Climate Change and Ecosystems: Securing our Future
Ellie M. Cohen
President and CEO, PRBO Conservation Science (www.prbo.org)
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Bio
Ellie Cohen
Ellie is President and CEO of PRBO Conservation Science. Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Ellie received her undergraduate degree with honors in Botany (focus on ecology) from Duke University. Field studies in butterfly ecology brought her to California in 1979.
She later received her Master in Public Policy degree from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, where she was honored with the Policy Analysis Exercise Award for highly distinguished performance and the first annual Robert F. Kennedy Public Service Award.
In 2001, she was awarded a fellowship to Stanford University's Executive Program for Non-profit Leaders at the Graduate School of Business. From 2002-2005, Ellie was honored to represent the US Shorebird Plan on the U.S. Committee of the North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI) of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Ellie currently serves as an invited member of the US North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI) Committee's Policy and Legislative Subcommittee, as a management board member of both the San Francisco Bay (Immediate Past Chair) and the Central Valley Joint Ventures (USFWS), and as a member of NOAA's Pacific Coast Ocean Observing System Governing Board.
Increase in the global average surface temperature resulting from enhancement of the greenhouse effect, primarily by air pollution. In 2007 the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecasted that by 2100 global average surface temperatures would increase 3.2–7.2 °F (1.8–4.0 °C), depending on a range of scenarios for greenhouse gas emissions, and stated that it was now 90 percent certain that most of the warming observed over the previous half century could be attributed to greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activities (i.e., industrial processes and transportation). Many scientists predict that such an increase in temperature would cause polar ice caps and mountain glaciers to melt rapidly, significantly raising the levels of coastal waters, and would produce new patterns and extremes of drought and rainfall, seriously disrupting food production in certain regions. Other scientists maintain that such predictions are overstated. The 1992 Earth Summit and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change attempted to address the issue of global warming, but in both cases the efforts were hindered by conflicting national economic agendas and disputes between developed and developing nations over the cost and consequences of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
The sauna story is my own, and I would argue it is very much on point as it is an attempt to present the physics behind greenhouse gases in a slightly more understandable context; parts per million data can seem a little abstract sometimes. It was meant to show that we have all experienced warming due to greenhouse effects, in the hope that you may transpose that experience more or less to what is happening with our atmosphere.
A 18 cm increase in sea levels in the last 100 years (closer to half a foot in fact) is a far cry from the projected 50-80 cm increase.
My use of the 1960s-1990s mean is as a calibration tool. As I previously explained, human society has evolved and invested quite a substantial amount of resources specifically adapted to the sea levels and weather patterns we have been experiencing in our recent history. Projected temperatures due to global warming place us anywhere between 1-6 degrees above this mean in the next century. If by 2050 temperatures have returned to levels experienced in the 20th century I will of course admit I was wrong, and hopefully we can learn from our mistakes, meanwhile the worst that can happen is a large number of jobs have been lost to the emergence of new industries which are not reliant on blowing the tops off mountains, scraping bare nature reserves in Alberta or risking serious economic and environmental consequences to fishing communities and salt-water ecosystems such as the Gulf of Mexico - not to mention a substantial boost to national security worldwide in terms of energy independence. But bear in mind that if on the other hand they don't, and we do suffer the projected economic and social damages, it will matter little to those who suffered the consequences whether you admit the same.
I took my evidence for the small temperature fluctuations from a study published in Nature (2005) by Professor Karlén's team. You will probably know him better as the scientist who was on the receiving end of the unprofessional behavior in the "hacked email" incidents.
If you want more information on the equivocal nature of historical temperature studies you will find a list of 11 papers which have attempted to reconstruct temperature patterns over the last two thousand years on this Wikipedia page:
Saying or writting does not make it so! Please read about the temperature and sea level changes before making such written replies.
Seems like sea levels go up about 1 foot per 100 years after the last ice age.
Sauna story== Not on point! What is the point? Are you repeating something you read or heard?
What is your source that the little ice age and mid evil warming was 1/10 of a degree up or down from 1960 to 1990 mean? so the 1961 to 1990 mean is the GOLDEN mean we should strive to keep? Well what is the differance between the 1961 to 1990 mean AND the 1961 to 2010 mean?
Trapped by your own words????? SO if by 2020 or 2030 the mean is the same as 1961 to 2010 will you admit your wrong? Is any evidence enough?
Cranky does not mean you have to be stupid or close minded.
You want an Ice age? What year or years sea level and temperatures should we have as optimal?
The black-hole people? Isolate them? Can't waste our time polishing their ignorance.
Lots of people have five-year-old kids. Ellie likely thinks it’s cute that her son gives
thanks to MOMMY and whomever for air. It ain’t cute. It’s drivel. And no match for countering the American Taliban or the Koch brothers, or the Jihad, or the criminal Russians, or the rapacious Chinese or domestic terrorists who dominate our cities, or even the billions of people who’ve never made a phone call. Do the Ivory Coast militias look like they think five-year-olds are just plain cute?
It slouches toward Bethlehem as we ponder phytoplankton. It will eat us alive.
Medieval Warming Period and Little Ice Age are woefully misleading names: Temperatures were likely between 0.1°C and 0.2°C below/above the 1961 to 1990 mean and significantly below the level shown by instrumental data after 1980.
If you've ever been in a sauna you'll know yourself that water vapor (H2O) holds its heat very well. CO2 and CH4 and NO2 etc. do a pretty good job holding heat as well. The physics tells us heat is stopped from being emitted into the atmosphere because it's held in similar fashion by these gases in the atmosphere, and as it's released some of it is scattered back to earth, increasing the net total amount of heat energy reaching the earth's surface. This is why the air gets colder as we go up in altitude; if this didn't happen our earth would have an average temperature of -11°C.
As for your point about perfection; yes, sea levels have changed over time, but in the last 10.000 years we have gotten pretty used to temperatures and sea levels as they are now. A quick google search will show you the consequences of a rise in sea levels. Globalization has tied all our economic process together meaning that a loss of income in one part of the world, no matter how remote can affect capital flows to other parts as well, affecting us all. Perhaps, given the famous butterfly/hurricane idiom, an established lepidopterist giving this speech is poetically appropriate...
And this makes her dictate what we can or must believe?
Many people in the top 1 percent of IQ and education beg to differ--\
Excuse us for having a mind===\
Science is not a case closed the evidence is all in deal like true believers in religion and politics from the far left or far right might want or wish.
Ellie==== Get a grip ===============
Splain to me 1940 to 1970 co2 goes up but temp drops
1990 to 2010 again co2 goes up temp goes up to 2000 but drops back to 1990 levels by the end of 2010====
Do you even listen or care or have the background and open mind to discuss?
Splain to us mid evil warming period, Little ice age, Roman warm period?
When was the temperature, sea levels, and everything PERFECT?
They (Temperatures and sea levels) go up and down! do you propose to stop them? Maybe stop the Earth from spinning or going around the sun? Do you want things to go back before the end of the last ice age?
Is there any evidence that would cause you to open your mind?
This is not BIG THINK but little brain dump!
In 1900 many smart people thought they new it all!
Most knew that science goes on to new and better insights
Instruments improve and our understanding changes.
Do you think we KNOW IT ALL? right now no need to ask more questions?
Black hole of scientific misinformation?
Is the speaker the singularity of propaganda?
Tea Party = ONE issue ==> Money
Taxes and spending
Why not go for balance?
BELIEF in this or that issue outside taxes and balanced spending is NOT
TEA PARTY
So why smear?
Ad Hominem?
member. 
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