climate change

Line 9, the tar sands, and humanity’s future

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Often, at meetings about the environment, someone says that we must “think global, but act local.” That’s easy to say, but not so easy to do. It’s not always clear that local projects can affect the growing global environmental crisis, and even when there is a clear link, it is seldom easy to decide which local projects should our priority.

Climate change: the Fiesole example

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Fiesole, a small town near Florence, Italy, is being affected by climate change just as every place on earth. Here, I report of an initiative to bring the problem to the citizens’ attention and motivate them to act on it. In this occasion, I tried to use some strategies that I took mainly from a document on climate change by Peter Sandman, a professional risk management expert. Among these strategies, Sandman suggests that you should tell the truth about the situation, but you should not try to make people feel guilty or scare them. You should emphasize concrete measures and actions that bring results which, in the case of climate change, means to consider mitigation as something just as important as prevention (and perhaps more). It is a test but, so far, it seems to be working in Fiesole. Here is an elaboration of the talk I gave at the meeting.

Tweak or Transformation?

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“There are no experts.” This was my biggest take-away message from the inaugural National Adaptation Forum, held in Denver recently. Although it was my second major climate change adaptation conference in three weeks, I wasn’t sure what to expect. In Europe, there’s no need to whisper the words “climate change” in large gatherings for fear of offending someone, but America is different. Would people even attend a three-day conference on adaptation? And what would the presenters talk about in the sessions? I jumped into a rental car and drove to Denver to find out.

Is the Keystone XL Pipeline the “Stonewall” of the Climate Movement?

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A few weeks ago, Time magazine called the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline that will bring some of the dirtiest energy on the planet from Alberta, Canada, to the U.S. Gulf Coast the “Selma and Stonewall” of the climate movement. Which, if you think about it, may be both good news and bad news.

Farmers respond to climate change

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City dwellers may have enjoyed the sunshine during one of the driest winters on record, but the unseasonable weather has many farmers worried, and with good reason: their livelihoods hang in the balance. Fluctuations in weather do not necessarily indicate changes in climate, but climate change does impact the weather. Fearing the current weather patterns could be the new normal, California farmers are paying close attention to the forecast.