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Interview: NY Times Science Reporter Andy Revkin
David Zaks and Chad Monfreda, WorldChanging
Andrew C. Revkin is an award-winning science journalist for the New York Times covering environmental issues from pole to pole and ocean to atmosphere. Andy has recently completed his third book, The North Pole Was Here. Aside from his journalistic duties, Andy is a member of the band Uncle Wade who play ‘simple music for complicated times.’ One of his songs, Liberated Carbon, is available below.
…DZ: We definitely have an energy challenge in front of us and from what you have written and we understand that you are starting to write a new book on sustainability issues. What is your view of a 21st century world, and what do we need to do now?
AR: The framing theme from my book is that we need to get over the idea that we are not going to get it right. We screw up, that is what we humans do. We are always testing boundaries and going too far, so that is where you get into the idea that resilience really matters and learn and adjust strategies really matter because you can’t lock in because you always get it wrong. All of our projections for energy have been wrong. Whatever tools and structures we invent to get at this climate problem have to assume that failure will be a part of it.
My working title for my book is Falling Forward. The idea came from a conversation that I had with Joel Cohen. He said it was like walking, which is essentially a controlled forward fall. The whole idea of walking is to fall forward without falling down. As a species we have been in a teenage, high-revving, steroid-driven sprint for a couple of hundred years, so how do we modulate our gait now that science has afforded us a murky view of what is ahead? It is bumpy and risky, and if we modulate to a walking gait that allows us to progress without totaling fucking up.
I think we need to get over the idea that this is a planetary emergency. The planet is going to do just fine. Life is this incredibly resilient, and inventive and durable force.
(29 Nov 2006)
Canada’s Commitment to Failure
Bryan Farrell, Znet
How Washington-style politics and a deal with Big Oil condemned Canada’s pledge to fight climate change
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For more than two decades, industrialized nations have stumbled over the issue of runaway climate change. Many scientists and environmental advocates, however, were expecting a change after last month’s announcement by British Economist Nicholas Stern, who equated the cost of inaction to a sum greater than both World Wars and the Great Depression combined. But the results of November’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Nairobi, Kenya indicate progress is still not as imminent as many would hope.
The meeting was a chance for 165 countries to review the international greenhouse gas reducing Kyoto Protocol and set stricter targets for when the first phase ends in 2012. Not only were the talks tabled until next year, but the two main holdouts-Australia and the United States-continued their noncommittal stances.
While seemingly little has changed since the conference began, one new glaring setback did emerge. The Canadian government, which ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2002 under the previous liberal administration, unveiled its new “Made-In-Canada” alternative for the first time on the international stage.
Much like President Bush’s Kyoto alternative and inaptly named “Clear Skies Initiative,” Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s proposed Clean Air Act is filled with industry incentives, lax timetables, and no mention of the Kyoto commitments-something Environment Minister Rona Ambrose deemed “unachievable” in September. But negative press and opinion polls showing disapproval from the majority of Canadians essentially rendered the bill dead on arrival last month.
Despite all three opposition parties saying they will vote against it unless major changes are made, Ambrose supported the legislation and its anti-Kyoto stance at the conference in Nairobi and was promptly greeted with condemnation.
…In the months leading up to the official signing of the Kyoto agreement, Canada’s energy industry threatened to shut down an $8.5 billion project in the oil rich sands of Northern Alberta unless the federal Liberal government could guarantee favorable emissions targets. When then Prime Minister Jean Chrétien finally reve
(29 Nov 2006)
Global warming goes to court
The New York Times via IHT
The Bush administration has been on a six-year campaign to expand its powers, often beyond what the Constitution allows. So it is odd to hear it claim that it lacks the power to slow global warming by limiting the emission of harmful gases. But that is just what it will argue to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, in what may be the most important U.S. environmental case in many years.
A group of states is suing the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to properly do its job. These states, backed by environmental groups and scientists, say that the Clean Air Act requires the EPA to impose limits on greenhouse gases emitted by new cars. These gases are a major contributor to the “greenhouse effect” that is dangerously heating up the planet.
(28 Nov 2006)
Teachers Association Reject 50,000 Free Copies of An Inconvenient Truth
Laurie David, Washington Post
At hundreds of screenings this year of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the first thing many viewers said after the lights came up was that every student in every school in the United States needed to see this movie.
The producers of former vice president Al Gore’s film about global warming, myself included, certainly agreed. So the company that made the documentary decided to offer 50,000 free DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their classrooms. It seemed like a no-brainer.
The teachers had a different idea: Thanks but no thanks, they said.
In their e-mail rejection, they expressed concern that other “special interests” might ask to distribute materials, too; they said they didn’t want to offer “political” endorsement of the film; and they saw “little, if any, benefit to NSTA or its members” in accepting the free DVDs.
Gore, however, is not running for office, and the film’s theatrical run is long since over. As for classroom benefits, the movie has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading climate scientists worldwide, and is required viewing for all students in Norway and Sweden.
Still, maybe the NSTA just being extra cautious. But there was one more curious argument in the e-mail: Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, would place “unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters.” One of those supporters, it turns out, is the Exxon Mobil Corp.
(26 Nov 2006)
Original headline: ‘Science a la Joe Camel’
