February 7, 2007
The As on Climate Change
As an indication of the changing salience of global warming discourses, Matier and Ross, columnists for the SF Chronicle, on February 5 ran an opinion wondering aloud if the used-to-be-Oakland A’s new stadium in Fremont would be swamped by rising sea levels over the next century. Of course, no one expects a stadium to last anywhere near that long, and the A’s response to a query, as reported in that column, was nonchalant. But I take it as something of a bell-weather that climate change is now capable of raising questions within popular urban planning conversations and in sports circles.
On the same day I received a preliminary bulletin for this year’s international hydropower conference. While having climate change implications stemming from decomposition of biomass in reservoirs, hydropower is nonetheless a non-carbon based energy source. Yet the irony is that no panels at the conference will address energy policy and climate change.
Sports fans stay tuned.