Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Warming up to the Warming World MOOC

I thought I'd try out the World Bank's Warming World MOOC and it's going well. As a four-week course I thought it might be too basic, even for a non-scientist, but Week 1 had some new-to-me items as well as fine tuning what I generally knew (e.g., current CO2 are the highest not in 3-5 million years as I thought, but 15 million years).

In the new-to-me category, food production in both India and Africa can be strongly, adversely affected by high heat - I thought the food-security issue was primarily about precipitation changes. Climate change can kill a lot of poor children in yet another way that I didn't know.

Other new thing - what the heck's the matter with Luxembourg?


Its 2009 and 2010 per capita emissions are worse than  Canada, Australia, and the US. That's just embarassing. Get a grip!

Anyway, the course seems worth checking out. I'm too lazy to do the essay portion though so no certificate for me.
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8 comments:

  1. EliRabett4/2/14 3:28 PM

    Big steel industry, not a lot of people.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous4/2/14 4:33 PM

    German car drivers appreciate Luxemburg's gas prices. "Tanktourismus".

    Andreas

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dano4/2/14 7:06 PM

    Clearly I need to clear some of this stuff off my plate and contribute more. Holy Carp is next, tangentially about food.

    Best,

    D

    ReplyDelete
  4. THE CLIMATE WARS5/2/14 12:32 AM

    The Isle de Luxe is Number Three because it exports upteen tonnes of carbon intensive nickel matte per capita.


    Worth visiting anyway- the hills are alive with venison and the coral of its barrier reef glows in the amarinthine dark.

    ReplyDelete
  5. cRR Kampen5/2/14 5:30 AM

    Luxembourg is the per capita richest country of the world except for Quatar. Biggest carbon bootprint per capita: Quatar.
    There might be a connection. The more you pollute, the more you are, or something.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous6/2/14 6:43 AM

    Anon-101a here:

    It'd be truer to say the more you have the more you waste.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Aaron10/2/14 8:26 PM

    Goodyear Tires has one of its largest facilities in Lux.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Aaron10/2/14 8:51 PM

    Corn is very sensitive to high temperatures during tasseling.

    Soybeans are susceptible to several diseases if alternative hosts are not killed by frost. And we are failing to rotate crops. This is dumb farming that will hurt all of us ($$). We know better. All crop markets are linked. You are now bidding for food against the guy that makes the gray plastic for electronics. If he can not afford food, he will not make gray plastic, and production of electronics and electronic parts will cease.

    Rice is near the top of it's heat tolerance in many areas.

    All in all, agriculture evolved in a cooler environment and breeding for increased heat tolerance has not been as successful as some would claim.

    ReplyDelete

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