Tag Archives: Video

Environment, News, Weather

Climate Change May Put Washington Wineries on the March

“Wine Economist” Mike Veseth points his fans toward this climate change video based on research by Conservation International and the Environmental Defense Fund. In it, reds denote where wine grapes currently thrive, green means the wine-song remains the same, and blue indicates where new viticultural areas could develop. Clearly, now is the time to snatch up that land in Okanogan, Ferry, Stevens, and Pend Oreille Counties.

“Bear in mind that forecasting is difficult, especially about the future, so projections shouldn’t be confused with fact,” admonishes Veseth, but on the other hand (he is an economist, after all) wine grapes have already proven exquisitely sensitive to climate change, for better or for worse.

As it is, “growing season temperatures have increased for most of the world’s high quality wine regions over the last 50 years, by an average of 2 ºC,” writes Jamie Goode, and already there have been winners and losers. Though the higher temperature tracks an increase in vintage quality over the corresponding years, wine growers in California’s Napa and Sonoma Valleys complain that “the climate has become so warm that ripening fruit is not an issue, but retaining acidity and developing flavor have become increasingly difficult.”

With the wine industry being the global juggernaut that it is, with estimates of size in 2014 at more than $292 billion, studies have been flying that attempt to forecast where, geographically, the best investments should be made. In 2011, a Stanford study concluded that by 2039:

In Napa the average temperature could increase by more than 1˚C, with the number of ‘very hot’ days going up by 10. As a result, the amount of land suitable for growing Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay would shrink by half. There would be slight increase in suitable land In Willamette Valley in Oregon, but in Columbia Valley in Washington there would be a 30 percent reduction.

Wine growers do have options besides migration — they can plant more heat-tolerant varieties, or invest in ways to reduce the heat the plants are exposed to. But the more recent study notes that access to water for irrigation and for cooling will also be a point of contention. Using the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) database for their climate modeling, the researchers forecast that:

Area suitable for viticulture decreases 25 to 73 percent in major wine producing regions by 2050 in the higher RCP 8.5 concentration pathway and 19 to 62 percent in the lower RCP 4.5.

Essentially, the Mediterranean-style climate so suitable for wine production would leave the Mediterranean: “Large newly suitable areas are projected in regions of Northern Europe and western North America. Ensemble mean increases in suitable area are 231 percent in western North America and 99 percent in Northern Europe in RCP 8.5.” Australia’s loss becomes New Zealand’s gain.

This concerns Conservation International because the obvious migratory response is to seek either higher elevations or higher latitudes, which in many cases would put new vineyards in proximity with wildlife and wilderness. (That’s without mentioning the tendency for wine regions to become monocultural — prior to the Judgment of Paris, the Napa Valley was home to a substantial number of fruit and nut orchards, which have since been uprooted.)

Economist Veseth, the author of Wine Wars, has a new book coming out called Extreme Wine. He’s traveled the world, the blurb says, on the track of the “best, worst, cheapest, most expensive, and most over-priced wines.” You’ll find discussions of wines created by celebrities, wine booms and busts, and wine-tourism. It comes out this October, but you can pre-order now.

Environment, News, Science

Big Break-Up of Arctic Ice on the Beaufort Sea (Video)

On NASA’s Global Climate Change page, you can view an astonishing fracturing of sea ice on the Beaufort, covering hundreds of miles. It began in late January and continued through March, 2013. It’s not unusual for Arctic ice to fracture — it’s subject to ocean currents and storms that continually grind plates of sea ice together — but it is startling to see so much of it go at once. What’s different, says Walt Meier of the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC), is that this ice formed since last fall. It’s seasonal or “first-year” ice, and less durable, as ices go.

Last summer’s record melt-off reduced the amount of multiyear ice on the Beaufort (the salt concentrates into droplets of brine as ice crystals form and over time the droplets escape to the sea, leaving an ice that’s more rigid behind). “Multiyear ice used to cover up to 60 percent of the Arctic Ocean, it now covers only 30 percent,” says the NSIDC. By end of February 2013 (according to NASA Goddard, the NSIDC says March 15), the winter maximum of Arctic sea ice had been reached, but it was fifth-paltriest freeze-up of the past 35 years.

Up on Cooper Island, off Barrow, Alaska, researchers George and Penelope had a front-row seat, and posted about it for the Friends of Cooper Island blog: “Dramatic Early Breakup of the Beaufort.” We spoke to George Divoky a few years ago about “global warming as seen from Cooper Island” — after decades of research on Black Guillemots, he was having to respond to climate change in order to continue his work. For one thing, hungry polar bears were visiting the island to feast on Guillemot eggs, and after losing a few tents to their curiosity, he had to build a shack and keep a rifle handy.

For Divoky, who worries that the pace of change could spell the end of Cooper Island Black Guillemots, the story isn’t captured wholly by satellite views of ice:

While the media regularly reports on observed decreases in sea ice extent and volume, they typically ignore that it is not just a physical loss of ice that is occurring but that an entire ecosystem and its biotic components are being disrupted and diminished. Loss of ice in the western Beaufort Sea in the last decade is why Black Guillemot parents stopped feeding their young Arctic Cod in August and why polar bears now are regular visitors to Cooper Island.

Nor is Seattle, so far south, comparatively, immune to the effects of the presence (or not) of Arctic ice. What’s known as the Arctic Oscillation either spools up truly frigid around the Pole, or lets it roam southward. Historically, the Arctic Oscillation in a negative phase has resulted in it being more likely for stormy cold snaps to make their way to our doors. Unseasonable spring freezes are the sort of thing that keep Eastern Washington vineyard owners, for instance, in cold sweats. But the Arctic Oscillation is just a name for a dynamic pattern that exists because of there being millions of square miles of Arctic ice in the first place — at some point as the ice retreats, and multiyear ice especially decreases, the AO’s icebox refrigeration may shut down.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Funny Or Die Presents an Alice in Chains Mockumentary

Alice in Chains Twenty-Three from Alice in Chains

If your choices are “funny” or “die,” the former word isn’t likely to be the one you’d associate with heeeaaavy grunge survivors Alice in Chains. But this pseudo/meta promo video for the band’s May 28 release, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here, might change your mind. Is that guitarist/vocalist Jerry Cantrell with the horse named “Man”? Don’t know. Is William DuVall, the lead vocalist post-Layne Staley, that Rasta guy on the beach? No idea. (Is that Mike McCready in on the joke(s)? Duff McKagan? Kim Thayil? Yep.) Is this funny? It most definitely is.

Whether you think AIC should have hung it up when Staley died, or that their stuff since they regrouped (e.g., the Black Gives Way to Blue record) is actually pretty fantastic — and I’m still pleasantly surprised to be in the latter category — it sounds like the new album is going to rock as only Alice in Chains rocks.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Mudhoney’s “I Like It Small” Music Video, Right Here

Here’s a conversation with Dan Peters that makes good reading, as well:

But Arm’s intelligently tossed-off witty words are matched by Mudhoney’s seemingly effortless, gritty signature sound: Peters’ tight staccato percussion, Guy Maddison’s ever-galloping bass, Steve Turner’s hip-deep fuzzy chords, and Arm’s occasional, similarly raw licks. Their studio records bear the punk-infused energy and power they unleash on stage; you don’t hear production. You hear straight foot-stomping, grin-baiting rock. It’s the sound of having a blast.

Added bonus: Interviewer Clint Brownlee is one of the “jumping-around extras” in the video.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Video: Dave Grohl’s Funny Take on Soundgarden’s “By Crooked Steps”

It’s only a matter of time before Dave Grohl gets his own Comedy Central sketch show. Or directs a hilarious buddy comedy. Or, you know, rules the world. Here he displays his directing skill — and great sense of humor — with the guys of Soundgarden, who play along with awesome deadpan seriousness. It’s the video for “By Crooked Steps,” another visceral rocker from the band’s triumphant return, King Animal. You will laugh, or at least grin, at 37 seconds. I think even Skrillex shows up, also with a wink, a little later. Enjoy.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

New Videos from Ben Gibbard, Eddie Vedder & Macklemore (on Ellen)

DCFC’s hangdog nice-guy Ben Gibbard takes a walk on the wild side in the video for “Teardrop Windows.” His new “Thug 4 Life” tattoo inspires a series of hugs. Keep at it, Ben: Fake it ’til you make it.

In “Sleeping By Myself,” Eddie Vedder fills the lonely hours by making a ukulele. When’s the last time you saw a band sander in a video? Attentive viewers will also learn the names of different Hawaiian woods. It’s nice to know Vedder has something to fall back on if this Pearl Jam thing doesn’t work out.

Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, and Mary Lambert were awarded Perez Hilton’s “gay gay gay” tag for appearing on Ellen to sing “Same Love.” The internet collectively got something in its eye and–allergies, right?–needed a moment to compose itself.