Brian Cladoosby, Swinomish Indian Tribal Community:
I’m not a scientist. I don’t know why climate change is happening. I don’t know if it’s just — if it’s just a cycle in the Earth, you know — it’s a generational thing, or if there’s too much pollution entering the atmosphere. And so when we’re seeing climate change impacts in our areas, we figure we better get ahead of the curve.
The Swinomish, or “Salmon People,” became the first tribe in the country to conduct a climate adaptation assessment that paired observations in their natural world with top scientific research. Melting glaciers in the Pacific Northwest could push salmon to the brink of extinction. For these Northwest tribes, this means fighting to preserve their way of life.
Coping With Climate Change, introduced by PBS, features videos, reports, blog posts, and slide shows on how American communities are dealing with climate change. The page has kicked off by highlighting communities in Texas that have been dealing with record high temperatures, wildfires, and severe droughts, which have depleted groundwater supplies and lakes. In dealing with these issues, some Texas residents are beginning to adapt to the changing climate by exploring alternative approaches.
Visit the Coping With Climate Change webpage to find out more about the climate challenges these Texas communities face and how they are addressing their issues.
Methane is CH4. One carbon, four hydrogens. How can it be carbon’s evil twin if it contains carbon itself? Or is it supposed to be CO2’s evil twin? Lost in translation? Or am I missing something?
Someone was awake during science class. You are technically correct - Mr. Carbon should be Mr. CO2, but the purpose of this activity was to introduce the concept of global warming to a bunch of fourth-graders. Keeping in simple!
Here’s more background from our science reporter/producer Rebecca Jacobson:
The character Mr. Methane is portrayed as “evil twin” to Mr. Carbon in a dramatic sense, not a scientific sense. They’re both greenhouse gases that contribute significantly to global warming and are represented as the villains in the play for the Cool The Earth program. They’re just trying to get very young kids to understand the basic concepts of greenhouse gases and how they change the earth’s climate, making it too hot and melting Koda the Polar Bear’s home on the ice.
“The photo is me in costume as the evil Mr. Methane, a part I play each year as Mr. Carbon’s twisted twin who is 20 times worse than he is. It also relates directly back to the science unit I teach in my classroom to all 120 of our fourth graders on reducing solid waste and recycling.” — Geoff Chin, fourth-grade teacher in Kentfield, Calif.
The deadly Joplin, Mo., tornado was preceded this spring by a series of severe weather that brought devastation and death across parts of the South and Midwest. Judy Woodruff explores the science behind this year’s remarkably severe weather.
