Blog Archives - Wanyun Shao, Ph.D

11 years after An Inconvenient Truth

7/29/2017

11 years ago, Al Gore opened many people's eyes to global warming in the Academy Award- winning An Inconvenient Truth. It, in conjunction with the Nobel Peace prize, managed to bring universal attention to this grand issue facing the entire humanity. The American public concern achieved a peak in 2006-07. Fast forward to 2017, global warming is still being denied by many high-profile politicians in the U.S. Al Gore made a sequel to keep the public updated with recent developments in the natural and political landscapes of global warming.

NYT reviews this new documentary.

Michael Lewis's new piece in Vanity Fair

7/26/2017

In a new Vanity Fair piece, Michael Lewis writes about how the ignorance of inner workings of the Department of Energy (DOE) can lead to nuclear threats.

Scientists regard the scientific credibility of Uninhabitable Earth to be low

7/24/2017

More feedback from scientists on the credibility of New York's Uninhabitable Earth.

After Chasing Ice: Chasing Coral

7/19/2017

Netflix new documentary Chasing Coral takes on an immense challenge to trace the rapidly vanishing coral by using cutting edge underwater photographic techniques. The movie is beautifully shot, having the power to evoke strong emotions. If the term climate change sounds so far away in time and space, arts of this sort hopefully can wake up people.

A doomsday scenario of climate change

7/18/2017

In a New York Magazine piece "The Uninhabitable Earth," journalist David Wallace-Wells depicts a scary doomsday scenario for human existence if climate change spirals out of control. This super pessimistic piece has indeed stirred up quite some controversies surrounding the likelihood of this scenario among climate scientists. To respond to criticisms, the magazine published an annotated edition. As alarming as this piece reads, it is drawing upon from many scientific studies. The author presents a wide range of possibly catastrophic impacts of climate change on the human civilization: from decreasing agricultural output to outbreaks of epidemics, from the "time bomb" - melting of permafrost to ocean acidification leading to massive coral dying, from violence of crimes and wars to ultimate economic collapse, all of which are due to the temperature rise.
For many years, climate change has stayed in the back burner as a typical lukewarm issue. The scale of this problem is too grand in both time and space, which makes it often stay out of our immediate sight. After all, we have limited mental resources and energies. The classic image to portray climate change is a polar bear standing on an isolated ice, apparently indicating the fast pace of ice melting in the pole due to temperature rise. This kind of images can evoke some visceral reactions among animal lovers but they are hard to appeal to sympathy at a mass scale, because they are so distant from many people's everyday lives. Scientists have been trying to reach a large audience. But by the virtue of their training, they are not allowed to use vivid languages to describe their empirical findings or model projections. Attempting to project an objective image, they use numbers and probability percentages that are elusive to many laymen. Now, science journalists are trying to play the role in bridging scientists and the public. The description in this article is certainly more vivid than what plain numbers can capture. I do not know how likely this grim scenario will unfold in the near future. One thing I'm certain of is that we are visual species, naturally drawn to stories that can project vivid images. The strong reaction among readers, the articled has become the most-read article in the Magazine's history, proves it.

Contributing to the Green Climate Fund from both humanitarian and economic perspectives

7/15/2017

President Trump claimed that Paris Climate Agreement is a bad deal. Putting money in the Green Climate Fund will hurt the American economy. Two economists make the case that contributing to the Green Climate Fund to help developing countries that are especially vulnerable to climate change not only reflects America's conscience but also makes sense for the American economy.

Climate change being seen everywhere

7/14/2017

Once you see climate change, it's hard to unsee it, even in Game of Thrones.

Back from Esri UC

7/14/2017

It has been quite an experience at the Esri User Conference. This international conference with more than 10000 attendees and hundreds of information-loaded sessions is the biggest annual event for geogeeks.

Inside the Convention Center, San Diego

View of San Diego Bay from the Convention Center

Standing at the entrance to the Convention Center

People rushing to different sessions

AI for science

7/12/2017

AI - artificial intelligence has become a buzz word nowadays. Geographic information scientists certainly don't want to miss this bandwagon. At the Esri UC, I have heard many talks on how machine learning can be utilized to identify spatial patterns and predict locations of events. With limited training data, the machine can detect certain patterns that may evade human minds. If used wisely, AI can help advance scientific knowledge by relentlessly pushing the boundaries. Science just published a special issue on this topic.

Esri user conference has begun

7/10/2017

There were many cool presentations loaded with information at the Esri user conference today. Esri co-founder Jack Dangermond kicked off by showcasing many new developments in ArcGIS and innovative applications of GIS in many different sectors. It was exciting to see ArcGIS is providing an even bigger platform for many programs to be integrated. Microsoft chief environmental scientist demonstrated how artificial intelligence can be utilized on this collaborative platform to conserve our nature better. Disney animation studio technical director showed how the studio reconstructed believable landscapes by using the tool CityEngine in the Academy award winning movie Zootopia. The keynote speaker, theoretical physicist Geoffrey West used concepts and laws found in biology to explain urban development.

Esri co-founder Jack Dangermond

Dangermond's presentation

Dangermond's presentation

Esri symbol

Microsoft chief environmental scientist Lucas Joppa

Disney animation studios technical director Brandon Jarratt

Keynote speaker Geoffrey West

Joppa's presentation: deep learning in conservation

Jarratt presentation on how to construct believable landscape in animation movies

West's presentation: unbounded urban growth requires accelerating cycles of innovation to avoid collapse