lightblueline

Yesterday, the California Governor and the State Legislature signaled an agreement to reduce carbon emissions state-wide.

In part this is due to the awareness of the state's dependency on snowpack for water, and vulnerability to sea level rise.

The expectation is that other politicians--even Republicans--will feel emboldened to take similar action: GWB where are you?

The International Herald Tribune said the following:

"A recent poll of Californians by the Public Policy Institute of California showed nearly four of five respondents agreeing that urgent action on climate change was needed.

McKibben has a new book coming out and this labor day he'll be walking for 5 days for PR.

The lightblueline action in Santa Barbara held its 3rd local meeting on Friday, August 25, at the University Club.

We had a several new painters: David Lea from UCSB, Marty Blum, mayor of Santa Barbara, and Darren Hardy from the Bren School. WELCOME!

Bruce gave a short Keynote presentation using slides from James Hansen's recent discussion with the National Academy of Science in DC.

One of the slides from Hansen's talk used data collected at UCSB by...David Lea! So David was able to tell us how the paleoclimate picture informs the current situation.

The action collaborative wrestled with a couple topics, including the date for the kickoff event, and the public story about "Seven Meters."

I just wanted to give credit to Keith Goodman, who actually created the maps. The 3m resolution DEM he used was created by Ed Keller, Dept. of Earth Science as UCSB. Software used was ArcGIS 9.1.

Keith Clarke 8-24-06

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reports in the last decade or so have been predicting the potential for a modest sea level rise, and a possibility of more rapid sea level rise after the 21st century. More recent studies, based on new satellite information and on-site observations in Greenland and elsewhere suggest that the rapid sea-level rise scenario may be more likely than previously thought. Note: IPCC climate models do not account for prior instances of rapid sea-level change (source: See link below for Hansen, James.2006."The Threat to the Planet: Actions Required to Avert Dangerous Climate Change").

The recent ice-melt observations and other recent data interpretations are hitting the scientific literature.

The climate of the near future appears to resemble the climate from long ago, a time when the oceans were a lot larger than they are today...

This is from:

Science 24 March 2006:
Vol. 311. no. 5768, pp. 1747 - 1750
DOI: 10.1126/science.1115159

"Sea-level rise from melting of polar ice sheets is one of the largest potential threats of future climate change. Polar warming by the year 2100 may reach levels similar to those of 130,000 to 127,000 years ago that were associated with sea levels several meters above modern levels; both the Greenland Ice Sheet and portions of the Antarctic Ice Sheet may be vulnerable. The record of past ice-sheet melting indicates that the rate of future melting and related sea-level rise could be faster than widely thought."

We held our 2nd local organizing meeting in Santa Barbara on Friday. Thanks to everyone who came down to the University Club!

We discussed a variety of issues about this action, locally and beyond.

Locally:
Rosanne Livingston has volunteered to head the working group looking into the right types of paint and other practical matters surrounding the actual painting process. Tom Huston is helping out with this.

Adrianne Davis is helping to gather new supporters from the local environmental community and government.

Keith Clarke and Keith Goodman are looking to put the local lightblueline data up on Google Earth, to show how this works.

I saw An Inconvenient Truth, back in late June, and then walked out of the Paseo Nuevo Cinema and down Anacapa Street towards Cota in the twilight, wondering just where the seven meter sea level rise would cross the street. Marking this with a line seemed to bring the whole global climate change equation into clear focus. I've long wondered why people do not consider climate change to be a threat. In part, it is because they do not know how to value climate stability. But the idea that the Santa Barbara waterfront, which the city and the people have spent decades building into a beautiful recreation zone, could be demolished in a century by rising sea level--this is a real threat.