[DIALOGnews] DISCCRS News 10/26/2007
Ruth Ladderud
ladderra at whitman.edu
Fri Oct 26 14:28:36 CDT 2007
DISCCRS News
10/26/2007
************************************
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FORUM
Public Presentation by DISCCRS III Mentor Stephen Schneider
http://kohalacenter.yourmembership.com/?newsletter_07_10_b#crank
Steve Schneider made a public presentation at the University of
Hawaii during the recent DISCCRS III symposium, and his presentation
was turned into an article and published in the newsletter of The
Kohala Center. I urge you all to read it.
There is an overview on the front page of the newsletter:
http://kohalacenter.yourmembership.com/?newsletter_07_10
The presentation, with graphics you can enlarge by using their
"click here" function is on the back page.
An Appreciation of Al Gore
By: Hon. Wangari Maathai 10.22.07, 6:00 AM ET
Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate, is founder of the
Green Belt Movement, a member of Kenya’s Parliament and the author of
Unbowed: A Memoir (Anchor, 2007).
(see FORUM 1 below)
RESOURCES and FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowships
http://fellowships.aaas.org/
NSF Arctic research opportunities
http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5521&org=NSF
START/PACOM 2008 Call for Proposals - Small Research Grants For
African Scientists Engaged In Global Environmental Change Research
http://www.start.org/Program/African_sm_grants.html
(see RESOURCES 1 below)
SCIENCE NEWS
Climate Change Testimony Was Edited by White House
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/science/earth/25climate.html
Or: http://tinyurl.com/24axbe
(see NEWS 1 below)
Climate Is Too Complex for Accurate Predictions
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12833-climate-is-
too-complex-for-accurate-predictions.html Or: http://tinyurl.com/
3bjbxt
(see NEWS 2 below)
The Future Is Drying Up
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/magazine/21water-t.html Or:
http://tinyurl.com/yo8d4v
(see NEWS 3 below)
Oceans Are 'Soaking Up Less CO2'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7053903.stm Or: http://
tinyurl.com/32ensb
(see NEWS 4 below)
SUMMER PROGRAMS, COURSES, INTERNSHIPS, MEETINGS, OPPORTUNITIES
38th Annual International Arctic Workshop - 5-7 March 2008 -
Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research - University of Colorado -
Boulder CO (USA)
http://instaar.colorado.edu/AW
(see WORKSHOP 1 below)
JOBS
Postdoc - Environmental Fellows Program - Harvard University –
Cambridge, MA (USA)
http://environment.harvard.edu/program/fellows.htm
(see JOB 1 below)
Faculty Position - Paleoclimate/Climate Dynamics - Department of
Earth Sciences - University of Southern California – Los Angles CA (USA)
(see JOB 2 below)
***************************************************
Forum
(FORUM 1) An Appreciation of Al Gore
By: Hon. Wangari Maathai 10.22.07, 6:00 AM ET
Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate, is founder of the
Green Belt Movement, a member of Kenya’s Parliament and the author of
Unbowed: A Memoir (Anchor, 2007).
When I learned this month that the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize had
been awarded to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) for their groundbreaking work to raise awareness about
the threats posed by global warming, I was delighted.
In 1990, then Sen. Gore visited the Green Belt Movement in Kenya
and later wrote about our work planting trees with poor, rural women
in his book Earth in the Balance. A few years later, Vice President
Gore invited me to join him on a trip to Haiti to view first-hand the
effects of extreme deforestation on the country. Nearly every tree
had been cut down, and people, desperate to feed themselves, had
planted crops wherever they could, including on barren hillsides.
When the rains came, the soil just washed away.
Unfortunately, little has changed. In times of extreme floods and
hurricanes, which affect Haiti all too often, thousands of people
lose their homes and their lives.
Back then, neither of us could imagine being awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize or, indeed, that the Norwegian Nobel Committee would
expand its conception of peace and security to encompass protecting
the environment, ensuring the equitable and sustainable use of
natural resources, and raising awareness of the linkages between
ecological stress and conflict. By choosing Al Gore and the IPCC as
this year's peace laureates, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has
rightly reminded us that climate change is the single biggest threat
to world peace.
In his speeches, writings and the excellent documentary film, An
Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore has made clear to the industrialized
world that not only is global warming real, but that human actions
are at the center of solutions as well as the problem. He has focused
world attention on the challenges we need to confront to avoid the
worst-case scenarios laid out by IPCC's dedicated scientists. His
work to make ordinary people and political leaders aware of the
dangers has been an inspiration.
For me, the issue is personal--for it is in my part of the world,
the continent of Africa, that the effects of global climate change
are likely to be most severe. Increased drought, erratic rainfall,
floods, crop failures and the consequent migration of large numbers
of people will only intensify already existing tensions here and in
other developing regions. This is already taking place in Darfur in
western Sudan, where, as elsewhere, access to and control over
natural resources (clean drinking water, land suitable for crops or
grazing, oil, minerals and precious metals) underlie almost all civil
conflicts and outright wars.
While climate change, if it continues, will negatively affect the
economies of wealthy countries, in Africa, where people's daily lives
are closely linked to their environment, the consequences will be a
matter of life and death. This is why it's essential that African
leaders and civil society be involved in global decision-making on
how we address the climate crisis in ways that are both effective and
equitable. Likewise, as major polluters, the industrialized countries
have a responsibility to assist Africa and the rest of the developing
world by sharing their technological know-how to reduce our
vulnerability and increase our capacity to adapt to climate change.
Mechanisms must be put in place to raise steady and reliable
funds for the prime victims of the climate crisis, who will be poor
and rural, very young and, more often than not, female.
Al Gore and others have visualized the technological
possibilities, and the individual and policy choices, that can
mitigate global warming. From my perspective, working at the
grassroots, there's another obligation: to protect the resources we
have. One vital component of a sustainable future, for instance, must
be standing forests. We know that intact forests contain the
biodiversity that makes life possible for numerous species as well as
forest-dwelling human communities. But forests--particularly thick,
healthy stands of indigenous trees--also absorb huge amounts of
carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, and hold vast reserves of
carbon in their soils. As these forests are felled for timber,
agriculture, human settlements or commercial development, the world
loses a vital component needed to slow, and ultimately reverse,
global warming.
Both Al Gore and I know that championing long-term thinking is
often difficult in a world where it's easier to sacrifice the common
good of the future for today's convenience. But we're also aware how
essential it is to hold on to our convictions, whether we're
political leaders, heads of corporations, leaders of civil society or
individuals seeking to do whatever we can for our planet.
I look forward to continue working with the new Nobel laureate to
promote dialogue and concrete action on global warming in the service
of peace for all those who share the Earth. Seventeen years since Al
Gore came to Kenya, the podo tree he planted is flourishing--one
among the many millions of trees the Green Belt Movement and others
have planted to restore forests that have been lost. This tree is a
symbol of how, working together, we can mobilize the awareness,
vision, passion and commitment we need to save the planet and ourselves.
***************************************************
Resources and Funding Opportunities
(RESOURCES 1) START/PACOM 2008 Call for Proposals - Small Research
Grants For African Scientists Engaged In Global Environmental Change
Research
http://www.start.org/Program/African_sm_grants.html
The International START Secretariat and the Pan African START
Committee (PACOM), with funding from the United States National
Science Foundation/ US Climate Change Science Program (NSF/USCCSP)
requests proposals for small research grants to be awarded to
scientists based at African institutions for research projects
related to global environmental change that address the following
themes:
THEME 1: climate variability & climate change
THEME 2: impacts/adaptations/vulnerability to climate change
THEME 3: land use change/ecosystems/biogeochemical change/
biodiversity
To be eligible for a grant, the proposed project must fall within
the research framework of START's sponsor, the Earth Systems Science
Partnership (ESSP) and its programmes, the International Human
Dimensions Programme (IHDP) the International Geosphere-Biosphere
Programme (IGBP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and
DIVERSITAS.
Applications must arrive at the International START Secretariat
no later than midnight (24:00) - US Eastern Time - on Wednesday 19
December 2007
For more information, contact: cskauffman at agu.org
The Mission of START and PACOM
START, the global change SysTem for Analysis, Research and
Training, co-sponsored by the Earth Systems Science Partnership ,
seeks to enhance the scientific capacity of developing regions to
conduct global change research. START promotes regional collaborative
research networks, which conduct research on regional aspects of
environmental change, assess impacts and vulnerabilities to such
changes, and provide information to policy-makers. START mobilizes
resources to support infrastructure and research programs on
environmental change within developing regions and provides a variety
of capacity building opportunities aimed at young scientists who are
pursuing global change research within these regions. Through its
various activities, START enhances the scientific capacity of
developing countries to address the complex processes of
environmental change and degradation , as well as policy
implications and measures for adaptation.
PACOM, the Pan-African Committee for START, serves as a regional
coordination body for START's activities in Africa. PACOM is
comprised of scientists and policy-makers who are actively engaged in
activities addressing issues related to global change and its
relation to sustainable development. The Pan-African START
Secretariat, based in Tanzania at the University of Dar es Salaam,
serves as the coordinating office for START's activities in Africa.
***************************************************
Science News
(NEWS 1) Climate Change Testimony Was Edited by White House
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/science/earth/25climate.html
Or: http://tinyurl.com/24axbe
New York Times (Registration Required) - The White House made
deep cuts in written testimony given to a Senate committee this week
by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on
health risks posed by global warming, but the director agreed
[Wednesday] with administration officials who said the cuts were part
of a normal review process and not aimed at minimizing the issue.
Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, the agency's director, said in a
telephone interview that news reports and comments about the changes
had made "a mountain out of a molehill."
"I said everything I needed to say," she said. Dr. Gerberding,
who addressed the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on
Tuesday, said she had freely spoken for more than a year about the
implications for public health should warming from the buildup of
greenhouse gases proceed as scientists project.
********************
(NEWS 2) Climate Is Too Complex for Accurate Predictions
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12833-climate-is-
too-complex-for-accurate-predictions.html Or: http://tinyurl.com/
3bjbxt
New Scientist - Climate change models, no matter how powerful,
can never give a precise prediction of how greenhouse gases will warm
the Earth, according to a new study. The result will provide
ammunition to those who argue not enough is known about global
warming to warrant taking action.
The analysis focuses on the temperature increase that would occur
if levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubled from pre-
Industrial Revolution levels. The current best guess for this number
- which is a useful way to gauge how sensitive the climate is to
rising carbon levels - is that it lies between 2.0 C and 4.5 C. And
there is a small chance that the temperature rise could be up to 8C
or higher.
To the frustration of policy makers, it is an estimate that has
not become much more precise over the last 20 years. During that
period, scientists have established that the world is warming and
human activity is very likely to blame, but are no closer to putting
a figure on exactly how much temperatures are likely to rise. It now
appears that the estimates will never get much better.
********************
(NEWS 3) The Future Is Drying Up
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/magazine/21water-t.html Or:
http://tinyurl.com/yo8d4v
New York Times (Registration Required) - Scientists sometimes
refer to the effect a hotter world will have on this country's fresh
water as the other water problem, because global warming more
commonly evokes the specter of rising oceans submerging our great
coastal cities.
By comparison, the steady decrease in mountain snowpack - the
loss of the deep accumulation of high-altitude winter snow that melts
each spring to provide the American West with most of its water -
seems to be a more modest worry. But not all researchers agree with
this ranking of dangers.
Last May, for instance, Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate and the
director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ... remarked
that diminished supplies of fresh water might prove a far more
serious problem than slowly rising seas. When I met with Chu last
summer in Berkeley, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, which provides
most of the water for Northern California, was at its lowest level in
20 years.
********************
(NEWS 4) Oceans Are 'Soaking Up Less CO2'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7053903.stm Or: http://
tinyurl.com/32ensb
BBC News Online - The amount of carbon dioxide being absorbed by
the world's oceans has reduced, scientists have said. University of
East Anglia researchers gauged CO2 absorption through more than
90,000 measurements from merchant ships equipped with automatic
instruments.
Results of their 10-year study in the North Atlantic show CO2
uptake halved between the mid-90s and 2000 to 2005. Scientists
believe global warming might get worse if the oceans soak up less of
the greenhouse gas.
Researchers said the findings, published in a paper for the
Journal of Geophysical Research, were surprising and worrying because
there were grounds for believing that, in time, the ocean might
become saturated with our emissions.
***************************************************
Summer Programs, Courses, Internships, Meetings, Opportunities
(WORKSHOP 1) 38th Annual International Arctic Workshop - 5-7 March
2008 - Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research - University of
Colorado - Boulder CO (USA)
http://instaar.colorado.edu/AW
Early Registration and Abstract Submission Deadline: 13 February
2008
The 38th Annual International Arctic Workshop will be held 5-7
March 2008, at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR),
University of Colorado at Boulder. The meeting is open to all
interested in the Arctic and will consist of a series of talks and
poster sessions covering all aspects of high-latitude environments,
past and present. Previous Arctic Workshops have included
presentations on arctic and Antarctic climate, archeology,
environmental geochemistry, geomorphology, hydrology, glaciology,
soils, ecology, oceanography, and Quaternary history.
This workshop has grown out of a series of informal annual
meetings sponsored by INSTAAR and other academic institutions
worldwide. In keeping with this tradition, there are no formalized
topics and the workshop is organized around themes developed from the
abstracts submitted for presentation. Organizers can accommodate
specific themes and arrange small group meetings, however. Attendees
are requested to identify any special topics or needs by contacting
workshop organizers at: ArcticWS at colorado.edu.
Student participation is a vital component of the workshop. With
support from the National Science Foundation, a limited number of
students giving a talk or poster will receive financial assistance,
including registration and hotel support.
Inquiries may be directed to: ArcticWS at colorado.edu.
***************************************************
Jobs
Planktonnet: Great listserv for aquatic-science jobs
To subscribe to the list, send an empty email to:
planktonnet-subscribe at yahoogroups.com
Or, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/planktonnet/ and click on
'Join this group'
********************
(JOB 1) Postdoc - Environmental Fellows Program - Harvard University
– Cambridge, MA (USA)
http://environment.harvard.edu/program/fellows.htm
Purpose: The Harvard University Center for the Environment
created the Environmental Fellows program to enable recent doctorate
recipients to use and expand Harvard's extraordinary resources to
tackle complex environmental problems. The Environmental Fellows
will work for two years with Harvard faculty members in any school or
department to create new knowledge while also strengthening
connections across the University's academic disciplines.
Environmental Fellows may include people with degrees in the
sciences, social sciences, law, government, public policy, public
health, medicine, design, and the full array of humanities.
The award: The fellowship will provide an annual stipend of
$52,000 plus health insurance, a $5,000 allowance for travel and
professional expenses, and other employee benefits. Environmental
Fellows will begin work in September 2008.
Schedule: Applications and all letters of reference must be
received by the Center for the Environment by 5 pm Eastern Standard
Time, Tuesday, January 15, 2008. The Center will announce the awards
in April 2008.
********************
(JOB 2) Faculty Position - Paleoclimate/Climate Dynamics - Department
of Earth Sciences - University of Southern California – Los Angles CA
(USA)
The Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Southern
California seeks to appoint an assistant professor in paleoclimate/
climate dynamics whose research focuses on modeling/dynamics of
global climate/environmental changes on a variety of time scales.
This person would join an active group of existing faculty with
interests in climate/environment variability, which extend from the
Archean to the present day.
Review of applications will begin in January 2008 and continue
until the position is filled. The appointment could begin as early as
August 16, 2008. Applications should include a curriculum vita,
statement of research interests, statement of teaching experience and
interests, and the names, addresses, and e-mail addresses of at least
three referees. Electronic applications are encouraged. All applicants
should have their PhD degrees completed before the review process
begins.
Applications should be submitted to Steve P. Lund
(slund at usc.edu), Chair, Climate Search Committee, Department of Earth
Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA,
90089-0740.
**************************************************
This newsletter has been developed by C. Susan Weiler to distribute
information of potential interest to recent PhDs engaged in
interdisciplinary aquatic science or climate-change research, and to
build an international sense of community among recent grads. It
provides an international forum for the exchange of information and
opinions regarding research, professional and social issues. The
views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the
funding agencies or sponsoring societies. Dr. Weiler reserves the
right to edit or reject material submitted to the list.
Please submit announcements of interest to recent PhDs to
phd at whitman.edu. Send a short message in the body of an e-mail
message, and link to any appropriate websites. Do not send attachments.
Moving? Send address changes to dialog at whitman.edu or
disccrs at whitman.edu
**********
C. Susan Weiler, Ph.D.
Office for Earth System Studies Tel: 509-527-5948
Whitman College Fax: 509-527-5961
Walla Walla, WA 99362
weiler at whitman.edu
Programs for Recent PhDs http://disccrs.org
DISCCRS poster http://disccrs.org
Workshop Report, Meeting the Needs of
Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Graduates in a
Changing Global Environment
http://marcus.whitman.edu/~weilercs/biocomplexity/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://aslo.org/pipermail/dialognews/attachments/20071026/6617dca5/attachment-0001.html
More information about the DIALOGnews
mailing list