Syn-gas breakthrough

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/business/energy-environment/new-solar-process-gets-more-out-of-natural-gas.html?src=rechp

Two must-reads

Another McKibbon-Keystone editorial in which he ramps up the rhetoric greatly.

And an interesting article on the world's shifting wine regions, as climate changes, with excellent maps.

Pie-eyed

 

The Great Senior Gift Pie Shoot-off yesterday was a roaring success, especially for the fake whipped creme industry. Here the esteemed Doctor Phillippi gets a fine face-full.

I hear however, that the "creme" wasn't organic and contained GMO foods.

 

Here is my wonderful spouse again, making sure I too get a good face-full. Should have drafted that pre-nup, but it's too late now. Way too late.

 

I believe that is Ms. Barnes there, taking the shot. I hate to say it, but it's a very good shot.
Most students did not have such good aim.

 

Ducking and weaving allowed, but not dodging -- you're not allowed to move your feet. You may also hurl insults at the thrower, or even the passers-by, in the hope that will get them to pony up their money for a pie. 

Beth Arnold was the best insult-hurler by far. I don't have a picture. If any student shot a short movie clip with sound track, I'd love to have it for the blog.

 

Of course, the secret psychology of a pie-fest fund-raiser is that students only really want to pie the most popular faculty and staff. Getting an invitation to be pied for a good cause by students that you've loaded with homework and assignments for as much as four years is therefore a kind of inverted honor.

All in a good cause. Congratulations to the Class of 2013, and good luck in your future careers (even if you can't throw a pie to save your life).

But you still have to pass my exam in Global Change before you get to walk across the stage.

Mulkey letter on divestment to the Chronicle

Most students don't read the Chronicle of Higher Education, and indeed, the great majority don't even know it exists. But it's an important forum for ideas in my business.

Our college President has an eloquent and thoughtful letter in there this week on the divestment issue.

What's even more interesting is that he gets the economics right, which, I have to say, is not bad for a biologist.

Sorting the sheep from the goats

Womerlippi ram Bentley looks carrot-faced

Yesterday's horrific post from North Wales notwithstanding, the Womerlippi farmers are still optimistic for a good lambing season. Our ewes seem to have been walking around with their legs firmly crossed for some time now. Students, faculty and staff of the Unity CommUnity continually ask whether we have have lambs yet, and the answer so far is "no."


We blame our older ram Bentley, pictured above. Although he was "sold on" to a new farm last year, the long wait we're having (a week overdue now) suggests he didn't make it around his flock very quickly last fall. We know, from the size of things, that he eventually succeeded.

But he clearly took his time, or lambs would be here by now.

Alumna and member of the UC Board of Trustees Gloria Sosa, who has a high-level job with the EPA but, I suspect, is a closet shepherd, sent the following dispatch from Paris (apparently a quite nice place that ordinary people and even professors are allowed to go to, if they don't keep sheep and thus tie themselves down to small patches of grass in Maine).

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/world/europe/sheep-tend-lawn-outside-city-archives-in-paris.html?_r=0

In other news, I am told my presence is required at a pie-throwing event today. Apparently I'm an expensive target, and so students are willing to line up and pony up three dollars to the Class of '13 gift fund, all for the privilege of hitting my face with a pie!

I have mixed feelings about all this, since my ego has been feeling slightly bruised by the high pace of work this season.

But, since it's all in a good cause, and since SAR President Paige talked me into it....

Sigh....

I did prohibit one student, a military veteran with rather large biceps, who may not know his own strength, from attending.

But all others are welcome.

Sort of.

The good shepherd

BBC photo of Welsh sheep farmer Gareth Wyn Jones, looking for lost sheep this week.

As the Womerlippi farmers are coming through another lambing season on our own farm with the usual phlegm and humor, more news comes in of the crisis on the UK's hill farms. 

Essentially, what seems to have happened is that a weakening of the Arctic Oscillation (AO) has caused deeper meanders (AKA increased wave "amplitude") in the jet stream this year, which itself has caused our variable but mostly colder-than-usual spring here in Maine, and delivered unexpected snowfalls and freezing weather to the hills of Wales, Northern England, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Lambing season for many sheep farmers in those places still takes place out-of-doors. The traditional hill sheep operation in the UK uses common land and extensive grazing, and has very little of the "in-bye" or developed grass close to the farms. Sheep are instead bred to be "hefted" to a particular open range.

This works fine as long as the UK's normally mild winters and springs continue. But the most recent science suggests a strong role for the negative phase of the AO in deep jet stream meanders, which means that regions like Maine and the UK that are in the path of the polar jet from October to May may now get much more violent oscillations between warm and cold air masses, and of course the more violent warm and cold front weather that will accompany each passing Rossby Wave.

The result in Britain has been an horrific spring snowstorm and deep drifts on the hill farms. Ewes and lambs are buried in the drifts.

This is all good grist for the mill of our class in Global Change where we are studying the great oscillating circulations of the planet, and the workings of the ar masses and the jet stream. We get to see how climate change works in real time, and to consider the social and economic impact. It's a great "teachable moment."

But it's pretty horrible for the UK's sheep.

One of the attitudes that you develop as a shepherd is a deeply visceral sense of responsibility for your sheep. I identify strongly with this ethic.

In general I don't think you should take over responsibility for any kind of animal, even a goldfish, unless you can develop empathy and understanding for that animal.

(I would also extend this ethic to the endeavor of human leadership. I learned most of my leadership skills in the military, running search and rescue operations in these same British hills with the Royal Air Force's Mountain Rescue Service, celebrating it's seventieth anniversary this year. Despite the reputation or stereotype of military leadership skills, I soon learned that to lead rescue "troops" in the mountains well, to complete the mission and to help save lives,  I needed to know my people really, really well and to empathize with them and understand them as well as I could. The result, of course, was lifelong friendship and loyalty, well worth the investment. And I went on to use those skills in other endeavors, including teaching college.)

Aimee and I put a lot of effort into looking after our small sheep herd. Sometimes it has to be tough love, when a sheep is sick and needs to be put down. This time of year, waiting for lambs, doing night checks, worrying about how cold it is, about spring storms and supplies of feed, it can be hard.

It's also rewarding. I tend to think it makes us both better people. And I love our lambs. They make it all worthwhile.

But I've had to dig my own dead lambs out of a snowbank, and I've had to put down sick sheep with my own hands.

So I can very easily imagine how gutted these British farmers are feeling right now, having to dig hundreds of dead lambs out of the snow.

Weaker individuals would just stay home and drink tea and wait for better weather. But the good shepherd can't do that. He has to rescue his sheep, if he can.

There are big lessons in this horrible spring tragedy. One is that farmers do need to adapt to climate change. If this weather pattern continues, a pretty big "if" since there may be other yet more dramatic changes waiting in the wings, but if it continues these British hill sheep, after thousands of years of outdoor lambing, may now need to be brought indoors like our Maine sheep, or indeed like the "softer" lowland breeds. These are hard lessons for people that have been farming the same land all their lives. Many won't be able to adapt mentally. Many will remain in denial.

This will also be expensive and hard for hill farmers to do. Some farmers won't be able to afford it, and some British hill grazing will have to revert to forest, heath or scrub as a result. The cost of disposing of the dead lambs and ewes will be enough to force many into bankruptcy.

The farmers are pleading with the government for help. Ordinarily any UK government would be responsive. But this one is led by neo-liberal capitalists from the south of the country.

Another lesson seems to be that business-as-usual capitalism is inadequate for dealing with climate change.

Just as it was inadequate for dealing with the Great Depression, Nazi Germany, or the Cold War.

Anyone who thinks that we will be able to live through this century of climate change without reconsidering the role of government and private enterprise should go take a walk this week with a British hill farmer.

Hansen retires, to take up more activism

Big news!

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/science/james-e-hansen-retiring-from-nasa-to-fight-global-warming.html?ref=science?src=dayp

For students who've never heard of Jim Hansen, a) where have you been going to school? b) here's a link to all our Hansen posts from over the years.

http://ucsustainability.blogspot.com/search?q=hansen