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Category: Climate Change

Mass migration begins as Florida faces the biggest threat from climate-driven flooding

Mass migration begins as Florida faces the biggest threat from climate-driven flooding

Bloomberg reports: Lori Rittel is stuck in her Florida Keys home, living in the wreckage left by Hurricane Irma two years ago, unable to rebuild or repair. Now her best hope for escape is to sell the little white bungalow to the government to knock down. Her bedroom is still a no-go zone so she sleeps in the living room with her cat and three dogs. She just installed a sink in the bathroom, which is missing a wall, so…

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Greta Thunberg to Congress: ‘We don’t want to be heard. We want the science to be heard’

Greta Thunberg to Congress: ‘We don’t want to be heard. We want the science to be heard’

The Guardian reports: At a meeting of the Senate climate crisis task force on Tuesday, lawmakers praised a group of young activists for their leadership, their gumption and their display of wisdom far beyond their years. They then asked the teens for advice on how Congress might combat one of the most urgent and politically contentious threats confronting world leaders: climate change. Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist who has galvanized young people across the world to strike for more…

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Trump administration not so interested in states’ rights when it comes to California

Trump administration not so interested in states’ rights when it comes to California

Dino Grandoni writes: President Trump likes to cast himself as a champion of states’ rights. But he stops short when it comes to California and other liberal states. The latest example comes from Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, which is on the cusp of revoking California’s authority to regulate heat-trapping emissions from automobiles inside the state. The decision to spurn California was long expected, and is one in a series of salvos between Trump and one of the nation’s bluest states….

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Only a Green New Deal can douse the fires of eco-fascism

Only a Green New Deal can douse the fires of eco-fascism

Naomi Klein writes: When intense events happen in close proximity to one another, the human mind often tries to draw connections that are not there, a phenomenon known as apophenia. But in this case, there were connections. In fact, the strike [the March 15 School Strike for Climate] and the massacre [in Christchurch, New Zealand] can be understood as mirror opposite reactions to some of the same historical forces. And this relates to the other way that the Christchurch killer…

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Farming subsidies — $1 million a minute — are destroying the world, says report

Farming subsidies — $1 million a minute — are destroying the world, says report

The Guardian reports: The public is providing more than $1m per minute in global farm subsidies, much of which is driving the climate crisis and destruction of wildlife, according to a new report. Just 1% of the $700bn (£560bn) a year given to farmers is used to benefit the environment, the analysis found. Much of the total instead promotes high-emission cattle production, forest destruction and pollution from the overuse of fertiliser. The security of humanity is at risk without reform…

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Are the Amazon fires a crime against humanity?

Are the Amazon fires a crime against humanity?

By Tara Smith, Bangor University Fires in the Brazilian Amazon have jumped 84% during President Jair Bolsonaro’s first year in office and in July 2019 alone, an area of rainforest the size of Manhattan was lost every day. The Amazon fires may seem beyond human control, but they’re not beyond human culpability. Bolsonaro ran for president promising to “integrate the Amazon into the Brazilian economy”. Once elected, he slashed the Brazilian environmental protection agency budget by 95% and relaxed safeguards…

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Why carbon dioxide has such outsized influence on Earth’s climate

Why carbon dioxide has such outsized influence on Earth’s climate

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite makes precise measurements of Earth’s carbon dioxide levels from space. NASA/JPL By Jason West, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill CC BY-ND Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz I heard that carbon dioxide makes up 0.04% of the world’s atmosphere. Not…

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2020 could be your last chance to stop a climate catastrophe

2020 could be your last chance to stop a climate catastrophe

In an editorial, the Los Angeles Times says: The world is drifting steadily toward a climate catastrophe. For many of us, that’s been clear for a few years or maybe a decade or even a few decades. But others have known that a reckoning was coming for much longer. A Swedish scientist first calculated in 1896 that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere could lead to warmer global temperatures. By the 1930s, scientists were measuring the increase, and in the…

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Most American teens are frightened by climate change, poll finds. One in four are taking action

Most American teens are frightened by climate change, poll finds. One in four are taking action

The Washington Post reports: A solid majority of American teenagers are convinced that humans are changing the Earth’s climate and believe that it will cause harm to them personally and to other members of their generation, according to a new Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Roughly 1 in 4 have participated in a walkout, attended a rally or written to a public official to express their views on global warming — remarkable levels of activism for a group that has…

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Renewable energy has become the most profitable form of power production

Renewable energy has become the most profitable form of power production

Bloomberg reports: The chief executive of the world’s largest private coal company sat before a group of U.S. lawmakers who wanted to know whether the fuel had a future. He didn’t hesitate. “Coal,” he said, “is the future.” It was 2010. Coal supplied nearly half of America’s power, the executive testified, and was growing more than 1.5 times faster than oil, natural gas, nuclear and renewables combined. Global demand was on pace to rise 53% within two decades. And renewable…

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The world has a third pole — and it’s melting quickly

The world has a third pole — and it’s melting quickly

The Observer reports: Many moons ago in Tibet, the Second Buddha transformed a fierce nyen (a malevolent mountain demon) into a neri (the holiest protective warrior god) called Khawa Karpo, who took up residence in the sacred mountain bearing his name. Khawa Karpo is the tallest of the Meili mountain range, piercing the sky at 6,740 metres (22,112ft) above sea level. Local Tibetan communities believe that conquering Khawa Karpo is an act of sacrilege and would cause the deity to…

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Lifestyle changes aren’t enough to save the planet. Here’s what could

Lifestyle changes aren’t enough to save the planet. Here’s what could

Michael E Mann writes: Everyone faces choices every day that carry a climate cost. Do we turn the lights on in the morning, or is the light of daybreak sufficient for finding matching socks? Do we feast on bacon and eggs for breakfast, or will a bowl of oatmeal suffice? There is a lot of talk these days about the need to lead lower-carbon lifestyles. There is also a lot of finger-pointing going on and, some argue, virtue signaling. But…

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‘We have a once-in-century chance’: Naomi Klein on how we can fight the climate crisis

‘We have a once-in-century chance’: Naomi Klein on how we can fight the climate crisis

Naomi Klein writes: On a Friday in mid-March, they streamed out of schools in little rivulets, burbling with excitement and defiance at an act of truancy. The little streams emptied on to grand avenues and boulevards, where they combined with other flows of chanting children and teens. Soon the rivulets were rushing rivers: 100,000 bodies in Milan, 40,000 in Paris, 150,000 in Montreal. Cardboard signs bobbed above the surf of humanity: THERE IS NO PLANET B! DON’T BURN OUR FUTURE….

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Hello from the year 2050. We avoided a climate catastrophe — but everything is different

Hello from the year 2050. We avoided a climate catastrophe — but everything is different

Bill McKibben writes: Let’s imagine for a moment that we’ve reached the middle of the century. It’s 2050, and we have a moment to reflect—the climate fight remains the consuming battle of our age, but its most intense phase may be in our rearview mirror. And so we can look back to see how we might have managed to dramatically change our society and economy. We had no other choice. There was a point after 2020 when we began to…

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Americans increasingly see climate change as a crisis, poll shows

Americans increasingly see climate change as a crisis, poll shows

The Washington Post reports: A growing number of Americans describe climate change as a crisis, and two-thirds say President Trump is doing too little to tackle the problem. The results, from a poll conducted by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), point to a growing disconnect between Americans worried about the warming planet and Trump administration officials, who have aggressively scaled back Obama-era environmental regulations and relinquished the nation’s role as a global leader in pushing for…

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