Searching Ecological Value

The dividing line between creative writing and climate science – sometimes thin – has been triumphantly dissolved. A new postgraduate course at the University of East Anglia hopes to bring together “researchers in the environmental sciences, philosophy, history and literature to develop new ways of thinking about environmental change and social transitions”.

The one-year MA/MSc in Environmental Sciences and Humanities also “aims to initiate and foster fundamental academic inquiry as well as encouraging practical and effective action.”

All stirring stuff.

UEA, the heart of the Climategate emails, already runs a project in “eco poetry” aimed at primary school children, intended to “stimulate and strengthen children’s environmental awareness”. You can see a leaf haiku here.

“The idea of climate change is so plastic, it can be deployed across many of our human projects and can serve many of our psychological, ethical, and spiritual needs.”

He certainly has a way with words.

It isn’t cheap, though. The course costs £5,000 for UK students and £11,900 for overseas students.

Climate change could result in $1.98 trillion in damages to the world’s ocean system annually, according to a new study. The study presented the latest evidence of the way in which parts of the ocean are being affected by multiple stressors such as ocean acidification, ocean warming and hypoxia, which means that the projected damage, and its costs, is much greater than with single impacts. while climate change is an enormous threat to the oceans, the SEI report said that convergence of multiple stressors —acidification, ocean warming, hypoxia, sea-level rise, pollution and overuse of marine resourcescould lead to damages far greater than just from individual threats.

By 2100, the study said the damages from “business as usual” emissions, projected to lead to an average temperature rise of 4°C, are estimated to be $1.98 trillion, equivalent to 0.37 percent of future global gross domestic product or GDP. A rapid emission-reduction pathway that would limit temperature increase to 2.2°C, would reduce the damages to $1.4 trillion.