In the 20th century, the environmental movement focused on combating
air and water pollution and protecting endangered species. But, without
question, the biggest environmental threat of this century is global
warming. We all know the polar ice caps are melting, and that sea
levels are going to rise throughout the world, thereby flooding coastal
areas. But what about California? What will be the effects on the
country’s largest state? In an effort to begin answering these
questions, a couple of researchers with the University of California
have launched a web site that they hope will raise awareness about what
we need to do to combat the effects of increasing greenhouse gases.
The web site, California Climate Change Extension, features video interviews with some of the leading global warming experts in the state, including two UC Berkeley professors, Dan Kammen
and Michael Hanemann. The site also includes easily digestible
micro-documentaries (two to three minutes in length) on
California-specific topics, including the likely impacts of global
warming on the state’s climate and our water supply. The short videos,
called “Quick Topics,” also examine renewable energy solutions, energy
efficiency, emissions trading, carbon footprinting, and transportation
policy.
The site is the brainchild of Monique Myers and Susan Schlosser, who
both work for California Sea Grant, a cooperative between UC and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Schlosser, who works
and lives in Humboldt County, told Eco Watch that she and Myers first
came up with the idea after attending a NOAA global warming conference
in 2007. “We came away from it realizing that all climate change
information was really based on a global scale,” Schlosser said.
The site’s quick topic videos, in particular, provide excellent
primers on California and the challenges the state faces. For example,
in “Climate Change Impacts on Water Supply,” Hanemann notes that the
state may be particularly vulnerable because we consume the vast
majority of our water in the summer, when it’s dry, and use the least
during the wet winter season. So if climate change results in a smaller
snowpack each winter, it will threaten the reliability of our summer
supplies. “We’re also likely to have longer runs of dry years and
deeper droughts,” noted Hanemann, the chancellor’s professor of
Environmental Economics and Policy and the director of the California
Climate Change Center at UC Berkeley.
But the micro-docs also make it clear that, despite California’s
leadership in the fight against global warming and the development of
green technologies, the battle against climate change requires a
worldwide effort. The massive growth of China and India, in particular,
and their accompanying use of fossil fuels, will outstrip our efforts
to convert to renewable energy. “Even with dramatic growth in a number
of clean energy sectors, notably solar and wind, which have been
growing by more than 25 percent a year now for over a decade, overall
global emissions are still rising,” noted Kammen in the micro-doc, “The
Current State of Renewable Energy.” Kammen is a nuclear energy and
biofuels expert and is the director of UC Berkeley’s Renewable and
Appropriate Energy Laboratory.
Currently, the web site (Groups.ucanr.org/CAClimateChangeExt) is geared toward the general public, but the
micro-docs also could be valuable for classroom use, especially at
community colleges, high schools, or even middle schools.
A New Eco-Law Blog
Another new environmental web site (LegalPlanet.wordpress.com) that
fills a relative void is Legal Planet, a blog put together by the
faculty at the law schools at UC Berkeley and UCLA. The blog examines
the legal impacts of climate change and other environmental issues.
The site was created by UC Berkeley law professor Dan Farber and
UCLA law professor Ann Carlson, and it features blog posts from
environmental law professors at both universities. It provides a lively
discussion of 21st-century environmental problems, and examines how the
legal community and governments are dealing with them. The site is sure
to attract attention from attorneys, “but we’re also hoping to do this
in a way that speaks to intelligent lay people,” said Holly Doremus, a
UC Berkeley environmental law professor and contributor to the
blog.
Like any good blog, Legal Planet has contributors who take strong
stands or criticize the mainstream press. Last week, for example, site
co-founder Ann Carlson wrote a sharp critique of a fawning profile of a
climate-change skeptic in the Sunday New York Times magazine.
Carlson dissected the piece’s many shortcomings and then did a bit of
research and discovered that the author’s previous claim to fame was
being an expert on baseball, and so was apparently out of his
league.
