Climate Change/The Anthropocene

David Attenborough and Atlantic Productions have teamed up with scientists and academic institutions from around the world to create David Attenborough's Great Barrier Reef: An Interactive Journey -a new kind of interactive website will allow viewers in real time to join David Attenborough on a journey across the Great Barrier Reef. The site is freely accessible to the public and through it anyone is able to experience the reef through the eyes of one of the world’s greatest living naturalists. Combining David Attenborough's powerful storytelling with inventive interactive experiences, this online journey will educate and engage the user. With scientific contributions from renowned research institutions from across the world including the Australian Institute of Marine Science, James Cooke University and the University of Queensland, the user will discover the beautiful diversity on the reef and uncover the incredible research being done to decode it. As users explore its history they also reveal its uncertain future. 'In this unique online experience you will go on an interactive journey through this beautiful but threatened world, The Great Barrier Reef' Sir David Attenborough.

The National Climate Assessment summarizes the impacts of climate change on the United States, now and in the future. Lessons can either feature the entire document, sections of the document, or highlights of the report, which are shorter and easy to access.

This is a great piece to connect the humanities and natural sciences through history, philosophy, and climate science. The article discusses how Thoreau's journals provide insights into important phenological markers (seasonal biological events like migrations and flower blooming) that are significantly changing as a result of climate change.

This website features many contributions from the artistic community to the vexing problem of climate change. It provides resources to discuss the intersections of the arts, humanities, and sciences through music, sculpture, painting, architecture, etc.

An accessible NY Times article that discusses the major tenets of the Anthropocene epoch. The article also contains a link to the scholarly article published in the peer-reviewed journal "Science," if faculty want to have students engage with scientific papers.

An Interview with Vandana Shiva. By Ethemcan Turhan.* Shiva is a well-known intellectual and activist who is critical of global capitalism, neoliberalism, and GMOs. In the interview, she discusses the Anthropocene and raises important philosophical questions about human-nature relationships in the future.

GlacierHub seeks to expand and deepen the understanding of glaciers. It provides information about current scientific research, it tells stories of people who live near glaciers or who visit them, and it offers accounts of the efforts of communities and organizations to address the challenges brought by glacier retreat. It serves as well as a nexus to link people who are concerned about glaciers, so that they can communicate with each other and develop responses to the changes in glaciers. GlacierHub invites contributions—whether text, images, or sound files—from people who live near glaciers and from people who visit them, whether for research or for adventure or for the chance to see the beauty and majesty of glaciers from close up.

If you click on the tab at the top "Glacier Stories," there are many articles and links that used as classrooms readings and resources. The articles include content relevant to approaches in the humanities, arts, and social and natural sciences.

KPCC's Future of Water series looks at how California's relationship to water is likely to change in the warmer, drier, more populous state of the year 2040.

This website provides a wealth of links and resources to discuss the Paris Agreements (COP 21) on climate change. The links are organized by topic so the resources are easy to access. Topics include "Critiques," "Legal Analyses," "Geoengineering," "Energy Sector Implications," "Justice and Equity Concerns," etc.

This link, and several others provided below, discuss how changing soil tilling practices can be an important strategy to combat climate change. These ideas are explored in greater detail in the book "The Soil Will Save Us" by Kristin Ohlson.

Other links include:

http://capayvalleyfarmshop.com/blog/farmnews/conservation-tillage-and-the-drought/
http://capayvalleyfarmshop.com/blog/farmnews/conservation-tillage-and-the-drought/

Expert group argues that we have left the Holocene (era of stable climate) and officially entered the Anthropocene epoch (1950).

This two-week module focuses on fostering a deeper understanding of the carbon cycle and what happens when it is perturbed. In six self-contained units that would fit well in classes such as Physical Geology, Historical Geology, or Environmental Geology, students will develop their critical thinking skills, explore the dynamics of Earth's carbon cycle through biogeochemistry and the perspective of "deep time," and learn how carbon was sequestered to produce traditional and nontraditional fossil fuels. Now that these subterranean carbon reservoirs have been tapped, students will examine the current state of carbon cycle destabilization, and its potential consequences, before concluding with an examination of strategies available to society, including carbon taxation, artificial sequestration, and several kinds of geoengineering.

To access these resources, you just sent up an account with InTeGrate and the resources are free as soon as you verify your status as a faculty member.

This module addresses both aspects of climate literacy: understanding of climate science through data analysis and interpretation, and understanding of literary tools and techniques through which climate science is portrayed. The module is designed to be completed in introductory natural science classes where literature is not typically included as well as in humanities classes where climate change science is not normally addressed. Students will engage in activities that address both climate change science and climate change literature, including graphing data, working in groups to analyze and interpret data, creating a concept map, conducting rhetorical analyses, and writing and responding to a blog.

To access these resources, you just sent up an account with InTeGrate and the resources are free as soon as you verify your status as a faculty member.

Big news this week, friends, it turns out we’re living in the Anthropocene after all. The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) of the International Union of Geological Sciences released its report at the International Geological Congress in Cape Town that we have left the Holocene behind. Cymene and Dominic find themselves more melancholy than they expected to be about this. But fortunately we’re able to talk it over (12:50) with Jan Zalasiewicz, Professor of Paleobiology at the University of Leicester, author of the marvelous The Planet in a Pebble (Oxford, 2010), and the Chair of the AWG. Jan walks us through the Working Group’s process of investigation, the forms of evidence that mattered to them and the ensuing debate over whether to make the Anthropocene a new geological time unit. We discuss the early history of climate science, the origin of the Anthropocene concept, what skeptics of the concept are thinking, and the study of deep time as a labor of love that may be able to help us all with the transition to a new sense of time. Is the Anthropocene an age or an epoch, when exactly did it begin, what are its key markers? What is the “golden spike” we are now hearing about? Even if we can’t make anyone feel better about the Anthropocene, we can at least answer some of your questions about it ☺