I hope to post more detailed information on some of these after the weekend, meanwhile, what’s the news on the climate at the recent American Geophysical Union conference, and elsewhere?
Check out Eureka Alert (atmosphere):
Abrupt Climate Shifts May Come Sooner, Not Later
MIT finds climate change could dramatically affect water supplies
and more
Eureka Alert posts oodles of articles on a wide variety of subjects.
President elect Obama announced his choices for Secretary of Energy (Steven Chu), head of Environmental Protection Agency (Lisa Jackson), Council on Environmental Quality (Nancy Sutley), and energy (Carol Browner). I know more about Chu as he is local, famous in physics even before his Nobel Prize, and frequent speaker, eg, in Science in the Theater programs. Like just about everyone else, I am thrilled that someone who is dedicated to addressing climate change and very interested in getting the facts right will have an important position.
Chu heads Lawrence Berkeley Labs. It has an Environmental Energy Technologies Division:
Advanced Energy Technologies
Research on batteries, fuel cells, cleaner combustion, and physical and chemical applications.
Atmospheric Sciences
Links to research on climate, regional and urban air quality, and modeling studies.
Buildings Energy Efficiency
Find out more about EETD’s work on energy-efficient lighting, windows, roofs, software, and building systems.
Energy Analysis
EETD conducts research on both U.S. and international energy issues—policy, efficient purchasing, electricity markets, energy use of buildings, industry, and transportation.
Indoor & Outdoor Environmental Quality
Ventilation, indoor air quality, assessing pollutant exposures and risk, and reducing the chemical and biological attack threat to buildings.
The Energy Analysis program and others includes working with China and other governments.
The Helios Project is also there, working on new technology photovoltaics (solar cells) and cellulosic biofuels.
Now a blog at the American Association for the Advancement of Science site predicts that the highly respected John Holdren, recently president of AAAS, head of Woods Hole Research Center, will be named science adviser.
Search on this blog, to find more of what John Holdren says.
To get some idea what Holdren sees as important for scientists to focus on, go to his plenary address to the AAAS meeting in San Francisco in 2007.
It looks like President elect Obama is serious about addressing climate change.
This year I’ve been considering what climate change work I want to do, what to focus on, what new projects to take on.
That introspection is not the only reason I stopped posting. This year, many I know died, from some I barely knew, to those I knew well, and loved. Some deaths were expected, or not unexpected, while a couple were a shock.
Here’s to Pat and Alex, Monte and Norval, Carol and Carla, Jeanne and Bob, Bernie and Ros, and all the rest.
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