'Green' governors, a warmer lake, and Al

This week's climate change media update notes states' efforts, Lake Superior's temperature, and the green hue of this year's Oscars.

from the March 1, 2007 edition

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For example, in Sweden "fewer winter days below 10 degrees F and more summer days above 50 degrees F have encouraged the northward movement of ticks, which has coincided with an increase in cases of tick-borne encephalitis since the 1980s." In Africa, mosquitoes have been moving up mountainsides, bringing malaria to villages never exposed before.

Dr. Paul Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard University, told the Times:

"No one's saying global warming is the whole picture here. But it is playing a role. As climate changes, it's projected to play an even greater role."

In a report this week, the United Nations Foundation and the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society warned that exceeding global average temperature increases of 2 to 2.5 degrees Celsius above the 1750 preindustrial level would sharply increase the risk of intolerable impacts.

Avoiding the "tipping point," say the 18 scientists from 11 countries who spent two years writing the report, requires that global CO2 emissions peak no later than 2015 to 2020 at not much above their current level and decline by 2100 to about a third of that value.

In British Columbia, some experts believe the Canadian province could be energy self-sufficient by 2025 from renewable sources alone. The GLOBE Foundation in Vancouver reported Tuesday that this would provide a secure long-term energy supply, as well as some insulation from world energy shocks. The province already obtains about 40 percent of its energy from renewable sources.

This year's Academy Awards had a decidedly green hue. Many of Hollywood's glitterati arrived in hybrid Priuses. There they saw "An Inconvenient Truth," the film about Al Gore's anti warming campaign win the award for best documentary.

"It's not a political issue; it's a moral issue," said the former vice president in accepting the award. "We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act. That's a renewable resource. Let's renew it."

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