Climate Change

Fellow Story

Sagarin funded to focus on climate change impacts to DOD installations

The climate change awardees are Rafe Sagarin, an assistant research scientist at the Institute of the Environment, and Christopher Castro, an assistant professor of atmospheric sciences. They captured two of the four grants awarded nationally for climate change impacts under DOD's Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program.
March 28, 2012
Fellow Story

Wheeler's latest book, Climate Change and Social Ecology, now published in US

Although strategies to prevent global warming – such as by conserving energy, relying on solar and wind power, and reducing motor vehicle use – are well-known, societies have proved unable to implement these measures with the necessary speed. They have also been unwilling to confront underlying issues such as overconsumption, overpopulation, inequity, and dysfunctional political systems.
March 28, 2012
Fellow Story

Holden co-PI on soil sequestration project

Schimel, along with co-principal investigators Patricia Holden, a professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, and former EEMB postdoctoral researcher Sean Schaeffer, now an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, will be studying the physical processes that influence carbon sequestration in soil, including the access of microorganisms (bacteria and fungi) to carbon, and how they use it. Read the full story
March 26, 2012
Fellow Story

Learning from the Octopus

Sad tales of our failures in society to be adaptable, remarkable stories of the intricate ways in which natural organisms have survived and thrived for billions of years on an unpredictable planet, and hopeful examples of how all sorts of people, organizations, corporations and bureaucracies have learned to be adaptable.
March 25, 2012
Fellow Story

Getting Real About Climate Change and Agriculture

On this Switzer Network News report, we learn about the intersection between global climate change and agriculture, why current "solutions" are inadequate and where we need to go next globally.
March 1, 2012
Fellow Story

Dell on powerful currents in deep-sea gorges

On my first major research cruise, the ship was hit by a hurricane. On the second, the weather was even worse. In one particularly nasty storm, I remember standing braced on the ship’s bridge late at night, watching bolts of lightning light up the world. Each one revealed waves taller than the ship extending to the horizon in every direction. We bobbed haplessly among them. At a time like that, it’s hard not to feel philosophical about the power of nature.
February 28, 2012
Fellow Story

Greiner on using supplier scorecards to track energy consumption and performance

Tim Greiner of Pure Strategies talked about how supplier scorecards with questions about energy can help companies track energy consumption and energy performance as energy reduction metrics.
February 23, 2012
Fellow Story

McCarthy reviewed "A Great Aridness" for Planet Change

If you want to know what climate change will bring to the Earth’s aridlands, look to the North American Southwest. Better yet, talk to landscape ecologist Craig Allen, who has been working to understand and conserve New Mexico’s Jemez Mountains for 30-plus years, and who is featured in A Great Aridness, William deBuys’ well-researched new book on the region’s ongoing transformation. Read the full review
February 22, 2012
Fellow Story

Shaw, Pendleton study picked up on New York Times Green Blog

To see how thoroughly the concept of ecosystem services — the economic analysis of the natural world’s intersection with human endeavors — is embedded in climate change research, check out this forecast from a group led by researchers at Duke University and the Environmental Defense Fund.
February 21, 2012
Fellow Story

Shaw, Pendleton co-author article in Climate Change

Ecosystem services play a crucial role in sustaining human well-being and economic viability. People benefit substantially from the delivery of ecosystem services, for which substitutes usually are costly or unavailable. Climate change will substantially alter or eliminate certain ecosystem services in the future. To better understand the consequences of climate change and to develop effective means of adapting to them, it is critical that we improve our understanding of the links between climate, ecosystem service production, and the economy.
February 21, 2012