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When will mainstream media start grilling presidential candidates on how our next President will address Climate Change and direct our military’s role? We should mitigate Climate Change by halting any more human-caused, greenhouse gas emissions; but we will have to adapt to the devastating consequences of more flooding, more extreme weather, and more social unrest. President Obama’s “Presidential Memorandum -- Climate Change and National Security ” makes it clear that our military must be prepared for what Climate Change portends by planning on a scale and time frame that will matter.  Obama Just Tied Climate Change to National Security  On Wednesday, President Obama took another step toward securing his climate legacy. This time his focus wasn’t on energy ,  public lands  or  international diplomacy . It was on national security and making sure the U.S. military is prepared for a more unstable future. The White House published a  presidential memorandum...

Now that Bernie Sanders, who was the champion for addressing Climate Change, is out of the presidential race, where does this crisis go? ( Bernie Sanders: Yes, Climate Change Is Still Our Biggest National Security Threat , 11/14/2015, Mother Jones) Does it get ignored because Clinton can’t or won’t use it to beat Trump over the head because neither Trump nor the media think it’s worth bringing up? Does it get kicked down the road to another election because it still doesn’t have ‘legs’ in our electoral process? If so, that would put us into an even deeper existential plight. Yes, existential plight. However unfashionable using apocalyptic language with this crisis may appear, one cannot overstate the problem with Climate Change and our collective inertia. President Obama began his presidency with a very milquetoast policy on Climate Change and what evolved over his watch is a President far more engaged with this crisis: Obama on ‘Terrifying’ Threat of Climate Change (September 8, 201...

It is important to define when the Anthropocene epoch began so we can model how humanity has affected our life support system. Climate modelers need a more complete record of what is actually going on to make accurate predictions. Though it may not matter whether this represents a new geological epoch (a line in the dirt filled with plastics, nuclear fallout, or transistor radios), we need some kind of demarcation that signaled our arrival. Scientists to launch global hunt for ‘line in the rock’ marking the ‘scary’ new man-made epoch  Declaring we now live in the ‘Anthropocene’ would reflect the impact of artificial changes to the Earth's climate, chemistry, lifeforms and even the rocks of the future A worldwide hunt for a “line in the rock” that shows the beginning of a new geological epoch defined by humanity’s extraordinary impact on planet Earth is expected to get underway in the next few weeks. The idea that we are now living in the Anthropocene epoch has b...

The public should be concerned about aging nuclear power plants that are ‘struggling’ financially and operating with safety issues. If our energy future must have nuclear power, that does not mean that we should keep aging, unsafe power plants going. These are two different issues.   Ginna owner taking over additional Upstate nuclear plant  Exelon, which owns the Ginna nuclear power plant, has agreed to buy the FitzPatrick plant in Oswego for $110 million. That means that Exelon will own all three of Upstate New York's nuclear power generators. And all three are struggling.  In recent years, each of the plants has been flagged by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission for non-critical mechanical or safety violations. Each has also been losing money, though the dual-reactor Nine Mile Point in Oswego has reportedly fared better than Ginna and FitzPatrick. (August 10, 2016)  Rochester City Newspaper   Proponents of the use of nuclear power to address C...

“There was never a thought in our minds at all about any kind of control on Asian carp.” 1 Our present media, ravished by the Internet and desperate for advertisement bucks, are forever seeking stories that will engage the public. Not necessarily in a good way. Too often, rather than taking the time to inform the public about important stuff, our media tends towards outrageous, titillating tidbits of gobbledygook.   Tackling thorny issues like invasive species in a time of Climate Change is going to be a herculean challenge, virtually on the level of the twelve labors of Heracles himself. Ecosystems, such as the Great Lakes, are going to be transformed by warmer waters, less ice cover, and the more extreme weather that comes with a warming climate—not to mention a myriad of pollutants like toxic flame retardants , pharmaceuticals, plastic bits, human waste (from periodic sewer overflows), and pesticides . On top of all that, some invasive species may well survive better than ...

For those who still think climate science and the scientific likelihoods for Climate Change are the stuff of dreams, they should focus for a while on climate modeling. Climate modeling (“quantitative methods to simulate the interactions of the important drivers of climate, including atmosphere, oceans, land surface and ice” Wikipedia ) is anchored deeply in the laws of physics, math, and all the accumulated data on weather and climate from around the world. Predicting climate has come a long way as the software and hardware of computing have advanced quickly, making it possible for climate scientists to assert, with a high degree of certainty, that global warming is upon us and Climate Change is a grave threat . Here’s a more rigorous argument from climate modelers:  “In the face of criticism of climate science, it is important to note that the physical science behind climate models and energy is based on physical laws known for several hundred years and is not new or subject to qu...

Whenever you hear businesses complain about the financial burdens of environmental regulations, think of Brownfields . Brownfields are abandoned sites, usually in urban locations, that are tainted by either real or perceived contamination, making them undesirable for private redevelopment efforts. Not to mention, Brownfields (like Love Canal ) are public health scourges. Brownfields aren’t an indispensable part of doing business; Brownfields happen when you aren’t conducting a business properly. Ironically, the City of Rochester characterizes the cleanup of Brownfields as an opportunity, which is true I suppose if you view cleaning up urban areas unfit for human habitation as job creators. Even the EPA frames their Brownfields Program this way: “…creates many benefits for local communities”. If you are able to glean the necessary funds to provide these jobs from the state or (even better) from the actual businesses that created these environmental disasters, then I’m sure there are jo...