lightblueblog

Reporting from the Summer ESIP meeting in Knoxville, Tn.

2010-07-21T08:07:00.000-07:00

Tom Wilbanks has just finished talking about the changing CO2 scenario picture. His talk concluded that we are now looking at higher-end scenarios (up to 1200 ppm CO2) that will take the planet into a climate environment that is very risk filled. So the high-end scenarios that the IPCC were most concerned about are now the middle range expectations for the near future. The mitigation efforts have failed to gain sufficient international impetus to maintain the hope for a limited climate change response to human activities. The focus is shifting to adaptation.

Eileen Shea from NOAA is now talking about the new NOAA Climate Service. The job for NOAA is to enable individuals to take responsible actions at all levels, from local responses to national policy. NOAA will need to be a central partner in the proposed National Climate Service, which is a multi-agency effort. Check out the NOAA strategic plan on the web: www.noaa.gov/ngsp

NOAA is looking to build more agency-wide climate capabilities so that all of the parts of NOAA are prepared to work together toward a more climate literate public. NOAA is looking for people who can walk between science and decision making. This is a move away from a pure-science effort.

NOAA has an interest and a responsibility to support mitigation efforts and to model how climate change might lead to extreme weather events. This fall, NOAA will be formally submitting a package to Congress to authorize the Climate Service.

The NOAA Climate Services Portal is at www.climate.gov
They are looking for user feedback.

Google is moving ahead with their gigabit internet decision

2010-07-15T16:45:00.000-07:00

A thousand communities await their decision, but you have to believe that Google's real intention here was to put a clear light on the lack of world-class broadband in American cities.
Check out their website: Google Fiber to the Home

Here in Santa Barbara, we never got to the point of hi-jinks and cyber-begging, but you have to believe that the local mix of internet mavens and Hollywood stars might prove a highly visible target for Google's effort. Once you get Brad Pitt, Al Gore, and Oprah up on gigabit internet, you can forget about the mayor of Outerbumfrak buzz cutting her hair and tattooing "I love Google" on her bleeding scalp.

So Google, if you are indeed still pondering where to put your gigabit internet, ponder this: Santa Barbara will put you on the map like no other small town in the US. Of course, it's already a Google Map, but you know what we mean.

Certainly enough ignorance to go around

2010-06-06T16:23:00.000-07:00

Another week, and a week of reading through another flurry of aggravated blogs and blog comments on topics environmental, political, and other. One of the common strategies in these postings is to accuse someone of ignorance. "That ignorant so-and-so can't seem to understand ________." Calling someone ignorant is an increasingly easy, and unfortunately increasingly non-trivial attack these days. A Google search for "ignorant" culls up more than 30 million hits. Of course, a similar search for "expert" results in more than a hundred million hits.

Just as knowledge can and might well be considered to have a wide variety of types, so too does ignorance. The top of this list, up in the rarified climes of professional expertise, is the increasing ignorance of scientists in the face of an increasing deluge of scientific information (publications) and data resources. Even those in tiny specialties have seen the content load of new science double every few years. Some decades ago when I was a graduate student at Penn, I shared a house with three medical students. After their required specialty rotations each of them decided that pathology might be the only real occupation for their future. "We actually know so little about the human body," they lamented, "It might be safer to study them after they're dead." Let me call this type of ignorance "professional-ignorance." While scientists do their best to keep up and keep pace with the information load, they are all a little guilty of this. In their defense, they are the folks who face the actual precipice of the unknown--the edge of knowledge; and they are tasked to expand this knowledge envelope for us all. Their work defines the boundary between ignorance and knowability. However, "professional ignorance" is not the ignorance I'm usually reading about in the blogosphere, even though science-bashing is back in vogue.

The next type of ignorance we find is what I would call "educated-ignorance." There are far too few hours in a day or even a year to stay on top of all of the many possible topics of interest to any one individual. If even the experts have a hard time in their own fields, what sort of chance does anybody else have? Educated-ignorance is pretty much my life. I've spent several years learning how to learn various subjects, but I'm more or less (sometimes, I hope much less) ignorant about any of these, as I swim the mighty currents of an omnipresent information overload. Educated-ignorance is reflexive enough to understand its shortcomings. It is the knowledge virus of the information age. Fortunately, its victims are also savvy enough in just-in-time learning to turn a temporary lack of understanding into a more robust purview on any one selected topic. The educated-ignorant individual is appropriately suspicious of the entire notion of certainty. For even as she can, with some effort, cure her ignorance of, say, the impact of volcanic dust on jet engines, or the mysteries of credit default swaps, she knows that, in the weeks ahead, her lack of attention to these topics will increase her ignorance of them. Calling someone who understands educated-ignorance "ignorant" has no real effect. They are prone to agree with you.

The remaining realm of ignorance is where its invective is based. It is used mostly by people who have selected a few cherished sources of information (perhaps a radio talk-show host or a famous blog). The insult is directed at everyone who have either chosen other sources of information or who have disagreements with the writer's sources. The writer is usually certain that the messages his sources have revealed are so evident and so rational that anyone who listened to them would have to agree with them, and so would agree with him. This certainty is the launchpad for any number of claims of ignorance in others. It also reveals a more focused form of ignorance in the writer. As Eric Hoffer noted, "We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand." Let's call this "infallible-ignorance." The infallibly ignorant has gathered all of her knowledge eggs into a tiny basket, and defends this with an unbridled ferocity. Here we find the bellowing of the demagogue, and the bluster of the true believer. The infallibly ignorant may have an under-developed skill in researching beyond the sources they trust, and can never understand the depth of their own ignorance. They can change, of course. Most of us were like this at some point in high-school or college; clinging to the right to bullshit our way through life. Most people do move on, but the infallibly ignorant just dig in.

While there is certainly enough ignorance in the world for each of us to have our share, we can try our best to avoid the folly of infallible-ignorance, and to discover and overcome the limits of our knowledge at least for another day.

Image: calm, a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike (2.0) image from manuel_72's photostream

Hello again to books, and a sad farewell to book stores

2010-05-23T12:31:00.000-07:00

I've spent, over my adult life, probably the equivalent of an entire year browsing in book stores. This is after I made enough money not to hang out in libraries. My wife has a broad range of browsing destinations, but she always knew where to find me... at the nearest book store. For twenty years we've budgeted at least fifty dollars a month for books. Book store gift certificates have long been welcome birthday and holiday gifts, and eagerly spent. I've been a member of the Seminary Coop book store in Chicago for many years: they sent me dozens of books seamail (remember that?) when we lived in Kyoto, Japan. I'm a great fan of Kramers Books in DC, and will spend a good part of any day in Portland, OR at Powells World of Books. I write books.

Suddenly, this week. I feel like a bookstore quisling; like I'm in foreign territory out for no good. And there is one simple reason for this: my iPad. I have several eBook readers on my new iPad, and a few dozen titles, and I'm thinking I might never buy another block of celulose again. I'm reading at least as much as before, only my transactions are all online. I went browsing today downtown, and found a few titles I might have purchased on the spot. Except now, the only spot that matters is the one on the Amazon, or Apple, or other ebook seller site. Oh, I'll certainly succumb to that great new photography or occasional architecture book, simply because the print resolution is satisfying. But when I wander into my local book store, my wallet mostly stays firmly in my pocket.

This scares me, since I figure if I'm not buying books, given my history and love for the product, then who will? Or should I simply step up a bit to look at the big picture, and figure that book stores are the modern equivalent of telegraph offices or stagecoach corrals. My son is in grad school, reading more books than he ever figured he might, but his son or daughter might need to be told of the days when reading materials were sold in stores as books. My latest novel has been much more successful as an eBook than a paperback. And my next novel might not ever see an ink and paper incarnation. A moment of sadness is a small indulgence here. My wife will still know where to find me: at the nearest coffee shop with wifi, downloading another book.

Gigabit technology and University research

2010-02-26T08:47:00.000-08:00

While the UC Santa Barbara already shares one of the fastest internet connections on the planet, students and others who live away from campus find that their ability to connect to academic resources from home can seriously impact their ability to work. Google's gigabit internet fiber to the home would reconnect these scholars and students to the resources that are now only available physically on campus. This would also allow University alumni and others who want to access resources from camus in homes around Santa Barbara.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcelgermain/3840597155/sizes/s/ CC licensed by MarcelGermain

What can we do with gigabit internet? What can't we do!

2010-02-25T07:33:00.000-08:00

Google's enticing offer to build out test sites for gigabit internet (fiber to the home) opens the door to the next level of computer networking. The difference between the internet (WAN) and the local network (LAN) disappears, and we are all as connected as the devices in the same building. In one move, this fact demolishes that threshold between downloading content and using content. The download delay disappears and the game, the videoconference, the movie we need is just HERE.

Usability experts have long known that the key to psychological comfort in an interface is the feeling of control. Push a button and something happens NOW. Want to see that HD video preview? Push a button and watch it. Want to send a file to a colleague, push a button and it's there. Of course, the need for speed will also push our expectations. In a couple years we will be hungering for that 4k video feed. Of course, that's the glory of fiber optics--change out the hardware on both ends and a gigabit connection can become a 16 gigabit connection.

Bring it on Google! Santa Barbara is ready for you!
photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sirwiseowl/170066780/sizes/s/ CC licensed by sirwiseowl

Earth Science Meeting in DC #4

2010-01-06T06:10:00.000-08:00

Jake Weltzin from the USGS is talking about using phenology to study climate change effects. Phenology is the study of the variations that occur seasonally in plants and animals. When leaves turn color in that fall, that's a phenological event. The timing of these events offers scientists great clues for climate change. In a recent study 62% of species are showing predictable changes in response to climate warming. This means their springtime changes are occurring earlier. For some species, such as migratory species, this can be a deadly trend. The USGS Phenology effort is looking for student scientists and others to help perform a hundred thousand observations. This is a great opportunity for science students to get involved.

Earth Science Meeting in DC #3

2010-01-05T07:20:00.000-08:00

Bryant Cramer, Associate Director for Geography, USGS has stepped up to the podium. He notes that it is the uncertainty in the physical models for the future that earth science decision makers need to manage to be able to drive processes/policies such as Carbon cap-and-trade. The critical first step is to take earth system models to a new level of certainty. He also noted that when USGS stopped charging for Landsat scenes the amount of data delivered skyrocketed.

Earth Science Meeting in DC #2

2010-01-05T06:54:00.000-08:00

Pai-Yei Whung, Chief Scientist at the US EPA has stepped up to the podium. The EPA needs to quantify the impacts of its regulations to assure that they are beneficial for society. The data to information (through tools) to decisions and assessment requires the best available science practices, including observational data analysis.

In the Midwest there were two 500-year floods in 15 years (1993 and 2008). Increased water flows can cause sewer systems to fail. The increase of the likelihood of reoccurring sewage incidents in the water system due to climate changes may require new standards for sewer systems.

Dr. Whung notes that "Community is KEY" to the AirNOW effort at the EPA. What are the emergent Internet-based tools that would help the EPA to grow this community effort?

Earth Science Meeting in DC #1

2010-01-05T06:30:00.000-08:00

The opening plenary of the ESIP Winter meeting at DC is just underway.
Listening to Michael Freilich, the director of NASA's Earth Science division.
He's talking about how the measurements we make about the Earth need to inform the models that can tell us the longer-term picture of the Earth's climate.
Sea level rise is a combination of adding water and heating the water (about half from each today).
"Snapshots for most earth systems don't work." We need longer-term measurements.
NASA makes its data available freely. Recently, the European Space Agency has also been moving to the NASA position.

Helen Wood, Senior Advisor for Satellite and Information Services at NOAA takes the podium. She mentions that the NASA open data policy has helped NOAA to open up its data policies. NOAA is looking to build a National Climate Service that can pull together all of NOAA's efforts in this area. NOAA is also interested in sustainable fisheries and sustainable coastal communities, as well as weather forecasting and science.

Eight Years in the Bush Leagues: Got a long way to recover from that

2009-10-03T07:29:00.000-07:00

The report back from the IOC (and congrats to Rio!) is that nothing Obama could have said or done would have made Chicago more attractive. Rio had a exceedingly good point about sending the Olympics to a new continent. There is more to this than Rio's merits. The great majority of IOC members travel internationally, and comments back to the US delegation confirm that travel to the US is now a "harrowing experience" at the border for many nationalities (thanks to Boing Boing for this link).

Of all the changes in travel over the past several years, and in response to 9/11, the most impractical and counterproductive for America has been the level of harassment that foreign nationals now face to enter the US. Of course, several nations have reciprocated and so US travelers have found boarder crossings equally difficult. It is not that border security is unimportant, but it should be done with a greater economy. Instead of fingerprinting millions of travelers, we should be training border agents to be more perceptive. Keep the crossing secure, but don't make every foreign traveler feel like a criminal.

The sight of a gathering of Republican activists cheering the announcement that Chicago had lost its bid for the Olympics (assuming here that they are not closet Brazil supporters) is simply sad. It shows are complete lack of class. Makes one happy that crowd is no longer in the White House.

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/351212669/sizes/m/ stuck in customs cc license

teabaggers: lie down with fleas, you may catch more than an itch

2009-09-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

Watching the recent "teabagger" protests, and glancing at their organizers' blogs, it becomes obvious that these people are new at the game. They have no real center for their message, and they welcome anyone who has any sort of protest to voice. The problem with not doing some kind of in-group policing is that you end up being held hostage by the fringes of your protest. That one jackass over there wearing the KKK hood, or waving the swastika or some other blatantly offensive sign, becomes the poster child for your protest. On the left, this hijacking was often accomplished by someone with kerosine and an American flag. That one photo took all the headlines and the content of the speeches never made the front page. It didn't take long for antiwar protest organizers to learn to help their protest sympathizers stay on message. If the teabaggers don't learn the same lesson, they will find their protests to be increasingly anti-productive. And if they are really not concerned by the fellow in the KKK hood or waving a sign that threatens the life of the president, then they don't understand that free speech and hate speech are two quite different things. They also confuse these on their blogs, which gives their sympathizers license to go out and do the same in public. Here is an illustrative video from CNN.
Every administration needs a loyal opposition, so nobody wins when the opposition is hijacked by jackasses.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eikootje/209318417/ eikootje, used under CC license

The President is too smart to talk to kids, oh my!

2009-09-08T16:14:00.000-07:00

This is really what the fear is out there in GOP land. Obama, it seems, is just too smart, to convincing, too great a speaker to be allowed to talk to children. Children! Innocent and locked into their public schools where the President can talk to them without their PARENTS standing ready to clamp hands over their tender ears should the President sound too convincing. The horror of having elected someone who can speak! Why, the world has not seen anything like him since... well, since we started electing people like the last one. Clinton could talk up a storm, only he tended to like his own voice a little too much. Doesn't the GOP remember "The Great Communicator?" Reagan also gave a talk to kids in school.
Here is a clip from the cable news where a Republican strategist lays out this line of argument. Just listen to Joe Watkins and decide for yourself. If you are a Republican, can you really believe that the Nation does not deserve a President that is intelligent, passionate, and convincing? If you're from any other political side... just listen and shake your head.

Zombie Walks and Tea Parties

2009-07-05T09:24:00.000-07:00

The same day that 2,000 tea party goers went to D.C., 5,000 people showed up in Fremont, Seattle for a record-breaking zombie walk. Fremont is, of course, as much or more of a sister city to Santa Barbara than any of its official sisters. Fremont took in a covey of Santa Barbara artists in the early '80s, and they brought with them the Solstice Celebration, which is now a major Seattle event. Of course, Seattle is a big town, with big-town ideas: like 500 naked bicyclists leading the parade (try that on State Street!).

What do tea parties and zombie walks have in common? They both celebrate something really... dead. Tea parties like to believe that the corpse of big-bank capitalism can be raised again, and the same gravy train that derailed (at which time we discovered... THAT'S NOT GRAVY! EEWW!) can be reassembled, so they can get along with their vision of prosperity.

Meanwhile the rest of the country is looking ahead at the next dream, something emergent and potentially wonderful, even though it might not lead to a billion-dollar bonus at some pirate investment bank.

Tea party zombie walkers, put some zip in your step. Carry the corpse with some elan. Why not. Everyone else is laughing. So go ahead. Step up and go for the full Thriller tango.

Green Academy ties the line at the beach

2009-05-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

Drive along Cabrillo this week and you will see dozens of palm trees decke out with ribbons. These ribbons symbolize the scale of sea level rise in the ice on Greenland. Like the lightblueline project, the Santa Barbara High School Green Academy effort uses public art to make a scientific statement. You can visit the green academy website here: http://www.thegreenacademy.org/sea/

Governor tells staff to prepare for warming

2008-12-06T14:57:00.000-08:00

Not waiting for the line to get drawn in Santa Barbara, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California, issued an executive order in November for State agencies to prepare reports on the impacts of sea-level rise due to climate change. Here is the text of the order: http://gov.ca.gov/executive-order/11036/

Not waiting for the Governor, The New Media Studio and the Donald Bren School at UCSB initiated its own study of the impacts of sea-level rise on the City of Santa Barbara last March. And so, by the time the State is just convening its first conference on sea-level rise, Santa Barbara is going to have an initial study completed and ready to use as a model for other cities and coastal regions in California. The City has been very helpful and cooperative with this study, and again Santa Barbara has an opportunity to take a leading position in addressing the challenges of climate change.

As lightblueline also noted, the expected sea-level rise this century is potentially up to 1.5 meters, which, using a conservative linear estimation puts the sea level up more than seven meter in 500 years.

The point of gathering information about future impacts is to assess the various responses we can make, from cutting carbon in the near term, to hardening the coastline if we fail to stop the progress of climate change. Knowing the relative costs of all the options lets us determine, in purely economic terms, the best path. In terms of keeping Santa Barbara's ocean down by the waterfront, for reasons that include economics, but also include our moral obligation to our children's childen to leave the planet like we found it, there is no substitute for reducing greenhouse gasses in the short term as a world-wide goal. This is where the Governor will soon have help from the new White House.

Obama promises to put the US on the forefront of fighting climate change

2008-11-07T17:29:00.000-08:00

This makes local action much more proactive and much less reactive. Once we have a federal plan to limit carbon (to match the California and the Santa Barbara plans), and once the current administration handlers are not censoring their own scientists, I would guess we will be better prepared to talk about climate change and its longer-term local impacts.

Of course the only reason property values tanked in Santa Barbara was because we didn't paint the line (thanks Jerry!).

Just in time for the republican convention

2008-08-27T14:29:00.000-07:00

I looked at the National Hurricane Center and saw that Gustav is headed directly for New Orleans and should arrive there just in time to remind the nation and the planet how seriously deficient the Bush administration's job was with Katrina, and just how much more of the same we would expect from a McCain administration. We can only hope that the people on the coast are finding safety this time around, although the preparations for the next hurricane might still leave New Orleans swamped again.

Georgie, that's a heck of a job you're doing!

Kris Krug: Meeting Facilitator Extraordinaire

2008-08-04T16:26:00.000-07:00

On a non Climate Change note: I've been working at UC Santa Barbara on a project to plan a whole new Web 2.0 academic social network service. We gathered forty experts from all over the nation to do a one day design charrette. Wanting to get the most out of the day I turned to another expert, this time an expert meeting facilitator: Kris Krug from Rain City Studios in Vancouver, BC.

Kris has done a number of barcamps and other meetings, so I was confident he could keep these uber-nerds on topic for the whole day. With Kris at the helm of the open-space-style meeting day we had probably the best single day meeting most people in the room can remember. At the end of the day one participant said that she'd never had so much fun working so hard. We ended up with seven vision graphic posters and 56 report outs in one day.

Since then a number of participants have asked me how I did it. So I take a lot of the credit whenever possible... :-) only I could not have done it at all without Kris. Kris kept the whole room moving at the speed of conversation. So if you're looking for someone to take control of your next one-day workshop... you know who to call.

Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment

2008-07-16T05:43:00.000-07:00

I'm at the University of New Hampshire, where we are getting a report on current situation of climate change. This study is also outlined at ClimateChoices . Note: this website also looks at California. Cameron Wake is outlining the difference between two futures... one that could be catastrophic and the other, which can be adapted to. Under the high-emissions scenario, New Hampshire's summers will feel like those in North Carolina by the end of the century.

A range of expected climate features can be predicted. For example, the models all point to more extreme precipitation events. The "100 year" floods might happen every ten years. These events also impact waste water treatment plants around the area. Under the higher emissions scenario, most of the maple forests in the Northeast will be gone by the end of the century.

In terms of the IPCC (conservative) 17 inch sea level rise, the 100 year flood plain puts large parts of Boston at risk. The current 100 year flood plain becomes the 2 year flood plain. One event like the 100 year flood under the new sea level would cost Boston 70-90 billion dollars in damage.

All of these changes can be, at least in part, avoided if we reduce carbon emissions in the short term.

SLAP Happy in Ventura: Where the lightblueline has been painted

2008-07-01T08:22:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, the lightblueline project was very happy to be invited by the City of Ventura and the Ventura SLAP (Sea Level Awareness Project) effort to paint 100 feet of line on the side of the beachfront parking garage. The main action for the day was the SLAP effort to create ten information poles along the waterfront. These poles contained messages from teenagers about their concerns over climate change, sea level rise, and the need for the community to step up and do the right thing.

Unlike Santa Barbara, Ventura does not have to deal with a self-appointed media bully masquerading as a newspaper. So the entire public information/art project was performed without lawyers and vitriolic invective against the volunteer artists. Now the public can weigh in on their response to the art as planned and executed.

It was a day when dozens of school kids came out to tell their peers and their parents to get wise about climate change. That the lightblueline showed up in Ventura before Santa Barbara says much about the problems we face here in Santa Barbara, and the need to keep pushing for a real public conversation about climate change. lightblueline continues to work toward that conversation. We are here and will be back.

State Street is ready for the Line

2008-01-26T20:44:00.000-08:00

While one can normally count on State Street to be a bastion of conformity and bourgeois manners, not withstanding the antics of tourists and occasional juvenile hijinks. But today was a day of small revelations. On a day like this one, we can again imagine a town ready for art and conversation.

Outside of Barnes and Noble there was Greg, whose busking talent lay (literally) at his feet: a dog, a cat, and a rat in blissful harmony. Greg is energetic, enthusiastic, and likes to talk about which YouTube video does his pets the most justice.

About the time I ran into Greg, it began to rain. Here is the problem. It began to rain, a serious squall, but the sun shone brightly and not a single cloud darkened the sky. Pedestrians stood and stared at the sky. A young girl threw her arms up and cried "It cannot be raining, it just can't!" Five minutes later the rain stopped.

Each of us on the street had a new answer to the old Creedence song, "Have you ever seen the rain?" (coming down on a sunny day).

That's a big "yes."

Further up the street, now in the bright sun, couples and families were sitting out at Andersons bakery. A street performer, probably homeless, carrying a guitar, went from table to table passing out five-dollar bills. The first one he gave to a young girl, who showed it to her father. "It's real." He handed it back to her. The second on he laid on a table of another family. The third he gave to a couple, who tried to give it back.

"Take it," he ordered. "That's the last of my money. The final 15 dollars in my pocket. Now it's up to my guitar to save me."

He strode away toward the Art Museum, challenging pedestrians to listen to a new song of his. We all watched him go, I was wondering what medication had he forgotten to take today. Come supper time, he'd likely want his 15 dollars back.

The spectacle of street-people giving money away on a rainy-sunny day made the stroll up State Street just about perfect. What with the dog-cat-rat, all it needs now is a lightblueline.

Note 2 from DC: Uncertainty in our Climate Understanding

2008-01-09T07:01:00.000-08:00

Tom Karl, Director of the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) at NOAA, began his talk with the problem that human-induced climate change brings for our understanding of the climate system.

"For the first time," he noted, "the current climate observations are no longer reliably connected with the record from the past."

What this means is that the uncertainties that human-induced climate change bring for our future global climate also have impacts on our current ability to use historical climate information to understand the future. As we venture into what can only be called a "new climate" the lessons we have from the "old climate" are less reliable.

This is another reason to be "climate conservatives." We need to help preserve the climate we were born into, to pass on to our children the benefits of this climate and also the benefits of knowing how to predict weather and other climate extremes.

Karl notes that models predict for the US that a day so hot it occurs once every 20 years will, by 2100 become a one in 2 year event.

Another projection about the weather is that the really heavy rainfall days... the types of storms that flood Santa Barbara, that might occur once every 20 years will occur once every 8 years by 2100.

Note from DC: The Case for a Climate Service

2008-01-09T06:31:00.000-08:00

I'm listening to Chet Koblinsky, Director of the Climate Program Office at NOAA ,talk about the need for a nation "Climate Service" along the lines of the weather service. He began by pointing out how extreme events in our weather increasing need to be attributed to either normal forcings or to forcings due to change in the longer term climate. We have a greater predictive understanding of the longer term climate trends, but not a lot of current knowledge on how to pin today's weather to these trends. Recently, Congress, following the lead of mayors and governors who have demanded more information on regional and local climate information, is moving toward the idea of a comprehensive climate information service for the national need.

NOAA spends about 250 million dollars a year on climate science and information. Much of this is spent on maintaining observation posts and information streams. The remainder is spent on analysis, modeling, and information services to the public.

In order to fill the emerging need for a climate service, NOAA would need to expand its ability to assemble and predict climate features at the regional level. This means creating new observation capabilities and also models with higher resolution (a major computer challenge).

Because climate research and information services are also done at NASA and other agencies, the proposed service would need to be a multi-agency effort. A good example of a prototype for this service is the National Integrated Drought Information Service that the Western Governors Association requested in the late 1990s. Authorized by Congress in 2006, this service provides regional predictions for drought across the US.

So we can look ahead to NOAA and other agencies that are compiling global climate and weather information to come together to provide governors, mayors, and other decision makers with the regional climate information they need...

more soon

Is Global Warming a “Fact”? The Problem of Incredulity in Modern Earth Science

2007-12-20T09:12:00.000-08:00

This one is not mine. My son, Louis Caron, is a PhD Candidate at Kings College, Cambridge, working on intellectual history and political thought. He's been looking at the debate over global warming and decided to apply Pascal's Wager to this:

The majority of legitimate Earth Scientists hold that the production of CO2 emissions from human industrial, commercial and personal consumption is a (if not the) central factor in the impending and ongoing climate change. Scientists posit that the kind of global warming we are witnessing today is a product of human activity (primarily the massive consumption of fossil fuels), as opposed to a purely natural process. They warn that our interference in the environment could have unforeseen and potentially disastrous consequences. In a report issued in 2005, the US National Academy of Sciences implored all nations to take immediate action against the production and consumption of fossil fuels and other activities that contribute to the release of harmful waste into our atmosphere. Analogous warnings have been issued by the most respected scientists, from professors in higher-learning institutions across the nation to organizations like the EPA. A rising sea level is but one inevitable outcome that would see millions of humans without resources or homes.

The effects of global warming are being endured by citizens of the 21st century. Take the Zaca fire in Southern California or the fact that we have witnessed the most severe weather reported across Asia since records began in 1880 as but two examples, then remember Katrina and the worst hurricane season on record in 2005 which included Katrina. Global warming is happening today, but the most dire will be endured by our children’s children. Reliable scientific research, research which makes full use of cutting edge data and information technology, projects a reality which our daily consumption of energy derived from fossil fuels will realize centuries from now. If most scientists are correct, our progeny will have to endure some of the greatest natural disasters the human race has ever witnessed.

There are skeptics, and a number of challenges have been hurled at these findings. The most common strategy is to label the scientific consensus ‘un-scientific’, supplying contrary scientific ‘evidence’ as proof that global warming is a natural occurrence that humans have almost no control over. At the forefront of this resistance are scientists like Patrick Michaels, who has gone on record as an outspoken skeptic of global warming. Dr. Michaels views climate change as a massive and generally benign natural process, one which no amount of human interference could possibly effect (those curious about his views can read his most recent book online at http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=357). If Dr. Michael’s funding is any indication, his response has been motivated more from a political agenda (he has accepted funding from Exxon and other oil companies) then from any objective evaluation of our environment or the affect human life has on it.

Far be it for me to accuse Dr. Michaels of being some kind of ‘political warrior’ whose pockets are lined with the commercial concerns of an established but endangered oil industry. My purpose here is, first and foremost, to elaborate on the essence of the objections issued by well intentioned critics of the global warming thesis, and then to illustrate in clear terms how these critics of global warming are consistently committing a grievous ethical blunder.

The first thing we need to understand is the fact that there are good objections to scientific evidence, to scientific proof. I will list three such objections here, some of which have already been used against the evidence that so many authorities have adopted to demonstrate our role in the developing environmental crisis. Foremost is the simple fact that scientists are wrong about things all the time. There is no moment in the history of science that we might cite as an example of scientific knowledge that refers to unchallenged and absolute truth. Science is, at its core, a probabilistic enterprise. It might therefore be the case that scientists are wrong about what is causing climate change, since they will never really be 100% right, and that therefore the data being pushed by advocates of global warming should be disregarded.

Science is something that needs to be tested again and again. Yet this debate is also influenced by cutting edge scientific research, which introduces the problem of ‘Big Science’. By ‘Big Science’ I mean the kind of science that takes millions of dollars to do, the kind of science that takes years of training to execute. The fact is that we can’t really test these conclusions ourselves, because they would be too costly in terms of time and money. We simply have to trust that those who have the training and the access to the data are not trying to pull the wool over our ignorant eyes. Such trust is difficult for many to place in the hands of an educated few, and in the case of global warming it becomes all too easy (and somewhat reasonable) for people to dismiss as ‘unscientific’ that which they cannot test themselves.

Finally, there is the simple fact that though the majority of respected scientists have lent their weight to this theory of global warming, there are dissenting voices. This has much to do with the problem of assigning a ‘cause’ to a phenomenon and gets back to the first point; science is about probabilities, not hard and fast Truths. We should, however, bear in mind that no one thinks global warming is not occurring; the debate is over whether or not this is something that we can change. And because scientists might always be wrong, and because data is always open to new interpretations, it very well might turn out that the minority (spear-headed by people like Dr. Michaels and his colleagues at the Cano institute) are entirely right.

To recap: scientists haven’t given us an inconvenient ‘truth’, they haven’t allowed us to test their conclusions, and they all might be wrong. The problem is not with science or the results of the majority of scientists, however, the problem that all too many fail to realize: this skeptical stance lies at the heart of all science. Science is not a dogmatic enterprise. It doesn’t tell you what to believe. There are always dissenters and there are always problems with the data, and there are never Truths. Science is not about ‘revealing’ the way the world works, it is about understanding the world, our affect on it, our power over it. It is a human enterprise, conducted to benefit human interests, wielded (in some cases to horrible ends) in the name of political causes. Science is a tool. And the fact that the vast majority of established scientists now believe that the world is getting warmer because of human activity should compel some assent.

But clearly it has not, and so the argument cannot rest on scientific evidence alone. Critics of global warming choose to fight ‘science’ by defending inaction with other scientific evidence. Yet these critics of global warming employ their doubt of science in an arbitrary and highly selective way. They forget that Dr. Michaels is as worthy of doubt as those he has chosen to attack. Critics of global warming arbitrarily hear what they want to hear, and arbitrarily choose what they want to believe.

When it comes to the question of global warming, then, the question being asked should deal not only with scientific evidence, but also with ethics and personal action. Lets say we choose to doubt equally all scientific knowledge, rather than to simply select which kind of science makes us feel better about our future. We then have to consider the consequences of our doubt. We should keep in mind that doubt is not the same as disbelief. Doubters think things might be wrong, they work in the realm of probabilities in much the same way as scientists. Simple disbelievers assert that things just are wrong. No one engaged in this debate disbelieves all of science, they rather doubt one side of the debate or another.

Given this probabilistic skepticism, we need to keep in mind what is at stake if we hope to act in an ethical and responsible way. If we doubt the majority of scientists and bet they are wrong, we end up saving ourselves time and money. Life continues unabated with the regular and unrestricted consumption of fossil fuels. If, on the other hand, it turns out that the majority of scientific research is right, we face a future whereh our progeny will not able to afford a car because the price of food, oil and water will skyrocket as arable land and potable water become scarce. Overpopulation combined with a rising sea level will make it harder or outright impossible for them to go to the club on Friday night, or to buy nice clothes. Diseases will spread as the manufacturing capacity of drug companies throughout the US and the first world are crippled by the same fundamental changes in the economy and the climate. If we actually heed the vast majority of scientists who are not being paid by oil companies and confused government administrations, the ethical truth (one that is legitimately supported by scientific evidence) is that the longer we wait, the harder it is going to be to make a difference.

The fact that even scientists should bear in mind is that the debate about global warming cannot be resolved with science, it must refer to a political arena in which science is twisted to fit the agendas of the multitude. The fundamental problem with this debate is that this future won’t be seen in our lifetime, it will be endured by those that live to see the twenty second century and beyond. Those of us stuck in the now, and those of us who are not afraid to know, must recognize the value of scientific data in making ethical decisions, but we must also realize that the burden of choice remains squarely on our shoulders. If we doubt the vast majority of scientists, we are choosing to deny our potential role in the permanent destruction of our own way of life. If we doubt Dr. Michaels and follow the weight of the evidence, we are choosing instead to capitalize on our chance to make the best of the world we live and play in. Is this worst-case scenario really just bald-faced fear mongering? No. It is a rational and highly sophisticated prediction of the future, based on the best knowledge we have right now. This is unlike any threat we have ever faced as a race; we have to reform our own way of life to prevail, and we have to do it not for ourselves but for a better future. Science is worthy of constant doubt, but whether we believe scientists or not, it is our duty to do what we can to better ourselves and our way of life for the human race.

Louis Caron

Lightblueline in full compliance with the MUTCD

2007-10-25T05:45:00.000-07:00

It is always interesting to see how misinformation propagates in a town like Santa Barbara. One of the myths being spread (I suppose by people who get their news from only one source) about the lightblueline project is that this would somehow not be allowed because of the MUTCD—the national guidelines for creating traffic control devices.

Actually, the lightblueline is fully compliant with MUTCD guidelines for street decorations. And we have a traffic engineer, someone who has served on the national committee that reviews the MUTCD (formerly a City employee) who is willing to testify to this compliance.

The MUTCD actually has very little to offer in terms of guidance for street decorations. What guidance it does provide shows that lightblueline is fully compliant.

Note to people writing letters to the MUTCD: The lightblueline color is not blue, but rather “light blue” a color unrestricted by the MUTCD. The design is decorative, not linear. You can find the design on the lbline.org website. And the placement does not conflict with any of the actual street markings used as traffic control devices.

And again: lightblueline is a public art project proposed and funded by local residents, which received the same scrutiny and procedural review as any other public art project.

Note to hopeful city council members (and newspaper editors)… an ounce of research can save a pound of chagrin.

Back room Ranting: not simply misleading, but untrue

2007-10-18T07:53:00.000-07:00

It has come to my attention that the local News Press Blog and at least one wannabe City Council candidate continue to rant about the lightblueline approval as a "back room" deal made by the City Council. This is absolutely untrue. As the Chair of the Historic Landmarks Commission noted when asked about this "The project went through the same process as any other public arts project."

It took several months of public city arts committee meetings (none of which the Blog attended) before the lightblueline effort was approved (unanimously and enthusiastically) at that level and thus ready to be considered by the City Council. The City Council then approved the project (6 to 1.... guess who the Blog interviewed). Then the project was ready to go before the Historic Landmarks Commission for the installations inside the historic district. The HLC also approved the lightblueline in a public meeting.

The lightblueline was and remains a project of Santa Barbara residents, not a "City-sponsored" effort. Only when the City Council approved this was the project able to coordinate with city staff to plan its execution. This is, of course, true for any public art effort.

That the News Press Blog neglects its responsibility to attend public meetings even though it wants to report on them (it did not even attend the City Council meeting when the lightblueline was approved) is disconcerting. That it neglects its professional responsibility to report facts that come to its attention is unconscionable. That it would support for city council a candidate the only platform of whom is a complaint against a News Press Blog-created fictional "back room" process is...priceless.

Buyer Be(una)ware

2007-09-04T13:33:00.000-07:00

In the ever-moving target of accusations and arguments leveled at the lightblueline public education environmental art project the one that happened last was the most improbable: the idea that a temporary public art installation could change property values, up or down, in Santa Barbara.

Of course, the argument was made only in the “lowering property values” vein, although the exact same logic would have property values rising on the other side of the line (where most of Santa Barbara’s real estate happens to be). To begin with, the lightblueline project was elevated from an art project to some form of civic policy. By allowing the lightblueline to show residents a hypothetical new coastline in five hundred years, in order to help them realize that we have a lot to lose if we do not stop human-induced climate change in the coming decade, the city, or so the argument went, was announcing new rules for real estate transactions. Or, at least, the city was authorizing this line as a new vulnerability that property owners would need to figure into their plans.

Actually, all the city did was follow its own rules to allow local resident artists to display a piece of public art. The city made no policy decision/announcement at all. Residents are free to look at the art from all sides and make up their own minds how this information might require more thinking or conversations about climate change. Those who deny the science of climate change are free to laugh. Lightblueline is just as likely to help get the Mariners into the World Series than it would be in changing property values in Santa Barbara.

As NPR and the LA Times and others noted, the impact of the “property values” argument was to reinforce the perception of Santa Barbara as a city fixated on the real-estate bubble that has turned a three-bedroom, one-bathroom house into a winning lottery ticket. The notion that public education and awareness is bad for business and should be stopped leads to some seriously indefensible conclusions. If withholding environmental science information is a legitimate practice in the name of profit, then what other information should we withhold in order to keep the property values sky high? What else can we not tell the buyer so that they feel better about the deal?

The real irony is that lightblueline is working as hard as its volunteers can to save not only property values, but actual PROPERTY down by the waterfront. The whole point is to help coastal cities become more involved in the solutions to climate change so that their long-term sustainability is more secure. Realtors and property holders might be better served (in the long run) by joining lightblueline. All are welcome. I should note that a number of realtors have written me in support of lightblueline. So we will move on together.

Champion of Ignorance

2007-08-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

When the News Press reported that the oceans would rise seven meters in “about ten years” they did two things. First, they scared their own readers, apparently by choice, and second they put these words into my mouth. I never said anything like this, and never would. So why did the News Press chose to frighten its readers and use a campaign of misinformation against the lightblueline art project?

Perhaps they read the Independent and the Daily Sound and realized that the responsible journalistic positions had already been taken. After all they waited several days to report the City Council approval of the lightblueline. But then, they chose to not attend the council meeting. They also chose not to attend the various public city arts committee meetings where the lightblueline project was scrutinized and then unanimously approved. Instead they offered up opinions about lightblueline being a pet project on some hidden inside track. Then there was the twelve thousand dollars the city put up to pay the overtime for street workers to help protect the safety of the hundreds of volunteers who would be painting the line. That’s about one percent of the City’s art budget.

Next there was the “soliciting donations” accusation. As though no other public charity in Santa Barbara had ever done this before. The “link to a private website” was another curious position. Almost all of the science education content in the US is served up by non-governmental sources. Perhaps the News Press would prefer that the city hire an “information tzar” to monitor the content of the local non-profit websites. Who knows what the Santa Barbara Museum of Art might post next? When the Historic Landmarks Commission approved the lightblueline there was some hope that the actual message of the project still might rise above the steady stream of misinformation from the News Press.

However, the News Press had no intention of fulfilling its role in the public sphere. Any self-respecting newspaper would have looked into the actual science of global warming and at least make a gesture to talk to local scientists about this. Lightblueline gave the News Press contact information for several prominent UCSB experts, none of which the paper chose to interview.

Human induced climate change is the single largest challenge that human society has posed for itself in our history on this planet. We have about ten years to mitigate the effects of global warming by cutting back on our greenhouse gas emissions. This will mean sacrifices large and small from each of us. That is the reason why lightblueline was formed: to help all of us in Santa Barbara realize what we have to lose in the long term if we don’t act together in the short term.

Lightblueline is assembling a robust educational service on its website; a place for teachers, students, and the public to learn about climate change and sea-level rise. Apparently the need for this resource is more critical than we thought. For example, the whole idea that drawing the line in Santa Barbara would affect property values is based on a profound ignorance of the facts of the project and of climate change. But now ignorance has found a champion. Surely the editors of the News Press realize that this just another distraction from the real problem. What is the position of the News Press on human-induced climate change?

A big loser here is the News Press, which just wasted the remnants of its reputation in a vendetta against a volunteer-based, educational public art project. The need to come together to work against climate change grows stronger. Education will overcome ignorance. It’s simply sad that this happened in Santa Barbara. We all lose when our mediasphere has been poisoned for private reasons.

For the record, I told the News Press that sea-level rise due to inaction to stop climate change would take centuries. The real problem is that we only have a decade to protect our future waterfront.

If you love global warming vote for me

2007-08-16T06:31:00.000-07:00

In today's Independent, Nick Welsh notes that the six new candidates running for City Council are all motivated in part by their opposition to lightblueline. While the idea that all six of them will need to keep up the rhetoric all the way through the election is curiously encouraging--the whole point of public art is to get people talking--such a platform is more of a plank.

The City is spending zero dollars on lightblueline, a fact all of them knew before they filed. Lightblueline is a temporary art project, and will, in any case, be gone before the next council term is up. Maybe they don't like art. They could, of course, run against the Santa Barbra Museum of Art, a much more visible, durable opponent. They could argue that a science center would be a better use of the space.

But then again, by opposing lightblueline they are also running against the science of climate change. They have joined forces with what Newsweek called "the denial machine." This means they have to spend the next three months attacking the science that NASA and NOAA and the world's top science organizations, including UCSB, consider to be the best science available. That should lead to some interesting interviews, and more conversations. Perhaps the Art Museum could be turned into flat-Earth science center.

This is the year that the US Government (the Bush Administration is hosting a summit in September on reducing greenhouse gas emissions), including the House and the Senate, and the California governor and legislature, and Santa Barbara City have all adopted measures to reduce greenhouse gases in response to the threat of human-induced climate change. Stopping climate change is a long-term sustainability issue for all coastal cities. A fitting backdrop for these six, these brave contrarians, to step up and actually support climate change, or at least support the continuing lack of public awareness of climate change. And the platform-turned-plank gets longer still.

They have a strategy. They claim a few gallons of paint decorating the city streets for a few years might lead to property value changes. Of course they don't accept the logic of their own argument: if it lowers values on one side of the line it must raise values on the other side--and guess which side has much more property? This means that art will accomplish what floods, mudslides, fires, and earthquake and tsunami risk have failed to do. Such a narrow plank to stand on.

Of course they do have a so-called newspaper on their side. A newspaper that managed to misrepresent the lightblueline project from its first "news" coverage and subsequent editorial rants. Fortunately there are a lot of other sources for news in Santa Barbara. And all of these other news sources are going to be asking real questions about the candidates and their positions. So, over the next three months we can all watch them walk the plank.

NOTE: Bob Hansen would have run anyhow, art or no art.

Earth Scientists love the lightblueline

2007-08-15T15:29:00.000-07:00

Although I'm still a social scientist, I've been working in a community of earth scientists, earth data providers, and geographers for almost a decade now, including leading scientists and information specialists here in Santa Barbara (Catherine Gautier, David Lea, Jim Frew, Mike Goodchild, Keith Clarke, Reg Golledge, to name just a few), and every one of them--from NASA Goddard to the Artic workshop in Seattle-- that I've talked with about lightblueline in the past year is excited and grateful about the lightblueline project.

Excited, because they really like how the message can be condensed into a simple story so that the public can realize the scope of what climate change might do in the centuries ahead. Grateful, well because they've been dedicating their lives to bring this information to the public and every time they read the news, the message is lost. It seems that the work of a thousand top scholars can barely hold its own in the press against the work of the paid skeptics.

Sure, there are a lot of new discoveries to be made, particularly in the area of regional-scale effects of climate change. The global picture has much less noise left in it.

This month, 400 scientists studying the Antarctic will convene at UCSB. Lightblueline hopes to get their opinions about the project. Not that that would hold any weight against the skeptical blogs, but it certainly will with the people of Santa Barbara who like their information straight up with a dash of fact.

It can't be said too often that lightblueline is ART. It is temporary, but then so is our chance of stopping dangerous climate change. Scientists are getting tired of shouting and not being heard. That's why they are excited about lightblueline... what's your reason?

Pulling the City Together

2007-08-12T10:36:00.000-07:00

For the first time in decades a major environmental crisis has actually united our squabbling political parties at the national level. While they may support a differing range of policy solutions, all of the leading candidates for president, Republican and Democrat, agree on one thing: human induced climate change is a real threat to our nation's resources and economy.

Next month President Bush will be hosting a meeting of the world's industrial nations on this very issue. Governor Schwarzenegger has put the State of California at the forefront in responding to the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Both of our Senators and our local Congresswoman are supporting the effort (and also leading this) to address climate change.

Our Mayor has joined with hundreds of other mayors across the nation to show that cities can take a lead in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Now our City Council together with the City's Visual Art in Public Places Committee and Historical Landmarks Commission agree: it is time to allow a public art statement on this vital issue.

Most people living in Santa Barbara grew up somewhere else. We've all settled here for a reason: Santa Barbara is a fantastic place to live. We love the waterfront and the recreation and beauty of our coastline. We may have come from a thousand other places but we share a common future: the future of Santa Barbara. The lightblueline art project is our community's way of showing we care about Santa Barbara's future. We want to help protect our waterfront resources for future generation.

When we decorate the street we challenge ourselves to get real about climate change. We stand on this possible future coastline and say to each other, "this is not the future we will leave our great-grandchildren."

Stopping global warming will not be easy. It will not be inexpensive. But the cost of not stopping global warming is far more expensive. Painting a decoration on the street announces we understand why each of us has to do our part to stop global warming. As a city we must pull together in our response to climate change. Fortunately we have real leaders on the City Council. Together we can protect Santa Barbara's future.

Non-profit organization caught red handed asking for support

2007-08-09T08:10:00.000-07:00

The headlines were startling. This was an exclusive story only the News Press could handle. Their Opinion Editor had caught a Santa Barbara non-profit organization asking for donations on their website. Not just asking, they were “soliciting”. Nobody was exempt from this action. Children, old people, realtors: anybody could go to this page and be solicited for a donation.

Fortunately for the city of Santa Barbara, the News Press’s timely response has kept this practice from being copied by other non-profit organizations. Imagine a world where any non-profit organization might ask for money from the public to support its mission?

That was way too close.

Federal Reserve Board Raises Interest Rates, Cites Conceptual Public Art

2007-08-08T08:17:00.000-07:00

lightblueline is my first (and likely only) foray into art in public places. We are two months away from decorating the streets and already there are people drafting really interesting arguments about the consequences of doing this conceptual art piece. All public artists (I guess I'm in that group, now that the Angry Poodle has called me a "Crypto Christo") really fear is that nobody will notice their art. The next fear is that nobody will care. After that, it's all good.

I've seen letters from realtors speculating that decorating the street will lower property values for those properties lower than seven meters. Somebody should check the map... most of Santa Barbara is above seven meters. By the same logic most of Santa Barbara would actually GAIN value, and all because of 10 gallons of paint.

Just think, if the value of all the property above seven meters went up by just one percent, the City would make hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra property taxes on newly sold homes. Soon other coastal cities around the nation would catch on to this bonanza, forcing property values up across the country. Certainly the Federal Reserve Board would have no choice but to step in an raise interest rates in response to this unexpected economic surge.

Question of the week: When was the last time a piece of temporary public art affected property values anywhere in the world?

Answer? Let me know if this ever happened anywhere...

Again, we have the say that lightblueline is on the side of realtors and property owners along the coast. We are the ones working as hard as we can to keep the ocean down on the waterfront. It's the people in denial about climate change science who are the threat not just to property values but also to property on the coast.

And what about the argument that realtors will need to disclose the hazard from climate change simply because there is a line on the street? That would, of course, require that art achieve the power to create regulatory policy. That would be another first in the history of art in public places.

In terms of flooding, California civil code says that realtors are supposed to let people know if the property is within the current FEMA flood map zone. Last time I looked, FEMA flood maps did not include any information about future sea level vulnerability due to climate change. Will these in the future? I’m certain the FEMA is just waiting for a public art project to force it to change its policy. True, cities do have the power to also add local hazards into the requirements for real estate transactions. Again, that's not what the City did. They only authorized a temporary art project.

Sea level rise affects all the coastal cities in the world, and so, all the coastal cities in California. Any new regulation about reporting hazard vulnerability will certain happen at the state level or above. Right now there is a bill in the Senate (already passed the Assembly) to require sea-level rise vulnerability as a part of updating general plans. I guess someone must have heard that Santa Barbara was putting 10 gallons of paint on their streets.

The Future: a whole new territory for insulting public officials

2007-08-07T08:50:00.000-07:00

I'm offering here an opinion on an opinion. I promise not to go there very often.

While checking out last Sunday's diatribe against lightblueline, my eyes drifted left and found an opinion piece entitled "In disaster we'll be stuck with them." Now, I have to admit that I have not been reading the NP over any length of time, so I might have missed a whole series of insightful and thought-provoking editorials in the weeks before this.

So, this might have been an off day.

In this piece the author used the old third-grade playground argument, "you don't agree with me so you must be stupid," to criticize the majority of the City Council who voted to help the City become more aware of the potential local effects of global climate change.

Ironically he invoked the names of Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale as examples of true leaders. Of course if Humphrey and Mondale were in the Senate today, they would be joining with the Senate majority to call for the United States to step up and do its part to stop human induced climate change. Both of them would be firm supporters of the lightblueline effort. If they were around today they would somehow have become stupid too.

Apparently the author has exhausted his supply of current issues with which to insult City Council members, because he then moved to speculate on the future. He suggested that in any future emergency, the current City Council would fail to respond. By this he has opened up a whole new territory for speculative insults. He can imagine any number of future crises and then insult the City Council for not being able to respond to them.

He does like a couple City Council members, who are thus declared un-stupid. I'm sure they are really very pleased to know this.

At the end of the piece the author criticized the Mayor for being "thin skinned" about all the criticism she's received... mostly from him. I guess she is just supposed to stand there and take it.

There is a very good article on lightblueline in today's Daily Sound. You can find it on the web at DailySoundonline.com

Still a proud social scientist

2007-08-06T16:10:00.000-07:00

The factual errors in yesterday's lead article in the News Press's Opinion section (Titled "The Thin Blue Line") were nearly continuous and often fatuous (a word I have new respect for, now that I've been forced to actually read the News Press). Lightblueline has requested, most politely, that the News Press give it equal space in next week's Opinion section to respond. So I will not discuss that particular article, (even though this blog is NOT connected to lightblueline) as the News Press likes it's opinion content to be exclusive.

In fact, it really does appear that the News Press pretty much has a monopoly on the opinions I've found there. I can't imagine finding opinions like these in the Daily Sound or the Independent. No, these are opinions authentically exclusive to the News Press. Why, sometimes it seems like they've been printed before anybody has even thought about them. If you want to read views like you've never seen in any magazine or newspaper before, the News Press Editorial section is your puppy.

The one thing the author did get right is that I am a social scientist. Damn proud of it too. Never ever claimed to be anything else. Just don't get where that particular point fits into any argument.

While lightblueline is waiting for the News Press to do the right thing (not, of course, holding our breath), I'll blog on about other issues surrounding lightblueline.

I did get an email from Dennis Ojima, who is a senior scholar at the Heinz Center in DC, saying they've found coastal valleys in Greenland that are below sea level and could suddenly flood when the sea level rises a few feet. More about that when the data are published.

I might admit here that my own opinions of the News Press's Editorial section are hardly exclusive.

Tracking down the elusive News Press

2007-08-05T06:52:00.000-07:00

I need to catch up with a few of the items that have appeared in the News Press. Now that it is apparent that few if any of the letters of support for lightblueline will find a place in its editorial pages, there is a lot of careless criticism that might need some response. Of course, I'd really like to contribute to a News Press fact-based feature piece about lightblueline and the City's campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Then again, I'd also like to break 80 at Sandpiper.

At the moment, one of the problems with being hounded by a blog that calls itself a newspaper is the need to track down a copy to read. Since the News Press hides its digital version behind a subscription wall, and since I don't subscribe, and since nobody I know subscribes, and since nobody who the "people I know" know subscribes (this could go on a while), I am stuck in the moral dilemma of donating quarters to the NP blog, locating cast-off copies in local coffeehouses, or biking over to the library. Problem is, I go to coffeehouses that locals frequent (Jeanines, Vices and Spices, or the Coffee Cat) and frequently the already-read newspaper baskets don't contain any NP copies either. I suppose I could meander over to Starbucks. Or maybe not. I've managed to track down some copies at the UCSB library, and so I have a general idea of what the noise is all about. And I've recently had a couple conversations with "reporters" from the NP blog, not that these have been very encouraging.

The lightblueline effort has been spinning up around town for a year now. We've had numerous meetings at the University Club, and we've been showcased in local media (the non-blog variety) for several months. We've had tables at events at City College, UCSB, and Earth Day, a couple squares at the I Madonnari festival, an exhibit at City Hall and several First Thursday receptions. We attended and were acknowledged at the marvelous series of speakers on climate change that was hosted at UCSB over the last six months. We haven't been hiding.

The lightblueline art project went through a series of publicly available reviews by the City's Arts Advisory Committee and its Visual Arts in Public Places committee. We have been pestering the City's very tolerant staff for months to learn about the right way to put a decoration on a city street. City staff graciously allowed a group of residents to come in and ask questions. They expressed all the concerns one would expect a Street Department to have: safety, aesthetics, and procedures. I cannot say they were actually enthusiastic about our proposal, but that's not their job. They are extremely professional and knowledgeable about all things "street". We look forward to working with them to get this project on the streets.

For a year then, lightblueline has been preparing to do this project in the best possible way, getting it right, knowing that Santa Barbara is very careful about how its streets look.

And during this whole time the News Press blog never approached lightblueline to learn about the project. And their continuing ignorance about the project now has a certain stubborn quality to it. It allows them to make up their own vision of the project which they can in turn excoriate. They've harangued against miles and miles of lines, when the entire lightblueline project is only 1200 linear feet of decoration. They complain about the City contributing expert staff to help keep citizen volunteers safe on the day the line is painted. They talk about the $12000 budget as if it was twelve million dollars. The News Press failed to send a single reporter to the City Council meeting, or to any of the Arts Advisory Committee meetings, or to any of the UCSB climate change talks, or even to the lightblueline website (I needed to tell the reporter our URL), and yet they clamor against the process that led to City Council approval. They object to city staff providing useful information to local residents.

The very first time the NP talked to me was a week after the July 3 City Council vote. Several days after the news of this was factually reported in the Daily Sound. The reporter asked how the City Council voted, and I couldn't help wondering a) why they hadn't walked across de la Guerra Plaza to attend the council meeting, or b) why they couldn't go to the Council website and watch the streaming video of the meeting. "The council voted six to one in favor of the project," I reported to the reporter. "Who voted against it?" she asked. You can guess who was the only Council Member interviewed for the NP blog.

The most dangerous thing the NP blog did was misreport the science about climate change and suggest that climate change could lead to a seven-meter sea-level rise in ten years. And then they took that gross factual error and reported that I said this. I've requested more than once that the NP correct this mistake, but that isn't going to happen. I suggested that they can talk to any of several top climate scientists at UCSB about global warming. UCSB has several experts in this field.

A couple things the NP blog has done, through its almost daily showcasing of this project, is send a lot of volunteers to us and helped raise the project's recognition among a cohort of residents that might not have seen our booth at Earth Day. Our community website has had over 10000 visitors in the last six months. And we haven't even begun to paint.

lightblueline: Protecting Property Values in Santa Barbara

2007-08-04T12:24:00.000-07:00

lightblueline joins with homeowners and commercial property owners and civic leaders (the city owns a lot of property too) in proclaiming that we need to do everything we can as a city to sustain the investments we have made in the waterfront district from the threat of sea-level rise. We can help sustain this property and our beautiful coastal landscape by working together to stop human-induced climate change.

Here in Santa Barbara we've gotten used to (and sometimes a might too complacent about) our local environmental risks: wildfire, earthquake, landslide, and flood. In the last century we've seen them all. Each of these has its own geography, the hillsides burn, Mission Creek floods, La Conchita gets buried, and so landowners are generally well aware that their favorite location on the ridge or near the ocean is also a spot where something bad, at some point might just happen. Planners work with 100 year and 500 year event scenarios, and the rest of us hope that 100 year earthquake is still 50 years off (even when the last one happened 80 years ago).

Now we face a new environmental risk, an increase in vulnerability to sea-level rise due to human induced climate change. The science tells us this vulnerability will occur if we do not reduce our global greenhouse gas output. Some of this sea-level rise happens because the oceans are expanding as they warm. Some comes from the decrease in snowpack and glacier cover. But the real concern is from the polar ice sheets, where most of water that might feed the oceans is stored as ice. If we melt just 10% of this ice the oceans will rise seven meters. And if we keep on producing greenhouse gases in the same rate we do now, we will lock in at least this amount of melting through our actions in the next 10 years. IMPORTANT NOTE: the actual melting takes additional decades to centuries. Climate change does not happen overnight.

Unlike earthquakes or floods sea-level rise due to climate change is something we can prevent, but only if we act now. We have maybe 10 years left to keep the ocean down at the waterfront. The City Council has provided bold leadership to reduce carbon output within city government. Groups like the Community Environmental Council are working on local solutions: check our their Fossil Free by 33 website.

The message is clear: we can support the City's leading efforts at reducing greenhouse gases or we can sit back and let our grandchildren's grandchildren watch the oceans rise, forsaking our responsibility to property owners along the coastline.

If you are serious about property values in Santa Barbara, well, then that's another fine reason to support the City's lightblueline effort.

This is a personal blog... not a newspaper

2007-08-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

For the past month I've seen the Santa Barbara News Press, once a respected local daily paper, now an embarrassment to the profession of journalism and to fine city of Santa Barbara, avoid both fact and reason in attacking the lightblueline project and the City Council. The paper has misquoted me and refused to correct this, and has also refused to explore the science and the policy implications that are the basis for lightblueline.

Fortunately for Santa Barbara, there are several other sources for local news: the Independent, the Daily Sound, Edhat, and even the Nexus; all of which try to get to the facts of a situation, as their profession requires.

Today the News Press is a blog masquerading as a newspaper. I've started the lightblueblog as my way of responding to the News Press and other aspects of the lightblueline project that need to the told, but that do not belong on the lightblueline website.

The bottom line is that the lightblueline project is a very simple geography lession: ten gallons of paint decorating an elevation contour. An opportunity for residents to realize how close we live to the ocean, and how vulnerable we are to any changes in sea level, long term or sudden. The fact is, not knowing about a vulnerability does nothing to prevent it. But in this case, knowing about the vulnerability we face due to climate change CAN help us participate in preventing this.

People ask me about how I can respond to the News Press. How does one respond to a blog that does not accept your comments? You start your own blog. This is mine. It's not a newspaper. But then neither is the News Press.

Stay tuned to lightblueblog for factual responses to the fantasy editorials rolling out of the News Press. And feel free to comment: you don't need to subscribe.