about how to go about doing it at all…)

So, what do we do now? How do we get there? We have some ideas.

E: We realize that a lot of our ideas are unrealistic/Utopian/naive/etc. Many of these ideas could never work in a real educational setting because of politics, budget problems, technology lags, and lack of awareness among educators, etc.

T: But we have to start at the perfect Utopian ideal and back-cast…and step by step by step work our way backwards. But keeping that perfect vision in our heads will help us keep our eye on the goal.

E: Anyway, we just wanted to point out before really getting into this that we know this stuff is way ahead of where our educational systems are right now, and maybe ever will be. Just for the record.

For me, I like to think of the future of “sustainability education,” which is a jargon word that gets thrown around a LOT these days, as the future of education in general. I don’t see why there’s any reason we can’t take environmental/sustainability information and inject it into existing core curricula in not just science classes, but also in reading/writing, math, social studies, etc. Obviously, everyone will still need to have these basic skills – but instead of just reading, why not read to learn? Why not do math problems to learn more than just arithmetic? Instead of reading stories about a goat and a pig eating corn (trust me, this is what most of lower elementary “literature” entails, I know, I have to read this EVERY DAY with 6 year olds who think it’s just as boring as you and I do), why can’t the subject matter be relevant and factual to our environmental situation? Why not make our math word problems have environmentally relevant subject matter, such as ecology or biology?

In theory this sounds pretty simple, but the challenge would be completely transforming the curricula and the texts and the WAY it’s all taught.

T: When people in our generation were kids, the new thing in education was “computers.” I have memories of teachers turning to our classes and telling us, “You guys are so lucky! You are all going to grow up learning computers! This is something that I didn’t know when I was your age.”

E: It’s true, there is often a big knowledge gap between our generation and some of the older generations when it comes to computer literacy.

T: At first, we actually had a separate class called “Computers.” But quickly, computers just became integrated into every subject in some form or another. Now, after 20 years our generation and computer technology have grown up together, and look at the results! The Internet/computers run(s) the world.

E: Yeah, and for a lot of us, computer use is totally ingrained into everything we do and think. It’s second nature. It’s part of how we function. I’ve been thinking about how the ideas behind the Critical Period Hypothesis could be transferred to other kinds of literacy…Obviously, we feel our skills in computer use are second nature because we began learning at such a young age. Our brains developed while being shaped by this knowledge. This is the way we learn language…why not other skills or subject matter? Sustainability literacy acquisition could be quite analogous to language acquisition, and why wouldn’t learning it follow the same patterns?

T: Definitely. This is a model that we can use when thinking of integrating climate change/greenhouse gas/sustainability literacy into the educational system. If we begin teaching this stuff at the same early age that we learn computer literacy, just imagine the potential ingenuity that we’ll be releasing in another 20 years. If my children learn about climate change like I learned about computers, then their generation might actually be OK!

E: Exactly. I think what is happening now is that there is so much hesitation to bring this stuff into the classroom (for so many reasons) that we’re really falling behind. As soon as we can get kids thinking about these topics on a daily basis, even on the basis of each subject they learn throughout the day, the better chance we’ll have of getting ecological/sustainability literacy ingrained into their minds – it will become a functional reality for them just like computer use and internet connection became a functional reality for us.

T: So, what is the problem there?

E: Well, obviously we have a lot of ideological problems (politics, willingness to change, acceptance of climate change as a reality, etc.). When we’re talking about implementing these ideas, we’re assuming we have a functional educational system, and teachers and administrators who are all on board and competent to teach this subject matter and make these changes. CLEARLY, this is one of our big unrealistic assumptions. We do NOT have a functional educational system, nor do we have complete agreement (by a long shot) among the people in charge of education that this would be valid subject matter.

T: Yeah, this is definitely one of our unrealistic assumptions, but I think it’s important to note that just because the U.S. has a non-functioning educational system, does not mean that it is impossible to do this. There are several highly functioning public educational systems that we can find around the world. So, let’s assume that we do have a functioning educational system: what are the remaining obstacles to integrating sustainability literacy into everyday education?

E: Well, then we’re talking purely about practical problems, or problems that arise because of the way we DO things. One of these issues is that our educational system already has so much lag in updating the information that’s actually brought into and used in the classroom, because of the way texts are published, printed, and distributed. How many of us remember using textbooks that had 8 years’ worth of kids’ names written in the inside cover before ours? If we were to begin teaching environmental subject matter and sustainability literacy, we’d have to figure out a way in which classroom texts could be updated with much more frequency, because the information in these fields evolves so quickly.

This is a problem because…..text books are expensive! Throwing them away every year would be REALLY wasteful! What could we do about this? I suggest taking advantage of our younger generations’ computer literacy skills…

T: Yeah! In a perfect world, we wouldn’t be printing books on paper anyway (cutting down trees = greenhouse gas emissions and habitat destruction). Sooo, computers it is…instead of backpacks filled with books, picture kids holding a single tablet.

E: But, unfortunately, computers are expensive, and not all schools would have the money for each student to have a desktop or laptop for individual use. Obviously, this is another result of a nonfunctioning (i.e. under-funded) educational system.

T: Yes. But comparing the financial costs of a hypothetical one- or two-time computer purchase in K-12 vs. several books purchased for each class for every single year…computers win (plus, once we have an economic system that accounts for greenhouse gas emissions, paper-products will increase in price which will make computers even more attractive). There is still the health/cognitive problems associated with long-term computer use (eye strain, improper ergonomics, etc.), but most of these things that can be overcome with technological advances.

E: Obviously this then gets into a whole systemic change within educational administration. If we were to start updating classroom texts and curricula so often, we’d have to have a central team of experts whose sole jobs would be to keep up to date with the newest information, and translate that information into decodable curricula appropriate for each grade level….i.e., make that information accessible to all end-users (students).

T: The science behind data management is excelling at an exponential rate, and I don’t think that it would be impossible for an information technology system to play that role in place of human employees. As computers get smarter and smarter, it will get easier for us to build systems that will streamline the automatic transfer of the latest up to date information daily right into downloadable curricula.

E: My final comment is that of course, we can’t expect our curricula to evolve and succeed if we only plan to teach students. In this scheme, we would have to completely reexamine the way we teach educators to educate. Educators would have to be extremely computer savvy, they would have to be flexible and able to keep up to date with changing information at a faster pace, and, of course, they would have to have in-depth understanding of the core tenets of sustainability education: climate science, ecology, earth systems, biology, etc. This is a lot to ask of educators. It would almost be like bringing the specialization of university professors into primary and secondary education. I’m not sure how we could do this, but again, we’re discussing a perfect world here.

Fossil fuels: petroleum (oil), coal, and natural gas.

As Tim so eloquently illustrated in the previous post, this activity is resulting in exponentially increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) into the atmosphere, which decreases the Earth’s ability to reflect heat back into space. In my entry, here, I’d like to discuss the natural cycling of carbon. I think it’s important, going forward, for the people in charge of making decisions in our energy and environmental policies to understand the very basic mechanisms by which our biosphere functions. (That said, one of the things I’d like to focus on in this blog is making this information a. accessible to non-scientists, and b. presented in a way so clear ]]> I’d like to write a follow-up to Tim’s amazing graphics-filled analysis of past and current trends of atmospheric CO2 concentrations and resulting temperature changes…I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the “dual nature of carbon.” Carbon is, obviously, the most basic life-element on Earth. We need it…to build our cells: plant, animal, fungi, and all microorganisms. Plants and photosynthetic bacteria need it to photosynthesize, and we non-photosynthesizers need plants to create oxygen for us. That’s the good side of carbon. The scary side of carbon is the side we’re bringing out into the open in part through the burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of other carbon sinks (natural reservoirs of carbon on the planet that isolate carbon from the atmosphere) such as peatlands and forests.

As Tim so eloquently illustrated in the previous post, this activity is resulting in exponentially increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) into the atmosphere, which decreases the Earth’s ability to reflect heat back into space. In my entry, here, I’d like to discuss the natural cycling of carbon. I think it’s important, going forward, for the people in charge of making decisions in our energy and environmental policies to understand the very basic mechanisms by which our biosphere functions. (That said, one of the things I’d like to focus on in this blog is making this information a. accessible to non-scientists, and b. presented in a way so clear as to be irrefutable. For example, I think Tim’s graphs below do this beautifully.) A lack of this understanding, plus the purposeful ignorance by which many of our politicians function, will result in disasterously inadequate climate policies, or none at all. We just don’t have time for that anymore. We are quickly spiraling out of control, quickly approaching the threshold of no return. At a certain point, our Earth System’s mechanisms will no longer be capable of correcting the massive anthropogenic perturbations we’re throwing into the mix. This entry will discuss how these mechanisms can “self-correct” (or “us-correct” might be more appropriate for our current situation)…up to a certain point.

Installment #1:
The Organic Carbon Cycle and the Biological Pump

The Organic Carbon Cycle:
The basic way in which Earth’s organisms contribute to system cycles is by recycling carbon (in addition to other nutrients and materials used in life processes) throughout the biosphere. Organic carbon, as opposed to inorganic carbon, is that which is bonded with other carbon atoms or hydrogen atoms, and in large part is incorporated in the compounds manufactured and used by living or once-living organisms.

A summary of a typical cycle of a carbon atom traces the atom as it moves from the atmosphere, where it exists as a carbon dioxide molecule; to a plant’s leaf interior where it will be used in photosynthesis to manufacture sugars; to the ground where the dead leaf falls, and is consumed by bacteria and fungi in the soil that use this dead organic matter as fodder for cellular respiration, incorporating the carbon atom into a waste CO2 molecule; and back to the atmosphere finally when the CO2 is released as a waste product.

Alternatively, the carbon atom may have been incorporated into the body of an animal that consumed the plant leaf. In this case, the atom might be re-released into the atmosphere as CO2 through respiration, deposited into the soil through excretion, or deposited into the soil through the decay of the animal’s body after death. In the second two cases, the carbon atom could remain in the soil until processed by fungi and bacteria, eventually entering the atmosphere again as CO2 through their respiratory processes.

A third possibility for an organic carbon atom’s pathway involves weathering. If a carbon atom becomes incorporated into the soil during any of the above processes, it may be removed from the soil surface through erosion by rainwater or runoff before it can completely follow the decomposition cycle of organic matter. In this case, the carbon atom travels with the water flow to streams and rivers, where it eventually reaches the ocean, and settles to the sea floor. Over time, the atom becomes buried under layers and layers of sediment, where, after millions of years of compression, it becomes incorporated in sedimentary rock layers. Or, the atom might travel deep into the planet’s mantle after undergoing subduction with its host oceanic plate. Through subduction, the atom enters liquid metamorphic rock reservoirs. In this last case, the atom might be released as a gaseous CO2 particle via the high temperatures and pressures associated with volcanic activity, and reenter the atmosphere.

However, if the carbon atom does become incorporated either into sedimentary or metamorphic rock layers, after tens of millions of years, it will surface with these layers as a result of plate tectonics. Once they arrive at the surface, previously buried carbon atoms are once again vulnerable to physical and biological weathering, where they can become incorporated once again into carbon compounds. They either will enter the atmosphere as carbon dioxide gas (CO2), or will enter an organism’s metabolic pathway only to begin the terrestrial carbon cycle yet again.

Obviously, the fate of many carbon molecules is to become incorporated in subterranean or submarine oil reserves. The reason fossil fuels are called “fossil fuels” is because they are, in fact, composed of the bodies of long-dead organisms which have become buried and converted to oil, natural gas, petroleum, or coal through millions of years of decay. Fossil fuels are composed largely of carbon. They are, therefore, important non-atmospheric carbon reservoirs, or sinks; when they are burned, however, the carbon is released back into the atmosphere and enters the biotic/atmospheric carbon cycle once again.

After billions of gallons of fossil fuels are mined/pumped and burned, imagine the vast quantities of carbon released back into the atmosphere on unnaturally short time-scales! These are the facts behind the idea of increasing atmospheric CO2 levels, or rising “parts per million” (“ppm”) – how many molecules per million-particle atmospheric sample are CO2. To quote Tim, “for hundreds of thousands of years…the levels of CO2 fluctuated from ~ 200 ppm – 280 ppm. The most recent data point, for April 2010, is the highest observed level of CO2 concentrations ever recorded…the Earth has not had CO2 concentrations above 300 ppm for 20 million years, and here we are at 392 ppm and growing.” These rising concentrations have been diligently recorded by scientists studying ice and soil core samples from all over the planet.

The Biological Pump, or the Biotic Cycling of Carbon:
Marine ecosystems take part in what scientists call the “biological pump,” or the cycling of carbon and other nutrients throughout the ocean water layers by marine life and the thermohaline circulation of ocean waters (circulation of deep ocean water as a result of differences in temperatures and salinity). The biological pump is yet another aspect of the organic carbon cycle, and it is important because it is one more example of a system simultaneously catalyzed by and depended upon by the Earth’s life, or the biota. This seeming paradox will be explained in the following paragraphs.

The biological pump begins in shallow waters with photosynthetic organisms, which use dissolved carbon dioxide and produce dissolved oxygen and organic materials in the form of fecal matter or dead cell shed. The dissolved oxygen and rich bank of organic materials transfer to the deep oceans as they precipitate from the surface, allowing for the survival of non-photosynthetic organisms that live below the photic zone. As a result of photosynthesis, the surface waters become depleted in carbon, but are replenished due to the upwelling of deep ocean waters that carry the waste products of the deep ocean organisms (CO2 and other nutrients such as phosphorous and nitrogen). The efficiency of the biological pump is a key determinant of atmospheric CO2 levels, because the atmosphere and surface waters reach relative equilibrium through the evaporation/dissolution of CO2. The more efficient ocean surface photosynthesizers are, the lower the surface water CO2 concentration; the higher capacity those waters have to dissolve atmospheric CO2, the lower the atmospheric CO2 concentration will be.

What follows, obviously, is the importance of the awareness of the vital role played by our marine ecosystems . The current tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico will have effects far outreaching those discussed by our news sources…clearly, the destruction of wetlands habitats on the coasts and the disruption of the fishing season are terrible enough. But what of the ecosystems below the ocean’s surface? They likely will die from the top down, starting with surface photosynthesizers which either will die from oil toxicity or from the inability to collect sunlight in oil-mucked waters.

In fact, if nutrients were completely utilized – that is, if the biological pump were 100% efficient in removing nutrients and CO2 from surface waters – the atmospheric CO2 pressure would be reduced to about 165ppm. At the other extreme, if the biological pump ceased completely, the atmospheric CO2 level would rise to about 720ppm as the CO2-charged deep waters mixed with the surface waters and homogenized the chemical composition of the ocean. It is unclear whether the authors of this statement (Kump, Kasting, and Crane) were using the current CO2 atmospheric concentration for 2004 (the date their book was published). I think the point, though, is not the minimum and maximum mentioned, but the difference between them. To put that into perspective, let us refer back to Tim’s statement that for hundreds of thousands of years, the concentration of CO2 oscillated between 200 and 280ppm, while today it is at 392ppm. Add to that the fact that current climate scientists believe our current concentrations, even if they stayed steady (which they won’t), will have massive climate effects – and that was only a difference of about 190 to 112ppm. The conclusion to be drawn from all this is that the marine biological pump could potentially have a roughly 550ppm impact on our atmospheric concentrations. The healthy function of our marine ecosystems, which drive this biological pump, then, is of paramount importance. So far, we have a lot to work on, starting with the prevention of future disasters the likes of BP’s Gulf oil spill.

The other effect of the termination of the biological pump would be the suffocation of the deep ocean ecosystems.

Due to their isolation from the surface, deep ocean waters rely upon the output of oxygen from surface photosynthesizers to metabolize. Deep water bacteria require oxygen to produce phosphorous for surface photosynthesizers, which, in turn, determine oceanic and atmospheric oxygen content levels. Furthermore, if the oceanic biological pump was extinguished, then atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could spike and oxygen levels could plummet due to reduced absorption and processing of CO2 by the oceans.

Our current climate crisis provides a telling example of this positive feedback loop. In his article “Carbon Balance Management,” Will Steffen, in “The Anthropocene, global change, and sleeping giants: where on Earth are we going?” illustrates:
“The dissolution of atmospheric CO2 in the surface waters of the ocean increases their acidity through the formation of carbonic acid. This, in turn, affects the saturation state of calcium carbonate, a basic building block for organisms such as corals, shellfish, sea urchins, starfish and some forms of phytoplankton that form calcium carbonate shells. The rising acidity of the ocean will no doubt have significant effects on the trophic structure of marine ecosystems, but will also affect the functioning of these systems. The implications for the marine carbon cycle are not yet clear, but a weakening oceanic sink for carbon due to the increasing concentration of carbonic acid is a likely result.”

There are currently so many anthropogenically generated threats on oceanic and terrestrial ecosystems that will eventually result in various degrees of this problem. For example, with the continued rate of current industries’ destruction of terrestrial forests, the CO2 reuptake capabilities of land plants will be unable to work upon growing greenhouse gas imbalances. Complete understanding of the processes of the carbon cycle will be increasingly important to scientists and policy-makers alike in the near future, as the global fuel economy continues to evolve, and as the deleterious effects of human-caused climate change become more and more apparent. The more we understand about the mechanisms of the Earth System, and especially the cycling of carbon, which can be both vital and toxic to living systems, the more likely we will be to develop preventative and proactive solutions.

Stay tuned for more installments along this train of thought…Please give us feedback, if you have any, with any questions or comments on this entry and its relation to Tim’s graphics below. I think the relationship is fairly self-explanatory, but then again, I have an insider’s perspective!

Text References for this post:
Kump, L.R., Kasting, J.F. & Crane, R.G. The Earth System: Second Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2004.
Steffen, W. “The Anthropocene, global change, and sleeping giants: where on Earth are we going?” Vol. 1, Num. 3, June 2006. Carbon Balance and Management. 17 April 2008 < http://www.cbmjournal.com/content/1/1/3.html>.

Photo sources:
www.theonlyoblong.com/oil_field/images/postcards/robinson/keeley_oil_well_rob.jpg

www.thesietch.org/mysietch/keith/2010/01/13/swimming-in-natural-gas-the-greenwashing-of-an-industry/

www.students.apsweb.org/~jelkner/feedback/files/earthspace/vocabulary.html

www.worldwidestar.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/

www.teara.govt.nz/en/ocean-currents-and-tides/5/2

www.commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Double_Arch_Arches_National_Park.jpg

www.marinebusiness-world.com/index.cfm?nid=57299

www.library.thinkquest.org/07aug/01713/Coral%20facts.htm

www.commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sea_urchin_tests.jpg

www.dragscience.net/archives/date/2010/04

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=oceanic-dead-zones-spread

The above [wonderful] graphic outlines the correlations between temperature increases and CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere over the past 400,000 years. As you can see, there is a definite pattern that links the two variables…basically, the higher the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere the higher the average surface temperature. For hundreds of thousands of years, notice how the levels of CO2 fluctuated from ~ 200 ppm – 280 ppm. These fluctuations are caused by natural cyclic processes that determine the position and orientation of the Earth with regard to the Sun…basically, for millions of years, the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere and surface temperature of Earth were cycling up and down in response to other cyclical processes: the orbital patterns of Earth relative to the Sun (axis tilt of Earth relative to Sun, and Earth’s distance from the sun). However, according to these orbital patterns, Earth should be heading into another period of glaciations/ice age. Are we? In short, no, we are not heading into another ice age…we have stopped it from occurring. Due to the extra amounts of carbon dioxide that humans have released over the last few hundred years (notice red-spike in graph), we have been able to raise the concentrations of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere to the point where these natural orbital cycles are no longer in charge of Earth’s climate, we are.

The below graph outlines the recent observations ]]>

Designer: Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal; All data: http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/historical-trends-in-carbon-d ioxide-concentrations-and-temperature-on-a-geological-and-re cent-time-scale

The above [wonderful] graphic outlines the correlations between temperature increases and CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere over the past 400,000 years. As you can see, there is a definite pattern that links the two variables…basically, the higher the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere the higher the average surface temperature. For hundreds of thousands of years, notice how the levels of CO2 fluctuated from ~ 200 ppm – 280 ppm. These fluctuations are caused by natural cyclic processes that determine the position and orientation of the Earth with regard to the Sun…basically, for millions of years, the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere and surface temperature of Earth were cycling up and down in response to other cyclical processes: the orbital patterns of Earth relative to the Sun (axis tilt of Earth relative to Sun, and Earth’s distance from the sun). However, according to these orbital patterns, Earth should be heading into another period of glaciations/ice age. Are we? In short, no, we are not heading into another ice age…we have stopped it from occurring. Due to the extra amounts of carbon dioxide that humans have released over the last few hundred years (notice red-spike in graph), we have been able to raise the concentrations of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere to the point where these natural orbital cycles are no longer in charge of Earth’s climate, we are.

The below graph outlines the recent observations of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. The most recent data point, for April 2010, is the highest observed level of CO2 concentrations ever recorded…the Earth has not had CO2 concentrations above 300 ppm for 20 million years, and here we are at 392 ppm and growing.

So, the CO2 concentrations are now hitting record highs, but what does that mean? Basically? HUGE temperature increases should be expected in the near future…as in all thermal systems (like your oven) there is a “lag” in the time that you turn on the oven and the time that the oven actually heats up. The moment that you turn on the oven you begin sending a specified amount of energy to that thermal system, but the thermal system (oven) will not get hot enough to put in your baked potato until some time has elapsed (until that oven has had a chance to react to the energy that it is getting fed). Well, the Earth acts in much the same way…as we raise the amount of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, we also decrease the amount of energy that the atmosphere is able to reflect back into space, which will then raise the temperature of the Earth’s surface. We are already seeing this.
The last decade has been the single hottest decade since records began.
2009 was the second warmest year on record.
For the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the single hottest year since records began in 1880.

Below, you can see a video that shows temperature changes from 1881-2007.
This video uses a baseline average temperature from 1951-1980 and compares all other years to that baseline temperature…basically, the average temperature from 1951-1980 is set to equal 1, and all other years are described as being greater than or less than this baseline temperature. Another way to say this is that the data contained in this video is “normalized” for the avg temp from 1951-1980. My only regret is that this video does not cover 2008-2009. All credit for video data/design goes to GISS @ NASA: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ Check them out!

Click here to view the embedded video.

So, we know that the temperature is increasing, but do we know how much?…do we know what the avg global temperature will be by 2050…2100…? Well, this is where climate science isn’t so specific. We have ideas, ranges of possible future temperatures, but nothing super specific (this will be a future blog post). Mostly, it depends on how quickly we can get our CO2 emissions under control. Even if we were able to flip a magic switch and turn off all of the CO2 emissions on the entire planet right this very second, we would still be facing massive temperature increases over the next several decades/centuries; we would still have to deal with the CO2 that is already in the atmosphere.
By turning off all global emissions, the only thing that we are doing is not adding more CO2 into the atmosphere, but we are still left with a concentration of 392 ppm CO2, and that is the factor that drives temperature increases.
Picture a bathtub filling up with water…if you turn off the faucet will the water level decrease?…not unless you also drain the water.
In order for us succeed in the fight against climate change, not only do we need to stop emitting CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) into the atmosphere, but we also need to find a way to re-absorb the CO2 that we have already released!…We need to lower our emissions to the point where they have a net-negative effect on the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere! We need to drain that bathtub, baby!

I am preparing for my final year in my Master’s program at Prescott College, and by that I mean I am frantically trying to organize my extremely over-broad and sometimes scattered thoughts into something that resembles a paper of reasonable length. I am very happy to have finally narrowed my scope to focus on Environmental Crisis —-> China —-> China’s national media representation of said crisis —-> Specifically, what’s going on with the melting and drying in the Himalayas and the associated river systems in China —-> How will this affect future international relationships? Phew! Sound broad? You shoulda heard what it sounded like before yesterday…

Anyway, I’m very excited to get started. Aside from my concern that my thesis could easily balloon into a 600 page monster, I am also worried I will be unable to find many primary sources translated into English (I am learning Chinese, but so far my scope doesn’t extend a whole lot farther than “I like to read books and watch TV. What time is dinner?”). I am also worried that May 30, 2011 will roll around and I’ll be all self-congratulatory and lazed out, expecting my beautiful diploma in the mail any day, and I’ll get an email from ]]> Things are exciting here at the Maher household. Aside from having a genuine Franken-kitty on the premises, neighbors who apparently self-identify as guitar hero virtuosos, and new-found addictions to “tweaking the website,” we actually have some very promising events on our horizons:

I am preparing for my final year in my Master’s program at Prescott College, and by that I mean I am frantically trying to organize my extremely over-broad and sometimes scattered thoughts into something that resembles a paper of reasonable length. I am very happy to have finally narrowed my scope to focus on Environmental Crisis —-> China —-> China’s national media representation of said crisis —-> Specifically, what’s going on with the melting and drying in the Himalayas and the associated river systems in China —-> How will this affect future international relationships? Phew! Sound broad? You shoulda heard what it sounded like before yesterday…

Anyway, I’m very excited to get started. Aside from my concern that my thesis could easily balloon into a 600 page monster, I am also worried I will be unable to find many primary sources translated into English (I am learning Chinese, but so far my scope doesn’t extend a whole lot farther than “I like to read books and watch TV. What time is dinner?”). I am also worried that May 30, 2011 will roll around and I’ll be all self-congratulatory and lazed out, expecting my beautiful diploma in the mail any day, and I’ll get an email from someone administrative at school informing me that I’ve forgotten to jump through one particular (but very obscure) hoop, which will cost me either another semester or an extra $4000 to remedy. I’m sure this won’t happen, but I’m still scared.

Aside from all this paper-writing madness, I’m excited because Tim is looking for jobs alllll over the place. So, most likely, our nomadic existence will continue. It’s a good thing we’re slowly but surely whittling our possessions down to the essentials, like bedding, wok, and coffee maker. Ideally, we’d love to end up in NYC because between us we have about 5 super best friends who live there, in addition to a smattering of family in the City and elsewhere in NY state and the Mid-Atlantic/New England regions. We have loved the PNW for many reasons, but we’ve decided that the isolation just isn’t worth it.

Finally, Tim and I are both ecstatic to finally have this long-discussed project online! Check out his Greenhouse Gas “dashboard” posted right before this (also in the “graphics” category). He has been working nonstop on this and a similar project for work over the last weeks.

Thank you for visiting our blog! Remember, we’d LOVE feedback…of any constructive kind. And please visit again :)

Erika

This next graphic will allow you to drill a bit further into the specifics of each state. Click a state and notice the trend lines of each sector’s emissions for that state. The thickness of the lines corresponds to the rate of increase/decrease of emissions for that year. To revert to the national total, you can click the white space within the bar graph or the “revert to all” (the circular arrow) button on the bottom. The percent signs show you the average percent of total US emissions from 1990-2007. Dashboard 2 Powered by Tableau

All data taken from US EPA. I’ll come up with a per capita version ]]> This dashboard will allow you to see the CO2 emissions by sector for the US. Just about anything is clickable…you can click a point on the trend lines, you can click a year, or even a source in the legend. If you want to “refresh” the graph, you can click the “revert to all” button on the bottom (circular arrow), or you can click the white-space in the graph but it might take a couple clicks before it works!…you can also highlight anything, zoom in, or hover for data….
Enjoy.

This next graphic will allow you to drill a bit further into the specifics of each state. Click a state and notice the trend lines of each sector’s emissions for that state. The thickness of the lines corresponds to the rate of increase/decrease of emissions for that year. To revert to the national total, you can click the white space within the bar graph or the “revert to all” (the circular arrow) button on the bottom.
The percent signs show you the average percent of total US emissions from 1990-2007.

All data taken from US EPA. I’ll come up with a per capita version soon.