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Category: Climate Change

Build nothing new that ultimately leads to a flame

Build nothing new that ultimately leads to a flame

Bill McKibben writes: A couple of weeks ago, I said that the first principle of fighting the climate crisis was simple: stop lighting coal, oil, gas, and trees on fire, as soon as possible. Today, I offer a second ground rule, corollary to the first: definitely don’t build anything new that connects to a flame. It’s obvious, of course, that we’re not going to stop burning fossil fuel tomorrow: there are, for instance, 1.42 billion cars on the planet’s roads,…

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The terrifying warning lurking in the Earth’s ancient rock record

The terrifying warning lurking in the Earth’s ancient rock record

Peter Brannen writes: We live on a wild planet, a wobbly, erupting, ocean-sloshed orb that careens around a giant thermonuclear explosion in the void. Big rocks whiz by overhead, and here on the Earth’s surface, whole continents crash together, rip apart, and occasionally turn inside out, killing nearly everything. Our planet is fickle. When the unseen tug of celestial bodies points Earth toward a new North Star, for instance, the shift in sunlight can dry up the Sahara, or fill…

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Why Biden’s actions are good news from front lines of the climate change war

Why Biden’s actions are good news from front lines of the climate change war

Michael E. Mann writes: President Joe Biden, in his first weeks in office, already has advanced a sweeping agenda to tackle the climate crisis by addressing the health, economic, inequity and foreign policy aspects of the problem. An executive order he issued last week establishes climate as an essential consideration in U.S. foreign policy and national security, recognizing the importance of restoring our role as a leader in the international effort to avert catastrophic climate change. By labeling climate change…

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On climate, Biden administration needs to combat zombie Trumpism quickly

On climate, Biden administration needs to combat zombie Trumpism quickly

Bill McKibben writes: The blizzard of federal climate initiatives last week (a blizzard that might help allow actual blizzards to persist into the future) is without precedent. For the first time in the thirty-plus years of our awareness of the climate crisis, Washington roused itself to urgent action; veterans of the cautious Obama Administration—the domestic climate adviser Gina McCarthy and the global climate czar John Kerry chief among them—were suddenly going for broke. In fact, only one branch of the…

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General Motors is counting on your loving electric cars

General Motors is counting on your loving electric cars

Jody Freeman writes: General Motors’ announcement last week that it will stop making gas-powered cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles by 2035 and become carbon neutral by 2040 is even bolder than it sounds: The repercussions will ripple broadly across the economy, accelerating the transition to a broader electric future powered by renewable energy. The pledge by the nation’s largest automaker to phase out internal combustion engines puts pressure on other auto companies, like Ford and Toyota, to make equally…

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S&P warns Exxon, Chevron and other oil firms it may cut their credit ratings

S&P warns Exxon, Chevron and other oil firms it may cut their credit ratings

Markets Insider reports: S&P Global Ratings has put some of the biggest oil companies in the world on notice that it could soon downgrade their credit ratings thanks to heightened concerns about climate change and a global push towards greener energy. The agency – one of the three most influential ratings firms in the world – said it could downgrade the ratings of Chevron, Exxon, Shell and Total among others. It downgraded the outlook, although not the rating, for both…

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A new day for the climate

A new day for the climate

Elizabeth Kolbert writes: Nine years ago, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse had a sign made up that showed a photograph of the Earth as seen from space. “TIME TO WAKE UP,” it urged, in large, unevenly spaced letters. Every week that the Senate was in session, Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, would tote the sign to the chamber, set it on an easel, and, before a hundred chairs—most of them empty—deliver a speech. Though the details changed, the subject of the…

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World’s largest wealth fund withdraws from oil sector

World’s largest wealth fund withdraws from oil sector

Bloomberg reports: Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has sold its entire portfolio of companies focused on oil exploration and production, marking a major step away from fossil fuels for the investing giant. The portfolio, worth about $6 billion in 2019, was fully exited by the end of last year, Trond Grande, the fund’s deputy chief executive, said by phone on Thursday. The move completes a years-long process to reduce the giant investor’s exposure to a sector that has defined Norway’s economy…

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The Biden administration’s landmark day in the fight for the climate

The Biden administration’s landmark day in the fight for the climate

Bill McKibben writes: January 27th was the most remarkable day in the history of America’s official response to the climate crisis, at least since that June afternoon in 1988, when nasa’s James Hansen told a congressional committee that the planet had begun to heat. On Wednesday, in the course of a few hours, the Biden Administration took a series of coördinated actions that, considered together, may well mark the official beginning of the end of the fossil-fuel era. The Biden…

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Climate crisis: World is at its hottest for at least 12,000 years, research finds

Climate crisis: World is at its hottest for at least 12,000 years, research finds

The Guardian reports: The planet is hotter now than it has been for at least 12,000 years, a period spanning the entire development of human civilisation, according to research. Analysis of ocean surface temperatures shows human-driven climate change has put the world in “uncharted territory”, the scientists say. The planet may even be at its warmest for 125,000 years, although data on that far back is less certain. The research, published in the journal Nature, reached these conclusions by solving…

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To counter climate change, we need to stop burning things

To counter climate change, we need to stop burning things

Bill McKibben writes: If one wanted a basic rule of thumb for dealing with the climate crisis, it would be: stop burning things. Human beings have made use of combustion for a very long time, ever since the first campfires cooked the first animals for dinner, allowing our brains to get larger. Now those large brains have come to understand that burning stuff is destroying the stable climate on which civilization depends. By this point, it’s pretty clear to almost…

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Southern Ocean waters are warming faster than thought, threatening Antarctic ice

Southern Ocean waters are warming faster than thought, threatening Antarctic ice

Andrew Freedman writes: The Southern Ocean is one of the most important yet least explored and understood regions of the planet when it comes to determining how global warming may affect the future of humanity, thanks to its capacity to absorb huge quantities of heat and carbon dioxide, and melt swaths of the Antarctic ice sheet. In addition, this vast ocean, part of which separates Australia and Antarctica and also circles the frozen continent, is where global ocean currents get…

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The ongoing collapse of the world’s aquifers

The ongoing collapse of the world’s aquifers

Matt Simon writes: As California’s economy skyrocketed during the 20th century, its land headed in the opposite direction. A booming agricultural industry in the state’s San Joaquin Valley, combined with punishing droughts, led to the over-extraction of water from aquifers. Like huge, empty water bottles, the aquifers crumpled, a phenomenon geologists call subsidence. By 1970, the land had sunk as much as 28 feet in the valley, with less-than-ideal consequences for the humans and infrastructure above the aquifers. The San…

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Biden returns U.S. to Paris climate accord hours after becoming president

Biden returns U.S. to Paris climate accord hours after becoming president

The Guardian reports: Joe Biden has moved to reinstate the US to the Paris climate agreement just hours after being sworn in as president, as his administration rolls out a cavalcade of executive orders aimed at tackling the climate crisis. Biden’s executive action, signed in the White House on Wednesday, will see the US rejoin the international effort curb the dangerous heating of the planet, following a 30-day notice period. The world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases was withdrawn…

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Federal court strikes down major Trump climate rollback

Federal court strikes down major Trump climate rollback

The Associated Press reports: In a last-minute slap at President Donald Trump, a federal appeals court struck down one of his administration’s most momentous climate rollbacks on Tuesday, saying officials acted illegally in issuing a new rule that eased federal regulation of air pollution from power plants. The Trump administration rule was based on a “mistaken reading of the Clean Air Act,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled, adding that the Environmental Protection Agency “fundamentally…

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Biden needs to hit the ground running on climate

Biden needs to hit the ground running on climate

Michael E. Mann writes: First, Americans, let’s congratulate ourselves for having used the power of our vote to create an opportunity for meaningful progress on climate going forward. Joe Biden’s victory in the recent presidential race ushers in a new era of domestic progress and global cooperation. It allows us to begin to repair some of the damage that was done by Donald Trump’s presidency during the past four years—damage inflicted both to our own efforts to address the climate…

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