Posts Tagged ‘Climate Change’


This Very Cold Winter is Good For the Great Lakes

Monday, February 10th, 2014


When you are outside and it is below zero and you are shoveling the latest snowfall in this record snowfall winter you don’t usually stop and think how all this cold and snow will affect your boating and swimming next Summer; but you should. The Great Lakes have been under significant strain the last few years with lake levels at historic low water levels.

Interestingly, the recent record low temperatures and the ice coverage that is the most in over 20 years will probably lead to higher lake levels next year. A recent satellite image from he National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows that the ice coverage on the Lake Michigan is way above normal due to the extreme cold weather.

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According to NOAA’s Great Lake Coast Watch, about 45 percent of Lake Michigan is considered to be frozen. Lake Erie is about 95 percent ice-covered. Lake Superior is about 85 percent ice covered. Lake Huron is about 70 percent frozen and Lake Ontario is about 25% frozen.

A recent post by Lisa Borre in National Geographic’s Water Currents cites a report released by the Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments Center (GLISA), a federally funded collaboration between the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, a team of American and Canadian scientists explains the relationship among evaporation, ice cover, and water temperature.

Prior to this year winter ice cover has declined by 71 percent over the last 40 years, on average. Summer water temperatures and annual evaporation have increased due to climate change. Apparently water temperature and evaporation are important factors that affect the lakes water levels. While you would think that the ice cap by itself reduces evaporation, the study states that it is the fact that the ice cap makes the lake cooler, so it delays the evaporation until later in the summer instead of July, when it usually begins.

So, as you shovel that latest snowfall, just think warm thoughts of boating and swimming next summer in healthier and deeper Great Lakes thanks to the largest ice cover in 20 years.


Business Week Cover Proclaims – “It’s Global Warming, Stupid”

Monday, November 5th, 2012
Business Week Global Warming Cover

Businessweek Cover

In the wake of the severe damage to the East Coast from Hurricane Sandy, Bloomberg Businesseek took the unprecedented step to state categorically the “Superstorm” and the destruction and loss of life from the storm, was directly related to Global Warming”. The magazine lists the toll from Sandy as follows:

“At least 40 U.S. deaths. Economic losses expected to climb as high as $50 billion. Eight million homes without power. Hundreds of thousands of people evacuated. More than 15,000 flights grounded. Factories, stores, and hospitals shut. Lower Manhattan dark, silent, and underwater.”

In the article Businessweek cited:

  • Jonathan Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota
  • Eric Pooley, senior vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund
  • Mark Fischetti of Scientific American
  • Climate scientists Charles Greene and Bruce Monger of Cornell University

George Lakoff, professor of linguistics at UC Berkely states that Global Warming was the systemic cause of the storm.  Systemic causation is much more difficult to understand. He states:

A systemic cause may be one of a number of multiple causes. It may require some special conditions. It may be indirect, working through a network of more direct causes. It may be probabilistic, occurring with a significantly high probability. It may require a feedback mechanism. In general, causation in ecosystems, biological systems, economic systems, and social systems tends not to be direct, but is no less causal. And because it is not direct causation, it requires all the greater attention if it is to be understood and its negative effects controlled. Above all, it requires a name: systemic causation.

Many commentators and most Climate Change deniers seize upon the more commonly understood direct causation to say that there is no proof that Climate Change caused the recent droughts or that the warming of the ocean caused Hurricane Sandy to be more destructive than previous storms. Instead, if you look at the concept of systemic causation, there is little doubt that the warming of the oceans, and many other factors attributed to Global Climate Change, contributed to the increase in the strength of the storm, and to the loss of life and the billions of dollars in damage.

We need to take off our blinders and recognize that human activity has consequences. We believe in a sustainability model that reduces our carbon footprint while continuing to enjoy the benefits of our post-industrial, highly technological society. For example, I drive a hybrid SUV. It gives me all of the room and comfort of an SUV, but gets over 30 miles a gallon. Here at Maxi we recycle everything we can. Also, throughout the life cycle of our steel, plastic and fiber drums, and our IBC’s we preach reuse. It takes significantly less energy and carbon to clean a drum or IBC for reuse than to scrap the old and make a new one.

But there are many simple things that each of us can do to help reduce our contribution to Global Climate Change. There is a great list from Millie Jefferson, producer, Weekend America®, here are just a few of them:

  • Buy organic, local or fair trade goods. (Maxi buys fair trade coffee and tea)
  • Pay attention to packaging (That’s what Maxi Container is all about. Packaging matters.)
  • Ditch bottled water (see my numerous earlier posts about the evil of bottled water. Maxi uses filtered water for drinking, coffee and tea.)
  • Energy proof your home. (this will save you money as well. Maxi switched its warehouse lighting from Metal Halide to induction, saving 50% on energy costs.)
  • Use native plant species. (Maxi started MiRainBarrel to promote rain water harvesting and works with groups that promote native species for use in a rain garden.)
  • Switch water heaters to vacation mode.
  • Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. (The three R’s of Maxi are Reuse, Recondition,then Recycle)

We all have a part to play, we can all be a part of the solution. In absence of a national will to do the right thing and reduce the Climate Effects of our lifestyle, it is up to us as responsible citizens to step up and do, at a minimum, the little things that together can make a difference.