Covering Earth Day 2008

Seems to me there was a time when normal folks would snicker at people who celebrated Earth Day and think of them as Birkenstock-wearing nut cases. Either I have become one of those nut cases, or Earth Day isn’t quite so snicker-worthy these days.

I remember Earth Days that have focused on recycling and tree plantings. I remember Earth Days that warned that we were about to run out of landfill space. We still seem to have plenty of landfills despite it all. 

But the global climate change concerns seem more serious than any of that. Despite Al Gore’s Nobel Prize and magazine cover stories about global warming, nothing much has changed.

When someone writes a story about eco-friendly funerals now, at least to me, it does not seem out-of-the-ordinary. A Newsweek article this week mentions a new book coming about the impending worldwide water shortage. National Public Radio has produced an impressive collection of stories called Climate Connections, compiled over a year’s time.

All of this attention is for good reason. The National Snow and Ice Data Center reported a few weeks ago that a 5,282 square mile ice shelf has begun to collapse because of rapid climate change in a fast-warming region of Antarctica. Reuters reports that on the other end of the globe, NASA satellite photos last month showed that the thickest, oldest and toughest sea ice around the North Pole is melting.

Poynter’s News University offers some valuable learning material for you. Today NewsU published excerpts from a news executives round-table discussion on “Covering Climate Change.” The discussion was held just before the Society of Environmental Journalists’ conference in September 2007.

You can also go to the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Web site to get tons of climate change resources.

Last week while I was at the Alaska Press Association convention, I sat in on a panel addressing the fact that residents of at least two Alaskan villages have voted to relocate because the water is rising near them. (Read a New York Times piece about the village of Newtok, Alaska, and see related photos.) Sea levels are also rising on the other side of the globe in Egypt.

A group called Alaska Conservation Solutions cites studies showing that the state’s annual temperatures have increased by 3 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Its winter temperatures have climbed 7 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. The group says polar bears were found to have committed cannibalism because of starvation. Last month, a polar bear was killed further inland than has ever been recorded. Read the story from the Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner.

There are discussions about the new arrival of yellow jackets to Alaska. These wasp-like stinging bugs are usually associated with warmer climates. There are also reports of native hunters now having to travel much farther out into semi-frozen water to hunt. 

And while yes, there was a late snowfall a week or so ago in Anchorage, Alaska, and yes, it snowed over the weekend in Vancouver but if you look at the long-term temperatures of the earth, you’ll see that they are warming. As Deborah Williams, an expert at the Alaska Conservation Solutions puts it, the climate change is symbolic of trekking up a mountain. Sometimes you might even travel flat or take a step or two down, but the overall direction is upward. With that, she dismissed notions that record-cold winters in Europe this year were a signal that global warming is overblown.

A state commission recently reported its findings, saying the “State of Alaska is at the leading edge of impacts resulting from a warming climate.” The same commission also notes that there could be some upsides to warming in Alaska, including longer tourism seasons, more open shipping lanes and winter energy savings. Click here to read the commission’s full report [PDF].

– By Al Tompkins

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