It's just 1°, right?

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Women in India participate in the 350 movement

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On Wednesday I had the pleasure to witness Bill McKibben, Vermont climate change super star, speak at St. Michaels College. He has been one of the first advocates concerning climate change, starting the organization 350.org and as a result starting the largest social movement of our generation. Bill’s message from the intro to the conclusion of his speech was that climate change is not an issue to be dealt with in the future. It is a problem right now and it will only get worse if we do not make drastic changes.

            When it comes to our class on Ecosystem Ecology, let’s just say the class will look quite different in the next 20 years. Something like ecology is a discipline that has been taught the same way since its creation. However, we will never again see and learn about the planet that we were born into, the way it has been for thousands of years. Bill said, last summer alone melted so much glacial ice that the physical feature is broken and can never be brought back.   The ocean is 30% more acidic because of atmospheric carbon. The biggest issue is that we have raised the temperature of our planet 1°. As human beings, we have only ever known a stable planet and now we are seeing how fragile it really is. That 1° causes the warmer air to hold more water, making it 5% more wet, resulting in an increase of floods and draughts. 2012 was the hottest year in American history. 1° cuts grain yields 10%, imagine what would happen to food prices if we raised the temperature another degree, or two?

            It is not a lack a technology that is keeping us from changing our behavior. We have the ability to produce 99.9% US energy needs by sun and wind if we created a national grid. We have the technology, so what is the problem? Scientists are repeatedly ignored by our government due to the huge amount of oil company money that is given to our leaders. The political will is lacking, and the public, my peers and myself, are up against high power, wealthy campaigns.

            So what does Bill suggest? He suggests the power of the social movement. 350.org has made a global movement against climate change. It is in every country except North Korea. And the current campaign? STOP THE XL PIPELINE. It has been said this pipeline would surely raise the global carbon level to 540 ppm, verse the 350 ppm which is the maximum amount our planet can tolerate.  So 350.org is demanding, “yes Obama, we can…stop the pipeline!” We demand no more than 2° increase on our planet, which we could reach in 16 years at this rate.

            On February 17^th, Bill Mckibben is expecting 20,000 people in Washington, some getting arrested, some fighting on the frontlines, and everyone demanding that the oil company’s business plan is a death sentence to our planet.

If you are interested in joining go to www.350.org to find bus information!

Desert Dreaming

When we were asked to focus on a specific ecosystem this week, I naturally thought of the Arava Valley in southern Israel- my home last year. As we study regional climates, two common examples given are the Amazon and the Desert. Just mentioning the desert always brings me a rush of longing for those vast, empty, mountainous expanses.  

Arava means “desolate and dry area” in Arabic; the valley crosses the Israeli border into Jordan, as nature knows no borders. The Rift valley is created where the African Plate meets the Arabian plate, and when I would hike up behind my home I would see this because the landscape is mountains on the Jordan side (east), then flat land with some sand dunes running along the valley (north-south), then mountains again on the Israeli side (west). The sand dunes were created from Timna mountain on the Israeli side; however, they will be gone soon due to mining sand for building development. This was an issue that we put a lot of activism into, resulting in six of my classmates and one professor arrested for civil disobedience. The sand dunes are a unique and beautiful ecosystem that host endemic species and provide recreational enjoyment for the locals (See picture below). Alas, the bulldozers won again.

The Jordanian mountains represent the watershed divide between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea. The climate is dry dry dry, with an average of 30 mm rain/year. When I was there we had about 10 mm rain/yr. Temperatures were extremely high, except for a couple months in the winter. There is almost no vegetative cover; the only tree that thrives in the Arava is the Acacia tree. The Acacia is a keystone species, providing shade, leaves for browsers, shelter for birds, and nutrients. However, the mortality rate is increasing due to anthropogenic causes. 

Zooming out to the country scale, Israel has stated their concern about climate change and has placed it as a national priority. With increasing temperatures and decreasing rainfall, the country needs to be concerned about drinking water availability and lower quality. These can lead to significant impacts on food, public health risks, geopolitical implications, water security, and other complications. In Israel, and everywhere in the world, the people who control the water hold the power. It is quite a real situation when Palestinian neighbors are allocated water below the UN standard of daily water rights.

But that is for another blog all together.