California Green Jobs Maps Get Some Nice Press

Since I’m leaving tomorrow for Europe (yes, I’ll be offsetting my carbon…), I don’t have time for a long blog post. So check out this LA Times Article.

Back Where We Started…

…and he we go round and round.

Damn I love the Kinks.

The big news for me is that I’m no longer employed by the Environmental Defense Fund. My time there was excellent, and they are a fabulous organization doing all it can to pass comprehensive climate legislation. The Climateatlas was conceived in part to help with that specific cause, and now that I’m no longer with the company, some of you might be wondering what that may mean for this blog.

I have always felt, and continue to feel that the climate change issue is too large for most of us to perceive. The role of a geographer/geo geek like me who has invested significant time and energy into this issue is to help catalog spatial information pertinent to the issue, thereby helping to strengthen awareness and perception. As far as communication devices go, maps are pretty killer. Take the cartogram I posted a couple of weeks ago. How long did it take you to understand the two relatively complex issues it demonstrates? Not long I’ll bet.

That’s why I’ll continue to update the Climateatlas when I can (while I’m looking for new gigs and what’s next for me career-wise). I’ll keep tabs on the climate change world and will post cool maps from around the web, the blogosphere, as well as content I create myself.

Thank you for supporting my work, and I hope you keep reading this blog!

- Peter
6.4.2009

British Medical Journal: Climate Change will Affect Billions

This is a cartogram that speaks volumes.

The lead author of the report states:

The big message of this report is that climate change is a health issue affecting billions of people, not just an environmental issue about polar bears and deforestation.

But the deeper message, as the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein reported in his blog the other day, is that while America leads the world in per capita co2 emissions, the burden of climate change will fall on the global south. Not a pretty scenario.

This might be the best graphic I’ve seen that encapsulates the drivers behind climate change and the predicted mortality that could come.

California Green Jobs Map Released

Check it out: my colleagues and I have created a rather large set of green companies in California to share with the world. The methodology is a bit different from the Less Carbon More Jobs maps we created, but it does give us some sort of picture as to how California’s Global Warming Law has positioned the state for growth under a carbon dioxide cap and trade law.

This map is still a little raw. For example, it currently defaults to LA county. That’s because there’s a limit to how many points you can publish at once on a google map. Today I created some back end data that will also zoom you to whatever geography (in this case: county, congressional district, or city) you filter the map by, making the user experience a little smoother. Bear with us!

Please tell us what you think!

Scientists Map Climate and Other Human Impacts to the West Coast

Check out this study from the National Science Foundation.

I found it interesting to read the conclusions:

“Ocean management needs to move beyond single-sector management and towards comprehensive ecosystem-based management if it is to be effective at protecting and sustaining ocean health.

“Also, the global results for this region were highly correlated with the regional results, suggesting that the global results can provide valuable guidance for regional efforts around the world.”

On part 1, EDF’s Oceans Program has been working towards that for a long, long time.

Part 2 interests me since they probably used some of the same spatial data I used to make the maps of potential global temperatures in 2100 more than a year ago…

I’m glad that the NSF is embracing GIS technology as a means towards picking out the hotspots where we need to focus our energies.

Utah and South Carolina Green Jobs Maps Come Online

Behind the scenes, we’ve been working diligently to add more states to our lesscarbonmorejobs.org website. We have now released Utah and South Carolina. More to come…

$37 Billion of Public Funds Invested into Coal Fired Power Plants since 1994

Today EDF released a report on the relationship between publicly funded international financial institutions (like the World Bank) and coal fired power plants which harm both regional human health and the atmosphere.

Here are a couple of key facts from the report:

- Since 1994, the World Bank, other MDBs and ECAs financed new construction or expansion of 88 coal-fired power plants.

- These plants will generate roughly 791 million tons of CO2 emissions per year, or more than 75% of the current emissions for coal-fired power in the entire European Union.

Bruce Rich, a long time crusader for reform of these institutions, spearheaded this work. Among his recommendations: immediately shift any future money for coal plants into renewables.

I think that makes great sense…

Fire Hotspot Map Released

Researchers at UC Berkeley and Texas Tech University have created an interesting new map based upon ten years of satellite data (1996-2006). The new map predicts regions of the planet that will become more or less fire prone as the climate changes.

The study, currently being peer reviewed, presents an interesting view of a changing world: the extreme northern latitudes, Tibet, the Fertile Crescent, and the high desert regions of the US will see an increase in fires while the entirety of southeast Asia, southern India, the Iberian peninsula, and large swaths of Brazil and north-central Africa, will see less fires.

As a geographer, this map compels me to ask questions. For instance, how will the new fire regime affect the local and regional ecologies of species that rely upon fire for propogation? How will species unadapted to fire cope? These questions are vexing conservation biologists and planners as I write this: how do you best plan for the massive ecosytem changes we expect to see in the coming century?

Antarctic Ice Shelf Set to Collapse

The European Space Agency has been keeping close tabs on the status of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica from it’s ENVISAT satellite. This is the same satellite that observed the collapse of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in 2002.

Bottom line: the warning signs are everywhere that this planet is warming. EDF is working diligently to pass policies at the local, regional, state, national, and international levels, so that we can begin the process of stabilizing the climate.

Mapping the Stimulus Package

Congresswoman Doris Matsui (D, CA-05…Sacramento area) has taken a really cool step towards transparency. She and her staff have been mapping where stimulus money has been going within her district.

As you can see, many green projects, and some that don’t appear to be, are receiving funding.

Perhaps all representatives should follow Matsui’s lead and let the public know what’s going on with the stimulus. What do you think?