The subject line is Percy Shelley’s. This part of an  essay by Tim Morton, “Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There!” included in  the exhibit/site RETHINK — Contemporary Art & Climate Change (2009). Among other provocative chunks and challenges:

Here’s an excerpt from a cautiously optimistic article in response to all the end-times weather we are having worldwide.
From climate change writer Paul Gilding’s blog, The Cocaktoo Chronicles :

Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times recently: “The evidence does, in fact, suggest that what we’re getting now is a first taste of the disruption, economic and political, that we’ll face in a warming world. And given our failure to act on greenhouse gases, there will be much more, and much worse, to come.”

..from the fantastic  artists / visulaizers  Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones.

The Northwest Passage–the legendary shipping route through ice-choked Canadian waters at the top of the world–melted free of ice last week, and is now open for navigation, according to satellite mosaics available from the National Snow and Ice Data Center and The University of Illinois Cryosphere Today. This summThe Northwest Passage–the legendary shipping route through ice-choked Canadian waters at the top of the world–melted free of ice last week, and is now open for navigation, according to satellite mosaics available from the National Snow and Ice Data Center and The University of Illinois Cryosphere Today. This summer marks the fourth consecutive year–and fourth time in recorded history–that the fabled passage has opened for navigation.er marks the fourth consecutive year–and fourth time in recorded history–that the fabled passage has opened for navigation.

(Reposted from Climate Progress)

hottest year on record?

I find it amazing and exhausting that people are surprised about The Weather. But then there are those who make silk purses out of it, like pollution magnate David Koch:

“Global warming could be good for the planet, Koch says. ‘A far greater land area will be available to produce food.’”
– from New York Magazine, via Climate Progress (continued below)

A study conducted by scientists from the University of California, Berkeley and the U.S. Forest Service projects major vegetation shifts worldwide if greenhouse gas emissions are not brought under control and the Earth continues to rapidly warm. The study forecasts that by 2100 much of Arctic tundra will replaced by boreal forest and that deserts will spread in regions such as North America, Australia, and Central and South Asia. – from environment360

Much good writing came out in response to the wan wrap up in Copenhagen. Sadly, and from a narrow telescope deservedly, Obama is the butt of some bitter wallops.

To name two in the post-haze of COP15:

Bill McKibben’s piece for Yale Environment 360, “Copenhagen: Things Fall Apart and an Uncertain Future Looms” (excerpt):

Photo: Johan Spanner for The New York Times

Protesters bring out giants of various sorts to depict current woes. These range from the practical – cut down or eliminate meat consumption – to  ghoulish and alien apocalypse-builders.

I have been revisiting writers focused on climate change, and thought again of Bjoern Lomborg the “climate skeptic.”.
He’s a Danish statistician and the author of the books The Skeptical Environmentalist and most recently Cool It. Environmentalists tend to hate him, although I read Cool It and he has many valid positions on misspent money and hysterical priorities that  are wobbled far off-balance.

When you read his FAQ, you see some sensible opinions: