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On September 8th, four days before the start of the  Global Climate Action Summit  in San Francisco, California, people from across the country and around the world will be calling for renewed commitments to climate action.  People are asking for real actions to replace hollow words. These events are being held under the rubric of #RisesForClimate. Rochester’s #RiseForClimate event is called “ Rise for a Resilient Rochester ” and it will be held on Saturday, September 8 at 10 AM - 12 PM at the Gathering Space at Asbury First United Methodist Church 1050 East Ave, Rochester, NY 14607. Community leaders will listen as Rochester and regional residents share personal stories of Climate Change impacts and the solutions they’d like to see. On Wednesday, August 29 th 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM at City Hall Council Chambers, 30 Church Street, 3rd floor, Rochester, NY 14614 the City of Rochester will hold the Climate Vulnerability Assessment Public Input Session , which is the next step...

Interesting essay in the New York Times recently by Dr. Erle C. Ellis called Science Alone Won’t Save the Earth. People Have to Do That : “We need to start talking about what kind of planet we want to live on.” “The Anthropocene is not the end of our world. It's just the beginning. Collectively, we have the potential to create a much better planet than the one we are creating now. So let’s start talking about the better future we want, and less about the future we don’t. It’s about articulating values, and about sharing, fairly, the only planet we have with one another and the rest of life on earth. The planet we make will reflect the people we are. (August 11, 2018, The New York Times) This article received a lot of comments—some hopeful, some not, some very thoughtful, some not so much, and some comments seemed to me to be spot on. However, in my opinion, we needed to have started talking about what kind of planet we want to live on—some time ago. We can and should have that conv...

Back in the day, addressing Climate Change on a scale and time frame that will matter was possible. We might have been able to keep carbon emission to a 1.5C above pre-industrial rates. Now? Not so much. What when wrong? Will our paralysis continue? Why U.S. lawmakers failed to act on climate change decades ago  This coming week, The New York Times Magazine will devote an entire publication of the Sunday magazine to the issue of climate change. The single-themed edition called "Losing Earth," will look at scientific discoveries and decisions made on climate change from 1979 to 1989 through the story of a former NASA scientist. Nathaniel Rich, who authored the edition, joins Hari Sreenivasan for more. (July 29, 2018)  PBS NewsHour  [more on  Climate Change  in our area] Though heartbreaking, Wednesday’s New York Times article “ Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change ” offers a ghoulish hope that a reflection on our past failures to address Clim...

A growing body of research over a range of issues shows that evidence that threatens someone’s worldview can actually backfire and strengthen people’s beliefs. (Dr. John Cook UQx DENIAL101x 6.2.2.1 Worldview backfire effect ) As if it isn’t difficult enough already to communicate the urgency behind addressing Climate Change, our brains may be hard-wired to resist such information. Good grief. According to Dr. Cook, we would be wise to understand what is driving climate denial and the importance of the world views of those we are trying to reach with climate science. We are trying to communicate with the large undecided majority; we are not trying to change the minds of hardened climate deniers (which just makes them double-down their denial, anyway). We need to explain two things: the science of Climate Change, and how that science can be distorted. And how, during these tumultuous times, do we get beyond the ‘fake news’ meme going on in the US and leverage the right of the public to b...

The fact that Trump, his administration, and the GOP have copped a ‘tude’ on Climate Change (despite all sensibility, they still think it’s a hoax) doesn’t mean this crisis doesn’t have to be addressed, or that we the people will shut up about it. The moral failing and political irresponsibility of our federal government on Climate Change and our environment must be addressed as urgently and rigorously as possible. The window of opportunity to address this crisis on a scale and time frame that will matter is quickly closing. Heatwaves, melting glaciers, sea level rise, wildlife changes, ecosystem collapses—in short, all the things you would expect from a quickly warming planet—including these consequences on the massive human population and their infrastructures—are happening.  So please, enough with the we’ve had climate changes before and we got through them or they make us stronger blah, blah, blah. Disgusted with the lack of leadership at the highest levels of our government, ...

There wasn’t enough oomph in the sound system at the Rochester ‘s Families Belong Together rally last week, so it was very difficult for my wife and me to hear the orators amidst the other city sounds at Washington Square Park. But we knew the big picture, the horrific intolerance of the Trump administration’s policies towards those desperately trying to find sanctuary from the violence, economic strife, and Climate Change compelling them to flee to our door. What we couldn’t hear well were the local stories of those trying to keep themselves and their families together while our country gives way to xenophobia.   Rochester responds to Trump immigration moves Saturday's Washington Square Park rally was part of a national day of action organized by Families Belong Together (Familias Unidas, No Divididas), a group that began holding events and rallies around the country in early June. Some 750 protests took place, bringing out hundreds of thousands of protesters calling for the reu...

As I suspected, a 2C safe warming is a dangerous delusion created by man-made agreements when it’s more likely that any more warming is unsustainable. Our planet’s environment is far too complicated and sensitive to think we can safely put any more greenhouse gases into it. We are not going to tinker our way out of Climate Change; we need a full-court press by all nations to address this crisis—and even our major climate studies are bursting with this truth. Warming of 2C ‘substantially’ more harmful than 1.5C – draft UN report  Latest version of major UN science report concludes the upper temperature goal of the Paris Agreement does not represent a climate safe zone A leaked draft of a major UN climate change report shows growing certainty that 2C, once shorthand for a ‘safe’ amount of planetary warming, would be a dangerous step for humanity. The authors make clear the difference between warming of 1.5C and 2C would be “substantial” and damaging to communities, economies and...