“I think we’ve all broken Bill Nye — and I, for one, am
absolutely on board with his gritty new reboot,” says comedian John
Oliver after “the Science Guy” launches into a profanity-laced
demonstration of climate change, in which he literally watches the
globe go up in flames.
“I didn’t mind explaining photosynthesis to you when you were
12,” Nye tells Oliver’s HBO audience after firing up his blowtorch.
“But you’re adults now, and this is an actual crisis! Got it?”
Nye appeared yesterday on CNN’s Reliable Sources, where
moderator Brian Stelter asked him about his blowup. The CNN piece,
shown in the first video, goes straight to Bill’s line, “The
planet’s on f—— fire! You’re not children anymore!…”
John F. Williams, a Suquamish resident who has been creating
dramatic underwater videos for years, recently launched a new
online publication called Salish Magazine. Its goal is to help
people to better understand the ecosystem in the Puget Sound
region.
For those of us who live in the region, John and his Still Hope
Productions have helped us visualize and understand what lies
beneath the waves and up the streams of Puget Sound. The video “Is
this where Puget Sound starts?” (shown below) is a good example of
the video production. Other videos can be found on Still Hope’s
website.
The new online publication shifts to the use of more words,
along with photos and videos, to explain the connections among
living things. The first issue includes extensive articles on sea
anemones, barnacles, sea stars, mussels and glaciation, spiced up
with art, poetry and personal stories. Download the
magazine as a huge PDF (56.6 mb) file or open it in iBooks.
The second issue of
Salish Magazine is about the importance of forests, with
articles on forest character, forest restoration, barred owls and
more, as well as poetry, essays and lots of photos, all combined in
a web design that combines variable scrolling with pull-down
menus.
As John describes it, “A key focus of the magazine is to
illustrate the interconnectedness woven through our ecosystems,
using lenses of history, science, and culture.”
The first two issues are free, although a subscription is
expected to be announced next year. Meanwhile, one can sign up for
newsletters on the Subscribe
webpage. Salish Magazine is published by the nonprofit firm
SEA-Media.
Speaking of environment news, I hope everyone is familiar with
Puget Sound Institute and its online newsletters. The
December issue includes a quiz on Pacific herring and articles
on rockfish, Puget Sound vital signs, the Clean Water Act and
recent research papers.
Puget Sound Institute, an independent organization affiliated
with the University of Washington, strives to advance an
understanding of Puget Sound through scientific synthesis, original
research and communication. PSI receives major funding from the
Environmental Protection Agency.
Full disclosure: I am employed half-time by Puget Sound
Institute to write in-depth articles about scientific discoveries
and ecological challenges in the Puget Sound region.
Further note: A previous version of this post stated
incorrectly that Still Hope Productions is a nonprofit
company.
News was breaking yesterday as I completed this blog on offshore
oil drilling. I doubt that anyone was surprised by the reaction of
outrage that followed Secretary Ryan Zinke’s apparently offhanded
and arbitrary decision to exempt Florida from an otherwise
all-coast leasing plan.
All U.S. senators from New England states, Democrats and
Republicans, signed onto legislation to exempt their states from
the drilling plan, while U.S. Rep. David Cicilline, D-RI, says he
has unanimous bipartisan support for a similar bill in the House.
Now, if they move to include the rest of the East Coast and the
West Coast in the bill, they might have enough votes to pass it.
(See
statement from Rep. David Cicilline.)
Meanwhile, Washington’s Sen. Maria Cantwell, the ranking member
of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, set the stage
yesterday for the inevitable lawsuits that will follow if Zinke
maintains his present course of action. Cantwell said in a
statement that Zinke may have violated the Outer Continental
Shelf Lands Act. Others have said that he may have violated the
Administrative Procedures Act as well (Washington
Examiner).
—–
The Trump administration’s announcement of an open season on
offshore oil drilling all around the edges of the United States has
put some congressional Republicans on the hot seat during a tough
election year.
Opposition to the proposed oil leases along the East Coast is
reflected in the negative comments from Republican governors Larry
Hogan of Maine, Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Chris Sununu of New
Hampshire, Henry McMaster of South Carolina and Rick Scott of
Florida. None want to see drilling anywhere off their
shorelines.
Just days after Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced his plan
to issue leases for oil and gas exploration and development nearly
everywhere, he decided to let Florida off the hook — to the relief
of Gov. Scott, who is said to be a close friend of the Trump
administration.
Zinke’s exemption for Florida was announced in a tweet
posted on Twitter, in which he called Scott “a straightforward
leader that can be trusted.”
“President Trump has directed me to rebuild our offshore oil and
gas program in a manner that supports our national energy policy
and also takes into consideration the local and state voice,” Zinke
tweeted. “I support the governor’s position that Florida is unique
and its coasts are heavily reliant on tourism as an economic
driver. As a result of discussion with Governor Scott’s (sic) and
his leadership, I am removing Florida from consideration of any new
oil and gas platforms.”
It appears that Zinke is admitting that oil and gas development
can harm the local tourism industry. Needless to say, the other
Republican governors also would like a piece of that “support” from
Zinke, as reported in a story by Dan Merica of
CNN News.
Meanwhile, on the West Coast, Democratic governors and many
members of Congress also oppose the drilling plan — with the
exception of Alaska, where Gov. Bill Walker supports expanded
drilling anywhere he can get it — even into the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge. I discussed the ANWR drilling proposal in
Water Ways on Nov. 16, before approval of the Republican tax
bill.
Democrats in Washington state’s congressional delegation are
unified in their opposition to offshore drilling, and most of them
support legislation that would take the entire matter off the table
for good. They are joined in their opposition by Rep. Dave
Reichert, a Republican from the Eighth District.
“This moves America in the wrong direction and has the potential
to have a negative lasting effect on our oceans as well as the
shorelines of states on these coasts,” Reichert said in a
statement. “Our country is at the forefront of developing
efficient and cost effective alternative energy technologies and we
should continue to support innovation in this area.”
Congressional districts in
Western Washington.
Graphic: govtrack
Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican who represents the Third
District — including coastal areas in Southwest Washington — was a
little more low-key.
“I don’t support offshore oil and gas exploration in states that
don’t want it, and Washington’s citizens have never indicated any
desire to have oil and gas activity off their coast,” she said in a
Facebook
post. “I’m not aware of any active plan to drill off Washington
or Oregon, but I will act to protect our citizens and our coast if
any such effort does arise.”
Other comments on the plan:
Letter
in opposition (PDF 974 kb) from 109 U.S. representatives,
including Washington’s Suzan DelBene, 1st District; Derek Kilmer,
6th District; Pramila Jayapal, 7th District; Dave Reichert, 8th
District; Adam Smith, 9th District; and Denny Heck, 10th
District.
Rep. Derek Kilmer, Sixth District: “For decades, Democrats and
Republicans have agreed that opening our waters up to drilling
would be shortsighted and wrong. Doing so could threaten our
fisheries, shellfish growers, tourism, and jobs in other key
sectors of our economy.”
Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell: “This draft proposal is
an ill-advised effort to circumvent public and scientific input,
and we object to sacrificing public trust, community safety, and
economic security for the interests of the oil industry.”
With substantial opposition from all sides, the looming question
is whether Congress will allow the leasing program to move forward
before expiration of the existing five-year
plan for offshore drilling (PDF 34 mb), which ends in 2022 and
focuses mostly on offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
While the California Coast remains a key target for oil
companies, it is unlikely that we will ever see oil rigs off the
Washington Coast, no matter what happens with the leasing program.
Oil and gas resources simply aren’t known to be there, according to
all published data.
During the 1960s, 10 exploratory wells were drilled with no
significant finds off the coast of Washington and Oregon, according
to a 1977 report by the U.S.
Geological Survey (PDF 10.2 mb). Some 14 other wells were
drilled without result offshore near Vancouver Island in Canada.
Many more onshore wells have been drilled without major success
throughout the region.
In 2008, I explored the idea of offshore drilling in Washington
state when the George W. Bush administration attempted to lift the
offshore-drilling moratorium.
“We would probably be last, or next to last,” state geologist
Ray Lasmanis told me in a story for the
Kitsap Sun. “The geology is too broken up, and it does not have
the kind of sedimentary basins they have off the coast of
California.”
Officials told me at the time that even if oil companies were
given free rein, they would not line up to drill off our coast.
“It is important to note that, at least here on the West Coast,
that it will take more than lifting the congressional moratorium,”
said Tupper Hull, spokesman for the Western States Petroleum
Association. “In addition to state and local constraints, a number
of marine sanctuaries would restrict development.”
Gov. Jay Inslee, who was a U.S. representative at the time, said
offshore drilling was a diversion, because much better alternatives
exist on land. Because of climate change, Inslee was pushing
Congress to encourage renewable energy sources, as he continues to
do today as governor.
“Drilling offshore,” he told me, “is doomed to failure. I’m not
opposed to drilling. We accept massive drilling on federal land.
But the danger is we’ll get wrapped around the minutia of the
drilling issue … and we’re still going to be addicted to oil.”
The latest proposal by the Department of Interior is subject to
public hearings, including one scheduled in Tacoma on Feb. 5. Check
out the full schedule
of 23 hearings.
Just about anyone with a computer can become part of a
scientific research project through Zooniverse, which focuses the
intelligence of thousands of people on tasks that are not well
suited for computers.
The research projects are real, and prospective citizen
scientists can choose from dozens of topics in various fields,
including climate, biology, medicine, history, language, literature
and the arts. More than 100
published papers have come from the work.
The key is observation, and participants make judgments about
images they are given, such as photographs, drawings, hand-written
pages and other visuals. Together, the large number of observations
help professional researchers find things that they could not
easily find alone. In most cases, computers don’t have the
observational capabilities of humans, although some of the projects
are trying to teach computers to do a better job.
Participants become part of an exclusive research community, as
each Zooniverse project includes chat forums for discussion.
Citizen scientists can talk among themselves or pose questions to
the researchers in charge. I’ve tried out a few of the projects,
and I can see how this could become an interesting, amusing and
ongoing pastime for some people.
One of the projects that I find interesting is called “Old
Weather,” which involves perusing ships’ logs from the 1800s and
early 1900s to see what the weather was like on particular dates in
various parts of the world. The focus at the moment is on 24
whaling voyages as well as expeditions to the Arctic by the U.S.
Navy and Coast Guard. The information is going into a database to
help reveal how climate is changing.
The online work involves identifying what the log books have to
say about weather, ice and sea conditions. One task involves
reading through the books and marking such observations along with
time and place. Another task is to transcribe the observations and
link them together. Of particular interest is locating sea ice, a
primary indicator of climate change.
Other projects:
The Plastic Tide involves looking at
photographs of beaches taken from a drone to identify pieces of
plastic in the sand and gravel. Researchers in England are using
the observations to develop a computer program that can recognize
bits of plastic and estimate the amount of plastic on a beach. If
successful, global estimates of plastic distribution can be created
with the use of unmanned aircraft. Volunteer observations are being
used to “train” the computer to identify plastics.
Snapshots At Sea uses pictures of sea creatures taken
by professional and amateur photographers to extract information
about whales and other marine mammals. Citizen scientists are asked
questions about each photograph to classify the images and
determine whether a whale expert should take a look. So far,
citizen scientists were able to locate an extremely rare killer
whale, known as Type D. Meanwhile, they have also helped to locate
and identify known and unknown humpback whales and plot their
movements with unprecedented resolution off the California coast.
By the way, Cascadia Research Collective in Olympia is one of the
collaborators on the project.
Notes from
Nature digs into the records of natural history
museums throughout the world, where handwritten observations are
tagged onto all sorts of plant and animal specimens. Volunteers
transcribe the notes from photographs of the specimens to help to
fill in gaps about biodiversity and the natural heritage of a given
region. At the first level, museum staff and others are
photographing what are estimated to be 10 billion specimens,
including birds, bugs, butterflies and microscopic fossils. At
higher levels, researchers are compiling the data to tell a story
of ecological change.
Wildwatch Kenya, which started this past
summer, asks volunteers to review photos taken with trail cameras
placed in two nature preserves in Kenya. Information about wildlife
seen in the photos is used to track animal movements, determine
what they are doing and help with their conservation. In the first
three months, more than 5,000 volunteers were able to retire a
backlog of more than 160,000 photographs — about two years’ worth
of images. For information, see the
news release from the San Diego Zoo, which manages the
project.
Steller sea lion ~ 100 is the
“sea lion of the month” for October. // Photo: Steller
Watch
Steller Watch, like Wildwatch Kenya, uses remote
cameras to capture hundreds of pictures of Steller sea lions — an
endangered species whose population has declined by 94 percent in
the Aleutian Islands. Volunteers help classify — but not identify —
animals seen in the photos so that experts can complete the
identifications and track the movements of the animals. One feature
is the
Sea Lion of the Month, who this month is ~100, a sea lion with
a somewhat unusual story.
Cyclone Center includes 300,000 images taken
from infrared sensors on weather satellites. The colored images
reveal temperatures, which are closely related to whether the
clouds produce wind, rain and thunderstorms. Volunteers are given a
pair of clouds and asked to determine which one is stronger based
on the colors. The human eye is better at this job than a computer,
experts say. The information is compiled with other data to form a
record of storms and to help predict future events.
Shells from Quarterly Journal
of the Geological Society of London, 1866
Science
Gossip relies on millions of pages of printed text
produced in scientific journals, notebooks and other publications
from the 1400s to today. Researchers and artists, both professional
and amateur, produced the documents during their investigations of
science. Cataloging and describing old drawings are helping
historians understand who was studying what down through the years.
In my first leap into this project, I was presented with the
drawing of a scale from an extinct fish. I found myself reading the
associated article to learn about a dispute over how to classify
the animal, and then I went to other sources to learn about the
notable scientist and his work. After that, I completed the
questions about the drawing. (I guess this was beyond the call of
duty, but I just wanted to know more.)
The Milky Way Project endeavors to locate celestial
objects of interest to astronomers by searching through tens of
thousands of images from the Spitzer Space Telescope and the WISE
satellite observatory. Training is provided to identify bubble
nebulae, bow shocks and other notable features.
Solar Stormwatch II involves working with images of
solar flares from NASA’s STEREO spacecraft. Volunteers help to
classify and describe the intensity of flares by defining their
outer edges with the use of a computer mouse. The original project,
Solar Stormwatch, contributed to
seven scientific publications. The new project will examine
images from 2010 to 2016, during which time the sun went through a
period of peak activity.
I must admit that I have an uneasy curiosity to see how Congress
will manage programs that protect human health and the environment
now that Republican legislators are in control of both the House
and Senate with no concerns about a budget veto.
Most environmental laws and programs are the result of
hard-fought compromise between Democrats and Republicans who
somehow agreed on ideas to make the world a safer place for people
and wildlife. Do Republican members of Congress really want to back
away from those advances? Do they want to explain to their
constituents why clean air, clean water and safe food are not as
important as they once were?
I was fascinated to read that Republican senators and
representatives in the Great Lakes states could be a key to saving
federal funding for Chesapeake Bay — and, by the same token, Puget
Sound, the Gulf of Mexico and other major restoration projects.
Federal funding to restore Puget Sound and other large U.S.
estuaries would be slashed by more than 90 percent under a
preliminary budget proposal coming from President Trump’s
administration.
Funding for Puget Sound restoration would be cut by 93 percent,
from the current budget of $28 million to just $2 million,
according to figures cited by the
Portland Oregonian and apparently circulated by the National
Association of Clean Air Agencies. Here’s
the list.
The Great Lakes, which received a big boost in spending to $300
million in the current biennium, would be hammered down to $10
million. Chesapeake Bay, currently at $73 million, would be reduced
to $5 million.
Much of this money goes for habitat protection and restoration,
the kind of effort that seems to be kicked to the bottom of the
priority list, at least in these early budget figures. The new EPA
administrator, Scott Pruitt, appears to be focusing on upgrading
water infrastructure, cleaning up toxic sites and reducing air and
water pollution, although everything is cut deeply and details
remain murky.
“Dream” is a clever animated video promoting the annual Wildlife
Conservation Film Festival in New York City. The festival is more
than films, with workshops on wildlife topics and a goal to connect
average people with filmmakers, conservationists, researchers and
media outlets.
One of my personal goals for the coming year is to see more of
the wonderful films being produced about conservation concerns,
environmental issues and wildlife preservation.
Among the films being released next year are “A Plastic Ocean,”
a feature-length documentary that explores the problem of plastic
pollution in 20 locations around the world, including the Great
Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific Gyre, 1,500 miles off
the West Coast. The film also discusses practical and technological
approaches to solving the plastic problem.
I find it fascinating that children are making a strong legal
argument that governments must take swift action to reduce climate
change.
A series of lawsuits across the country are founded on the idea
that many adults will be gone in 40 or 50 years when climate
extremes become the new norm. It is the young people of today who
will suffer the consequences of ongoing government inaction.
In a case filed by a group of children in King County Superior
Court, Judge Hollis Hill took the Washington Department of Ecology
and Gov. Jay Inslee to task for delaying action on new clean air
regulations to help curb greenhouse gas emissions:
“Petitioners assert, the department does not dispute, and this court finds that current scientific evidence establishes that rapidly increasing global warming causes an unprecedented risk to the Earth, including land, sea, the atmosphere and all living plants and animals…
“In fact, as petitioners assert and this court finds, their very survival depends upon the will of their elders to act now, decisively and unequivocally, to stem the tide of global warming by accelerating the reduction of emission of GHGs (greenhouse gases) before doing so becomes too costly and then too late.
“The scientific evidence is clear that the current rates of reduction mandated by Washington law cannot achieve the GHG reductions necessary to protect our environment and to ensure the survival of an environment in which petitioners can grow to adulthood safely.”
One can download
Hill’s full opinion (PDF 2.6 mb) from Our Children’s Trust
website. Also, reporter Jeannie Yandel of
radio station KUOW interviewed the attorney and some of the
children involved in the case.
Attorney Andrea Rogers (far
right) poses with young plaintiffs outside a King County courtroom.
Their legal victory requires state government to address climate
change by the end of 2016. // Photo: Our Children’s
Trust
It is ironic that Gov. Inslee finds himself under attack for
failure to act against greenhouse gas emissions, given that he is
one of the nation’s leading advocates for action on climate change.
Inslee literally wrote the book on this issue while serving in
Congress: “Apollo’s Fire:
Igniting America’s Clean Energy Economy.”
Unable to get the Legislature to act on his specific program,
the governor is now on a course to impose new regulations to force
a reduction in greenhouse gases. Initially, the new standards would
apply to large industrial sources. The governor says his authority
stems from a 2008
law passed by the Legislature requiring a reduction to 1990
emission levels by 2020. We can expect the rule to be challenged by
business interests.
Originally, the rule was to be completed this summer, but the
proposal was withdrawn in February in light of an overwhelming
number of comments and new ideas that needed to be addressed. The
rule is scheduled to be re-released later this month and adopted by
the end of the year.
Judge Hill’s latest ruling from the bench on April 29
requires Ecology to adopt the rule by the end of the year.
That fits within Ecology’s current schedule, said Camille St. Onge,
spokeswoman for Ecology. Whether the agency might appeal the ruling
to preserve its options won’t be decided until after the judge’s
written findings are issued, she said.
“We agree with Judge Hill,” St. Onge told me in an email.
“Climate change is a global issue, and science is telling us that
what was projected years ago is happening today, and we need to act
now to protect our environment and economy for future generations.
We’re working vigorously on Washington’s first-ever rule to cap and
reduce carbon pollution and help slow climate change.”
Gov. Inslee said in a
news release that he has no dispute with Judge Hill’s findings,
which actually support his approach to combatting climate
change:
“This case is a call to act on climate, and that call is one that has been a priority for me since taking office. Our state is helping lead the way on climate action in our country…
“In a way it is gratifying that the court has also affirmed our authority to act, contrary to the assertion of those who continue to reject action on climate change and ocean acidification. Hundreds of people have participated in the creation of our state's Clean Air Rule and the draft will be out in just a few weeks.”
Meanwhile, Washington state is not the only state where youth
have filed lawsuits to assert their rights to a healthy future.
Cases also are pending in Oregon, Massachusetts, Colorado and North
Carolina, according to Our Children’s Trust, which provides
details
about the state lawsuits on its website.
At the same time, another case is underway in U.S. District
Court in Oregon, where Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin ruled that
the young plaintiffs have standing and legitimate claims to be
adjudicated. He allowed the case to move forward with additional
evidence to be submitted. Read his
April 8 ruling (PDF 3.2 mb) on the website of Our Children’s
Trust.
The video below features reporter Bill Moyers discussing the
legal issues in these cases, which include claims related to the
Public Trust Doctrine, an ancient principle that asserts the
public’s right to use and enjoy certain natural resources that
cannot be ceded to private property owners.
A graph showing the rise in global temperature or the increase
in ocean acidity is really just ink on paper. Emotionally, the
impact is minimal, unless a person truly understands the meaning
behind the lines and numbers shown on the chart.
That’s why I am thrilled and amused with the work of artist Jill
Pelto, who has uniquely bridged the gap between scientific charts
and living creatures. Jill has incorporated real climate data —
charts and graphs — into the backgrounds of her paintings, which
also tell compelling stories about the changing environment.
Take the water-color painting of clownfish (first on this page),
for example. The anemone in the background is outlined by pH data
from 1998 to 2012, as Jill explained to me in an email.
Ocean acidification results when atmospheric carbon dioxide
dissolves in the water to form carbonic acid. Higher-than-normal
levels of acidity can affect the brains of some fish, leading to
disorientation and a reduction in their ability to avoid
predators.
“The clownfish in my watercolor are grouped in confusion,
separated from the anemone in which they live,” Jill told me. “The
oceans may be vast, but if the pH drops globally, there is
literally nowhere marine life can go. They are confined to the
water.”
The decline in pH, along with a further explanation of ocean
acidification, can be found on Climate Central’s website
WXshift (pronounced “weather shift”).
The greatest effects of climate change are being experienced in
the polar regions. Data describing the melting of Arctic sea ice
from 1980 to the present are expressed in Jill’s painting of the
Arctic foxes.
“Rapid warming in the Arctic has caused the sea ice area to
decline so quickly that species cannot adjust,” Jill wrote. “The
Arctic fox is small and extraordinarily resilient to the most
severe cold. They can withstand the frigid north and thus have this
corner of the world in which to hunt. But when the temperatures
mellow, competition from larger species could overcome them, as
other species move farther north to escape their own warming
environment.
“I painted the Arctic foxes to look cornered and skittish. One
is hunched and defensive; the other is yowling in panic. The sea
ice, from which they are separated, is spaced out by large expanses
of dark blue water absorbing the sun’s heat.”
Changes in sea ice are described in Climate Central’s website
WXshift.
Jill has studied both art and science, graduating in December
from the University of Maine with a double major in studio art and
Earth science.
“I have always loved the outdoors and want to use my creative
skills to communicate information about extreme environmental
issues with a broad audience,” she says on her website, Glaciogenic Art. “I see
nature as a work of art and the origin of my observational skills.
I enjoy cross-country and downhill skiing, reading, running,
camping and spending time with my friends and family. I make art
inspired by all of these experiences.”
Jill’s father, Mauri Pelto, a professor in environmental science
at Nichols College in Dudley, Mass., has studied glacier recession
in Washington’s Cascade Mountains for decades. He founded the
ongoing North
Cascades Glacier Climate Project in 1983. Jill has assisted
with research on that and other projects around the country since
high school.
Mauri’s 2008
research paper on the North Cascade glaciers (PDF 1.6 mb)
contains these unsettling observations: “All 47 monitored glaciers
are currently undergoing a significant retreat, and four of them
have disappeared.” He goes on to add that this glacial retreat is
“ubiquitous, rapid and increasing.”
Experiencing such environmental changes first-hand has helped
shape Jill’s future.
“To me, it’s really dramatic and it means a lot because it’s
something I personally experienced,” she told Brian Kahn of
Climate Central. “Seeing signs of climate change that were more
evident inspired me to pursue science at the same time as art.”
The decline in salmon inspired Jill to incorporate a graph of
coho population data into one painting. Receding glaciers, last
year’s lack of snowpack and a shortage of rainfall contributed to
real problems for salmon. Streams were too low and too warm,
reducing the amount of spawning.
“Seeing the rivers and reservoirs looking so barren was
frightening,” Jill said. “The salmon are depicted swimming along
the length of the graph, following its current. While salmon can
swim upstream, it is becoming more of an uphill battle with lower
streamflow and higher temperatures. This image depicts the struggle
their population is facing as their spawning habitat declines.”
The final example on this page captures multiple measures of
climate change occurring across the globe, such as glacier mass
balance, sea level rise and temperature increase.
“I wanted to convey in an image how all of this data must be
compared and linked together to figure out the fluctuations in
Earth’s natural history,” Jill said. “One of the reasons scientists
study what happened in the past is to understand what may happen
now as a result of human-induced climate change.
“I represented this by illustrating that glaciers are melting
and calving, sea levels are rising and temperatures are increasing.
The numbers on the left y-axis depict quantities of glacial melt
and sea level rise, and the suns across the horizon contain numbers
that represent the global increase in temperature, coinciding with
the timeline on the lower x-axis.”
I am really looking forward to seeing more of Jill’s work in the
future, as she continues her academic pursuits at the University of
Maine. Prints of her paintings are available for sale, and Jill can
be contacted through her website.
A school play about climate change, featuring a worried mother
polar bear and evil villains named “Mr. Carbon” and “Mr. Methane,”
have captured the imaginations of elementary and junior-high-school
students across the country.
The program, called “Cool the Earth,” includes
follow-up activities that encourage the young students to bring
climate-saving ideas home with them.
The first video on this page shows a play performed by teachers
at Spring Valley Science School in San Francisco. I love the
laughter of the children in the background. The second video shows
an NBC News story from 2011.
The “Cool the Earth” program was developed in 2007 by Carleen
and Jeff Cullen, parents in Marin County, Calif., who became
inspired to take action on climate change after viewing Al Gore’s
documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” Showing the film to others
failed to gain the action they desired, so they expanded their
horizons by developing an easy-to-understand message that could be
shared with kids and their parents.
The program was launched at Bacich Elementary School in
Kentfield, Calif., and has grown to involve more than 200 schools
across the country, though most are in California. See the list at
“Participating
Schools and Troops.”
An article on the Green Schools
Initiative website quotes Heather Dobbs, a parent coordinator
at Alexander Hamilton School in Morristown, N.J., who says “Cool
the Earth” explains climate change in a meaningful way:
“The kids love the play because the teachers playing the parts
are big hams. It tugs at the kids’ heart strings when they hear
about polar bears in danger. Kids can take in that story more
easily than just hearing about carbon emissions.”
Students then take home coupon books offering 20 ideas for no-
or low-cost actions that they can do on their own or with their
parents to earn points and sometimes prizes, such as earth-friendly
trading cards.
Carleen Cullen explains the program in the video below.
