Rapanui and the U.K.’s Met have partnered to call attention to the weather.

It’s raining, it’s pouring and the old man is snoring, and oftentimes so are we when it comes to being inspired by weather forecasts that are random in accuracy. Enter the U.K.’s Met Office, the international authority on climate change research, as well as national weather service, and brothers Mart and Rob Drake-Knight, the founders of Rapanui.

“At Rapanui we think that it’s not that people don’t care about climate and the environment, it’s just that they don’t know where to start when it comes to organic, ethical or low carbon alternatives,” says Mart Drake-Knight, co-founder of Rapanui “Our brand is about making eco fashion cool and accessible. We were delighted when we were invited to design these Met Office t-shirts.  I think as well as being a nod to the Met Office’s heritage and expertise, we managed to add a bit of ‘Britishness’ and humour to capture the spirit of ‘the weather’ as a subject.”

The collaboration was designed to bring new audiences to the Met Office who might have an appreciation for not only daily weather, but why severe weather and climate change happen. Climate change is defined by The Met as “The term climate change usually refers to man-made changes that have occurred since the early 1900s.”

Luke Green from the Met Office says: “Weather fascinates everybody and these t-shirts provide a fun way of reaching new audiences about the work the Met Office does. The collaboration with Rapanui to design and produce these t-shirts is hopefully the first step in developing new partnerships to promote our brand.”

The organic cotton t-shirts are £24.95.

Brands like Rapanui represent an ethical and sustainable shift from mainstream fashion and are not only made from natural organic fabrics, but in a  factory that depends upon the wind to power it.

You couldn’t ask for a more perfect collaboration.

The post Rapanui and The Met: A Fashionable Extended Weather Forecast appeared first on EcoSalon.

The weather this summer in the Bay Area has been nothing short of awful. And with me being what my friend calls a “High Priest of Ra,” it’s been posited that my missing a sacrifice or committing some other ungodly affront has resulted in this madness. We’re talking stretches of frigid weeks in July, a sunless, cold anti-summer, followed by sudden August temperature spikes reaching 104 degrees and literally melting the candles in my apartment. 104? I mean, this is San Francisco. Are you kidding me? Dear Lord, could it really be my fault? Do the weather gods care about us humans and what we do here on earth?

Evidently they do care. A lot. Human-induced global warming and our fossil fuel mission/vision of burn ’em if we got ’em has someone or something pissed off. Big.

We’ve all had the conversations that start with “How many hurricanes was it this year?” or “The summers have never been like this before!” or “When I was a kid we’d have snow days where we couldn’t even leave the house! What happened to those?”

Invariably, these openers are followed by, “Yeah, right, and there’s no global warming.” Indeed, for general weather phenomena like these, science has been emerging that shows connections between human activity and broad brush climatic change.

But take the conversation a step further to speak about a certain climatic event – the Russian heat wave, say, or Pakistan flooding – and it becomes more challenging to point to a particular culprit. While we all seem to instinctively know there’s a connection between specific weather events and what we’re up to on the ground, the science hasn’t been there to make absolute links, as in “that flood came from that weather pattern which came from those countries burning this much fossil fuel back in these years.” Capiche?

Scientists are beginning to capiche.

Earlier this month, white coats from all over the world gathered in Broomfield, Colorado, at a National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and International Group on Attribution of Climate-Related Events (ACE) workshop series on the “science, application, and communication of climate attribution information.” As defined by the NOAA, climate attribution is “a scientific process for establishing the principal causes or physical explanation for observed climate conditions and phenomena.” This includes attribution for variations “for which great public interest exists because they produce profound societal impacts.”

In other words, what’s behind the mega-weather headlines.

Not too long ago, our ability to address such questions would have been dismissed, says an article in New Scientist. “Many scientists at the time [a decade ago] said that you can never blame an individual weather event on climate change,” says Myles Allen of the University of Oxford.

But attempts to assign blame for such events goes back to 2004, when Allen and others “showed to a high level of confidence that human greenhouse gas emissions had at least doubled the risk of the European heatwave of 2003.” Their research approach required them to “run thousands of simulations of the climate as it is and as it would have been without human influences, then compare the number of times a given event occurs in each scenario.” Today, technological adavances will enable to such analyses to be much more accurate.

One of the worlshop’s attendees, Dr. Claudia Tebaldi, of Stanford’s Carnegie Institution, says that research already has been able to attribute causes of  trends in continental scale temperatures, large area-averaged precipitation trends, ocean temperature trends, long-term changes in atmospheric humidity and more to, well, us.

“Using sophisticated computer modeling and high quality observations,” she writes, “we are able to say with great confidence that in these changing aspects of our climate system, the fingerprint of human causes is already evident.”

Now the the goal is use new methods to get even more specific regarding particular events and their causes. And while forecasting is of primary importance, right now there’s a lot of buzz around the legal implications of pointing accurate fingers. For example, can one country sue another for activity that can be proven to be responsible for something as devastating as a flood, heat wave or famine?

In 2005, Katrina victims filed a lawsuit against some oil companies, saying their activity in the Gulf contributed to the power of the hurricane. The case was recently dismissed due to a legal glitch, but you get the idea. Big implications here.

Connecting weather events with their causes is going to be a huge undertaking in upcoming years. As climate changes have increasingly profound effects on the lives of millions, people are going to want to know the whys and whos and hows and, hopefully, how to predict and prevent catastrophes going forward. And leaving it up to the gods just ain’t going to cut it. (Sorry, oh dear and powerful Ra. Can I have some more summer please? Just a little? What do you want? A dead goat?)

Image: crowt59

The post Credit Where It’s Due: Attributing Weather Events to the <em>People</em> Responsible appeared first on EcoSalon.

It is the tail end of summer in New York, and I’m having a hard time following the commonly held “green” recommendation to keep my thermostat set to 78 degrees. Believe me, I have my reasons.

For one thing, I am at a point in my life where estrogen is racing out of my body faster than oil out of a deep-water BP well. As a result, my inner thermostat is completely out of whack – it feels like I have my own personal furnace lodged under my pancreas, hitting me with blasts of steamy air throughout the day and night. The phrase “hot flashes” does not do this condition justice, as it implies intermittent spells of overheating followed by cooling-off periods. I have not found this to be the case. I am hot all the damn time – my face red, my clothes damp, my hair attractively plastered to my head.

I have noticed a temperamental component that comes with these mid-life changes – there is a certain moody intolerance, a cranky disinterest in the needs and opinions of others. I look at this as a positive thing: I have finally outgrown my lifelong habit of compulsive people-pleasing. Others, however, are less fond of this development and have referred to me as crabby, aggressive, and short-tempered. The phrase “meaner than a mountain polecat” has cropped up once or twice. My kids derisively refer to me as “Sunshine.” Although not, you can be sure, to my face.

On top of all this, New York has been having one of the hottest summers in recorded history, with countless days over 90 degrees and unbearable, rain forest-like humidity. Every morning it seems that the local weatherman announces another heat advisory, another day of oppressive, scorching sun.

For me, these conditions have combined to create a Perfect Storm of heat intolerance. I keep my air conditioner set to 67 degrees because any warmer than that and I might have to kill someone.

Not everyone is a fan of this practice – I am constantly being told that my house is too cold. My daughter walks around the house in sweat pants and a hoodie, with her nose running and her lips a lovely and delicate shade of blue. Guests come to my home in August wearing long sleeves and fleece vests (although given my combustible attitude, it’s a wonder they show up at all).

I feel guilty about the fossil fuels I am wasting and I try hard to make up for my eco failures this season. None of my summer barbecues have featured paper plates or disposable cups – which is a real sacrifice for someone as inherently lazy as I am. I am hoping to balance out my carbon footprint by using less heating oil during the coming winter, when I will keep my house at a lovely and arctic 63 degrees. Until then, my family is hoping for a leveling off of the weather – and my hormone-induced crabbiness.

Meanwhile, I am trying my best to ride out the summer and be more courteous to others. Book group is at my house next week and in an effort to be nice I thoughtfully sent my guests an evite that ended with some well-meaning advice: “Bundle up, bitches.”

Image: Ed Yourdon

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No cloud above, no earth below, A universe of sky and snow. – John Greenleaf Whittier

Here’s how I like to think it happened. Bill Gates is sat at his desk one day, sipping Mountain Dew while grappling with some tricky Windows-based conundrum. A shadow falls across his very expensive notepad: the sun’s gone in. Bill curses, throws his very expensive pen at the wall, and within ten minutes a thousand Microsoft scientists have their orders – “Bill wants the sky brighter!”

I’m being daft, of course: cloud whitening is a well-established part of the controversial scientific body of theory know as geoengineering. The principle is simple. If you dump vaporized water into the clouds, they become fluffier and whiter – i.e., they cover more sky and they reflect more light, blocking incoming sunlight and (in theory) helping fight global warming. However, it’s never actually been tried – until now. As The Guardian reports, the Gates-funded research group Silver Lining is building machines to spray misted seawater into clouds covering a 10,000 kilometer square area of sea, either from ships or wind-powered yachts.

And although it sounds like a Kate Bush video, it’s going to happen if Bill gets his way, that is. Critics point to the fact that we’re deliberately tinkering with a meteorological system we barely understand and are often poorly equipped to defend ourselves against when it turns nasty, which it is more and more frequently). With all the damage we’ve done to the world’s lands and seas, should the skies be made sacrosanct?

Images: francesco sqroi and Michel Filion

The post Bleaching the Sky: Not Very Bright? appeared first on EcoSalon.

I’ve been walking my suburban San Francisco neighborhood for 13 years now, first as a newly married in jogging apparel, then as a new mom pushing a carriage, then one pushing a double umbrella stroller, and now, as an old mom yanking on a pug dog’s leash as I hike the steep hills. I’ve observed a happy change evolving in the landscape, from estates with thirsty sprawling lawns graced with European cottage-style gardens to inventive green designs using rocks or wild grasses as ground cover and gorgeous compositions of the heartiest plants around: succulents.

Who doesn’t love an exotic plant that stores its own water? Guess that’s why more homeowners faced with fat mortgages and recession woes are curbing the sprinklers and opting for low water-use plants.

We often associate cacti with succulents, and while all cacti are succulents, not all succulents are categorized as cacti. Both are native to regions such as the Southwest of Africa and can thrive in many environments and weather conditions. As eCountry Lifestyle points out, succulents are among the easiest plants to grow – and even make excellent potted indoor house plants, when positioned near a sunny window.

Succulents actually prefer small pots, even in the garden, which allows you to control the moisture level since over-watering can cause the roots to rot. A cutting can be planted directly in soil and it will develop roots and flourish.

Naturally stunning rock configured landscapes, such as those by Dane Easter of Mystical Landscapes (below), exhibit newly planted succulents in both shady and sunny settings. These hearty desert dwellers are accustomed to dry conditions and do best with varied soil mixtures, including coarse sand.

The aloe vera plant, sold at sites like Cacti.com, is one of the most familiar succulents since its properties often employed in natural skin remedies. Others include the jade plant, century plant (Agave), snake plant and flowering kalanchoe. They can add variety since they come in so many different colors and textures. They key is learning how to plant them in multiples to produce a balanced design.

For some helpful hints to get started with your own garden, check out Garden Time Online which will lead you down the path of selecting the right plants and placing them in your garden.

Images: breworks, Melir,

The post Welcoming Succulents to the Neighborhood appeared first on EcoSalon.

It’s getting cold out there – really cold. Here in Europe, we’re experiencing a big chill: although it’s nothing as severe as the record -27C recorded in Scotland 14 years ago, it’s dumped tons of snow, prompted Severe Weather Warnings and forced the closure of many roads, harbors and airports. The tabloid newspaper reaction couldn’t be more predictable. “Global warming? Rubbish!”

The last few years have seen an extraordinary amount of popular misinformation, pop-science, lambasting, mud-slinging and expelled hot air on the subject of whether global warming is taking place and if so, whether it’s the result of human activities or not. A global cold spell in 2008 intensified the controversy. Meanwhile, climate scientists continued to practice climate science – in other words, gathering atmospheric data and fitting it into models to predict long-term trends. It was just another year to add to the end of their graphs.

The problem is a common assumption that “climate” and “weather” are much the same thing. Look out your window, see global warming (or the lack of it). In fact, they’re two different atmospheric sciences – climatology and meteorology. Meteorology, better know as “the weather”, is a fabulously complicated series of atmospheric interactions where the mathematics are so complex, so exotically unknowable by modern scientific standards, that all the weathermen can do is give you an informed guess about tomorrow’s sky. Occasionally they can be very, very wrong.

Climatology, on the other hand, is about long-term patterns. You need to stand back to see what’s really happening, like you’re looking at a picture mosaic. Climate patterns only start to emerge over decades (such as with the Keeling Curve), centuries and millennia – and the problem is that many of our yearly measurements don’t go back that far, prompting the use of techniques such as ice coring and dendrochronology.

The long-term pattern is of a steady rise in global temperatures. Period. This is naturally going to affect the weather, but we’re still unsure exactly how – and even if we knew, we still couldn’t predict the weather tomorrow, next week or next year. And just as one swallow doesn’t make a summer, one cold snap doesn’t make a troubled climate. It’s probably just the weather.

Image: Noël Zia Lee

The post Cold? Don't Worry, It's Just the Weather appeared first on EcoSalon.