Katharine Hayhoe: New Climate Solutions and Galvanizing for Action

22nd Peter M. Wege Lecture on Sustainability
At this pivotal moment for our planet, join climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe for a solutions-oriented talk about what people can do to have the biggest impact in their communities. In this critical election year, when every decision is a climate decision, Hayhoe will discuss what’s new in climate action and climate science-and offer viable solutions that everyone across the political spectrum can support and adopt at the local and national levels.
Hayhoe is the Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy and the Paul Whitfield Horn Distinguished Professor and the Political Science Endowed Chair in Public Policy and Public Law in the Department of Political Science at Texas Tech University.
The Peter M. Wege Lecture Series focuses on the critical sustainability challenges of the 21st century such as global climate change, clean energy transitions, freshwater scarcity, ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss, and how to accelerate just and sustainable solutions.

[@rapauli]

This is wonderful and deep. Important. And thank you so much.

[@ggb5583]

7:29 Katharine starts speaking

[@climatebreak]

that word with. YES. too often people talk to eachother, that is implication of a one way street, while talking *with* implies a two way street. one is much healthier than the other. thank you katharine! thank you jacque.

[@robertducharme1573]

I am a retired PhD Geologist not a climatologist, however i would welcome any thoughts you might have on the follwing.
A Climate Remediation Suggestion
There is a lot of discussion and no full agreement about Global Warming, whether it really exists, how serious a threat and the role of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide. However, the following is generally agreed. Namely that a lot of CO2 has been released into the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution and a lot of it has ended up in solution in sea waters. There is at least 150 times as much CO2 in a cubic meter of sea water as there is in a cubic meter of atmosphere at NTP. This is acidifying the sea waters and possibly harming Coral Reefs and other fauna. There has also been some agreement that the Temperature of the Earth has warmed somewhat.
The Earth's rotation and the Coriolis Effect has formed several Tropical/Semi-Tropical Oceanic Gyres, within which the mass of sea water is rotating, clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counter clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. Anything floating, i.e., less dense than sea water tends to float towards the center of the Gyre. There are five main Gyres all of which are Tropical/Semitropical. They are the North Pacific, South Pacific, Indian, North Atlantic, and South Atlantic Oceans. Together they form a very large proportion of the 70% of the Earth's surface which is covered by water.
The North Pacific has a lot of floating debris, "the Great Pacific Garbage Patch", some of it being debris washed off Japan by tsunamis following the recent Fukushima Earth Quake. The Southern Hemisphere Gyres do not appear to contain much floating debris.
The North Atlantic Gyre is unique. It contains the Sargasso Sea which is characterized by the presence of two species of Sargassum which float by virtue of oxygen-filled follicles. It was discovered (first documented) by Columbus from his voyage in 1492. There is a Sargasso Sea Commission, with an Office in Washington DC, which is charged with protecting the Sargasso Sea from pollution etc. There is a website that basically describes all of the positive ecological values of the Sea.
Since 2011 the Sargassum appears to be overflowing from the Sargasso Sea and moving via the west bound currents across the north coast of South America into the Caribbean and sometimes into the Gulf of Mexico. This has been attributed to agricultural run off from the USA or Brazil but might be due to the increased levels of CO2 in solution in the sea water.
It has been washing up on beaches through out this region, as one might expect to happen. When it dies and rots it emits H2S. Since a lot of these beaches have tourism as their main industry, the weed has to be removed manually which has given Sargassum a bad name. There are several Facebook entities that keep track of Sargassum landings and there are frequent postings enquiring about Sargassum occurrence on specific tourist areas.
The occurrence of Sargassum in the Caribbean would, however, make it very easy to put live Sargassum into the Pacific off the west coast of Mexico. From there the currents would carry it all the way across the Pacific, photosynthesizing and growing all the way absorbing a lot of CO2 and heat energy, photosynthesis is an endothermic reaction. Absorbing CO2 from the Ocean would allow CO2 from the Atmosphere to dissolve in the sea. The Sargassum would probably stay in the North Pacific Gyre but some might drift into the South Pacific.
One might balk at the idea of covering a lot of the Oceans with Sargassum but it does have uses. It can be used to make ethanol, paper or cardboard. Someone in the Caribbean is making construction bricks from it and others are feeding it to goats..
If there appears to be some benefit from Pacific Sargassum we could easily add Sargassum to the other Gyres using ships that are transiting the Panama Canal. It seems likely that some Sargassum will eventually get into the South Atlantic Gyre, but that may take a while.
I would welcome any thoughts. Robert O Ducharme ([e-mail]).
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[@viablerenewable1638]

Changing over to Renewable Green Energy isn't likely, because the collectors of "Free Energy" can't fix the shortcomings of the source nor are enough sellable products to cover the cost of the required infrastructure. If people want to transfer to Renewable Green Energy they will have to cycle the water molecule and change low value assets to high value ones!