Locus Focus
Locus Focus host Barbara Bernstein talks with local, regional and national experts, activists and policy makers about climate change, food policy, land use, salmon restoration, forest management and all the other things that matter in our environment.
Homepage URL
Audio
PLUTONIUM WASTE AT THE HANFORD NUCLEAR RESERVATION REVISITED
Restarting America's nuclear power industry is frequently suggested as a means of curbing greenhouse gas emissions. But advocates of this back to the future scenario should study Robert Alvarez's recent report showing that the amount of plutonium buried at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State is nearly three times what the federal government previously reported. This means that a cleanup to protect future generations will be far more challenging than planners had assumed. And that's before any more nuclear waste is added to the toxic legacy of Hanford's forty years of Plutonium production.
This week on Locus Focus our guests are Robert Alvarez, Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. He discusses the ramifications of his study's findings. He's joined by Gerry Pollett, co-founder and executive director of Heart of America Northwest, a regional non-profit public interest organization that has spent over twenty years advocating for the timely cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
ROBERT ALVAREZ is a Senior Scholar at IPS, where he is currently focused on nuclear disarmament, environmental, and energy policies. Between 1993 and 1999, Mr. Alvarez served as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for National Security and the Environment. While at DOE, he coordinated the effort to enact nuclear worker compensation legislation. In 1994 and 1995, Bob led teams in North Korea to establish control of nuclear weapons materials. He coordinated nuclear material strategic planning for the department and established the department’s first asset management program. Bob was awarded two Secretarial Gold Medals, the highest awards given by the department.
Prior to joining the DOE, Mr. Alvarez served for five years as a Senior Investigator for the U. S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, chaired by Senator John Glenn, and as one of the Senate’s primary staff experts on the U.S. nuclear weapons program. While serving for Senator Glenn, Bob worked to help establish the environmental cleanup program in the Department of Energy, strengthened the Clean Air Act, uncovered several serious nuclear safety and health problems, improved medical radiation regulations, and created a transition program for communities and workers affected by the closure of nuclear weapons facilities. In 1975 Bob helped found and direct the Environmental Policy Institute (EPI), a respected national public interest organization. He helped enact several federal environmental laws, wrote several influential studies and organized successful political coalitions. He helped organize a successful lawsuit on behalf of the family of Karen Silkwood, a nuclear worker and active union member who was killed under mysterious circumstances in 1974.
GERALD POLLETT is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Heart of America Northwest. He brings 25 years of organizing experience on Hanford, environmental and peace issues, and political campaigns in Washington, as well as tremendous institutional memory and technical expertise to the organization. Gerry is frequently called on by regional and national media, and for guest lectures at universities and Continuing Legal Education seminars. Gerry has lobbied, written major legislation at federal and state level, and testified to Congress.
Gerry chairs the Hanford Advisory Board’s committee overseeing USDOE’s Hanford budgets, management and contracts. He has testified by invitation to U.S. Senate and U.S. House Committees, is frequently quoted in national and regional media. He also serves as general counsel for Legal Advocates for Washington, which provides legal advice on non-profit, electoral and hazardous waste law.
Gerry also has been serving on the board of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, and the Washington Coalition for Open Government. His work on Hanford and prior work on economics of electric utility forecasting has led to frequent requests that he lecture about the lessons of Hanford and the role of nuclear power in fighting global warming.
- Artist: Barbara Bernstein
- Title: Hanford Revisited
- Album: Locus Focus
- Year: 2010
- Length: 56:58 minutes (52.16 MB)
- Format: MP3 Stereo 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)
GROWING GARDENS: GROWING THE NEXT GENERATION OF VEGGIE EATERS AND GROWERS
Last week on Locus Focus we talked about transforming school lunch programs into vehicles that encourage kids to eat healthy foods, while teaching them about the connections between food, health, and the environment. This week we look at a program in Portland that not only shows young people how to make healthy food choices, but actually helps them learn how to grow their own food. GROWING GARDENS gets at the root of hunger in Portland, by organizing hundreds of volunteers to build organic, raised-bed vegetable gardens in backyards, front yards, side yards and even on balconies, in low income neighborhoods on Portland's east side. On this episode of Locus Focus, we talk with Caitlin Blethen, who manages the
Youth Grow youth gardening program at Growing Gardens, which is cultivating the next generation of veggie eaters and growers. We're also joined by Gage Reeves, who teaches at Vernon Middle School, where a mighty school garden thrives, and Tyler White, a fifth grade gardener at Faubion School in NE Portland.
Caitlin Blethen manages “Youth Grow” the youth gardening program at the Portland based non-profit Growing Gardens. She has over ten years of experience working with school and youth gardening programs in Washington and Oregon and has a BA degree from the Evergreen State College. Her favorite part of her work is watching children explore, discover and learn about growing edible plants. Caitlin lives in SE Portland where she and her partner Bryan cultivate a mini-farm.
Gage Reeves teaches 5 - 8th grades at Vernon Middle School. He started the school's garden and is working now to build a school garden ed program that encompasses "core" curricular connections to health/nutrition, ecological responsibility, life/physical/earth sciences, in addition to teaching the students how to start, plant, and harvest food, grown at the school, and eaten in the school cafeteria. His wife Sarah Canterberry is an instrumental part of the garden program at Vernon as well and teaches the after school program garden club.
Tyler White will be starting fifth grade at Faubion School in NE Portland this fall. He comes from a family of chefs and gardeners and is carrying on his family traditions in the garden at his grade school.
- Title: Growing Gardens
- Year: 2010
- Length: 41:36 minutes (38.09 MB)
- Format: MP3 Stereo 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)
SCHOOL LUNCHES, SUSTAINABILITY AND CHILDREN'S HEALTH
In April a report was released showing that more than 9 million young adults, or 27 percent of all Americans ages 17 to 24, are too overweight to join the military and that national security in the year 2030 is "absolutely dependent" on reversing child obesity rates. According to the authors of the report we need to eliminate junk food and high-calorie beverages from schools, put more money into creating school lunch programs that serve real food to children. http://tinyurl.com/y7akr8m
On this episode of Locus Focus we talk with Lisa Bennett, Communications Director for the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, CA, about a burgeoning movement to transform those wretched school lunches we all remember into tasty and healthy meals, made from ingredients supplied by local farmers and perhaps even the school's own edible garden. For nearly 20 years, the Center for Ecoliteracy has advocated for improving school lunches; using gardens as a way to encourage kids to eat healthy foods; and teaching young people about the connections between food, health, and the environment.
We'll learn about the new, healthier choices available in schools across the country and how they compare to traditional cafeteria fare. We'll also discuss the growing popularity of farm to school programs that are providing healthy, organic food for children, while supporting local farmers, and the proliferation of school gardens.
ABOUT LISA BENNETT:
Lisa Bennett is communications director of the Center for Ecoliteracy and co-author of SMART BY NATURE: Schooling for Sustainability (Watershed Media/U.C. Press, 2009). A former fellow at Harvard University's Center on Press, Politics, and Public Policy in the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Lisa has written for many publications, including the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Huffington Post, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Lisa has spoken at the National Press Club and appeared on the BBC, C-SPAN, Hardball, and many other programs.
- Title: Sustainable School Lunch
- Year: 2010
- Length: 42:16 minutes (38.71 MB)
- Format: MP3 Stereo 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)
BP'S OIL HEMORRHAGE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GULF OF MEXICO
Right now there are more unanswered questions than answers about what is happening with the hemorrhaging oil gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and what will be its short and long term environmental, health and economic consequences. Portland environmental writer Lizzie Grossman returns from a trip to Gulf of Mexico to report on what she saw, the people she met and her first-hand impressions on the immensity of disaster created by the BP Oil hemorrhage on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. We talk about the destruction that is already evident from this disaster and the even more disquieting concerns about what is yet to unfold.
Lizzie Grossman is a Portland-based science and environment writer whose most recent book is Chasing Molecules. She is currently reporting on the Gulf Oil Disaster for several web magazines.
Read Lizzie's writings at: http://scienceblogs.com/thepumphandle/2010/06/whos_on_the_beach_gulf_coast_b.php#more
Links to more information about the Gulf Oil Disaster:
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf#incart_hbx
http://www.propublica.org/topic/gulf-oil-spill
- Artist: Barbara Bernstein
- Title: Gulf Oil Disaster
- Album: Locus Focus
- Year: 2010
- Length: 55:34 minutes (50.87 MB)
- Format: MP3 Stereo 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)
COUNTRY NATURAL BEEF: FARMING IN THE MIDDLE
On June 10 ranchers from across Oregon, Idaho and Washington descended upon downtown Portland for a country food fair sponsored by Oregon Natural Beef. This event provided an opportunity for these ranchers to meet the city folks who eat the meat that they raise, and for city eaters to get a glimpse of cowboy life. Oregon is fortunate to have a ranch co-op like Oregon Natural Beef that provides organic, hormone-free, grassfed sustainably-raised beef to a wide range of eaters—from the fancy diners at Higgins in downtown Portland, to Cleveland High School students grabbing a burger at the Burgerville across the street from their school, as well as shoppers at New Seasons and Whole Foods Markets. This morning on Locus Focus we talk with Connie and Doc Hatfield, co-founders of Oregon Natural Beef. We'll learn what it means to be farming in the middle.
WHAT IS COUNTRY NATURAL BEEF?
In 1986 fourteen family ranches formed a consumer driven beef marketing cooperative with a vision to protect open spaces by preserving the rural culture and families that nurture them.
Country Natural Beef is a conduit allowing individual family ranches to own, control and finance our beef from birth of the calf to our retail customer. This conduit serves as a two way bridge - providing value to our urban customer's meal and meaning to our rancher's work. Country Natural Beef is third party certified for humane animal practices and environmentally sensitive land management by Food Alliance. In February of this year, the Country Natural Beef Animal Welfare Standards were endorsed by Temple Grandin, a well known animal behaviorist and industry expert.
Country Natural Beef is a unique cooperative, each family rancher owns, and controls management of their beef from birth to the retail cooler.
....it's the smell of sage after a summer thunderstorm,
the cool shade of a Ponderosa Pine forest.
It's 80 year old weathered hands saddling a horse in the Blue mountains,
The future of a 6-year old in a one room school on the high desert.
It's a trout in a beaver built pond, haystacks on an Aspen framed meadow.
It's the hardy quail running to join the cattle for a meal,
the welcome ring of a dinner bell at dusk.
Doc Hatfield and Becky Hatfield Hyde
- Artist: Barbara Bernstein
- Title: Country Natural Beef
- Album: Locus Focus
- Year: 2010
- Length: 43:10 minutes (39.52 MB)
- Format: MP3 Stereo 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)
A VIEW FROM THE BOTTOMS: RESHAPING PORTLAND'S REMNANT WETLAND
As you follow the lower Willamette River through the city of Portland you see mostly hardened banks, sea walls and industrial sites that line both shores of the river. But along the east bank of the river, just a few miles south of downtown Portland, you come across a stretch of beach and wetlands and braided channels that reminds us of the landscape through which the lower Willamette River once flowed. A central feature of this nearly natural stretch of watershed, is Oaks Bottom, a 160 acre wetland and wildlife refuge, the closest thing left to the rich wetland habitat that once lined both shores of the Willamette River, where Portland now stands.
This week on Locus Focus we talk with Anne Nelson with Portland Environmental Services, Mark Griswold Wilson - Restoration Ecologist with Portland Parks & Recreation City Nature Division - and Sean Bistoff - the project manager for the habitat enhancement project at Oaks Bottom, who are involved in a project to restore Oaks Bottoms' natural features and functions. For nearly a century the wetlands have been severed from the river by a railroad berm. The plan is to reconnect Oaks Bottom to the river and recreate a salmon nursery in its open water. We look at the challenges of restoring a functioning ecosystem in Oaks Bottom, which like so many urban natural areas, has endured decades of abuse and neglect.
In the summer of 2011, the City Nature Division of Portland Parks & Recreation and Portland Environmental Services will be constructing a large scale habitat enhancement project at Oaks Bottom to benefit wildlife and people. The project will enhance 75 acres of wetland habitat by:
* Replacing an existing culvert with a larger box culvert to enhance fish passage and significantly improve the flow of Willamette River water in and out of the refuge.
* Excavating tidal slough channels and enhancing wetland habitats at the south end of the refuge to provide off-channel refuge for salmon.
* Removing invasive vegetation, such as purple loosestrife, and revegetation with native species to improve wildlife habitat.
* Enhancing opportunities for environmental education and interpretation of the refuge from the Springwater on the Willamette Trail.
Mark Griswold Wilson is an Restoration Ecologist with Portland Parks & Recreation City Nature Division and a neighbor of Oaks Bottom.
Anne Nelson is an Environmental Program Coordinator for the Willamette Watershed with the City of Portland Environmental Services. She works on urban watershed function enhancment projects such as the Oaks Bottom Habitat Enhancement Project, Tryon Creek Confluence Habitat Enhancement Project and Tabor to the River. For more information on this work please see: www.portlandonline.com/bes/watershed/willamette
Sean Bistoff has worked at the City of Portland Environmental Services since 1998, and has worked on a variety of projects including environmental monitoring and sampling, permit and development application review, and land acquisition and floodplain restoration in Johnson Creek. Sean is currently the design phase project manager for several wetland restoration projects, including the Oaks Bottom Habitat Enhancement Project. Sean's education is in Water Resources and Geology.
- Title: Oaks Bottom
- Year: 2010
- Length: 43:26 minutes (39.76 MB)
- Format: MP3 Stereo 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)
THE CLIMATE CRISIS AT THE END OF YOUR FORK: An Interview with Anna Lappe
When we talk about the primary causes of climate change, the food we eat and how it's produced does not usually come to forefront of the discussion. Yet agriculture is responsible for nearly a third of the greenhouse gas emissions which are at the root of the climate crisis, and the emissions produced by the food sector are largely methane and nitrous oxide emissions, which have global warming effects many times more powerful than carbon dioxide.
This week on Locus Focus we talk with food activist and author Anna Lappe, whose new book Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It, sends a strong message: if we are serious about addressing climate change, we have to talk about food. On this episode of Locus Focus we look at how we can break out of the corporate food model, cut the greenhouse gas emissions footprint of the food we eat and help work toward creating a more sustainable world.
Anna Lappé is a national bestselling author, television host, and public speaker, known for her work on sustainability and food systems. In 1971, her mother Frances Moore Lappé released her now-classic Diet for a Small Planet. Her core message, that food remains the central issue through which to understand world politics, remains as relevant today. Anna Lappe has pursued her mother's cause and taken it to the next level, raising consciousness around the world about the role that food, and the politics of food, plays in promoting the climate crisis.
Link to Anna's blog: http://www.takeabite.cc/blog/
- Title: Anna Lappe
- Year: 2010
- Length: 44:03 minutes (40.33 MB)
- Format: MP3 Stereo 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)
Sand Berms and Burning Oil Slicks in the Gulf of Mexico
As part of KBOO's special day of programming about the BP Oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico - Stop the Oil – Save the Gulf! this episode of Locus Focus looks at two under-reported stories coming out of the Gulf.
First we talk with Portland science writer Liz Grossman, who has been following the health impacts of the dispersants being used to break up the oil in the spill. We hear about how BP is trying to downplay the danger both to humans and wildlife of the chemicals they are using, while at the same time there are growing reports of workers exposed to the dispersants who are getting sick. We also talk about the lack of available data on air quality near the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which is a serious concern since BP has been burning off oil that has reached the water's surface around the site of the damaged rig.
In the second half of the program we talk with Len Bahr, retired director of the Governor's Applied Coastal Science program in Louisiana, who now writes a blog entitled LaCoastPost. We discuss the science and politics behind dramatic plans to "fix" the oil spill problem, such as building a huge sand berm along the Louisiana coastline to prevent the oil from reaching into the marshes and beaches. Len has strong opinions as a coastal scientist, about the fallacy of this plan and believes that it is driven by politics, not science.
- Title: gulf oil spill disaster
- Album: Oil Disaster
- Year: 2010
- Length: 59:30 minutes (54.47 MB)
- Format: MP3 Stereo 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)
ABOUT A MOUNTAIN
- Title: About A Mountain
- Length: 41:49 minutes (38.29 MB)
- Format: MP3 Stereo 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)
FOOD SCRAP RECYCLING COMING TO YOUR CURBSIDE
How much of your garbage is composed of food scraps? According to analysis in the Portland Recycles! Plan the average Portland household disposes of 1,326 pounds of garbage per year of which 75% could be recycled or composted instead of winding up as landfill. We can reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced by our garbage by approximately one ton for each ton of food scraps diverted from landfill.
This week on Locus Focus we learn about what Portland is doing to change our garbage habits? We talk with Bruce Walker, the Solid Waste & Recycling Program Manager for the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, and master recyler Heather Hawkins about the city's new pilot curbside food scrap collection program in four neighborhoods across Portland. For the next year, selected households will put food scraps along with yard debris into the green Portland Composts! roll cart, which will be collected every week. With the addition of weekly food scrap collection, the City will also test every-other-week garbage service to encourage participation in the food scrap collection program and to maintain the efficiency of the garbage and recycling collection system. Hopefully at the end of the year, Portland will join other major West Coast cities such as Seattle and San Francisco that have been offering successful city-wide residential curbside collection of food scraps for several years.
Bruce Walker is the Solid Waste & Recycling Program Manager for the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS). BPS promotes integrated land use planning and development based on sustainability principles and practices. BPS also develops and implements policies and programs that provide environmental, economic and social benefits to residents, businesses and government, which strengthen Portland's position as an international model of sustainable practices and commerce. Portland has been nationally recognized for its residential and commercial recycling programs and the resulting 67 percent recycling rate. Bruce has worked in the recycling field longer than he wants to admit but prior to joining the City of Portland’s staff in 1987, he worked for a non-profit community recycling depot, a small local government and a recycling consulting firm. Bruce is a former Chair of the Association of Oregon Recyclers, former National Recycling Coalition Board Member and currently serves on the State of Oregon Product Stewardship Stakeholder Group.
After completing the Master Recycler course offered through Portland's regional government, Heather Hawkins helped launch EnviroMom and formed GreenGroup -- a group of moms who meet monthly and exchange ideas on green living with children. They are not experts -- not by a long shot -- but they are trying to raise their kids to care about the environment and manage healthy households. Heather grew up in Minnesota and Indiana, and then hightailed it Portland after graduating from the Indiana University School of Journalism in 1992. After a career in orchestra management and public relations, she left the workforce in 2004 to raise her two kids. Aside from blogging and environmental pursuits, Heather enjoys good fiction, winning at Scrabble, red wine, Jon Stewart and date nights with her husband, David. She dreams of raising goats and making cheese.
- Artist: Barbara Bernstein
- Title: Food Scraps
- Album: Locus Focus
- Year: 2010
- Length: 56:52 minutes (52.07 MB)
- Format: MP3 Stereo 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)
Comments
Global Warming
I recently interviewed Phil Mote who has replaced climate change denier George Taylor as Oregon's State Climatologist. Like any careful scientist Mote does not feel comfortable attributing specific weather events to climate change. But he gave me a analogy that I like: It's like playing Russian Roulette and adding a second bullet to the chamber of the revolver. If you blow your head off it doesn't really matter whether it was the original bullet or added bullet that did you in.
Solar Energy
I echo Bruce's concerns and add commentary based on Mon - 14 - Sep show.
While I support solar energy, I warn against pie-in-the-sky proposals that make it sound like we can find new sources to keep living our wasteful lives. The scale of the problem is lost when we pretend that putting solar panels on 100 roofs signifies real change.
There is some hope to be found in using solar power efficiently. This does NOT include powering electric resistance heaters with photovoltaics. It does mean passive solar heating, solar hot water, and solar clothes driers (AKA clotheslines).
When you have used conservation and innovation to convert the wasteful electric grid into a sustainable system, then we can begin the conversation about supplimenting the system for our transportation problems. Until then, the only real sustainable alternatives to petroleum are wind, human, and animal powered vehicles. Coal and nuclear, the primary sources of new electricity, are polluting uses of nonrenewable resources.
Walk, ride a bicycle, sail (without motor), and use horse and ox cart, if you are truly concerned about the serious threat of climate change. Park your car forever. We cannot afford cars any longer.
- Vernon Huffman
Corvallis, OR
today's show & "socialism"
i think now is a good time to talk more about what socialism actually is - common ownership of the means of production - and what is is not - redistributing wealth. you are right to continue pointing out that what obama is talking about is a progressive tax structure, not socialism.
the progressive tax idea actually comes from adam smith himself, "It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion." [from book 5, ch.2 on taxes]
Intro music?
I just caught your show for the first time today and was struck by the intro music. Can you please tell me the artist and song title? Many thanks!
Intro Music
possible speaker for 3/19?
Hello Ms. Bernstein,
I am a member of the Multnomah Monthly Meeting of Friends (Quakers) and I am coordinating the visit of a gentleman named Adrien Niyongabo to the Northwest this month.
Adrien is the Coordinator of Healing and Rebuilding our Communities (HROC) in Bujumbura, Burundi where he conducts workshops and facilitator trainings in psycho-social trauma and community healing between Tutsi and Hutu survivors of a 12-year civil war. As a son of both Hutu and Tutsi parents, Adrien will be speaking throughout the US about his experiences assisting others in his country to recover their hearts and rebuild their relationships to themselves and each other. HROC is a project of Friends' Peace Teams' African Great Lakes Initiative.
He will be speaking at the Friends Meeting house on March 19th at 6:30 PM. I was wondering if you might be interested in interviewing him on your show that morning?
Please contact me if you are interested.
Thank you!
Tera Couchman
teranater@gmail.com
9/26 show
Barbara,
Thanks for your work, I try to tune in often for your excellent guests and topics.
I listened to most of the show last week, but missed the name of your guest. Is this posted somewhere, or could you send me that name?
Thanks,
Michael
longo72@gmail.com
what gender is your brain...interesting BBC documentary
I watched a very interesting documentary by the BBC that talks about the human brain and how it works. They conducted a research study to see just how much of our brains and thought process demonstrate “feminine” traits and how much display “male” traits. And they basically gave men and women the same quiz questions and physical tests to test how they would problem solve and perceive the questions and ultimately everyone got rated on the same scale that ranged between highly feminine, and highly male with androgynous landing somewhere in the middle. Now this wasn’t a rating of one’s sexual or gender preference but of how one’s brain works. They noticed that most people who were male tended to rate somewhere between male and androgynous with females somewhere between female and androgynous but a number of other people who were female rated on the male side and males also landed on the female side. I personally took their online quiz and score exacted in the middle as androgynous and at first I was confused because I identify as a woman in my day to day life but when I thought back to the way I interact with people and how I problem solve I do often think of myself in a very androgynous light sometimes reacting more in a masculine way to people and situations and at other times approaching tasks and mental questions in a more female light. So it was very interesting overall to watch the documentary and see how people reacted to their results versus their preconceived notions about how “male” or “female” they thought they are. The link is here if you want to check it out: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/intelligence/brain_sex_quiz.shtml
brain gender
Did you see the piece in the NY Times re schizophrenia and autism having possible roots in parental dna - that is mother mix:father's mix? That is female characteristics manifesting as schizophrenia from mother dna and autistic characteristics from father's?
Global Warming
Barbara, I hope you might forward my comments to your guest. I was only able to listen to part of today's program but I am very interested. I want to raise my concerns about two prevailing frames that arise on your show and throughout serious discussion of climate change that I believe do great damage to the efforts to raise the awareness of the public and help them understand the urgency needed when addressing this issue.
First is the frame that global warming is happening slowly and will continue to do so. I do not believe the facts support such an assertion and not only does no one know that warming will not suddenly serge forward it seems to be doing exactly that. A report out last week raised the projected temperature for the planet by the end of the century to 9F from 4F degrees. That means that we are going to hit 4F by---2040? Until recently no one imagined the arctic ice cap could melt in anything like our lifetimes but in fact it will and it may do so as soon as 2013! The problem with the frames that give people the impression that GW is a slow process is that it provides fauls comfort, "Oh, technology will fix it before it happens," or "It is not my problem." Neither one is the case but too many people still think that way. So please start using a different frame from "by the end of the century," or “future generations." Instead say "within our life times," and stress the urgency. After all it is much more accurate to say catastrophic climate change is happening right now.
The second frame is that one cannot attribute any given weather event to global warming. That is only partly true. In fact one might say that you cannot not attribute any given weather event to climate change such is the post-industrial influence on the pre-industrial trajectory of the climate---we have departed the Holocene and are in the Antropocene some scientist tell us. It is like a basketball launched toward a basket that gets tipped by one of the players. Its trajectory is for ever changed. I think it is more accurate to say that the weather everywhere and everyday has been influence to some degree by GW. This is important because the frame that one cannot tell if an event is caused by climate change is asking them not to believe there own "eyes," experiences, or impressions which are often very astute. For instance in Oklahoma where I grew up we used to have thunderstorms in April and the 100F days did not come until late July. This year they had wild fires near Oklahoma City in April and the temperatures have been in the hundreds throughout much of this June---that has increasingly become the trend and is consistent with climate change projections. Now Oklahomans should by all rights believe that what they are experiencing is in fact global warming. It may be noted that Inhofe is a Senator from Oklahoma and one of the most radical global warming deniers and obstructionist in government.
I have been keeping up with this issue for a long time now and am alarmed at the rapidity that things are taking place. I truly believe we are probably in for crop failures, water shortages, and mass migrations here in North America, in this country, within our lifetimes and whereas I think there is a fine line to be drawn to not panic or send people into despair I think scientist tend to be much too measured in their statements. It is as though there is smoke billowing out of the projection room and the scientists don’t want be caught dead yelling fire in a crowded theater because there is no "proof" that there is in fact a fire.
Scientist have long dismissed the near term risk of a methane/co2 release from the arctic or the ocean meanwhile there is growing indications that that is exactly what is happening. As a NASA scientist you should know that a huge methane release was detected on Mars a few years ago and that is within a much more static system than ours----that should give us pause!
The public needs to be prepared in case there is a sudden spike in methane from the Arctic so I hope in the future Barbara you will direct your discussions of climate change toward the rapidity of changes already taking place and the potential danger of being too complacent and smug about what we know and what we think we do or do not know. Thank you.