Global Environmental Change: Global Warming, Climate Change

The GEC Universe...I

The GEC Universe...is BIG.

This blog presents reports on domain-scale processes and trends underway in the planetary atmosphere, the hydrosphere (oceans, lakes & rivers), and lithosphere (the world's land base).

Overlay that with the planet's biosphere, the diverse array of living animals and plants interacting with the physical domains, and we are staring at a layered, dynamic, interdependent set of variables describing earth's operating framework.

Lastly, we add the human element, the anthrosphere. Even though we humans are essentially part of the planetary whole, we are also the dominant species and influence to a mighty degree all that goes on in the other domains.

Global Warming, Climate Change

Everything You Always Wanted to Know

About Climate Change

Guardian UK's one-stop guide to the facts of global warming, from the science and politics to economics and technology, drawn from their ultimate climate change FAQ.

Click on the small hexagons to see the questions and answers.

The Neighbors: Hard at work in the Ecosystem Factory

Species are like workers toiling hard in an ecosystem factory. They enable the flow of energy, information and materials moving thru the factory. They maximize the production of goods and services that living things depend on.

Or think of species as the bricks & mortar, the switches & wires, cogs & wheels of that same eco-factory. Thinking this way species can be seen as part of the factory infrastructure. Accounting for their contributions allows us to measure and report on the value of ecosystem productivity.

Whether we view species as ecosystem factory workers or factory parts, it's clear that productivity is dependent on an optimum number of both. As species disappear, the capacity of the factory declines. This affects the quality of life we enjoy.

Forest conservationist Aldo Leopold wrote (1949) that 'the first rule of intelligent tinkering is to learn to save all the parts.' We humans love to tinker...to mess with things in an unskilled way. But it makes no sense to do so with something that is critical to our well being.

Said a little differently, no auto mechanic would be comfortable reassembling a car engine only to find a left over bolt. No infantry man or woman could survive for long if a spring rolled out of reach while they were putting their rifle back together. Our lives are often dependent on parts being in the right place, in the right order at the right time.

In like manner we should value every species as a necessary contributor to eco-factory operations. Whether at the local or global level, species hold together the framework of the 'house' we occupy, producing goods and services that support our quality of life. These days we call them ecosystem services, elements of the natural capital stocks we must maintain.

Enjoy the images in the slide show above. Only look at them with a different eye. Every animal & plant has a role to play maintaining the quality of life we enjoy day to day. Seen in that light, we cannot afford the unprecedented loss of species currently underway.

Energy Prices: The OTHER Reason for Economic Turmoil

Energy intensity and economic activity are known to be tightly coupled. High energy prices drag down overall economic productivity. High volatility in energy prices, only recently studied, leads to uncertainty and caution on the part of the private sector. When costs cannot be accurately forecast, spending slows, unempolyment grows and economic output suffers.

The Oil Economy is coming to an end. Increasing demand for this increasingly scarce natural resources will have ongoing, negative consequences for the world economy. Add to that the increasingly severe perterbations tied to climate change, ocean decline and species extinction, and it can be seen that a stable economic future will remain illusive.

This suggests that more attention should be paid to micro-economic activity where dependencies are shifted from large, complex global systems to simpler, more localized systems. Self sufficient, localized systems can be resilient in the face of domain-scale chaos.

Global Environmental Change

The GEC Universe...I

Global Warming, Climate Change

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