Browsed by
Category: Climate Change

The Amazon rainforest now emits more greenhouse gases than it absorbs

The Amazon rainforest now emits more greenhouse gases than it absorbs

Alex Fox writes: The Amazon rainforest may now emit more greenhouse gases than the famously lush ecosystem absorbs, according to new research. Long considered to be a bulwark against climate change because of its capacity to absorb carbon dioxide, a new study suggests rising temperatures, increasing drought and rampant deforestation have likely overwhelmed the Amazon’s ability to absorb more greenhouse gases than it emits, reports Craig Welch for National Geographic. The sobering findings appear in a new study published earlier…

Read More Read More

There are no borders in the climate crisis

There are no borders in the climate crisis

Bill McKibben writes: The “crisis” at the border is dominating the news, and, as my colleague Jonathan Blitzer has written, the immediate focus is on the political battle to prevent Joe Biden from passing meaningful immigration reform. But this might also be a moment for thinking about what globalism means in a world where borders ultimately can’t offer protection against the most serious threats. To give an example: owing in part to climate change, there was a record hurricane season…

Read More Read More

Japan’s Kyoto cherry blossoms peak on earliest date in 1,200 years, a clear sign of climate change

Japan’s Kyoto cherry blossoms peak on earliest date in 1,200 years, a clear sign of climate change

The Washington Post reports: Amid an exceptionally warm March in Japan, the cherry blossoms in Kyoto peaked Friday, the earliest in more than 1,200 years of records. The record bloom fits into a long-term pattern toward earlier spring flowering, a compelling indicator of climate change, experts say. The March 26, 2021, peak bloom date surpassed the previous record holder of March 27, 1409, nearly a century before Christopher Columbus sailed to America. The long-term record dates back to A.D. 812,…

Read More Read More

Rich nation appetites driving tropical deforestation

Rich nation appetites driving tropical deforestation

AFP reports: Rising demand in wealthy countries for dozens of commodities ranging from coffee to soybeans has stepped up the pace of deforestation in the tropics, researchers said on Monday. Even as North America and Europe expand forest cover within their own borders, efforts to slow forest loss in the global south through offset schemes and direct payments have been overwhelmed by these appetites, they reported in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. The first country-by-country quantification of how rich-nation…

Read More Read More

Biden’s massive infrastructure plan is also a climate plan

Biden’s massive infrastructure plan is also a climate plan

Vox reports: The White House is preparing for its next big swing on the economy. Shortly after passing his $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package, President Joe Biden is preparing to unveil his “Build Back Better” plan Wednesday during a public address in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The White House discussed an approximately $3 trillion infrastructure package on a call last week with Senate Democrats, but the price tag and final details are still under discussion, a person familiar with the plan told…

Read More Read More

The ‘green energy’ that poses a climate threat

The ‘green energy’ that poses a climate threat

Michael Grunwald writes: Here’s a multibillion-dollar question that could help determine the fate of the global climate: If a tree falls in a forest—and then it’s driven to a mill, where it’s chopped and chipped and compressed into wood pellets, which are then driven to a port and shipped across the ocean to be burned for electricity in European power plants—does it warm the planet? Most scientists and environmentalists say yes: By definition, clear-cutting trees and combusting their carbon emits…

Read More Read More

Do we actually need more gas stations?

Do we actually need more gas stations?

Bill McKibben writes: If we’re really going to change, sooner or later we’ll have to actually make a change. The latest front in the fight against fossil fuels—so far, one confined to a couple of California towns—concerns what might be the most iconic element of the American commercial landscape: the gas station. Beginning in 2019, activists from the Coalition Opposing New Gas Stations have questioned whether there’s a need for big new versions of the filling station, or whether—since both…

Read More Read More

The Amazon rainforest could die in your lifetime — here’s why

The Amazon rainforest could die in your lifetime — here’s why

Anna Funk writes: Deforestation in the Amazon has long been the poster child of man-made environmental destruction. But recent trends reveal that the changing climate will likely come for this beloved rainforest long before the last tree is cut down. One researcher has even put a date on his prediction for the Amazon’s impending death: 2064. That’s the year the Amazon rainforest will be completely wiped out. Dramatic? Yes. “I’m a doom-sayer,” admits Robert Walker, a quantitative geographer at the…

Read More Read More

We are hurtling toward global suicide

We are hurtling toward global suicide

Ben Ehrenreich writes: On January 13, one week before the inauguration of Joe Biden as the forty-sixth president of the United States and seven long days after the storming of the Capitol by an armed right-wing mob, it was easy enough to miss an article published in the journal Frontiers in Conservation Science, despite its eye-catching title: “Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future.” The headline was itself a train wreck: six dully innocuous words piling up in front…

Read More Read More

How bacteria and archaea influence one of Earth’s largest carbon stores as it begins to thaw

How bacteria and archaea influence one of Earth’s largest carbon stores as it begins to thaw

Monique Brouillette writes: For most of human history, permafrost has been Earth’s largest terrestrial carbon sink, trapping plant and animal material in its frozen layers for centuries. It currently stores about 1,600 billion tonnes of carbon — more than twice the amount in the atmosphere today. But thanks to rising temperatures, permafrost is fracturing and disappearing, leaving behind dramatic changes in the landscape. Scientists are becoming increasingly worried that the thaw will lead to an epic feast for bacteria and…

Read More Read More

The world isn’t building back better after the pandemic

The world isn’t building back better after the pandemic

Akshat Rathi writes: The exuberance of vaccine rollouts in rich countries is masking an ugly reality. Greenhouse gas emissions are already creeping higher than before the pandemic as economies come back to life. That shouldn’t be a total surprise. Even as governments around the world have spent trillions of dollars to aid their nation’s recoveries, only a tiny fraction has gone toward initiatives that would also cut pollution. Many politicians, including U.S. president Joe Biden, have adopted the phrase “build…

Read More Read More

Biden administration backs nation’s biggest wind farm off Martha’s Vineyard

Biden administration backs nation’s biggest wind farm off Martha’s Vineyard

The Washington Post reports: The Biden administration took a crucial step Monday toward approving the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind farm to date about 12 nautical miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., a project that officials say will launch a massive clean-power expansion in the fight against climate change. In completing a final environmental review of Vineyard Wind, the Interior Department endorsed an idea that had been conceived two decades ago but had run into a well-funded and…

Read More Read More

Asbestos could be a powerful weapon against climate change

Asbestos could be a powerful weapon against climate change

James Temple writes: On a scorching day this August, Caleb Woodall wielded his shovel like a spear, stabbing it into the hardened crust of an asbestos-filled pit near Coalinga, California. Woodall, a graduate student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, was digging out samples from an asbestos mine that’s been shuttered since 1980, a Superfund site on the highest peak in the state’s Diablo Range. He extracted pounds of the material from several locations across San Benito Mountain, shoveled them…

Read More Read More

We can’t plant or log our way out of climate change

We can’t plant or log our way out of climate change

Danna Smith writes: CNN published an opinion piece on Feb. 10 with the headline, “Plant trees, sure. But to save the climate, we should also cut them down.” This piece omitted some vital facts and science. While the piece did not call for a broad expansion of logging, I think it’s important for readers to understand these facts. Industrial logging and wood production are major drivers of climate disruption. The US is the world’s largest consumer and producer of wood…

Read More Read More

Climate activist who took on BlackRock now takes aim at Vanguard

Climate activist who took on BlackRock now takes aim at Vanguard

Bloomberg reports: Casey Harrell, the campaigner whose sustained pressure was instrumental in pushing BlackRock Inc. to act against climate change, approaches his work as if locked in a race against time. That was true even before the 42-year-old environmental activist was diagnosed last year with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Harrell’s latest effort, focused on Vanguard Group Inc., is likely to be his last. “My diagnosis has put me on the ALS clock, which is a…

Read More Read More

Atlantic Ocean circulation at weakest in a millennium, say scientists

Atlantic Ocean circulation at weakest in a millennium, say scientists

The Guardian reports: The Atlantic Ocean circulation that underpins the Gulf Stream, the weather system that brings warm and mild weather to Europe, is at its weakest in more than a millennium, and climate breakdown is the probable cause, according to new data. Further weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) could result in more storms battering the UK, more intense winters and an increase in damaging heatwaves and droughts across Europe. Scientists predict that the AMOC will weaken…

Read More Read More