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Two reports released in Oregon last week outline the environmental changes that could be coming, and the ways Oregon might adjust to those changes. The Oregon Climate Assessment Report says the state will likely experience hotter summers and less winter snowpack, among other changes. The Oregon Climate Change Adaptation Framework (pdf) outlines the consequences of these and other environmental shifts, and offers suggestions for how state agencies should respond.
Climate change is also in the news right now because of the United Nations summit going on in Cancun. One of the NGOs at the summit called for businesses and entrepreneurs to take the lead on sustainability and adapting to climate change. But some are skeptical that corporations will be motivated to do anything more than "greenwashing" (merely keeping up an appearance of being environmentally friendly).
How are you preparing for changes to Oregon's climate? Do you own a business that could be affected by environmental variations? How much are you focused on mitigating the effects of climate change and how much are you focused on adapting to the weather patterns scientists predict?
GUESTS:
- Susan Capalbo: Department head and professor in the Agricultural and Resource Economics department at Oregon State University and co-author of the economics chapter of the Oregon Climate Assessment Report
- Richard Whitman: Director of the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development
- Bob Doppelt: Director of the Resource Innovation Group and the Climate Leadership Initiative and adjunct professor in the Planning, Public Policy and Management department at the University of Oregon
- Hans Radtke: Natural resource economist
- Justin Fishkin: Senior portfolio manager at the Carbon War Room
Tagged as: business · climate change · coast · fishing · weather
Photo credit: aaron schmidt / Creative Commons
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HEADLINE:
OPB REDUCES GLOBAL WARMING BY 2°F OVER NIGHT: STOPS SPAM!
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Decent joke!
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I’m concerned not with the rate of change; I am not going to worry about what changes, change will happen; human caused or no.
Rather I am concerned with the unsolvable issues that exist to our south.
There are multi-million’s of people that are within only a few years going to be faced with having NO water supply. There was a report on one of the wire services that there would be shortages in LA, Vegas, Etc in 2012 if not 2011. Locating massive populations in areas that have no real water is rather stupid, but it was done.The question is if GW plays out as predicted, what plans does Oregon have for several million refugees, escaping a destroyed economy, and no water, fleeing to a state that can not support the existing population? This will happen suddenly, I wonder what plans are being contemplated, time is, likely short...
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I personally don't think the migration will be sudden: knowledge of what is happening is not a sudden change in the population. By 2012, I doubt that the number of people that really believes things in Southern California and Nevada are any different. There is money involed and investors will work to keep their fiscal stream flowing even if the water isn't.
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My focus is shorter term. I'm more concerned that we will suffer societal upheaval if we don't fix the problems caused by transfer of wealth from poor to rich. I expect societal upheaval to happen first with climate change becoming more pronounced over the next 20-40 years.
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You have indirectly touched on what is predicted to be a huge future problem--the migration of people with climate change. Right now the developing world is outpacing the developed world in the speed of economic growth. This is in part due to the outsourcing of jobs through the relocation of manufacturing plants kick starting some economies. But, another factor has been better decision making. Brazil was a very early user of alternative fuels. It produces a huge amount of ethanol for use as fuel from sugar cane. Without the balance of payments problems created by large oil imports it was able to better grow its own economy running behicles on ethanol.
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As humans, we have a nasty tendancy to fracture a big problem into little issues and then only focus on one or two of the issues at a time. I'm way past climate change because it is only a small portion of a larger whole. I talk to people about overall sustainable living.
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Sustainable living is a laudible ideal but the math does not support it. Take a town as small as Lebenon. If everyone laid claim to the 10 acres needed to support one person over an entire year, there would be 190,000 acres or about 300 square miles. Then how would each parcel get enough water?
It is unfortunate that our population has grown to a size that cannot be support on the available land.
As much as I would like it to be part of the solution, I'm fraid it is not. -
I suggest that we raise the levels of science education required in our schools, and support the training of our science teachers and the supply of the materials they need to teach effectively.
I think that kids ought to be taught that we live in a dynamic changing world and so we need to make ourselves more easily adaptable to changes. And that applies to Climate Change and all other areas of our lives. One of the things that I learned doing carpentry is that life is constant change, one job ends and you go on to another, and the materials, tools, and designs keep changing so you have to keep up.
I think that too often people make the assumption that once they get out of school and into a job that they can live that job and lifestyle the rest of their lives and so they get blindsided when their industry changes, like logging, or the Gulf coast shrimpers.
So expect change and embrace it and go with the flow, even surf it if you can!
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Part of the reason I'd like to see better science education is that I hate the idea that the conservative base is so easily fooled and manipulated by Corporations like Exxon-Mobil, and the leaders like Karl Rove, Rupert Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and the rest of that bunch of blatant liars. I have no use for the corrupt ideas of conservatism but I hate to see any people fooled and misused by anybody.
Teach people the Critical Thinking skills, Logic, and Reason and I'll trust them to do what is right for themselves and others.
Education, education, education!
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The average person will have four careers before retirement, so your point of view is wise.
In most community colleges a Masters Degree is the minimum credential to teach, but in High School it is only a Bachelor's Degre with enough coursework in science to teach science. To teach in four years colleges and universities requires a Ph. D.
I favor all high school students getting a better understanding of both how our government works from the local level to the international level. That is essential to gain the public support necessary for long term projects. I also strongly favor more science education from Kindergarten through college.
People though should not underestimate the costs of quality science education. When I went to high school I had four years of science in grades 9-12, but in those days a lot less was even known let alone taught. The knowledge served me very well even though today it might be considered archaic. I still follow development in science closely by reading sciencedaily.com for free on the Internet, etc.
The number of scientists educated should match the number of job openings expected and not be an abstract number. It costs more to educate scientists than humanities graduates and it takes a special way of thinking to be a successfuly K-12 science teacher, since there is some science in teaching itself.
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My oldest son recieved B. S. degrees (two bachelor degrees so he could take more Physics courses to be a better candidate for graduate school) in four years going continuously (plus a year of full time college during High School). That education was not much more expensive than any other degree, but he would not have had time to also take teaching courses, an essential for a career in K-12 teaching simply to relate to modes of learning, maintaining fairness and classroom discipline, etc. He would have been an excellent teacher with another year of just teaching courses worked into his education.
My son then went on to get his Masters Degree and a Ph.D. from UCLA before going to a Max Planck Institute program in Germany for two years of Post Doc work. After the Masters Degree he could have taught in a community college (and did to earn some extra money one year) or he could have taken a better paying $70,000 a year job in industry and commerce.
He wanted to do experimental research and continued on to get his Ph. D. in Physics, which is the minimum credential for teaching in a four year college or university.
To teach in a University or get a position of consequence in a National Laboratory or equivalent he needed to go on past his Ph.D. and do some Post Doc work, which he is now doing at the Max Planck Institute for at least two years.
In graduate school one of the Post Doc's gave up Physics for Wall Street and a $250,000 a year salary. My son's collective earnings over the last six years as a teaching assistant, research assistant and now Post Doc are less than that one science drop out makes in a year. The reason is that the U. S. govenrment sets a low pay scale for graduate student and Post Doc researchers. (He is making more in Germany.)
It is easy to ask for more and better science education but delivering the same is not easy or quick. My son would have to work in an Eastern U. S. high school to earn the minimum kind of pay teaching high school science that would meet his and my earnings expectations. (Those controversial, temporarily laid off high school teachers in Ohio were earning twice as much as high school teachers earn in the State of Washington.)
My son had the chance to get a $70,000 a year job easily after his Masters Degree in a business closely related to his first research assistant job. He is not going to be available for a staring pay of $30,000 a year, a typical entry level teacher pay in the Western U. S.
One of the Post Doc's during his graduate studies gave up a career as a scientist for a Wall Street job with a starting salary of $250,000.
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SeniorMoment —
I have read both of your replies and I pretty much agree with you.
I have long believed that teachers ought to be on the highest end of the pay scales, because they have the most association and contact with the children and potentially the most positive influence in their lives. A medical doctor sees a kid a few times a year at most and only for a quarter or half an hour and look at what they are paid. A teacher has the kids for about 6 hours a day for about 9 months a year, only the second influence after parents. Teachers ought to be the highest valued people in our nation.
And I think that the very best and brightest science people and mathematicians who are naturally good or can learn to be good teachers ought to be persued with the same fervor that Wall Street investment bankers are persued and the teachers ought to be given huge bonuses for bringing kids into higher levels of education in science and math.
Maybe pay them for years of education to entice them into teaching for at least a few years. But I'd make that offer after they graduate so that it is a sure bet, because so many people don't make it through school and so waste that money.
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"The signature of climate change is in the increased amplitude and frequency of extreme events." This was my answer to a reporter in 1993.
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Thank you for taking up the issue of these important reports which Oregonians will be struggling to come to grips with in the months ahead.
My own concern is water conservation and the significant opportunities afforded by alternative approaches to sanitation. A hundred years ago Theodore Roosevelt said (New York Times, 20 Aug 1910) this: Civilized people ought to know how to dispose of sewage in some other way than putting it into the drinking water.
Our water-borne sanitation infrastructure is crumbling as the population of the Willamette Valley grows - and will attract climate change refugees from water poor areas in the future. It's time for serious research into ecological sanitation and closing nutrient loops. We need to speed up adoption of composting systems, graywater reuse, rainwater harvesting, urine diversion for phosphorus capture, and a wealth of technologies already well established and scaling up in northern Europe.
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That's an interesting point.
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Your concern is well founded. It was predicted that the future wars of this century will be over water--its availability, drinkability, etc. I believe the prediction was in Business Week, but it might have been in Newsweek.
in college more than four decades ago a book titled Moment in the Sun stated that the United States had already reached its peak standard of living, and in many ways that was true. Back then one worker could support a family. Now both parents often have to work to earn enough to support a family.
As a child I visited Yellowstone National Park and sat on wood benches to watch Old Faithful. What was the park road back then is now a boardwalk which is the closest point visitors are allowed to approach Old Faithful. The boardwalk was built not just for public safety but so enough people could find a place from which to watch each eruption. And, a small shopping complex is right next to Old Faithful, which spoils the effect.
In Denver, CO, water is scarce enough now that tertiary treatment is used to treat sewage water so it can be reused as grey water for watering Denver's parks. Basically some of the Metro Water Water plants outflow is sent directly to the Denver Water Department for further treatment and reuse. Global warming is likely to make Denver even drier.
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As we are in what once was the tail end of a prolonged warm trend between two ice ages, I wonder if you might comment on the need to manage rather than eliminate greenhouse gases.
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There are still large groups in Oregon that don't belive Climate change is happening. I will be 70 this year and the changes are very dramatic for me. We need to make plans for saving and sequestering water, we need to stop having lawns and instead plant bushes,trees and food etc in our lawns, we need to give up gas guzzeling automobiles. Many birds are gone, glaciers are gone, the mountaub climate has changed dramatically. We need more trees. I think these kinds of everyday changes that individuals could make will affect climate change more than industrial changes.
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As the country with the largest per capita carbon emissions, we could easily reduce them and be an example to the rest of the world by reducing population growth. If the dependent child tax deduction were reduced by 1/18th each year starting with children born after the phaseout starts, families would experience no economic impact for the children they already have. In 18 years, having a child would be a decision that parents would consider much more seriously and carbon emissions from the US population would be dramatically reduced.
We don't need miracle technologies to reduce carbon emissions, and if we had a smaller population, the technologies we develop would have a much better chance of making a meaningful impact.
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Good idea.
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Ideaman: I agree with you.
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Focusing on sustaining our nearshore ocean health is imperative to this discussion. The decision of Oregon's Ocean Policy Advisory Council to unanimously approve the designation of three marine reserves (Cape Falcon, Cascade Head, Cape Perpetua) is undoubtedly a step in the right direction.
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GLOBAL Warming does not mean LOCAL Warming. Some places will be warmer or colder, some will be wetter or drier. This enability to forcast what will happen in any given place is in the most part of why we can not get the general public involved to the point of acting.
At this time the best we can do is reduce our production of carbon dioxide.
With a warmer Global Climate, more water vapor will be pulled from the oceans into the atmosphere and where that greater amount of water comes down will be the most important part in the next few decades. If it drops in central Oregon it will be much much wetter; but, if the higher temperatures, the high altitude winds may push it further east and make the Valley a desert.
Do not trust anyone who says they know exactly what will happen. -
is, that's why we have to have a re-education, we must educate the children to grow up thinking about it, I think many people have joined the awareness to preserve, not pollute, and I think every generation there will be more people Cognisant, hug all thanks for reading
massagistas
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The very fact that we're having this discussion, and that the Copenhagen talks failed and the Cancun talks are failing, is indicative that the movement to stop climate change by greatly reducing carbon emissions has failed. If countries (starting with the U.S.) had gotten serious about reducing carbon emissions just 10 years ago, we wouldn't even need to be having this discussion. And the U.S. needed to take the lead on this since we grew and got wealthy by polluting and morally needed to take the lead to transition out of fossil fuels.
I consider discussions on adaptation a waste of time.
Better to discuss is what will be the fate of civilization down the road with no action on global warming. I don't see action ever being taken to reduce carbon emissions.
I've also noticed, that as signs of global warming get more and more obvious, and failure to even start reducing carbon emissions continues, more and more people I know seem to be losing concern over globa warming. Ten years ago, I would have thought that the reverse would happen, that as signs of global warming became clearer, the political will to reduce carbon emissions woud become much stronger but, in fact, the reverse is happening. People seem to be rationalizing our changes in climate as a natural cycle, even those who previously believed that man may be affecting the climate. Maybe it's just too hard for people to want to believe that man is changing the climate this much.
Emily, please have a show with some ecotherapists on how to psychologically deal with climate change, and the knowledge that nothing is being done, and the serious consequences of that. There are some local Portland therapists that do have knowledge of this (Thomas Dougherty is one).
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I think that there should be better standard in the industry and more restrictions.
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I'm betting that is we duct taped the politicians mouths shut we would see a minimum 1°F drop immediately!
If we eliminated SPAM we could get another 2°F.