Week 3

Week 3

I've devoted more time to this week (6 or 7 hours instead of just a morning) and was pleased to score well in the test.

My responses to previous sections were entered in the comments, so here are my reflections on today's course:

1. Most important themes:

I think it's becoming very hard for the average person to avoid "connecting the dots" between extreme weather events and climate change, but I also wonder whether our growing awareness could also be in part a result of today's global 24/7 news coverage? Would we have been so aware of hurricane Sandy, or Australian heatwaves, etc. 50 years ago? For example I didn't know that the North Sea surge of 1953 killed over 1800 people in Holland.

It was interesting to see the graphics projecting future temperature & precipitation changes with different future levels of CO2. It's amazing this information is all available online!

While I knew about the carbon cycle, I wasn't aware of the significant part played by the deep ocean.

2. Difficulties:

The questions in 3.4 were all phrased in the present tense, e.g "What places on Earth have experienced the largest warming from 1980-2004? Are the areas that are experiencing the most warming..."

The charts show future projections for 2050-2074, and I wonder whether "will have experienced" and "will be experiencing" would be clearer. Or did I miss something?

3. Most interesting:

I enjoyed looking back and remembering several extreme weather events in UK during my lifetime, and relating them to where they took place, and to the storms and rainfall at the time.

4. Further research: 

I used Google and Wikipedia to find out about the Thames Barrier, and potential future flood damage in UK. Between 1983 when it was built and 2000, it was closed on average twice a year. Between 2000 and 2010 the average was 8 times a year. During every one of 11 days this past January, it was opened before the high tide, and on one occasion the tide rise high enough to spill over the river bank wall at one side of the barrier.

5. Useful websites:

The World Bank datasets are a fantastic resource with a vast amount of economic and population data by country.

Friends of the Earth - www.foe.co.uk - have good booklets and reports to support local activism.

On that note, I attended a talk last week by Polly Higgins about her campaign for Eradicating Ecocide, and urge everyone to sign up here: www.eradicatingecocide.com/wish20/