Browsed by
Category: Climate Change

UK could ban sale of combustion-engine powered cars in 12 years, says transport minister

UK could ban sale of combustion-engine powered cars in 12 years, says transport minister

The Guardian reports: The government could ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars in 2032, three years earlier than previously suggested, the transport secretary has said. A consultation launched last week suggested all cars with internal combustion engines could be banned from 2035 but Grant Shapps told BBC radio on Wednesday the ban could come within 12 years. The ban would happen by 2035 – or even 2032, subject to consultation, he said. The comments will add to the…

Read More Read More

Iceberg twice the size of Washington cleaves off Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica, in a sign of rapid warming

Iceberg twice the size of Washington cleaves off Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica, in a sign of rapid warming

The Washington Post reports: An iceberg about twice the size of the District of Columbia broke off Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica sometime between Saturday and Sunday, satellite data shows, confirming yet another in a series of increasingly frequent calving events in this rapidly warming region. The Pine Island Glacier is one of the fastest-retreating glaciers in Antarctica, and along with the Thwaites Glacier nearby, it’s a subject of close scientific monitoring to determine whether these glaciers are in…

Read More Read More

Rapid permafrost collapse is underway, disintegrating landscapes and our predictions

Rapid permafrost collapse is underway, disintegrating landscapes and our predictions

AFP reports: Permafrost in Canada, Alaska and Siberia is abruptly crumbling in ways that could release large stores of greenhouse gases more quickly than anticipated, researchers have warned. Scientists have long fretted that climate change – which has heated Arctic and subarctic regions at double the global rate – will release planet-warming CO2 and methane that has remained safely locked inside Earth’s frozen landscapes for millennia. It was assumed this process would be gradual, leaving humanity time to draw down…

Read More Read More

Antarctica just hit 65 degrees, its warmest temperature ever recorded

Antarctica just hit 65 degrees, its warmest temperature ever recorded

The Washington Post reports: Just days after the earth saw its warmest January on record, Antarctica has broken its warmest temperature ever recorded. A reading of 65 degrees was taken Thursday at Esperanza Base along Antarctica’s Trinity Peninsula, making it the ordinarily frigid continent’s highest measured temperature in history. The Argentine research base is on the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Randy Cerveny, who tracks extremes for the World Meteorological Organization, called Thursday’s reading a “likely record,” although the…

Read More Read More

Insurers should support people, not the fossil fuel industry

Insurers should support people, not the fossil fuel industry

Tony Dunn writes: On November 8, 2018, I was trapped in my car as embers fell all around me in Paradise, California, and the thought that kept going through my head was, “This can’t be the same fire [that had been reported 10 miles away only two hours before]. Fires can’t move like that.” I should know: I spent nearly a decade studying wildland fire history, fire ecology and fire behavior in southern California for the U.S. Forest Service and…

Read More Read More

Bumblebees’ decline points to mass extinction, scientists say

Bumblebees’ decline points to mass extinction, scientists say

PA Media reports: Bumblebees are in drastic decline across Europe and North America owing to hotter and more frequent extremes in temperatures, scientists say. A study suggests the likelihood of a bumblebee population surviving in any given place has declined by 30% in the course of a single human generation. The researchers say the rates of decline appear to be “consistent with a mass extinction”. Peter Soroye, a PhD student at the University of Ottawa and the study’s lead author,…

Read More Read More

Trump withholding $823 million for clean energy, Democrats say

Trump withholding $823 million for clean energy, Democrats say

Bloomberg reports: The Trump administration is withholding nearly a billion dollars for a clean energy program it has unsuccessfully tried to cut, congressional Democrats said Wednesday, raising the specter of political interference. The unspent funds now amount to $823 million in the Energy Department’s office that provides grants and other financial assistance for alternative energy, electric vehicles and energy efficiency, according to Democrats on the House Science Committee, which is holding a joint subcommittee hearing on the topic. The Office…

Read More Read More

Once again, why fossil fuels are on the wrong side of history

Once again, why fossil fuels are on the wrong side of history

Jim Cramer writes: Tesla plus 80, Exxon Mobil minus a dollar and a half. On a huge up day, doesn’t that say it all? I’ve gotten a lot of blowback about my stand on fossil fuels. It’s been roundly criticized by many even as so many others are grateful for my new stand. The funny thing is that the stance itself is often poorly described by others so let’s unpack my comments. First, I have spent a great deal of…

Read More Read More

Climate models used to forecast warming have suddenly started giving us less time

Climate models used to forecast warming have suddenly started giving us less time

Bloomberg reports: There are dozens of climate models, and for decades they’ve agreed on what it would take to heat the planet by about 3° Celsius. It’s an outcome that would be disastrous—flooded cities, agricultural failures, deadly heat—but there’s been a grim steadiness in the consensus among these complicated climate simulations. Then last year, unnoticed in plain view, some of the models started running very hot. The scientists who hone these systems used the same assumptions about greenhouse-gas emissions as…

Read More Read More

Greta Thunberg nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

Greta Thunberg nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

The Associated Press reports: Two lawmakers in Sweden have nominated Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize. Jens Holm and Hakan Svenneling, who are both members of Sweden’s Left Party, said Monday that Thunberg “has worked hard to make politicians open their eyes to the climate crisis” and “action for reducing our emissions and complying with the Paris Agreement is therefore also an act of making peace.” The 2015 landmark Paris climate deal asks both…

Read More Read More

Fossil fuel greenwashing

Fossil fuel greenwashing

Climate Reality Project reports: It’s no secret that fossil fuel companies have cast doubt on climate science for decades. What’s more, it should be no surprise that they’ve spent billions lobbying against any serious regulation of their emissions. What might be less well known, however, is the extent of their greenwashing: the tactic oil, coal, and gas companies have increasingly turned to as public sentiment against their products has grown. What exactly is greenwashing, you may ask? It’s a form…

Read More Read More

Unprecedented data confirms that Antarctica’s most dangerous glacier is melting from below

Unprecedented data confirms that Antarctica’s most dangerous glacier is melting from below

The Washington Post reports: Warm ocean water has been discovered underneath a massive glacier in West Antarctica, a troubling finding that could speed its melt in a region with the potential to eventually unleash more than 10 feet of sea-level rise. The unprecedented research, part of a multimillion-dollar British and U.S. initiative to study the remote Thwaites Glacier, involved drilling through nearly 2,000 feet of ice to measure water temperatures in a narrow cavity where the glacier first connects with…

Read More Read More

Frontline youth fighting for climate justice

Frontline youth fighting for climate justice

  Black and Brown youth speak for themselves to tell their stories as a part of an intergenerational movement for liberation from all extractive systems and industries. This 7 minute video showcases the beauty and joy of young people who come from a long legacy of intergenerational leadership, grounded in community. They are fighting against the culprits of climate change and climate destruction in their own communities, and winning! Frontline youth are also an integral part of the creative and…

Read More Read More

How much of Harvard’s $40 billion endowment is invested in fossil fuels?

How much of Harvard’s $40 billion endowment is invested in fossil fuels?

Devi Lockwood writes: Figuring out exactly how much of Harvard’s endowment is invested in oil, gas and coal companies is a near-impossible task. Harvard is required to disclose only direct investments in which the university owns shares of a specific company. Harvard says its direct investments amounted to $394 million as of May 2019, or roughly 1 percent of the endowment total. Divest Harvard, a student group, determined that of that approximate amount, $5.6 million was invested in companies that…

Read More Read More

Amazon employees defy ban on speaking out on company’s role in climate crisis

Amazon employees defy ban on speaking out on company’s role in climate crisis

The Washington Post reports: More than 350 Amazon employees violated the e-commerce giant’s communications policy Sunday, in an unprecedented public display of support for colleagues who were warned they could be fired for speaking out to criticize the company’s climate practices. Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, a group of workers concerned about the company’s business with the oil and gas industry as well as its carbon footprint, published quotes from 357 workers in a post on Medium. The comments, all…

Read More Read More

Investing in humanity: British Medical Journal launches campaign for fossil fuel divestment

Investing in humanity: British Medical Journal launches campaign for fossil fuel divestment

A BMJ editorial says: How do we restore hope for humanity? Many of us feel despair at a disintegrating political consensus to save our planet from fire, flood, disease, and conflict. We feel trapped in our high carbon lives and disempowered by commercial influence of companies whose products damage the planet and people’s wellbeing. Evidence for the effects of the politico-commercial complex is clear and alarming. On our current trajectory we will miss carbon emission targets and sustainable development goals,…

Read More Read More