Between the Poles

US Government releases national strategy for civil Earth observation

The National Science and Technology Council has released a National Strategy for Civil Earth Observation..  Currently, 11 Federal departments and agencies participate in over 100 Earth observation programs which together cost billions of dollars annually. The Strategy provides a mechanism for assessment and planning across all the Federal agencies engaged in Earth observations. It outlines a process for evaluating and prioritizing Earth-observation investments according to their social value in critical areas including agriculture, climate change, disasters, water resources, and weather.

The Strategy will be used as a blueprint for future investments in US Earth-observing systems. It will also support  the United States’ commitment to work with international partners through the multi-national Group on Earth Observations (GEO).

The National Strategy includes two main elements

• A policy framework and method for Federal Government assessment of Earth observations (data and products derived from Earth observing systems).
• Data management guidelines for improving information delivery systems for Earth observation data.

 

Geodesign Summit: What is geodesign and why geodesign ?

For over half the nearly 300 people in the audience at the fourth Geodesign Summit in Redlands this was their first Summit.  So there was a serious effort by several speakers including the MC Tom Fisher to define what geodesign is. 

Geodesign is an invented word,  The first use of the word has been traced to 1993, and picked up by ESRI in 2005.   Some of the definitions of the term that I heard at the conference include

Geodesign is a method which tightly couples the creating of design proposals with impact simulations informed by geographic contexts and systems thinking and (normally) supported by digital technology. Mike Flaxman, amended by Steve Ervin

Geodesign makes design decisions data rich.

Geodesign takes GIS analysis into the future.

Geodesign is design in a geographic space.  Bill Miller

Geodesign is a vision for using geographic knowledge to actively and thoughtfully design.  Jack Dangermond

Perhaps the most concise and the most comprehensive are from Carl Steinitz

Geodesign changes geography by design.

It is clear that for serious societal and environmental issues, designing for change cannot be a solitary activity.  Rather, it is inevitably a collaborative endeavor, wth participants from various design professions and geographic sciences, linked by technology from several locations for rapid communication and feedback, and  reliant on transparent communication with the people of the place who are also direct participants.

To understand what geodesign means in practice, the best way is to look at specific projects.  At the conference there were a number of interesting  presentations about diverse projects all of which reference geodesign and which provide examples of what people mean by geodesign in practice.  I plan to blog about several of these.

Why geodesign ?

A common theme in a number of speakers' presentations is that the effects of population growth, urbanization and climate change have reached the point where we urgently need a serious change, this change will require new tools, and geodesign could be one of them.

For example, Tom Fisher offered some pretty frightening statistics which are not hard to find these days.  There was a pervasive sense at the conference that the planet is on the brink and we have to change.  And if we don't change, the implications will be dire.  Bran Ferren put it this way (paraphrased) - this is that moment in the history of the US and of the world when we need to have a new and unfashionable conversation, a long term conversation on a complex topic where there are no simple, short answers.  David Bartlett (IBM Smarter Planet) was more specific.  "It is clear that there is an immediate requirement to significantly and urgently change the way our built environment is managed."

California's first carbon auction judged to have been a success

California held its first carbon auction Nov 14 and it seems to have been a success.  According The California Air Resources Board the first auction attracted lots of participants, all the greenhouse gas allowances available (23 million allowances) were sold in about three hours and were sold for slightly more than the opening price of $10 per ton of carbon.  And the state has raised $233 million.  

AB32 is the legislation that mandated carbon trading for about 350 companies in California.  In the first two years 90 percent of the credits will be free. In other words, based on their emssions history companies will get 90% of their emission allowances for free from the state.  But by 2016, all allowances will be sold.

Berkeley Earth links global warming to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide

According to a new Berkeley Earth study released yesterday, the average land temperature of the Earth has risen by 1.5 °C over the past 250 years, from 1753. Berkeley Earth compared the shape of the rise in temperature over 250 years to a number of variables for which data exists for the same period including solar activity and concluded that by far the best match was to the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide, measured from atmospheric samples and air trapped in polar ice.

"The good match between the new temperature record and historical carbon dioxide records suggests that the most straightforward explanation for this warming is human greenhouse gas emissions."

Together with their most recent results and papers, Berkeley Earth also released their raw data and analysis programs.

It's the weather

Katherine Hamilton, very influential in energy circles and ex-president of the Gridwise Alliance, an organization representing a broad range of the energy supply chain from utilities to emerging tech companies, has just made a post on her blog (also posted on AOL Energy) that just could be the harbinger of a sea change in the discussion about climate change.  Entitled "Clean Energy Policy: Reducing Climate Change Without the Politics", it starts off

"This blog—and my career, frankly – has carefully steered clear of politically sensitive issues and focused instead on advocating for smart public policy. But having lived through summer after summer in Washington, D.C., with temperatures continuously climbing above 100 degrees and increasingly violent storms (with scientists echoing that things seem to be progressing more quickly then once thought), I finally am compelled to comment on the topic of climate change.

"Given these circumstances, it seems that at long last, a real conversation about climate change is bound to happen. I actually think climate change policy does not have to be mired in politics, especially when the skepticism is concentrated in a small part of the political spectrum in Washington, D.C."

She then goes on to give her personal experience of the climate change debate beginning with COP15 in 2009 and the subsequent unsuccessful attempt in the U.S. Congress at cap and trade legislation, after which the "topic become taboo in many political circles."  She says that she now thinks "the pendulum is due to swing back."

U.S. Court rules that greenhouse gases are pollutants that endanger human health

In 2007 twelve states and several cities of the United States (California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington and the cities of New York, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C) won a case in the Supreme Court brought against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to force the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington ruled this week that the EPA's decision that greenhouse gases are pollutants that endanger human health is valid.  Furthermore the court said that those opposed to the regulations, several states and industry groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Texas and Virginia, do not have the legal right to challenge EPA rules that specify when industries must comply with regulations for reducing emissions.

National science teaching standards includes for the first time the science of human-driven climate change

The first major update to national science teaching standards in 15 years includes for the first time the science of human-driven climate change.  The standards are based on a National Academy of Sciences report and supported by Achieve, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Science Teachers Association and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Earth's surface temperature anomalies for 2011

Temperature anomalies in 2011 showing how much warmer or cooler each region was in 2011 compared with an averaged base period from 1951–1980. The global average temperature for 2011 was 0.51 Celsius (0.92 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the 1951-1980 baseline. NASA Earth Observatory 2012

In the Anthropocene humanity is a planetary-scale force

The first State of the Planet Declaration coming out of the Planet under Pressure 2012 conference in London warns that the continued functioning of the Earth climate system and its support for human civilization is at risk. There is the potential for a humanitarian emergency on a global scale, relating to water, food, biodiversity and other critical resources, that requires urgent action.

It argues that humanity’s impact on the Earth system has become comparable to planetary-scale geological processes such as ice ages and that we have driven the planet into a new epoch, the Anthropocene, in which many Earth climate system processes are now dominated by human activities. The Earth has experienced large-scale, abrupt changes in the past and there is the risk that human activies could lead to abrupt, large scale changes in the future. Researchers are beginning to identify planetary and regional thresholds that, if crossed, could generate unacceptable environmental and social change.  For example, researchers are analyzing the abrupt retreat of Arctic sea-ice cover in 2007 and the detection of a new low ice cover state that suggest the Arctic may be approaching a tipping point that would trigger a strongly non-linear response in the internal dynamics of the Arctic climate system.

Assessments of current mechanisms for governing global environmental change show that existing international arrangements are not dealing quickly enough with current global challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss.  The United Nations Rio+20 Conference in June 2012 is seen as an opportunity to provide a strong strategic framework for a sustainable future including the creation of a Sustainable Development Council within the UN system to integrate social, economic and environmental policy at the global level.

Carbon Disclosure Project Cities webinar

A free webinar is scheduled for Feb 1 11 am EST, where you can hear the CDP Cities team and responding organizations highlight the strategies that some of the companies and cities which respond to CDP use to construct their responses and build support internally and externally. There will also be an opportunity for participating cities to ask questions and trade ideas on reporting in 2012.  On hand will be

• Ben Thompson, Sustainable Business Program Manager, Sustainability Living Lab, Autodesk
• Jonathan Dickinson, Senior Policy Advisor, New York City

This webinar will take place via Webex on Wednesday 1st February at the following times:

0800 Los Angeles / 1100 New York / 1300 Buenos Aires / 1600 London

If you are interested in attending this free webinar, please register here.