Published on Sep 11, 2014
In Greenland, scientists who wish to understand ice loss will follow the water. Greenland mass loss is rising exponentially and leading to higher sea level rise.
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
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Published on Dec 19, 2012
Videographer Peter Sinclair captures the views of eight scientists representing some of the nation’s leading research institutions in a concise video newly produced for The Yale Forum.
Global Climate Change
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Published on Jun 1, 2014
Independent videographer Peter Sinclair’s ‘This is Not Cool’ video explores recent headline-grabbing research on Antarctic glacial melting, the first video produced under the name Yale Climate Connections, formerly The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media.
Global Climate Change
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Published on Nov 8, 2012
Suggestions that modest increases in sea ice around Antarctica offset significant losses in Arctic sea ice are based on a bogus “apples and oranges” comparison. Through interviews with a range of respected experts, Peter Sinclair’s newest Yale Forum video explains why such suggestions do not stand up to scientific scrutiny.
Dr Claire Parkinson, NASA press release on arctic vs antarctic ice
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/feat…
Univ of Illinois Cryosphere Today
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
Global Sea ice Graph
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphe…
sea ice sediment cores
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/sto…
Dr James Renwick interviews
http://vimeo.com/36812666
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/sto…
Global Climate Change
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Published on Oct 7, 2014
Record lows in sea ice have been recently recorded in the Arctic but ice around the opposite pole of the planet is on the rise. This is probably not due to climate stabilization: The rate of sea ice loss is substantially more than the Antarctic growth-rate. But further study in ocean temperatures, wind direction and more is needed to explain why this is occurring.
Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Joy Ng
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Published on Oct 18, 2014
President Obama responded to calls to block travel to and from West Africa as a strategy to deal with the Ebola outbreak.
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Health
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By Naomi Klein, Guardian UK
17 October 14
By dropping Shell, Lego shows new ways to target the astronomical profits of the fossil fuel industries
hen the call came in that the University of Glasgow had voted to divest its £128m endowment from fossil fuel companies, I happened to be in a room filled with climate activists in Oxford. They immediately broke into cheers. There were lots of hugs and a few tears. This was big – the first university in Europe to make such a move.
The next day there were more celebrations in climate circles: declared, attracting more than 6m views. Pressure is building, meanwhile, on the Tate to sever the museum’s longtime relationship with BP.
What is happening? Are fossil fuel companies – long toxic to our natural environment – becoming toxic in the public relations environment as well? It seems so. Galvanised by the “carbon tracker” research showing that these firms have several times more carbon in their reserves than our atmosphere can safely absorb, Oxford city council has voted to divest; so has the British Medical Association.
Internationally, there are hundreds of active fossil fuel divestment campaigns on university and college campuses, as well as ones targeting local city governments, non-profit foundations and religious organisations. And the victories keep getting bigger.
In May, for instance, California’s Stanford University announced it would divest its $18.7bn endowment from coal. And on the eve of September’s UN climate summit in New York, a portion of the Rockefeller family – a name synonymous with oil – announced that it would be divesting its foundation’s holdings from fossil fuels and expanding its investments in renewable energy.
Some are sceptical. They point out that none of this will hurt oil or coal companies – different investors will snap up their stocks and most of us will keep buying their products. Our economies, after all, remain hooked on fossil fuels, and affordable renewable options are too often out of reach. So are these battles over fossil fuel investments and sponsorships just a charade? A way to clean our consciences but not the atmosphere?
The criticism overlooks the deeper power and potential of these campaigns. At their core, all are taking aim at the moral legitimacy of fossil fuel companies and the profits that flow from them. This movement is saying that it is unethical to be associated with an industry whose business model is based on knowingly destabilising the planet’s life support systems.
Every time a new institution or brand decides to cut its ties, every time the divestment argument is publicly made, it reinforces the idea that fossil fuel profits are illegitimate – that “these are now rogue industries”, in the words of author Bill McKibben. And it is this illegitimacy that has the potential to break the stalemate in meaningful climate action. Because if those profits are illegitimate, and this industry is rogue, it brings us a step closer to the principle that has been sorely missing from the collective climate response so far: the polluter pays.
Take the Rockefellers. When Valerie Rockefeller Wayne explained her decision to divest, she said that it was precisely because her family’s wealth was made through oil that they were “under greater moral obligation” to use that wealth to stop climate change.
That, in a nutshell, is the rationale behind polluter pays. It holds that when commercial activity creates hefty public health and environmental damage, the polluters must shoulder a significant share of the costs of repair. But it can’t stop with individuals and foundations, nor can the principle be enforced voluntarily.
…(read more).
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Transition Studies 
