Showing posts from category Eye On.
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NATO Says Don’t Fight the Planet
›Climate and security are under discussion today in Copenhagen at the Danish government’s side event, which brings together heavyweights such as NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, African Union Chair Jean Ping, and Danish Foreign Minister Peter Stig Møller.
Fogh Rasmussen, the former prime minister of Denmark, delivered his remarks the new-fashioned way: today’s Huffington Post. He says NATO is ready to “do its part” by lowering its own carbon bootprint and responding to the increasing humanitarian challenges of a warmer world. He suggests the threat of climate change does not allow powerful institutions like NATO the luxury of sitting on the sidelines.
The post even includes this embedded “Climate Change and NATO” video with an unfortunate screen grab that reads “Fighting the Planet.” Not exactly a reassuring message for those who argue that framing climate change as a security issue will militarize the environment rather than green security (to paraphrase an excellent 1994 edited volume by Finn Jyrki Kakonen).
The video’s actual message is that some security threats can be fought and others shouldn’t be. Climate change will present a security threat, but “Fight the planet and we all lose,” says NATO. Even when the video makes all the right points, those pesky screen grabs can undermine your case! -
Water Conflicts Enter the Fourth Dimension
›The Pacific Institute has just released an updated version of its renowned Water Conflict Chronology in a new interactive form. The online map depicts water conflicts from the Biblical flood to this year’s December 3 protest in Mumbai, pinpointing their location and chronological order. Pop-up text boxes provide the date, parties involved, basis for conflict, and hyperlinked references.
Since its founding in 1987, the project has continuously collected water conflict data “in an ongoing effort to understand the connections between water resources, water systems, and international security and conflict,” writes Pacific Institute President Peter Gleick in the San Francisco Chronicle.
But now, the data can also be visualized and manipulated in a table with citations, interactive timeline, or Google Earth map. Also of note is the project’s robust water and conflict bibliography search engine.
The Pacific Institute publishes The World’s Water, which offers a broad analysis of water resource trends, from conflict and scarcity, to implications for health and the impacts of climate change. At the Wilson Center launch of The World’s Water, Gleick talked to ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko about “peak water” (video). -
Interactive U.S. Map Shows Population, Energy, and Climate Data by State
›A new interactive map, developed by the Center for Environment and Population (CEP) and Clean Air-Cool Planet (CACP), lists state-level data on population, energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and vehicle-miles traveled. Accompanying the U.S. Population, Energy, & Climate Change report, the map depicts the sub-national, local level analysis necessary to help policymakers focus on the areas with the potential for the greatest gains.
Highlights:- New York has the “lowest state per-capita energy consumption, CO2 emissions, electricity consumption, and vehicle miles traveled,” and “it’s the only U.S. city where over half (about 75 percent) of the households don’t own a car.”
- Idaho “ranks fifth in growing population,” but “state per-capita CO2 emissions and electricity consumption are among the lowest in nation.” Most improved of all U.S. states in energy efficiency, Idaho “ranks fifth in renewable energy production and consumption per-capita.”
- Louisiana “ranked tenth in renewable energy production and consumption per-capita,” but still ranked “among [the] top ten states in energy consumption and CO2 emissions per-capita.” The state has a shrinking population and “is particularly vulnerable to sea level rise and severe coastal weather events.”
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New Tool Maps Deforestation
›A new tool from the Center for Global Development, Forest Monitoring for Action (FORMA) tool, uses satellite data to monitor tropical deforestation on a monthly basis. Using publicly available feeds from NASA and other sources, FORMA detects the spread of deforestation in areas as small as 1 square kilometer. The video above uses FORMA to animate the rapidly growing damage in Indonesia over the last four years.
CGD hopes FORMA will help countries monitor the success of forest preservation efforts, as well as verify that those receiving payments to maintain forest cover are, in fact, doing so. Currently limited to Indonesia, FORMA will soon cover the rest of the global tropics.
The tool can be combined with third-party content, such as overlay maps of demographic and forest carbon content data, for additional applications.