Climate change: the Andean glaciers

In my intro and upper division courses, the final piece of the puzzle, so to say, is almost always the impacts on the environment.  I suppose I talk about these in the same dispassionately joking way that I discuss any of the topics.  But, most students know well that it is one hell of a serious person buried under all that humor.  (I wonder what the students will think if I told them that a faculty colleague accused me of not having a sense of humor--all because I questioned his pomposity!  I suppose my students know me way better than most colleagues do!!!)

With water as the theme for Geography Awareness this year, I had highlighted a few water issues through a couple of videos.  Apparently that caught the attention of a few students, at least.  It is not the polar ice caps melting kind of scenarios that interest me. Because, I think students are by now "enough already with that" attitude--their lives have been saturated with real info, and hyperbolic rhetoric.  I am, therefore, more interested in presenting to them the less discussed water and climate change issues.  Like how the people in the Maldives are seriously thinking about relocating because of rising sea levels.  Or, like the following one:

There are follow-up parts to this video here.  I might have a chance to spend a week in Ecuador next summer.  I hope that works out.  But, I will be far from these glaciers--I am more a city and human experience guy!

Maybe I should show my class the following video of the underwater cabinet meeting that the Maldives government held to highlight the urgency:

Science means never having to say you're sorry :)

A quick follow-up to the Himalayan glaciers controversy.
The IPCC chief formally regrets the error:

Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the panel, told reporters in New Delhi that he regretted including the forecast in the report but said the mistake should not obscure mounting evidence that climate change was a real threat.
"Our procedures are very robust, they are very solid," he said. "All we need to make sure about, is the fact that we adhere to implementing these procedures."
Pachauri brushed aside questions about whether the error would strengthen the hand of climate change sceptics and should prompt him to step down.
"Rational people ... see the larger the picture. They are not going to be distracted by this one error, which of course is regrettable," he said. "I have no intention of resigning from my position."

No word, yet, on whether he has apologized for his labeling of the counter-arguments as "voodoo science" :)

Climate change war heats up over the himalayan glaciers

First the news, and then the reaction.  The news is from the NY Times:

Leaders of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change apologized yesterday for making a "poorly substantiated" claim that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. .... Experts said the gaffes that came to light in recent weeks don't undermine the IPCC report's main conclusion -- that evidence for global warming is "unequivocal," and human activities are driving the climate shift.

Reaction #1:

IPCC Chairman R K Pachauri on Thursday declined to speak to the media on the Himalayan glacier goof-up issue amid questions being raised about the UN climate body’s credibility in the wake of the controversy.
“I would hold a press conference tomorrow on the issue.
This event is strictly confined to the energy security-related matter,” he said at an event organised by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) which is headed by him.
Despite a barrage of questions from the media who insisted that the issue was of global importance and his reaction could clear the air on the matter, Pachauri remained evasive and refused to budge.
“I do not want to speak on the issue (controversy) right now,” maintained Pachauri who had vociferously dismissed a report last year by India’s senior-most glaciologist V K Raina that questioned IPCC’s claim as “voodoo science”.

Reaction #2:

V.K. Raina, the former Deputy Director-General of the Geological Survey of India -- whose research document on the Himalayan glaciers debunked the claims of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that these glaciers would disappear by 2035 -- is not satisfied by the regret expressed by the United Nations agency.

“I want a personal apology from the IPCC chairperson R.K. Pachauri who had described my research as voodoo science,” Mr. Raina told The Hindu over phone from Panchkula. “Forget IPCC, Dr. Pachauri has not even expressed regret over what he said after my report -- Himalayan Glaciers: a state-of-art review of glacial studies, glacial retreat and climate change -- was released in November last year.”

With over 100 scientific papers and three books to his credit, Mr. Raina said he had not read the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC that made the prediction on melting of the Himalayan glaciers, but read the contents only from what was published in newspapers and magazine.

“But all along I knew that this was not based on facts. During my 50 years of research and several expeditions to the region, I never found anything as sensational as was predicted in the IPCC, but no one heard me then.”

It was only after he was asked by the Minister of Environment and Forests to come out with a report that a global debate was initiated on the issue.

So, who you gonna believe? Everyday something exciting, I tell ya :)