Why this blog focuses on action

I'm convinced that climate change is happening now and will have impacts that force us humans to take action to save our asses. Those actions must be brought into focus as they are taken so that (1) they emphasize the in-your-face reality of the impact and (2) others can learn from the vanguard - the early jumpers - how to organize, plan and collaborate effectively in their own locations.

As much as they are needed, I choose not to report much on efforts to slow climate change or convince people that it's important because I have no patience with silly arguments. In Climate Frog's world, definitive action is the only real news.

IPCC plays the poor role model

For an example of how public servants invent ways to waste time, look at the IPCC itself, on the eve of releasing its highly anticipated second report on climate change. With global motivation at stake, the IPCC has allowed itself to get hung up on language and semantics. Just swell, people. Way to go.

"There is wrangling happening," said Hans Verolme, director of the global climate change programme at WWF, an environmental group that is an observer to the meeting.

"There are some who are questioning the scientific basis ... of some of the summary statements, which is leading the authors to have to go back to the underlying document." The U.N. panel's report is the most authoritative study since 2001 on the regional impact of climate change. Verolme said the fact world leaders would read the report's summary had added pressure for consensus on the wording.

"There is discussion whether something is 'likely' or 'very likely', and my sense is that is because people are aware here that heads of state are paying attention," he said.

"If the text says this is very likely, the response (from governments) has to be very significant."

As Washington Post staff writer Juliet Eilperin explains it:

The draft report makes distinctions between changes it considered significant with "high confidence" -- at least 80 percent certainty -- and those to which it assigned "very high confidence," which means 90 percent certainty. While it says with "very high confidence" that earlier bird migrations and a shift of species toward the poles are results of warmer temperatures, it said satellite data gave it only "high confidence" that "there has been a trend in many regions towards earlier greening of vegetation in the spring and increased net primary production linked to longer growing seasons and increasing atmospheric CO2concentrations."

It's interesting to me that no one previewing the report has mentioned the impacts of dislocation - the social and economic forces that climate change will unleash, even where direct threats to health and life are not present. The secondary and tertiary impacts of disasters and catastrophic breakdowns in already vulnerable places are likely to be more a punch to humanity's gut than the relatively straightforward effects of drought and flood. But maybe that would be considered too alarmist by the IPCC...at least this year.

How warm does it have to get.....

...before the frog jumps out of the pot? The urban legend has long been disproved that the frog will stay in the gradually warming water until he's been boiled to death. We can now recognize our pot-bound frog with the canary in the coal mine. The frog will make a life-saving move before catastrophe strikes. The frog pre-acts to rising temperature. But how long before? And what kind of move?What this blog is all about is pre-action, noting every instance I can find of humans changing their lifestyles, locations and local infrastructure deliberately as a defense against - or reaction to - impacts of climate change.

The Climate Frog blog is not so concerned with slowing down or preventing climate change. I'm part of the growing segment of humans who assume that conditions in the atmosphere will guarantee us many decades of unsettled weather. I believe what the IPCC scientists project as a future of novel climates and disappearing climates marked by extremes that local populations "ain't never seen in these parts."



As glaciers recede at unprecedented rates on Greenland, the Antarctic and all of the world's snowbound mountains, what will stimulate people to spend what might seem to be speculative money on huge public works? A miles-long dike to protect Santa Barbara? Billions spent on jacking up buildings and moving houses?

What will persuade people that they need to relocate to escape deadly heat, drought, chronic mudslides?

When will whole cultures change their lifestyles completely because the climate that defined them no longer exists anywhere on the planet? What will the Inuit do? The Laplanders?

I'm starting with the simplest of blogs because I can't wait until I've got the time to design the whole enchilada. Things may be a bit slow here in the beginning - nothing spectacular going on so far. But unfortunately, I'm sure that business will pick up soon enough.