Green Your Life

Here is a site for anyone interested in developing a green lifestyle.
Check it - TreeHugger

In the presence of genius

Okay... so some, um... including myself, may consider that an exaggeration, but in general it is not everyday that I get to listen to a talk given by a Nobel Laureate (no, not Gore this time), and then participate in a wine and cheese celebration to honour approximately 100 local scientists of the thousands of recent Nobel Prize recipients, one of whom is a good friend of mine. I had that privilege yesterday at work.

And to top it off, it was a Nobel prize for Peace.

So although climate change seems to be speeding up at a rather alarming rate, I was encouraged that there are things that we can all do to at least minimize the magnitude of change, even if it is something as small as hanging your clothes on a clothesline. No soapbox today... I'm just in awe of how a community can work together to make an impact.

Congratulations Al

Good job, Mr. Gore. A Nobel Peace Prize makes your other awards pale in comparison!

Oh, and we shouldn't forget the IPCC. Congratulations to you, too. Keep up the great work!

Contaminate This

I just read an article in the Toronto Star that makes me shake my head: Do trees spew 'contaminants'?. It's short, but I'll summarize anyhow: someone at Toronto's City Hall wrote a report stating that trees and vegetation are spewing contaminants, and someone else thought that sounded dumb, so the report is now getting a rewrite. Some other people asked for additional clarification, because apparently the report made no sense to anyone. A section on "air emissions" (I can only assume they are talking about the emissions of molecules and particles into the atmosphere, and not the actual emission of air) evidently

"focused on six air contaminants singled out by Environment Canada. They include carbon monoxide; compounds that cause acid rain; fine dust that causes respiratory ailments; and "volatile organic compounds" or VOCs. VOCs include a wide range of substances – some man-made chemicals such as benzene, and some natural substances. The smell of cut grass, for example, comes from VOCs."

Let's look up the word "contaminant", shall we?

con·tam·i·nant /kənˈtæmənənt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciatio [n. kuhn-tam-uh-nuhnt]

1. something that contaminates.

Okay, fine. So let's look up "contaminate".

con·tam·i·nate /v. kənˈtæməˌneɪt; n., adj. kənˈtæmənɪt, -ˌneɪt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[v. kuhn-tam-uh-neyt]

1.	to make impure or unsuitable by contact or mixture with something unclean, bad, etc.: to contaminate a lake with sewage.

2.	to render harmful or unusable by adding radioactive material to: to contaminate a laboratory.

The implication here is that a "contaminant" is something that doesn't belong or isn't natural. As far as I know, trees and vegetation are pretty naturally occurring things. So if a tree emits something into the atmosphere, that would also likely be natural, right? Exactly. Also, some natural things can burn naturally, emitting carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide (i.e.: forest fires started by lightning strikes). And volcanoes spew sulfur compounds, which become components of acid rain, also a very natural process.

Perhaps it is safe to conclude that many of the compounds in question can occur naturally in the atmosphere?

So... let's back up a second and STOP CALLING EVERYTHING A CONTAMINANT.

How about we just call them "chemical compounds"? Here's the thing - atmospheric scientists, and specifically atmospheric chemists know that there are naturally-occurring emissions and anthropogenic emissions of many of the same compounds or the same class of compounds. The key is to decipher what humans are doing versus what would happen in our absence. Are we offsetting the balance, or is our influence merely a drop in the bucket?

It's no wonder that the general public is so confused about the environment. Our policy makers can't even explain things properly in their own reports.

Anatomie of a bike ride

I developed this idea for a post (or at least for a collection of photos) a week ago today. It was a beautifully sunny morning, and as I was zooming along a bike path on my way to work, I caught sight of my elongated shadow on the grass beside the path, and I thought that it would be fun to document the stages of my bike ride. It's a ride I've been taking to work for almost a year, since my lab moved to a new building on the opposite side of town. I had a little hiatus over the winter, not so much unwilling to ride in the cold, but wary of the ice and snow. The hiatus was made easier by the willlingness of a co-worker who lives nearby to cart me to and from work. But I've been back on my bike for the last 3+ weeks, and it's certainly a pleasurable ride.

So although this idea occurred to me over a week ago, it has since then been rather gloomy (and even snowy). That is, until today, when I finally took the camera with me to capture the following:
The Road Near Home. This is one of two roads that I actually have to ride on. Otherwise, it's all bike paths.

Along that same road, a bright yellow sign announces that, indeed, this is a bike-friendly road. Not all roads are labeled as such: this one is essentially a connector street that cyclists can use to use to get from one bike path to another.

Bike path #1. This little connection gets me to the Foothills Parkway path. Do you see the overpass up ahead? I'll come back to that later.

The Foothills Parkway path. I'll be on this for a while, paralleling the parkway almost the entire rest of my trip. I'd really rather not be so close to the parkway, a multi-lane highway-ish road that cuts through the city from the south to the north, but it's the most direct way for me to get to work. Thankfully, I have the path. I've just passed the first of four prarie dog colonies. These little guys were all still in their homes as it was still too shady and cool for them to emerge out into the world.

Ugh. The construction. This is the busiest intersection in town, where the Foothills Parkway crosses the busiest of the east-west roads. When the signs went up last year, they predicted that the construction would take 10 months. 10 MONTHS! Thankfully, they've kept true to Boulder form, and have continually tried to make it possible for cyclists to pass through unscathed. It certainly keeps us on our toes, as this path often changes from the morning to the afternoon.

The overpass. Other than the intersections, this is the closest that the path comes to the parkway. It's also the highest point of my trip, just past prairie dog colony #3.

The wait. This light takes forever. It's the bane of all cyclists who use this section of the path. Pressing the button doesn't help speed it up. It's just a long wait.

The underpass. I don't actually use this underpass, or the overpass that I pointed out in the fourth photo. But underpasses like these are what make Boulder such a bike-friendly city. It's very easy to go from one end of the city to the other without waiting at a stoplight because these exist. And they're kind of fun!

The Home stretch. Up to the intersection, across one more street, up a hill and I'm at work.

But not until I've passed prairie dog colony #4.

So why do I bike to work? You can probably guess that there are a couple reasons, but I don't know that I can prioritize them: it's cheaper than driving, it's good exercise, and it's better for the environment. Personally, I think the more important question is why is it possible for me to bike to work? The non-philosophical answer is that we designed things this way when we chose where we were going to live. I'm just fortunate that it's working out the way we'd hoped.

The true north strong and free... and warmer.

Get ready, kids! Tomorrow's the day.

No, I'm not talking about Groundhog Day, although that's an amusingly appropriate day for the event to which I am referring: the 2007 IPCC is going to be unveiled, and the language within is said to be the strongest ever. (And I quote from The Associated Press: "The most authoritative report on climate change is using the strongest wording ever on the source of global warming, saying it is 'very likely' caused by humans and already is leading to killer heat waves and stronger hurricanes, delegates who have seen the report said today.")

Aside: Kai's class had a vote yesterday on whether or not they want more winter, and 8 out of 13 said "more winter", including our kid. And it's not like we haven't had 8 weeks of it so far. I miss my lawn.

Back to the IPCC report: I'm not exactly surprised about either the wording or the recognition. Nevertheless, I'm sure many other Earth scientists will have a ear perked to learn the major bullet points that will be revealed, as well. For myself, and other atmospheric scientists, I'm curious to see what graphic will be overused for the next 5 years to demonstrate "weakest understanding" and/or "largest uncertainty." (They mean essentially the same thing.)

Incidentally, the big unknowns last time were the indirect effect of aerosols and the impact of "mineral dust" on global mean radiative forcing. Big big error bars on those ones. The best part is that we didn't even know which way the mineral dust error bars should go.

I digress.

Hey. I have an idea. I'll SHOW you.

Check this out:


Oh, also fun is the level of understanding for MOST of the chart: VERY LOW. That's great.

So hopefully tomorrow's report will show that we've made some progress.

Oh! Oh! I almost forgot (speaking about climate change and all): I read this article by Richard Gywn a couple days ago on the Toronto Star online and was immediately livid. Well, maybe livid is too strong a word. I was saddened. Why you ask?

Well. Let me explain. And I'll use bullet points to keep from going off on a big rant about how the Toronto Star should try to hire people who actually THINK about what they write before they go and send off little crappy excuses for copy to their editors. Oh. Right. Bullets.

• "Quite clearly, global warming is taking place. It's less clear just what forms it will take. Experts tacitly admit this by employing the ambiguous phrase "climate change" rather than the popular one of global warming." I know I covered this the last time I spoke on Global Warming/Climate Change, so I won't go into nitty gritty details, but let's just say "perhaps you could try get your facts straight, Mr. Gwyn, before you write down your random thoughts." It is rather clear that there is a lot more to climate change than just warming.
  

• "But the why – about Canadians' response to global warming – still needs to be asked. After all, Canadians account for less than 2 per cent of the globe's greenhouse gases. What we do, thus, contributes little to the problem and, at best, we can only marginally improve matters." OH. Excuse me... right. I forgot that Canada is a first-world country that is completely immune to the problems of the rest of the world. Forget Afghanistan. C'mon home, troops. Forget foreign aid. Forget the G8. We no longer care about other countries... especially those that aren't as vast and uncrowded and technologically advanced as our lovely country. Alright - I'll drop the sarcasm. Here's the thing - sure we only produce 2%, but if we look *per capita*, we're up there with the worst of them. And correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it be great if Canada took the lead on this one? I highly doubt that Nigeria is on the cutting edge of fossil-fuel-free technology that will change the world. And maybe this is wishful thinking, but we may actually be able to influence the UNITED STATES, which just happens to be the worst greenhouse gas emitter. Just a thought.

• "Another reason to wonder about our sudden environmental awareness is that, although little attention has been paid to this, global warming will actually benefit Canadians, on balance. A warmer climate will lengthen our growing season and so expand our agricultural output. It will melt our Arctic ice, creating opportunities for speedier sea travel to Europe and Asia, and make it possible to increase exploitation of our northern resources. It will also reduce our death rate, which always increases during our winters." Oh my word. I don't even know where to START here. Has this guy been living in a ditch? Okay. I'll break this one down. Melted Arctic Ice. I for one, might actually MISS the polar bears. Remember them? Yeah... they need sea ice for hunting. I admit, I'm not a biologist, but I can't see a *lack* of arctic sea ice being a good thing for them. Speedier travel. What, for oil tankers? Increased exploration of our northern resources. Right... not to mention increased insect infestation, malaria, dengue fever... sounds great. Reduced death rate. Okay, I'll give you the fact that there were less vehicular deaths in Ontario this past December because the roads were less snowy than usual, but... again, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe that people die during heat waves, too. Seriously, sir, warmer doesn't necessarily mean less deaths.

• "As a rich country, we are far better situated to cope with climate change's negative effects than is a poor one, like Bangladesh." Oh for Pete's sake. For THIS reason we shouldn't worry about climate change? Mr. Gwyn, did you even read this over before you submitted it?

• "Combating global warming is the ultimate collective cause. It's about doing good, not just to ourselves but to our grandchildren. It's about doing good not to and for just our own country, but to the globe itself." Blink blink. Okay, Rich, you make ONE good point, but the tone with which you make it is... icky. And I recognize that *perhaps* the tone of the entire article was to make people think about the REASONS they are suddenly so interested in the global good when it comes to climate change, but there were too many damaging notions presented earlier to make this jump into the opposite realistic. Climate Change isn't just a feel-good cause to throw our energies into. The way Gwyn writes, we need to have a cause and since no others are to be found right now, we'll make global warming our cause. I'm sorry. It's just not that flippant.

Okay, so I might not have been able to mask my ire, but where else but here should I let my true feelings out?

So I wasn't actually going to present this at all, but while I flipping through the virtual pages of the Star today I found a link to this and all became right with the world. Well, for now. Enjoy.

Thoughts on Action

Photo courtesy of First People

This post started as a lengthy comment on BubandPie's last post, but as I was writing it, I was concerned that it might not reach as many people if it is buried under 16 other comments, so I transposed it to my, er... somewhat recently increasingly frequently-visited blog. (Is it legal to string that many adverbs together?)

Anyhow, I was commenting because there have been a number of people responding to me and B&P that they, too, are concerned about our climate, but feel kind of like I did: "now what?" So here's what I came up with:

/comment mode on

I think one of the most important things we as individuals can do is to communicate our concerns with our MPs, congressmen and women, senators, MPPs, etc. They are our elected officials, and it is their job to care about the concerns of their constituents. Both Canada and the US are going through rather chaotic times politically, which means that having an ear for the public is crucial.

Contact your MP/congressman/woman/etc. and tell them that you are concerned about global warming/climate change, and that you want to see stronger initiatives being implemented. The "Clean Air Act" in Canada is really a joke, people. Something needs to be done SOON, not by 2050. We need to put pressure on the policy makers to turn things around over the next decade.

I'm very encouraged in the US over the decision to put polar bears on the "threatened" list. That means that there are arms/factions in the Government (US, primarily here) that are listening to the concerns of scientists and environmentalists. We need to encourage them to keep it up.

/comment mode off

It's a start. I'll let you know if I come up with anything else...

Soapbox Revisited

I know I don't live in Ontario, but an innate need to know what's happening at home combined with the pathetic lack of reporting in the US on the World Junior Hockey Championships prompted me to check out the online version of The Toronto Star yesterday. I happened upon a couple interesting articles that address Global Warming. Which brings me to my aside:

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Global Warming v. Climate Change.

Last night there was nothing [interesting] on TV. I wandered around the usual On Demand options and found a couple Daily Show clips. In one clip I was naively surprised to learn that there are some people who think that the term Climate Change is a right-wing spin on Global Warming, presumably to make it sound more benign. Noncommittal. Uncertain.

I'm not going to claim I know the entire history of both terms, but I can tell you one thing: in the geosciences the more generally accepted term is Climate Change. Even though global warming was used first, it is now understood that climate change caused by human activities, or climate forcing, may result in not simply an overall warming; some areas may actually cool. But there are other effects beyond temperature changes: increased droughts in some areas, increased severe weather in others, changes to the salinity of oceans, and possibly even drastic changes to ocean circulation (and hence the possibility for very drastic temperature changes, positive and negative.)

Change is a little more all-encompassing than warming.

But I do realize that the general public is more familiar with global warming. I can live with that. No worries.
---

Back to the Star. The first article I found paints a rather descriptive picture of what life will be like in 2050. It is rather grim (as the title of the article suggests), but it is also sadly quite realistic. The second article I found was a book review for Hell and High Water by Joseph Romm which I think I might have to read. It sounds like an interesting take on both the political and scientific aspects of climate change. I recommend reading the articles if you have 20 minutes.

Finally, as Meg mentioned, and as has happened many times over the last year (hottest on record), the past month of warm weather in Ontario has made many people think seriously about global warming. As most conservative (and I use the term literally, not politically) scientists warn, however, one shouldn't assume that all warming trends are proof of global warming. It very well may be directly caused by climate change, but the obvious pitfall to this kind of thinking is that the next cooling trend could cause doubts into the legitimacy of global warming.

We're a cautious bunch, us scientific types. Maybe that's our collective downfall.

Pardon me while I step on my soapbox

...but Al told me to.

I started composing this blog entry on my way back from San Francisco where I spent last week for a conference. Many of you know that I’m a scientist and that I work in a research laboratory, and that it’s not exactly government and not exactly not-government. And I’m not just being ambiguous. The conference was the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, a 5-day meeting that is always held in SF during the first two weeks of December. The conference caters to a myriad of disciplines including my own little world in the atmospheric sciences. But it also includes biogeosciences, geophysics, volcanology, solar and heliospheric physics, ocean sciences, geochemistry, hydrology, seismology, education, paleosciences and a number of other sections between which I’m afraid I can’t even begin to explain the differences. This mega-meeting is notorious for growing each year by about 10%. This year there were on the order of 14000 people in attendance. The first meeting I attended, back in 2000, had a mere 6000 people.

The sheer magnitude of research presented at the meeting is staggering. In an attempt to make it less overwhelming, attendees tend to stay close to their own disciplines, but occasionally I find it worthwhile to explore the posters or attend a talk in another discipline, sometimes out of genuine interest, and sometimes just out of curiosity, as a feeble attempt to stay well-rounded. Or maybe it’s just a reminder that there is another world of data collection that I rarely encounter. For the most part, this past week I stayed close to my atmospheric colleagues and attempted to learn what I could about the measurements and techniques that are associated with what I know best.

In addition to individual disciplines, there is a section that attempts to incorporate all the geosciences called Union, and this year, the Union address was given by the former Vice President and 40+ year environmental advocate and climate change educator Al Gore. Gore readily explains that he is not a scientist, but rather a communicator. And he's very good at what he does. He told us a little about the history of why he’s interested in climate change, he smothered us in platitudes and told us that we’re doing very important work, he encouraged us not to be afraid to tell the truth, and he told us that we need to also communicate what we know with each other and, more importantly, with the public.

And then it was over.

Following his talk, I was left feeling a little flat. After speaking with some of my peers, I realized that although he was very complimentary regarding the importance of what we do, and that we not be held back by what is “convenient” but rather that we should feel compelled to do something. But he gave us a little too much credit. I was left feeling empowered: I can make a difference! But… how?

I felt a little like the Grinch before he got his wonderful, awful idea.

Only I don’t know that I’ve a wonderful idea, awful or otherwise.

Over the next couple days I was slowly reminded, mulling the talk over in my mind and rehashing it with my friends/colleagues/fellow scientists, of another talk that had impressed on me one of the biggest hurdles that communicators such as Gore are facing today. It was a talk that I heard over a year ago, at a much more intimate conference that I attended in September of 2005.

The talk was given by a woman who is serving as co-chair for one of the working groups on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). She spoke about the difficulties that we as scientists face in communicating the severity and immediacy of climate change, and the issues surrounding gathering public support for energy reduction efforts.

It has to do with a hole in the ozone over the Antarctic.

Now I won’t take a show of hands, but consider, if you will, whether or not you relate the ozone hole with climate change/global warming. I’ll give you a second or two to think about it. Ponder it with a quick glimpse of the guy who “used to be the next president of the United States” (it's still a funny joke to me, especially with his little "I don't think that's funny" after the clapping and laughter. He's a funny guy.)

So… back on topic. For those of you who said “no", you get a prize. Thus, for those of you who did say "yes, they’re related”, I’m sorry, but they’re not. Not directly, at least. The ozone hole over the Antarctic is a phenomenon that occurs during the Austral spring over the South Pole. It is a natural phenomenon that was made much worse for a while by the presence of “manmade ozone-destroying CFCs” that collect over the Antarctic all winter long, and then when the sun comes up in the spring (remember it’s dark for months there… lots of time for gathering the weaponry) the sun busts the CFCs up into pieces, and one of the pieces eats up ozone in such a way that it regenerates itself and is free to eat up more ozone.) The issue: CFCs are bad. The plan: lets not use CFCs anymore. The solution: hey – this guy over here has HCFCs that work the same as CFCs and aren’t as harmful. Cool. Let’s use those.

So we were told there was a problem, and scientists had a solution, and it was implemented (the Montreal Protocol), and there you go. We’re all better.

Climate change is bigger. It’s MUCH bigger. Scientists are having a hard time nailing down exactly what is going to happen, but there are VERY strong indications that it won’t be good. But it is really BIG. It’s not going to be contained to one continent that a few species of birds and hearty humans live on. It’s affecting the whole planet. There is a dangerous sense of “it’s okay, because they figured out the ozone hole thing… they’ll come up with an alternative, and once it’s economically sound we’ll use it and everything will go back to normal. Just like that hole thing.” But it’s not that simple this time. Not even a tiny bit.

We need to do something.

But what, Al?

I'm going to start by encouraging you to find out more. And don't stop there.

I'm guilty

because I didn't vote in the last federal election. No, not last Tuesday. Sadly, I wasn't allowed to vote in that one. (Kudos to the people who did, though.) I meant that I didn't vote in the last Canadian federal election. It was pure laziness, really, and maybe a lack of appropriate stamps. I'm usually very intent on voting, but the whole get-all-your-papers-together, send-in-this-form, receive-the-ballot-in-the-mail, send-back-the-ballot, and do this all by, say, last week kind of took me by surprise and it just didn't end up happening.

Aside: I also fully screwed up our Canadian taxes, and the Government of Canada is giving us WAY too much money right now. No worries, though. I'm on it. I just admit this to show that it's not exactly straight-forward to navigate this "living in another country" thing. It's often a bit of a pain.

But I do take full responsibility for not voting, and hence, our current predicament. It's hard to stay on top of things from afar, but thanks to the interweb (sigh... I miss Corner Gas), I can find out goodies like this on TheStar.com:

----

Canada lags in climate fight

Sweden, Britain and Denmark doing most

Nov. 13, 2006. 03:21 PM

ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY

ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

NAIROBI, Kenya (CP) — Canada took its lumps at the UN climate conference Monday, tying with Australia in a “fossil of the day” award while being ranked near the bottom of an environmental group’s list for efforts to combat global warming.

...Sweden, Britain and Denmark won top ranking in the report, while Canada is among the bottom 10.

The only countries ranked below Canada are Kazakhstan, United States, China, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia.

...Canada, as a signatory to the treaty, promised to reduce emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. However, the Conservative government has said the country cannot meet Kyoto targets for pollution reduction — a position that critics see as a virtual abandonment of the treaty, even though Canada hasn’t formally pulled out. The Conservatives have opted to concentrate on clean air and smog reduction, rather than the wider problem of climate change. [Federal Environment Minister Rona] Ambrose has set a goal of cutting emissions by 45 to 65 per cent from 2003 levels — by the year 2050.

---

{blink blink} Wow. Good for us. We beat the U.S. for being only SLIGHTLY less concerned about climate change than Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan. Really? For Pete's sake, Iran is doing better than we are. What kind of legacy is this?

Okay, yes. I appreciate the fact that the government is sending me $100/month for childcare expenses, and I swear I'm not spending it on popcorn and beer (that's coming out of a separate fund), but come on: 51st out of 56? Surely we do better than that? Sheesh.

Unless

"Whatever that meant, well, I just couldn't guess
... But now, says the Once-ler,
Now that you're here, the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear.
UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It's not." - Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

I just read this article. I'm not surprised, and I don't think it'll be the last time we'll read something like this. The part about the positive feedback loop - it's scary, but REAL.

Inconvenient Reality

On Monday evening I went to see An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's documentary on Global Warming/Climate Change. Have you heard of it? I hadn't until last week, at least not in the active or conscious part of my brain.

For those of you in Canada, you may be unaware of the movie in part because it isn't getting much press according to a commentary I read in The Toronto Star. It is definitely directed towards a U.S. audience, which makes sense considering the source. I checked, however, and it is being shown in Canada, at least in the GTA.

As a scientist, and an atmospheric scientist no less, I felt I had a responsibility to see the movie to determine whether or not I should recommend that others see it as well. (Specifically those who don't call themselves scientists) The verdict is pretty simple, though not entirely predictable. The quick answer is YES. You should go.

The longer, more involved answer:

For those of you who don’t know, which included myself until last night, Gore has been a student of global warming for about 20 years now. (Note: the more scientifically-acceptable term is actually climate change as not all locations are predicted to experience increases in temperature. According to models, some places may become significantly cooler.)

When I first learned that Gore had decided to star in a documentary about climate change, I immediately thought “that’s interesting… I guess he’s decided to do something positive with his post-political career.” I figured that his take on the subject had about a 50/50 chance of being an accurate portrayal of the current scientific understanding, and a 50/50 chance of being the rantings of a bitter ex-Presidential hopeful (no comment about Florida and hanging chads.) It turns out I was rather uninformed. Climate change has actually been a passion of his for much longer than his short stint as Vice President and Presidential hopeful, and he’s very much on top of the scientific information. It turns out that he has been touring the world giving a PowerPoint “slide show” on the subject. He estimates he's given the presentation more than a thousand times.

The documentary is essentially footage from some of the slide show presentations intercut with diary-like moments showing Gore’s personal journey to becoming a student of climate change research. The slide show portions, although delving into the scientific aspects of climate change, maintain an acceptable degree of laymen’s terminology and are very appropriate for a general audience. They are also both the most interesting and most informative aspects of the film. The little autobiographical snippits, although touching at times, are a little distracting. All told, however, they are not sufficiently annoying to negate the importance of everyone seeing the rest of the film.

As for the science, there is no doubt that Gore presents outcomes that have been modeled and are definitely plausible. There are some simplifications and generalizations, but the ideas behind them are reasonable. More importanly, it's not all doom and gloom. There ARE things that we can do about this. To start, we need to be informed. As citizens, commuters, consumers and parents, we have a responsibility to make wise choices. Our governments aren't forcing us to act responsibly, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't.

See the movie. Or if you prefer, read the book. Get informed. Your great-grandchildren will thank you for it.

Home again, home again...

I'm home... Perhaps some of you didn't know I was gone? Well then - let me fill you in:

Last week I had the incredible privilege of being picked to be a part of ACCESS VIII and the GRC, which respectively stand for "Atmospheric Chemistry Colloquium of Emerging Senior Scientists" and "Gordon Research Conference". The former is an opportunity for recent and soon-to-be recent PhD graduates in atmospheric chemistry-related fields to meet together, discuss our research, socialize and schmooze with a number of US agency reps (read: NASA, NSF, DoE and NOAA big-spenders) for three days prior to the Atmospheric Chemistry GRC, which happens immediately following ACCESS. These happen every two years, with the last two GRC meetings (2003 and 2005) taking place at Big Sky in Montana, and ACCESS in Yellowstone Park (Wyoming). For the record, I owe a huge thank you to my good friend Alex Thompson, who attended both ACCESS and the GRC two years ago and basically insisted that I apply this year. Cheers, Alex!

I've never been to either Montana or Wyoming, and I was absolutely in awe... Yellowstone is beautiful (all three photos shown here are from Yellowstone Park), and has an incredible number of stunning and amazing sights and wildlife. I really can't do them justice to describe them, but if you're interested, you can check out the rest of my pictures on the Shoppers site (along with some lengthy descriptions.) A warning - there are a LOT of pictures... my apologies to those of you with slow internet access.

The truth is, I don't know which was more exciting - ACCESS and Yellowstone or the GRC part of the week. The format of a GRC meeting is such that I not only got to listen to some of the best and brightest in our field during the morning and evening sessions, but because we are a relatively small group (conference-wise, at ~160 people), eating, sleeping and living in an environment not unlike a high school youth retreat, there were numerous opportunities for interaction with more established scientists throughout the week. As members of ACCESS, we were like the "new elite", and thus we garnered almost as much attention as those giving talks. The conversations over dinner often broke out into scientific discussions of the state of the world (and our futures), sometimes even in the absence of "current" senior scientists...

It occurred to me today while I was reading my friend Rhian's blog that many of you probably don't really know what it is that I and other atmospheric chemists actually do with our time. She explains it much more eloquently than I can, but essentially, we study the gas-phase and aerosol (gas-liquid and gas-solid) chemistry that occurs in the complex mixture of the atmosphere.

There are two major foci for current research: climate change and air quality. The first talk of this year's GRC contrasted the issue of climate change to the Antarctic ozone hole. Unlike the relatively straightforward job of assessing the causes and establishing a workable solution to the ozone hole issue, the difficulty of interpreting and reporting on climate change is that it isn't as easy to identify direct causes, model anthropogenic v. natural impacts, and develop a reasonable plan for what we can do to stop the impact we as humans are having on our world. Climate change is more than just the greenhouse effect. It involves such a vast array of factors that are barely understood (if at all) and much more difficult to model than the ozone issue ever was. Is it happening? Definitely... Why? Well... on a basic level, it has to do with what we (humans) are doing to our atmosphere that is causing our climate to change at an seemingly unprecedented pace. What can we do to stop it? Hard to say. I think it's even harder to implement. Just ask the people in charge of Kyoto.

As for air quality, atmospheric scientists are mostly concerned with the increasing number of megacities (> 10 million people) - only 4 in 1975, currently 16, and 20+ by 2015, mostly in less-developed nations. Problems such as ozone (near the surface, ozone is bad, in the ozone layer in the stratosphere, ozone is good - I know, it's complicated), fine particulate matter and NOx are some of the the bigger issues in urban air - typically related to adverse health effects. This is the focus of my current research, as I prepare for a field study that will look at impact of the urban outflow (polluted air) of Mexico City as it is transported into the surrounding regions. As chemists, we are looking at the major factors involved in the chemistry of this polluted air mass, to determine the impact it has downwind of Mexico City. Perhaps someday this work will help us to better understand the complex chemistry of urban air in such a way that it will enable policy makers to do their jobs more confidently.

It certainly is an interesting ride. We don't have all the answers. If we did, I wouldn't have a job. For now, I'll keep toiling away in my corner of the field, feeling a little more confident that what I'm doing can fit into the big picture and maybe someday make a difference.