Watching Our Water Ways

I hate to say it, but on rare occasions it is difficult to figure out where science ends and politics begins. I have always believed there is a clear distinction between scientific findings and public policy. But a few members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change blurred the line, whether we like it or not.

I just finished reading a 12-part series about Climategate published in The Guardian, a British publication. The series includes annotated comments written by those close to the issue.

If you care about climate change, you probably should pay attention to politics surrounding this issue. That means you probably should know about the controversy surrounding the stolen e-mails of a few key climate scientists.

This series, by reporter Fred Pearce, offers context that one cannot get by reading the e-mails alone. I was impressed by the balance that Pearce brings to the issue, neither defending nor attacking the scientists for their apparent failings. But he does comment on the personalities of the scientists as well as the skeptics who constantly stirred the pot.
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I was planning to put together a list of sources to help readers follow the Copenhagen climate change summit.

But there is really no point of me doing the work, given the comprehensive Web site, called CopenBlog, put together by folks at the Society of Environmental Journalists. While I am a member of that organization, I had nothing to do with this project, though I wish I could say I helped.

What does the CopenBlog site contain?

Well, first of all, there is the daily coverage of the conference by numerous news organizations and official sources for Monday, yesterday and today, with more days to follow.

All the coverage is categorized by topic for easy searching.
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Elizabeth Kolbert, who has been reporting on climate change for “The New Yorker” magazine, says our political, scientific and economic system may not be designed to deal with “slow-moving catastrophes” like global warming.

In a question-and-answer interview published today by “Yale Environment 360,” Kolbert makes some important points about why governmental officials, news reporters, scientists and average citizens are failing to address the crisis adequately. I’ve pulled out some key quotes, but I recommend that you read the entire interview.

Kolbert quoted Sen. John McCain, who had this to say on the subject: “It’s very unclear whether our political system can deal with a problem like this because usually we wait for a crisis and then we deal with the crisis, and that’s just not the way climate change works. You can’t deal with it once the crisis hits.”

Because the Bush administration failed, for the most part, to take climate change seriously, it is easier for many people to ignore the problem, Kolbert says.

On the news media’s role, she said, “I think that the media has contributed to the general sense of it not being an urgent problem because it’s not the lead story of the paper every day. It’s a very hard issue for the media to deal with precisely because the news business is about news — it’s about something that happened yesterday. And global warming is just happening all around us all the time, and it’s going to continue to happen and it doesn’t present itself as news very often.”

On the question of why scientists don’t spend more time convincing the public about climate change: “They have some of the same problems that journalists have, which is that scientists are interested in introducing something new in their work. They want new results, new information. They want to break new ground. They need to do that to get funding, really. And global warming, the fact that global warming is happening, that is really old news in scientific circles. It’s just a settled question in scientific circles. So scientists moved on to other issues having to do with climate change…”

On the idea of turning the debate over to economists and politicians: “I think that’s a big mistake because when you read a lot of economic analyses of climate change, you are struck with a very worrisome sense that the economists don’t understand the science, don’t appreciate the gravity of the situation. And they don’t seem to be factoring in the notion of we’re not talking here about small, inconvenient changes that are not worth changing our lifestyle to avoid. We’re talking about a desolate planet, not really in that long a time, okay?”

And on the role of individual Americans: “It gets back to this issue of whether the public believes in science, which, to be honest, we do not. You can still find a lot of people who don’t believe in evolution, okay? So we’re talking about a country that has a very lax relationship to science. And what you need in order to grapple meaningfully with global warming is to believe that this is not a speculative thing. This is the way geophysics work, and we have established that very clearly both in a laboratory setting and on the ground — and we need to take very seriously these predictions.”

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On a related topic, New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin says climate skeptics at the second International Conference on Climate Change this week in New York are not as unified in their thinking as they were at the first conference last year.

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Washington state’s Climate Impacts Group, based at the University of Washington, paints a pretty bleak picture in its latest assessment released today.

Donna Gordon Blankinship of the Associated Press summarizes the regional trends outlined in the report:

— An increase in annual temperatures of 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit by the 2040s, and 5.9 degrees by the 2080s.
— April 1 snowpack decreased by nearly 30 percent across the state by the 2020s, 40 percent by the 2040s and 65 percent by the 2080s.
— The Yakima Basin reservoir system less likely to supply water to all its users, especially those with junior water rights.
— Rising stream temperatures, which will hurt salmon.
— Forest fires burning twice the total area by the 2040s and three times as much by the 2080s.
— Increases in incidents of extreme high precipitation over the next half-century, particularly in the Puget Sound area.
— Energy demand for cooling is expected to increase 400 percent by 2040.
— More heat- and air pollution-related deaths throughout the century. Researchers project that by 2025 there could be 101 more deaths among people 45 and older because of heat waves.

About a year ago, I mentioned in Water Ways that I was troubled about how it seemed that climate scientists expected people to have faith that climate change was happening. I thought there had to be ways to make the science accessible to non-experts.

Since then, I have been pleased to cite an excellent 24-page booklet by the National Academies of Sciences called “Understanding and Responding to Climate Change.”

If that booklet could be considered Climate Change 101, I think you’ll find the new report by the Climate Impacts Group to be on the level of Climate Change 201. Climate change is so important that I urge you to download and read the executive summary. If you wish to dig deeper, tackle the entire report, one chapter at a time. You will find everything laid out on a Web page called The Washington Climate Change Impacts Assessment.

Frankly, I still have a lot of reading to do, but I no longer feel that the average person is left out in the wilderness.

Now, before anyone asks indignantly how we can talk seriously about climate change while experiencing one of the snowiest winters in recent years, let me quote from the report:
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There is nothing like a weekly news magazine to explore the breadth and depth of an issue, as U.S. News and World Report has done in a story titled “Global Warming Triggers an International Race for the Arctic.”

The magazine piece, written by Thomas Omestad, discusses a treasure of oil and minerals, scientific discoveries, commercial potential and possible geopolitical clashes. I recommend it to anyone interested in the confluence of global warming and international intrigue.

A map of this remote area shows how the legendary Northwest Passage could become an important route between the East and West coasts.

After describing some strategic flurries in the Arctic by Russia and Canada, Omestad offers this observation:

The United States, for its part, has not acted with the same urgency. “We are behind when it comes to what is happening with our other Arctic neighbors,” says Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

The lagging begins with the Law of the Sea convention. Despite Bush administration support, Senate ratification of the 1982 treaty remains blocked by conservative Republicans fearful that the treaty will give away American sovereignty. The other four Arctic coastal states have adopted the convention and are eligible to file their claims for economic control.

The Pentagon has also appeared slow to focus on the region. The U.S. Coast Guard maintains just two working icebreakers, with another docked until repairs are authorized. The question of expanding the icebreaker force has been left unanswered, while a broader, interagency review of Arctic policy has continued for nearly two years….

I recently cited some sketchy stories about this subject on Watching Our Water Ways. Now this U.S. News article has placed the issue into the appropriate context. If the prescribed dominoes begin to fall, international tensions will no doubt rise in this remote part of the Earth.

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The Environmental Protection Agency has issued a report about what climate change could do to the nation’s water resources and how people should respond.

The report, from EPA’s National Water Program, is called Water Impacts of Climate Change (PDF 584 kb).

The report relies on scientific predictions, which suggest that climate change will bring warmer air and water, a shift in the location of rain and snow, increased storm intensity in some areas, a rise in sea level, and changes in the ocean ecosystem.

Some of the predicted effects:

• Oxygen: Warmer water will hold less oxygen, resulting in increased stress on aquatic organisms and an increase in harmful algal blooms,
• Pollution: Heavier precipitation will increase surface water flows, affecting aquatic health and releasing more nutrients, pathogens and toxic chemicals into water bodies.
• Water supplies: In some areas of the country, droughts will decrease water supplies for drinking, for industrial uses and for agriculture. In other areas, sea level rise will lead to salt water intrusion with similar effects on water supplies.
• Invasive species: As waters become warmer, aquatic life in many areas will be displaced by plants and animals better adapted to warmer waters. Because the changes will occur at an uneven pace, harmful species could become established.
• Combined effects: Coastal areas could see a combination of these various effects — including sea level rise, increased storm intensity and floods, reduction in drinking water supplies and greater ocean acidity.

As a result of these effects, the National Water Program is calling for five goals to respond to ongoing climate change:

• Goal 1, mitigation: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions through existing programs; promote carbon sequestration with regard to energy production and industrial processes; and support improved operation of water systems.
• Goal 2, adaptation: Be ready with new strategies to adjust to changes in watersheds, wetlands other natural systems. Develop tools and science to guide and support planning and management.
• Goal 3, research: Strengthen the link between EPA water programs and climate change researchers to allow water managers to anticipate changes.
• Goal 4, education: Educate federal, state and local water program managers to better anticipate and respond to climate change.
• Goal 5, management: The National Water Program should maintain its Climate Change Workgroup and reach out to other federal agencies dealing with climate change.

Tasks to be completed to help all regions of the U.S. adjust to the water-related impacts of climate change:

• Data: Agency scientists need to develop information to understand how the environment is changing.
• Extremes: Water managers need to plan and be prepared for extremes, including heavy storms, excess water and water shortages.
• Resilience: A “watershed approach” based on science should increase the long-term sustainability of ecosystems.
• Analysis: Water managers need to acquire a range of analytical tools to help them understand and respond to climate change.
• Partnerships: Sharing information across geographic areas and among levels of government should help water managers develop the best strategies in response to climate change.

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U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, working with U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) have managed to get 149 of their fellow House members to sign onto a set up principles to guide Congress on a quest to reduce global warming.

All 152 members of Congress signed a four-page letter (PDF 592 kb) (not including six pages of signatures) sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The letter outlines and elaborates on four principles.

“Acting in accordance with these principles is critical to achieving a fair and effective bill that will avoid the most dangerous global warming and assist those harmed by the warming that is unavoidable, while strengthening our economy,” the letter states.

The four principles:

1. Reduce emissions to avoid dangerous global warming;
2. Transition America to a clean energy economy;
3. Recognize and minimize any economic impacts from global warming legislation; and
4. Aid communities and ecosystems vulnerable to harm from global warming.

Other members of the Washington delegation who signed the letter are Democratic Reps. Norm Dicks, Jim McDermott and Brian Baird.

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The world’s fish populations are already being affected by global warming, and the human population faces long-term consequences with respect to seafood supplies and local economies that depend on them, according to a statement from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

These conclusions are coming out of a four-day conference of 200 experts and policymakers focused on the marine fisheries issue. The conference, in Rome, Italy, comes to a close today.

Changes already being seen, as reported in a technical summary (PDF 160 kb) written prior to the conference:

• Oceans are warming, while currents, such as those affected by El Nino, seem to be changing. This could have implications for the West Coast.
• Salinity is changing in surface waters, with warming areas of Earth growing more salty from evaporation, while more northern and southern areas grow less salty from increased rain along with ice and snow melt.
• Global sea level has been rising since 1961 with an accelerated rate since 1993.
• Fish distribution has been changing, generally with both warm- and cold-water species moving closer to the poles.

Predictions for the future:

• Changes in fish availability will change at the local and regional levels.
• Markets for various seafoods could grow unstable, as distribution systems try to respond to shifts in supply at various locations.
• Prices for various seafoods could fluctuate with uncertain supplies, and those in the industry could see their jobs disrupted.
• Countries where people eat a lot of seafood may face changes in nutrition with related health implications.

The technical summary also includes this statement:

At both the local and global levels, fisheries and aquaculture play important roles in providing food and generating income. Some 42 million people work directly in the sector, the great majority in developing countries. Adding those who work in associated processing, marketing, distribution and supply industries, the sector supports several hundred million livelihoods.

Aquatic foods have high nutritional quality, contributing 20 percent or more of average per capita animal protein intake for more than 2.8 billion people, again mostly in developing countries.

Fish is also the world’s most widely traded foodstuff and a key source of export earnings for many poorer countries. The sector has particular significance for small island states.

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