Don’t tell me what kind of meat to eat. There is yet another cultural war going on in this country. As recently reported in Inside Climate News and other publications, red state lawmakers are trying to restrict the sale of protein cultured from animal cells, better known as lab grown…
Earth Day 2024 has come and gone and in the last year there were some accomplishments. At COP28 in Dubai a deal was finally reached to globally transition from fossil fuels, which will require rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse emissions. Key participants agreed to the goal of tripling renewables…
Our planet is our life support system and we have interfered with its complex mechanisms in ways we do not understand. Our finite brains are not designed to comprehend complexity at this level. We need a full systems-level view of our world. AI — artificial intelligence — will not solve…
According to the New Mexico State Wetland Summary, we used to have about a million acres of wetlands. We have lost 52%. Now only 0.6% of our land base is wetland. In our high desert communities those remaining should be considered our crown jewels. They have always been vulnerable, but…
I recently heard a TED talk by Yuval Noah Harari, the historian and author who wrote “Sapiens.” I was struck by what he said. “If Humanity invests just an extra 2% of the global GDP in developing eco-friendly technologies and infrastructure every year, this would be enough to prevent catastrophic…
It seems like we have entered a new political landscape. Our governor, who has been considered a climate-change leader, just vetoed most of the climate change legislation passed by our House and Senate this session. And she did so with very little explanation, suggesting these bills were not “sustainable.” Most…
Most of the climate change news is not good. In fact, there is a daily barrage of troubling climate data that tell us the future will be exceedingly challenging. We already face multiple and costly climate disasters ranging from record heatwaves to massive flooding. But, now and then, there is…
Geoengineering may be in your future. Geoengineering involves such untested sunlight reflection technology as stratospheric injection of sulfur dioxide, marine cloud brightening and massive sunshields. It is a scary topic, but we need to pull our heads out of the sand and take a hard look at it. Annual temperatures…
A dear friend of mine lived on Sanibel Island, just off Ft. Myers, Florida, until recently. Hurricane Ian devastated the island. She lost her gallery business, her home and her community. She is now a climate refugee. Globally, billions may be climate refugees in the near future. The southwest has…
One of the hats I wear is State Parks Advisory Board (PAB) member and the chair of PAB’s climate change committee. Last year we sent a survey to all state park managers to get information on how climate change was affecting each of our 35 state parks from the perspective…
