Author: Budd Titlow

BS, Biology-Chemistry, Florida State University, 1970 MS, Wildlife Ecology-Fisheries Science, Virginia Tech, 1973 btitlow@aol.com / www.agpix.com/titlow / www.buddtitlow.com For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place within nature’s beauty, before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. Protecting the Planet, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental champions among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — Coming Full Circle — provides the answers we all seek and need. Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.

The Hockey Stick Controversy

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

The “Hockey Stick Controversy” was an offshoot of a graph developed in 1998 that clearly showed almost a millennium’s worth (Year 1000 to Year 1900) of steady, but slowly declining global temperatures followed by radical increases in temperatures beginning in 1900’s and extending into the early 2000’s. The shape of this graph looked like a hockey stick with a long and relatively straight handle ending in a sharply angled, short blade. The source of the data used to construct this graph led to a bitter debate between Climate Change scientists who were primarily involved with the IPCC and deniers mainly associated with the oil and gas lobby.

In 1998 and 1999, Michael E. Mann (University of Virginia), Raymond S. Bradley (University of Massachusetts – Amherst), and Malcolm K. Hughes (University of Arizona) produced MBH98 (based on the last initials of the three authors combined with the year), and then a modified MBH99—as the first eigenvector-based Climate Field Reconstructions (CFRs). MBH98 was created using temperature data from the recent past coupled with paleoclimatic datasets—such as those from tree rings, ice cores, and coral sections—that date back to the Year 1400. MBH99 then modified the research trio’s original graph by going back even further to the Year 1000 and thus incorporating an entire millennium’s worth of climate information.

Climatologist Jerry Mahlman then coined the term hockey stick to succinctly describe the pattern that the graph showed.Soon afterward, the “Hockey Stick Graph” was elevated to iconic status for climate believers and a bulls-eye for climate deniers.

Since MBH99 was first produced, more than two dozen additional Climate Field Reconstructions (CFR’s)—using various statistical methods and combinations of proxy records—have supported the broad consensus of Global Warming shown in the original “Hockey Stick Graph” with some variations in how flat the pre-20^th Century shaft appears. The 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report cited 14 reconstructions, 10 of which covered 1,000 years or longer, to support its strengthened conclusion it was likely that Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the 20^th Century were the highest in at least the past 1,300 years.Arguments over the reconstructions have been taken up by the fossil fuel industry lobbying groups that are attempting to cast doubt on Climate Change.

Climate Change skeptics often cite the “Little Ice Age” and “Medieval Warming Period” as pieces of evidence not reflected in the “Hockey Stick Graph”, yet these extremes are examples of regional, not global, phenomena. “From an intellectual point of view, these contrarians are pathetic, because there’s no scientific validity to their arguments whatsoever,” says Michael Mann. “But they’re very skilled at deducing what sorts of disingenuous arguments and untruths are likely to be believable to the public that doesn’t know better.”

Michael Mann—Theorist / Communicator

In the “olden days” (i.e., the Sixties), if you really wanted to put someone down, one of the ways you could do it was by calling him a “hockey puck”. But how about living with a situation where every time someone says your name, many people conjure up visions of a “hockey stick”? Well, since 1998, that’s what Professor Michael Mann has been living with. Although he probably doesn’t think of it in a negative context. You see, Dr. Mann was the scientist primarily responsible for what is known as the “Hockey Stick Graph” which dramatically and conclusively shows that today’s Climate Change is not a long-term cyclical event.

Michael E. Mann was born in 1965 in Amherst, Massachusetts where his father was a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Massachusetts. He received his undergraduate degrees in Physics and Applied Math from the University of California at Berkeley, an MS degree in Physics from Yale University, and a PhD in Geology & Geophysics from Yale University. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State University where he also serves as director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC). His present research focus involves the use of theoretical models and observational data to better understand Earth’s climate system.

Mann was a Lead Author on the Observed Climate Variability and Change chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Scientific Assessment Report in 2001 and was organizing committee chair for the National Academy of Sciences Frontiers of Science in 2003. He has received a number of honors and awards including NOAA’s outstanding publication award in 2002 and selection by Scientific American as one of the fifty leading visionaries in science and technology in 2002. He contributed, with other IPCC authors, to the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

The author of more than 190 peer-reviewed and edited publications, Mann has published two books including Dire Predictions: Understanding Climate Change and The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines. He is also a co-founder of the award-winning science website RealClimate.org.

Okay, so let’s get back to this hockey stick controversy—specifically Mann’s involvement with it. To begin with, his innovative research helped recreate the Earth’s historical temperature record and separate the noise of natural weather fluctuations from the steady signal of real climate change. This led Mann and his co-researchers to produce the “hockey stick graph” in 1998 which has since played a significant role in the development of the overwhelming scientific consensus that the planet is warming and human activities are responsible.

Since then, Mann—an affable scientist—has been dragged into the fray by diehard Climate Change deniers. He was a central figure in the trumped-up “Climategate” scandal—that we discussed in Part Three “—accused with other scientists of fraud by conservative bloggers and pundits before being vindicated by eight separate independent investigations. He was later the subject of an “academic witch-hunt” by former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli until a circuit court judge ruled that Cuccinelli had provided no “objective basis” for his crusade.

But if Mann began as an unwilling combatant in the public debate, he has since become a fierce defender of scientific discourse. He’s currently suing for defamation the National Review, right-wing columnist Mark Steyn, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)—a libertarian think tank. The Washington Post has dubbed CEI “a factory for global warming skepticism” that has received funding from ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, and Arch Coal—among others.

Mann laments the fact that climate naysayers are still running around all over the place. He staunchly believes that if the public had a better grasp of how science works, there would be no climate “skepticism”. They would understand that climatology is based on the same “scientific method” as many other fields of endeavor. But he also understands that much of the negative flashback is being stoked by the fossil fuel industry and their ham-fisted cohorts.

In a March 28, 2016 posting on the HuffPost Green’s web site, Mann wrote this about fossil fuel companies misleading the public and policymakers about the risks of their products for decades: “As early as the late 1970s, executives at fossil fuel companies were well aware that burning oil, gas and coal could cause irreversible and dangerous climate change. Indeed, as early as 1981, Exxon-Mobil was weighing whether or not to develop carbon-intense gas reserves off the coast of Indonesia because of the climate risks associated with the project.”

Mann then continued with his indictment by writing that Exxon-Mobil and other fossil fuel companies chose to suppress what its own scientists knew. “From 1979 to 1983, the American Petroleum Institute operated a scientific task force to study climate change. According to a researcher who worked on the project, it was taken out of scientists’ hands and quickly buried—and forgotten—until reporters rediscovered it just last year.”

In concluding his piece, Mann once again defended the veracity of his “hockey stick graph” this way: “Our key finding, that the recent warming trend is unprecedented over at least the past 1000 years, has not only been overwhelmingly affirmed by more than a dozen subsequent studies, but has been vastly strengthened. There is now widespread consensus in the scientific community that recent warmth is unprecedented over an even longer time frame—for the full story behind fossil fuel industry-funded attacks on me and the hockey stick, read my books.”

Author’s bio: For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America — provides the answers we all seek and need. Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.

James Balog and Chasing Ice

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

In the spring of 2005, acclaimed environmental photographer James Balog headed to the Arctic on a tricky assignment for National Geographic: to capture images to help tell the story of the Earth’s changing climate. Even with a scientific upbringing, Balog had been a skeptic about Climate Change. But that first trip north opened his eyes to one of the biggest stories in human history and sparked a challenge within him that would put his career and his very well-being at risk.

***James Balog with icebergs at Ilulissat Isfjord, UNESCO World Heritage site.***

Chasing Ice is the story of Balog’s mission to change the tide of history by gathering undeniable evidence of our changing planet. Within months of that first trip to Iceland, the photographer conceived the boldest expedition of his life: “The Extreme Ice Survey”. With a band of young adventurers in tow, Mr. Balog began deploying revolutionary time-lapse cameras across the brutal Arctic to capture a multi-year record of the world’s changing glaciers.

As the Climate Change debate polarized America and the intensity of natural disasters ramped up globally, Balog found himself at the end of his tether. Battling untested technology in subzero conditions, he came face to face with his own mortality. In the end result, Balog’s hauntingly beautiful videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate. Chasing Ice depicts a photographer trying to deliver evidence and hope to our carbon-powered planet.

On a personal note, our first viewing of Chasing Ice left us mesmerized, exhausted, and enraged. At the conclusion of Mr. Balog’s questions and answers, the entire audience of 500 people instinctively rose as one in a show of support for the film’s dramatic message and the man who had risked so much to put it together. We believe that it’s impossible to watch Chasing Ice and come away still doubting that Climate Change is really happening.

James Balog—Explorer / Communicator

James Balog has given a visual, both beautiful and devastating, to Climate Change. He squeezed in an interview before his trip to touch the glaciers of Mount Kilimanjaro—a trip he had been anticipating and planning for fifteen years. He was in a race against time to visit this glacier, a recurring theme for him: the frozen subject matter of his “Extreme Ice Survey” (EIS) keeps disappearing. He has devoted his recent work to capturing these glaciers before they melt away permanently.

Balog is the Founder and Director of Earth Vision Institute, National Geographic Photographer and Geomorphologist, and also Founder of the EIS which is the most wide-ranging, ground-based, photographic study of glaciers ever conducted. He has been photographing the Anthropocene “since 20 years before it was given a name.”

The immediate catalyst that squelched Balog’s skepticism about Climate Change was the realization that there were concrete measurements of ancient climates trapped in the ice cores of Greenland and Anarctica. These cores held an actual empirical record of how the atmosphere had changed. “The climate change story was not about computer models. When I understood it to be an empirical science, an actual tangible collection of evidence, that is what really got me fired up.”The final catalyst for him was an article he read fifteen years ago about the vanishing snows of Kilimanjaro.This sparked his enthusiasm and built his anticipation of finally seeing the glaciers that have receded significantly since he read that article.

The EIS captured shots of 23 glaciers in Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland, Canada, Austria, Alaska and the Rocky Mountains of the US. Through the time-lapse photography, Balog captured images of ninety-five percent of the glaciers in the world retreating or shrinking, since the project began in 2007. The documentary Chasing Ice features this phenomenon, and won the 2012 award for Excellence in Cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival. It was also shortlisted for the 2013 Academy Awards and featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS television networks.

Balog’s cameras make the invisible visible, and if seeing is believing, the images Balog has collected prove that we are losing glaciers permanently and rapidly. The loss of this frozen ice is turning into sea level rise, directly attributing to precipitation and changing temperature patterns. Balog says there is no significant scientific dispute about this, “it’s been observed, it’s measured, it’s bomb-proof information”. He refers to these glacial retreats as “the canaries in the coalmine”, indicating that their rapid melting should be setting off warning bells for the world.

In Chasing Ice, Balog’s resiliency and determination for the importance of capturing glacial retreat is highlighted by his persistence in the research despite a serious knee injury and several surgeries. When asked why he said, “We are fundamentally a species that works in favor of its survival—we self-propagate. The more emotional and intellectual understanding we have of how rapidly the world is shifting around us, the more likely we are to take the actions necessary to alter course.”

We need a paradigm shift—a demand for the technological and political will to help us incrementally peel away from fossil fuel use where we can. According to Balog, for change to begin happening, we need to take all of the different things that people know how to do and apply them to climate change. “If everybody does a piece of that activity -whether it is to engineer wind turbines, put photovoltaics on the roof of your house, caulk your windows, put a smart thermometer in your house, change to a different car, or go to Washington and try to influence that crazy policy machine- it all keeps rippling out. Eventually it makes a new story that society absorbs and understands,” he says. This story eventually becomes the new paradigm and creates a new future.

Solar and Wind Take Flight

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

Despite the onset of the Reagan backlash, the early 1980’s saw several significant renewable energy and conservation related events. These included the completion of the Solar One Project in the Mojave Desert just east of Barstow, CA. Designed by a team of scientists from the Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California; Southern California Edison; the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power; and the California Energy Commission; Solar One was a pilot solar-thermal project that provided the first test of a large-scale solar tower plant.

Prototype of a large-scale solar farm

The plant’s method of collecting energy was based on concentrating the sun’s energy onto a common focal point to produce the heat needed to run a steam turbine generator. It had hundreds of large mirror assemblies, or heliostats, that tracked the sun and reflected the solar energy onto a tower where a black receiver absorbed the heat. High-temperature heat transfer fluid was then used to carry the energy to a boiler on the ground where the steam was used to spin a series of turbines—much like a traditional power plant.

The first half of the Reagan “Decade of Decadence” hit another positive note when the US wind energy industry spun into existence with 17,000 turbines centered primarily in California. Danish companies—including Kuriant, Vestas, Nordtank, and Bonus—crafted most of the world’s first aeolian units including those installed in the US. Unfortunately, the wind industry in the US soon fell prey to a combination of bad technology and lackadaisical policy.

The first wind farm in US history—consisting of twenty 30 kilowatt (kW) turbines—was constructed on Crotched Mountain in New Hampshire in 1981. The project was deemed a failure due to turbine breakdowns and overestimation of wind power as a reliable energy source. Then in 1985, a wind farm in California—that was powering 250,000 homes—was determined to be inadequate because of the limited maximum capacity of its turbines. Meanwhile throughout the decade, US DOE funding for wind power research and development was experiencing a decline—reaching a low point in 1989.

Crotched Mountain Wind Farm in New Hampshire

Author’s bio:For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America — provides the answers we all seek and need.Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.

Dawn of the Internet and The Global Communication Age

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

The late 1990’s saw the blossoming of a new weapon in the arsenal of environmental activists. The full-on advent of the Internet opened the world of cyberspace to information dissemination and recruitment of new members. Suddenly almost every corner of the world—no matter how remote—was accessible to open communication with the rest of the world. Plus every piece of information ever produced on the planet could now be transferred to other locations in less than a blink of eye. Yes, the onset of the information age had started in full tilt and our world would never be the same again!

While he didn’t really invent the Internet—as many have jokingly claimed—Clinton’s Vice President Al Gore has consistently been one of the world’s most resourceful politicians in using the Internet for dissemination of information about Climate Change and other significant environmental issues. In a 1997 letter to the US State Department under the heading Environmental Diplomacy: The Environment and US Foreign Policy, Gore provided this poignantly insightful assessment of global environmental conditions:

“Environmental problems such as global Climate Change, ozone depletion, ocean and air pollution, and resource degradation—compounded by an expanding world population —respect no borders and threaten the health, prosperity, and jobs of all Americans. All the missiles and artillery in our arsenal will not be able to protect our people from rising sea levels, poisoned air, or foods laced with pesticides. Our efforts to promote democracy, free trade, and stability in the world will fall short unless people have a livable environment. We have an enormous stake in the management of the world’s resources. Demand for timber in Japan means trees fall in the US. Greenhouse gas emissions anywhere in the world threaten coastal communities in Florida. A nuclear accident in the Ukraine kills for generations. Our children’s future is inextricably linked to our ability to manage earth’s air, water, and wildlife today.”

Author’s bio: For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America — provides the answers we all seek and need.Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.

REVEREND SALLY BINGHAM

Faith-Based Groups Jump on the Climate Change Bandwagon

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

In 1998 at Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco, California, Reverend Sally Bingham founded the Interfaith Power & Light (IPL)—a staunchly environmental, faith-based organization. IPL now has affiliates in 40 states, involving a total of 18,000 congregations. The mission of IPL’s campaign is to be faithful stewards of Creation by responding to Global Warming through the promotion of energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy. Their goals are protecting the Earth’s ecosystems, safeguarding the health of all Creation, and ensuring sufficient, sustainable energy for all.

NEW YORK, NY – MAY 29: Reverend Sally Bingham attends The National Audubon Society 10th Anniversary Women in Conservation Luncheon on May 29, 2013 in New York, United States. (Photo by Ben Gabbe/Getty Images)

In her capacity as President of IPL, Reverend Bingham has brought widespread attention to the link between religious faith and the environment through her work on The Regeneration Project and the IPL Campaign. As one of the first faith leaders to fully recognize Global Warming as a core moral issue, she has mobilized thousands of religious people to put their faith into action through energy stewardship.

In her leadership role at IPL, Reverend Bingham has sparked a growing crescendo of God’s mandate to humans to be faithful stewards of Creation.

In her leadership role at IPL, Reverend Bingham has sparked a growing crescendo of God’s mandate to humans to be faithful stewards of Creation.“Every person of faith should become aware of their moral responsibility to be a steward of Creation. God put Adam in the garden to till and to keep (Genesis). Every mainstream religion has a mandate to care for Creation. Sometimes [followers] have not thought about it or they have not addressed it, and then they see an opportunity to really be faithful stewards of Creation and they join our program,” she explained in an interview.

Bingham went on to say, “People who sit in houses of worship and say they love God and their neighbors have a particular obligation to take care of the Earth and each other. If you sit in a pew on Sunday and say you love God and you love your neighbor, how can you not be taking care of your neighbor’s air and water? They are now starting to recognize that responsibility and act.”

That responsibility is deeply connected to her knowledge that Climate Change is harming the people of the world, and her faith mandates a responsibility to care for them. “[Climate Change] affects every single aspect of life, affects every living thing—starting with the rising sea, the temperature change, the number of long heat days that are causing people to die…the fact that the droughts are more extreme and are disrupting crops…the fact that people are starving because they can’t grow food in an area that has not had any rain in five years…that the storms that are so much more severe than they ever were and are killing people and destroying properties,” says Reverend Bingham with a note of sadness in her voice. She continues, “It is happening because the climate is changing. Why is the climate changing? Because we are putting too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.”

One poignant action that she hopes congregations will do is to join the IPL campaign. The IPL is a growing national movement that is completely interfaith, as the name implies. The campaign has brought massive growth and awareness to religious people about their responsibility to protect the climate. IPL began with an episcopal church in the diocese of California asking its congregations to buy renewable energy for their electricity. Those congregations served as examples to their communities and it grew rapidly from there.

IPL began with an episcopal church in the diocese of California asking its congregations to buy renewable energy for their electricity.

Prior to COP21 in Paris, IPL requested its members to take the Paris Pledge to show the world that the faith community in the United States is committed to cutting emissions, creating jobs, and saving money at the same time. Indeed, IPL took an eleven foot long scroll with 4,500 congregations and individual households who pledged to cut their carbon emissions in half by 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2050.

Reverend Bingham knows as well as anyone that the environment has become a political issue. Bingham says, “It is almost universal that if you are a Democrat you are an environmentalist and if you are a Republican you are not. That unfortunately is a big stumbling block for the issue. We don’t believe in our organization that the environment is a political issue, we see it is as an issue of science but in the big picture, it is a moral issue. Where are our values, what do we care about, what is our responsibility to the future and it’s about how to leave this world to come back to our moral integrity.”

While Reverend Bingham does not offer solutions for solving the politicization of environmental issues, she is enthusiastic about the willingness to think differently on the issues in the religious community. The majority of the people she speaks with are in support of her initiatives, though on occasion she receives push back. “What we have come up against occasionally because our focus has been on Climate Change is that God would never allow anything bad to happen to Creation. And then we have to do some explanation about how God has given us Free Choice and some of our choices have been harmful to Creation. Mostly we get the comment that I had never thought about like that before,” she offers.Religiously, she thinks people are really on board with human beings as the species put on planet to keep it safe and healthy for not only ourselves, but the people that come after us. “There are very few people that would argue with that,” Reverend Bingham asserts.

Pope Francis’ message in his 2015 “Environmental Encyclical” saying, similarly, that this is about the moral values that every person of integrity needs to have. His Encyclical was not just for Roman Catholics it was for people that have a conscious. Through IPL, Reverend Bingham has been teaching this for over fifteen years, “and now to have somebody as well known, as famous and as popular as Pope Francis to come out and say the same thing, it has been hugely helpful to our movement” explains Bingham. This message is being received extremely enthusiastically, and people see participation in the IPL program as an opportunity to be faithful stewards of Creation.

Reverend Bingham’s hope for our future comes from the fact that more and more people are involved and concerned. She believes we are almost a critical mass and soon things will change for the better. “We stopped smoking almost overnight when enough people were touched by disease due to cigarettes. We are close to enough people being harmed by climate change now that it can no longer be denied. People of faith are taking a leading role and once the moral and religious leaders are involved and speaking out the movement will succeed.”

Author’s bio:For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America — provides the answers we all seek and need.Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.

Paul Hawken, Natural Capitalism, and Project Drawdown

Paul Hawken—Innovator / Visionary

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

When it comes down to personal ingenuity and plans for solving Climate Change, one man stands head and shoulders above all. Entrepreneur Paul Hawken has parlayed a financial empire built on selling garden supplies and materials—through the once world-famous Smith & Hawken Company which he co-founded—into “Project Drawdown”, the world’s most ambitious undertaking for finding and testing solutions to our climate dilemma.

Let’s step back for a moment now and take a closer look at this Climate Change visionary’s background. In 1966, Hawken took over a small retail store in the City of Boston in 1966 called Erewhon (after Samuel Butler’s 1872 utopian novel) and turned it into the Erewhon Trading Company, a natural-foods wholesaler. Next with Dave Smith, he co-founded the Smith & Hawken Garden Supply Company in 1979—a retail and catalog business.

Next with Dave Smith, Paul Hawken co-founded the Smith & Hawken Garden Supply Company in 1979—a retail and catalog business.

In 1999, Hawken co-authored a book with Amory and Hunter Lovins entitled, Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution. Natural Capitalism—which has been translated into 26 languages—popularized the idea that Earth’s natural resources should be considered as “natural capital” since they provide “ecosystem services” from which humans derive such benefits as clean water and waste decomposition. Then in 2008, he co-founded Biomimicry Technologies with biologist Janine Benyus, the author of Biomimicry, Innovation Inspired by Nature.

In 2007, Viking Press published Hawken’s New York Times bestseller, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. The book is about the many non-profit groups and community organizations, dedicated to many different causes, which Hawken calls the “environmental and social justice movement”.

In an interview with us, Hawken provides this elaboration: “Blessed Unrest describes what I call humanity’s immune response to ecological degradation, economic disease, and political corruption. All three are intimately intertwined with Global Warming. When I was doing the initial research [for this book], our institute was cataloging the more than 2,000 different types of non-profit organizations in the world according to their purpose, and month after month we saw the climate movement emerge, grow, and differentiate.”

Now we arrive at Hawken’s piece de resistance: His “Project Drawdown” is aimed at reducing—not just stabilizing—Greenhouse Gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere in order to reverse rising global temperatures. “Drawdown” grew out of Hawken’s frustration with actionable, scalable solutions that would make a meaningful dent in the atmosphere’s growing accumulation of GHG. As he saw it, the solutions that had been put forward over the years were all seemingly out of reach—involving either ungodly amounts of solar and wind energy or the mass adoption of futuristic, unproven technologies.

In a conversation with GreenBiz’s Joel Makower, Hawken recalled, “It made me feel like this is intractable, that it requires such Promethean work by such mammoth institutions—with policy changes that are more than structural,” Hawken recalled. “It made me feel like it wasn’t possible to address Climate Change, rather than giving me hope.” In Climate Change activist Bill McKibben’s seminal 2012 Rolling Stonearticle entitled Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math, Hawken asked, “Why aren’t we doing the math on the solutions? Somebody should come up with a list and see what it requires so you get to drawdown.”

In 2013, Hawken began teaching at San Francisco’s Presidio Graduate School, alongside climate activist and entrepreneur Amanda Joy Ravenhill. “One day we were just riffing, and we started talking about drawdown and we said, ‘Let’s do it. No one else is doing it,” Hawken recounted. Today, Ravenhill is “Project Drawdown’s” Executive Director and—with Hawken—the project book’s co-editor. Together, the two recruited more than 80 advisors, partners, scientists, government agencies, and participating universities—plus another 200 graduate students—to work on the project.

Hawken further described his “Project Drawdown” process in his February 2016 responses to our interview questions: “[In Project Drawdown] we are filling this void by doing the math on the atmospheric and financial impacts of state-of-the-shelf solutions if deployed globally and at scale over the next 30 years. State-of-the-shelf refers to techniques that are widely practiced, commonly available, economically viable and scientifically valid.”

He continued: “In Drawdown we identify solutions that are already in place. But we also describe what we call ‘coming attractions,’ solutions so new and incipient that we cannot as yet fully measure and map their impact. Here we see genius and brilliance and humanity at its best.”

True to Hawken’s nature—he’s not likely to be satisfied with simply creating a book, however ambitious and meticulously detailed. Instead, “Project Drawdown’s” plans extend in several directions: The solutions and calculations will be contained in a publicly available database—along with the means for individuals and groups to create customized applications. There are also plans for accompanying educational curricula developed by the National Science Foundation. And possibly some media projects based on the work.

For our interview, Hawken provided the following conclusions: “There are many reasons to believe [that Climate Change can be solved]. In “Drawdown”, we identify over 100 of the most substantive solutions that are in place and expanding globally. We see in our models [that] the moment in time when Greenhouse Gases decline on a year-to-year basis in the upper atmosphere is possible within three decades. “Drawdown” is the only goal that makes sense for humanity. And it is eminently doable. By collectively drawing carbon down, we lift up all of life.”

As author Makower concludes in his October 2014 GreenBiz article: “It’s easy, in today’s divisive and toxic political environment, to view “Project Drawdown” as too good to be true—a quixotic quest for an unattainable goal. But there’s something simple and sane about the project’s collective ingredients: unabashed optimism tempered by sharp-pencil calculations, a bold goal undergirded by scientific pragmatism, immediacy coupled with a 30-year horizon, all leveraging the wisdom of a very smart crowd.”

Author’s bio:For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America — provides the answers we all seek and need.Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.

The Environmental Justice Movement

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

One other notable environmental/social achievement of President Clinton is directly related—by global extension—to the developed nations versus developing nations controversy that is a significant component of today’s Climate Change debate. By Executive Order in 1994, Clinton decreed that “each Federal agency shall make achieving environmental justice part of its mission.”

The roots of the Environmental Justice Movement—that Clinton referenced in his decree —can be traced back to Warren County, North Carolina in 1982. With a predominant African-American population, this mostly poor rural county was selected as a site for a polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) landfill that handled some of the deadliest carcinogens ever produced by man. More than 500 people were arrested when the community marched in protest.

While their efforts to stop the landfill failed, these demonstrators succeeded in bringing the issue of environmental racism to the forefront of the American public. Their claims emphasized that environmental organizations were run by rich, white people advocating for protection of pristine natural resources while ignoring the conditions of the poor minority populations of the nation.

The prevailing attitude was that natural resources were more important than the ethnic minority populations of the US.

The prevailing attitude was that natural resources were more important than the ethnic minority populations of the US. As a result, many of our nation’s most vile waste products—including radioactive materials—were being deposited in areas predominantly occupied by poor minority homeowners. The driving theory in this disgraceful practice was that there would be less chance of organized opposition since the residents were less likely to be aware of what was happening to their communities.

Robert Bullard—Originator / Author

Robert Bullard, often called the “Father of Environmental Justice”, uses his expertise and media savvy to garner attention for communities burdened with environmental hazards. He has dedicated his career to protecting minority and low-income communities from becoming toxic pollution dump sites. Bullard sees environmental justice issues at the heart of everything, in his words, “The right to vote is a basic right, but if you can’t breathe and your health is impaired and you can’t get to the polls, then what does it matter?”

Dr. Robert Bullard is often called the “Father of Environmental Justice Movement”.

Professor Bullard voiced a loud and clear opinion about the disproportionate number of landfills that were cited near predominantly black communities throughout the South, saying “Just because you are poor, just because you live physically on the wrong ‘side of the tracks’ doesn’t mean that you should be dumped on.” His voice was heard and the implementation of the environmental justice movement occurred.

In 1994, President Bill Clinton summoned Dr. Bullard to the White House to witness the signing of an executive order that would require the federal government to consider the environmental impact on low-income communities before implementing policies. Bullard co-wrote a report titled Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty, 1987-2007: Grassroots Struggles to Dismantle Environmental Racism which prompted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to state, “The EPA is committed to delivering a healthy environment for all Americans and is making significant strides in addressing environmental justice concerns.”

Robert Bullard grew up in Elba, Alabama, a small town that kept him closely acquainted with the civil rights movement, as did his parents, activists for the movement. He earned an undergraduate degree in government from Alabama A&M, a historically black university, and subsequently a Master’s degree in Sociology from Atlanta University. Two years after completing a sociology Ph.D. from Iowa State University, he began a study to document environmental discrimination under the Civil Rights Act. Bullard found that, despite a demographic of only 25% African American in Houston, 100% of the city’s solid waste sites, 75% of the privately owned landfills and 75% of the city-owned incinerators were located in black neighborhoods. Since the city of Houston did not have zoning at this time, he knew that individuals in government orchestrated these sitings. This hooked him into the cause.

Dr. Bullard worked his way through academia, holding research positions and professorships at a number of universities in Texas, Tennessee, California among others. He currently holds a position as Dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas. As with many of our Climate Change Heroes, Bullard works in academia, but turns his attention and voice to political matters and advocates vociferously for his cause.

Bullard’s book, Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality was the first tome on environmental justice issues. Bullard believes that sustainability cannot exist without justice. As he puts it, “This whole question of environment, economics, and equity is a three-legged stool. If the third leg of that stool is dealt with as an afterthought, that stool won’t stand. The equity components have to be given equal weight.” To him, part of the solution is to pair mainstream environmental groups with environmental-justice groups that have the ability to mobilize large numbers of constituents. This type of grassroots movement will get people marching and filling up courtrooms and city council meetings to kick off conversations about environmental movement. He believes that reality will force collaboration and that the awareness that our actions in the developed world have impacts that are not isolated to just us. While this is a step in the right direction, we need to move it to another level of action and policy and apply the framework that environmental justice has laid out to be used across developing countries.

Robert Bullard has received countless awards, including: The Grio’s 100 black history makers in the making, Planet Harmony’s African American Green Hero, and Newsweek’s top Environmental Leaders of the Century. In 2013, he was the first African American to win the Sierra Club John Muir Award, and in 2014 the Club named its new Environmental Justice Award after Dr. Bullard.

Author’s bio:For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America — provides the answers we all seek and need.Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.

The Clinton Presidency—High Hopes Dashed

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

In November 1992, America elected President William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton – the first democratic leader of the free world in 12 years and most environmentalists breathed a long, deep sigh of relief. Personally, since I (Budd) was still making a living as an environmental consultant, I indeed felt like a sweet spring wind had just swooshed across the American landscape. Things surely had to get better now that a left-leaning Democrat was back in the White House.

As president, Clinton had many similarities with his Democratic predecessor—Jimmy Carter from the late 1970’s. He had a strong southern heritage, a gubernatorial background, status as a Washington outsider, and a brilliant mind. In fact, Clinton was imbued with a skill that Carter didn’t possess. He was a great communicator—the Democratic equivalent of Ronald Reagan—with the charisma and savvy to be one of America’s greatest presidents. But alas Clinton fell victim to the same extreme weakness that has plagued so many other great—as well as not so great—male world leaders.

Alas President Bill Clinton fell victim to the same extreme weakness that has plagued so many other great—as well as not so great—male world leaders.

Unfortunately, one thing Clinton didn’t share was Carter’s high moral ground. He did much more than “lust in his heart after the fairer sex”—President Carter’s famous quote about how he experienced sexual fantasies. In fact, it would have been interesting to see exactly how much Clinton could have accomplished in the environmental—as well as other arenas—if he had not fallen prey to the feminine charms of a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky.

From a Climate Change perspective when he first took office, Clinton had an outspoken commitment to reduce CO₂ and other GHG emissions. He proclaimed that Climate Change was a global strategic threat that required bold leadership. In his first Earth Day address, Clinton announced that he would sign the Biodiversity Treaty and also promised to reduce GHG emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000, both actions that were embarrassingly rejected by President H. W. Bush at the 1992 Rio Earth. Unfortunately, when Clinton left office, GHG emissions were nowhere near the 1990 levels that he promised.

In general, during the Clinton administration, many environmental activists began to be known as “Lite Greens”—they wanted to protect the environment, but not when it would cause any downgrading of their own personal quality of life.While definitely possessing the knowledge base and passion for increasing environmental protection, Clinton immersed himself in the belief that the economy had to come first, above all else. This was based on his perception that an affluent, acquisitive society was what the American people wanted.

Despite his economic proclivities, Clinton did manage to accomplish some significant natural resource gains—especially during his last years in office. He use the Antiquities Act of 1906 to make more than 3 million acres of federal land off-limits to development by declaring them national monuments. These areas included Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante, Arizona’s Grand-Canyon-Parashant, and California’s Pinnacles. He also used his executive power to declare one third of our national forestland—58 million acres in 39 states—off-limits to road building, logging, and oil and gas exploration.

Clinton also took on a variety of commercially complex issues, including restoring the hydrology of the Everglades, restricting flights over the Grand Canyon, banning snowmobiling in national parks, and fighting off congressional attempts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. In addition, he made headway in so-called brown issues—including approving new clean air standards for soot and smog, cleaning up 515 Superfund sites (more than three times as many as the previous two administrations), doubling the number of chemicals that industry must report to communities through right to know laws, and setting tough new standards for reducing sulfur levels in gasoline. His administration also took measurable action to protect the nation’s waterways and water quality by launching the Clean Water Action Plan, strengthening the Safe Drinking Water Act, and permanently barring new oil leasing in national marine sanctuaries.

But some of Clinton’s most significant environmental accomplishments came not in the form of what he achieved, but what he staved off. He faced an aggressive and hostile Congress that worked consistently to dismantle fundamental environmental laws such as the Endangered Species Act and to frustrate the ability of agencies such as the EPA to carry out their regulatory work. Clinton consistently resisted these attacks by vetoing numerous anti-environmental bills, including the package of legislation that was part of the 1995 Congressional leadership’s “Contract with America.”

Soon after taking office, Clinton shifted the bulk of his administration’s environmental watchdog duties onto his Vice President, Al Gore.

Soon after taking office, Clinton shifted the bulk of his administration’s environmental watchdog duties onto his Vice President, Al Gore. A staunch conservationist, Senator Gore authored the 1992 best-seller, Earth in the Balance, that called for mandating much tougher environmental laws and regulations. After leaving office, Gore also became one of our Climate Change Heroes—most notably because of his 2006 documentary film and later book entitled, An Inconvenient Truth. We will talk much more about Mr. Gore—and his substantial influence on the Climate Change arena—later in this chapter plus a detailed biography in Part Four.

Author’s bio:For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America — provides the answers we all seek and need.Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.

The Clean Air Act—Regulatory Ambrosia for Climate Change?

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

From a federal regulatory standpoint, one piece of legislation—the Clean Air Act (CAA) —stands paramount to resolving the Climate Change crisis, at least here in the US. So let’s take a look at this critical legislation in terms of its history of use and effectiveness. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised to read that the CAA has really done its job in terms of protecting the health and environmental quality of the American public.

When Congress originally passed the CAA in 1970, it gave the US EPA the responsibility of protecting the American people whenever scientific studies show that new air pollutants threaten our health or environment. In 1990, the CAA was revised and signed into law by President George H. W. Bush. The strong bipartisan support this action received clearly demonstrated that clean air and less pollution were goals shared by Republicans and Democrats alike.

In summary, during its more than forty-five year history, the CAA has:

Cut ground ozone—a dangerous component of smog—by more than 25 percent since 1980.
Reduced mercury emissions by 45 percent since 1990.
Reduced the main pollutants that contribute to acid rain—sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide—by 71 percent and 46 percent, respectively, since 1980.
Phased out the production and use of chemicals that contribute to the hole in the ozone layer.
Reduced the lead content in gasoline, which has cut lead air pollution by 92 percent since 1980.

Pretty impressive stuff—right? Now here’s the essential part of the CAA as it applies to our current Climate Change situation: In the final analysis, the US EPA is required to regulate the emission of pollutants that “endanger public health and welfare”. In 2007, the US Supreme Court in a landmark decision (Massachusetts v. EPA) ruled that Global Warming emissions—caused by GHG—are air pollutants and should be subject to EPA regulation under the CAA.

Then in 2009, the EPA released its scientific findings, which concluded that Global Warming emissions present a danger to public health—now known as the endangerment finding. Citing extensive scientific research, the EPA found that Global Warming pollution is connected with:

Hotter, longer heat waves that threaten the health of the sick, poor, and elderly.
Increases in ground-level ozone pollution, linked to asthma and other respiratory ailments.
Extreme weather events that can lead to deaths, injuries, and stress-related illnesses.

Based on this information, it seems quite clear that the US EPA—operating under the CAA—has all the regulatory authority it needs to immediately and forcefully control the emission of various sources of GHG. Here’s how the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) summarized this situation: “It is time for our nation’s polluters to finally be held accountable for their harmful emissions that contribute to Climate Change. … In passing the CAA, Congress clearly intended it to serve as a living document, in order to ensure that EPA has the tools it needs to respond to new air pollution threats. The science is now clear: Global Warming pollution poses significant threats to public health and welfare, and EPA is obligated under the law to limit sources of this pollution and address the impacts of Climate Change.”

So—if all the necessary regulatory authority is in place and has been sufficiently vetted why isn’t this happening? As with anything that is mucked up with strong bureaucratic machinations and purported economic impacts, the answer has been severely complicated by political infighting.

The science is now clear: Global Warming pollution poses significant threats to public health and welfare, and EPA is obligated under the law to limit sources of this pollution and address the impacts of Climate Change.

Polluters and their allies in Congress are using every opportunity to prevent the EPA from protecting our health by reducing Global Warming emissions. Numerous members of Congress in both the Senate and the House of Representatives have announced their intention to introduce legislation that would block or delay the agency from reducing Global Warming emissions under the Clean Air Act. Some members of Congress even tried to attach bills attacking the EPA to other “must pass” legislation, such as federal spending and budget bills.

These attacks on the Clean Air Act pose a grave threat to EPA’s responsibility to protect our health and environment from the impacts of Climate Change. Some proposed legislation would delay the EPA from setting standards to limit Global Warming emissions for several years, while other bills would indefinitely block the EPA from taking any action on this issue whatsoever. Some proposals would even prohibit the EPA from doing any research or analysis on climate science in its efforts to implement the endangerment finding.

A climate change protester holds a banner reading “This Is An Emergency,” during a town hall event with former Vice President Joe Biden, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, not pictured, in Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S., on Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2019. Biden said for the first time Wednesday that President Donald Trump should be impeached. Photographer: Kate Flock/Bloomberg

In a nutshell, here’s how the NWF explains the conservative backlash to federal regulation of Climate Change:“Polluter lobbyists continue to cry foul at any mention of EPA fulfilling its obligation under the CAA with respect to Global Warming pollution. This is simply the latest in a string of red herrings that industry has raised time and again to avoid complying with laws that are essential for protecting public health. From seatbelts to catalytic converters to unleaded gasoline, industry falsely claimed that new standards would have devastating economic impacts. History has shown that these requirements have not adversely affected our economy—to the contrary, they have had substantial benefits in saving lives, improving public health, and advancing cleaner technology. It is long past time for the EPA to move forward and require the emission reductions necessary to protect America from the most severe environmental threat we have ever faced: Climate Change! ”

Author’s bio:For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America — provides the answers we all seek and need.Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.

The Climate Change Debate Takes Off (1988 – 2000)

Global Warming and the Founding of the IPCC

Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)

Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger

http://www.buddtitlow.com

Beginning in the 1980’s, the global annual mean temperature curve started to rise and climate scientists began correlating this increase with a worldwide warming trend. The media and the general public took notice and began questioning the previous prognoses of a “New Ice Age” that had been bandied about for the past few decades.

Near the end of the decade, the global temperature curve began to increase so steeply that the Global Warming Theory began to gain ground fast. Various environmental NGO’s started to advocate global environmental protection to prevent further Global Warming. The media also gained an interest in this idea of a warming atmosphere and it soon became a hot news topic that was repeated around the world. Pictures of smoke stacks were juxtaposed next to pictures of melting ice caps and severe flooding events. Soon, a complete media circus had evolved that convinced many people that we were on the verge of a significant Climate Change event that would have many long-term negative impacts on the Earth.

As an offshoot of this concern, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) formed in 1988 with a primary goal of collecting and processing Climate Change information. Consisting of more than 2,500 scientific and technical experts, the IPCC was charged with predicting the future impacts of the Greenhouse Effect according to existing climate models and literature information.

Established under the auspices of the United Nations and set up at the request of member governments, the IPCC is open to all members of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). IPCC scientists are from widely divergent research fields including climatology, ecology, economics, medicine, and oceanography.

The IPCC routinely produces Assessment Reports that support the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which is the main international treaty on the subject.The UNFCCC’s precisely-stated objective is “stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic [i.e., human-induced] interference with the climate system”.

As the internationally accepted authority on Climate Change, the IPCC produces Assessment Reports that have the agreement of leading climate scientists and the consensus of participating governments. The IPCC bases each of its Assessment Reports on the published literature—including both peer-reviewed and non peer-reviewed sources. It does not conduct any of its own original research and also does not carry out any in-house monitoring of climate events or phenomena.

Thousands of scientists and other experts—working strictly on a voluntary basis, without pay—contribute to writing and reviewing the IPCC Assessment Reports. For expediency, each reports contains a “Summary for Policymakers” which is subjected to line-by-line approval by delegates from all participating governments—typically representing more than 120 countries. The IPCC’s First Assessment Report—issued in 1990—concluded that the Earth’s temperature had risen during the past century and that human emissions of fossil fuels were likely adding to this rise.

At this juncture with the introduction of the IPCC, we should now discuss the Heartland Institute’s Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). As is obvious from its similar name and acronym, the NIPCC was created in 2003 solely to cast aspersions and doubts on the findings and reports of the legitimate climate scientists whose work is covered by the IPCC.

To be as candid as possible here, the Heartland Institute that founded the NIPCC is a non-scientific, doubt-mongering entity supported by the fossil fuel industry and the Koch Brothers—their cohorts in the not so fine art of lying. Any documents produced by the Heartland Institute and/or the NIPCC have no credibility—scientific or otherwise—beyond casting doubt.

Stephen Schneider—Climate Change Guru

One of the primary scientists on the IPCC when it first formed in 1988 was a man who made the first steadfast predictions about Global Warming back in 1976. Dr. Stephen Schneider was a recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grantand shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with his colleagues on the IPCC and former vice president Al Gore for their international research on Global Warming. Dr. Schneider was an expert adviser to every presidential administration from Nixon to Obama. He was the Melvin and Joan Lane professor for interdisciplinary environmental studies, a professor in the Department of Biology, and a senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. He was also a National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist from 1973-1996, where he co-founded the Climate Project.

Dr. Stephen Schneider was an expert adviser to every presidential administration from Nixon to Obama.

Founder and editor of Climatic Change Magazine, Professor Schneider authored or co-authored over 500 books, scientific papers, proceedings, and legislative testimonies, and edited hundreds of other books chapters, reviews, and editorials. He especially emphasized climate-driven Global Warming and its wide-ranging effects, such as a recorded rise in ocean temperatures and the increasing potency and frequency of hurricanes. He also conducted research on the near-irreversible damage of GHG on the ozone layer and theorized how a nuclear war might affect the climate.

“No one, and I mean no one, had a broader and deeper understanding of the climate issue than Stephen,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University. “More than anyone else, he helped shape the way the public and experts thought about this problem—from the basic physics of the problem, to the impact of human beings on nature’s ecosystems, to developing policy.”

Unfortunately, this Climate Change visionary died far too early— at the age of 65—from an apparent heart attack while on a flight landing in London in 2010. The Climate Change community could certainly use his bold and unflinchingly forthright leadership right now.

NASA’s James Hansen—Yes, Climate Change Is For Real! And The Deniers Respond

On the more fortunate side of the ledger, another esteemed climatologist stepped up in 1988 and made the world aware of the pending perils of Global Warming associated with Climate Change. Dr. James Hansen, National Atmospheric and Space Administration (NASA) scientist reported to Congress that Global Warming was simultaneously melting the polar ice caps and causing extreme droughts throughout the world. As a climate scientist who made a lasting impression about the potential dangerous effects that Climate Change posed for the world, Dr. Hansen is featured as one of our Climate Change Heroes.

In 1988, Dr. James Hansen—National Atmospheric and Space Administration (NASA)—scientist made the world aware of the pending perils of Global Warming associated with Climate Change.

Perfectly dove-tailing with Dr. Hansen’s testimony before Congress, 1988 featured both the highest global temperature in 130 years and the worst US droughts since the Dust Bowl Era of the 1930’s. Taken collectively, these findings did manage to give the ongoing Climate Change crisis some cache with the media and the general public. Unfortunately, the information also alerted the denier network that immediate action needed to be taken to avert the truth.

Accordingly in 1989, the fossil fuel companies and other US industries formed the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) with a mission of convincing politicians and the general public that Climate Change science was too uncertain to justify action. The GCC dissolved in 2002 due to membership loss when an IPCC Assessment Report provided massive technical information showing that Global Warming was indeed occurring.

However today—working primarily through the Heartland Institute and the pseudo-scientific NIPCC—the fossil fuel industry is still lobbying Congress that IPCC and other scientific reports showing that severe Global Warming caused by ongoing Climate Change are inconclusive and that the situation requires further study.

Author’s bio:For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America — provides the answers we all seek and need.Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.