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Category: Climate Change

China is positioned to lead on climate change as the U.S. rolls back its policies

China is positioned to lead on climate change as the U.S. rolls back its policies

Smoke from a coal-fired Beijing power plant that closed in 2017 as part of China’s transition to cleaner energy. AP Photo/Andy Wong By Kelly Sims Gallagher, Tufts University and Fang Zhang, Tufts University As the effects of climate change become more widespread and alarming, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has called on nations to step up their plans for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Every country has a part to play, but if the world’s largest emitters fail to meet their commitments,…

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How Greenland’s massive ice melt will totally transform the world

How Greenland’s massive ice melt will totally transform the world

  Channel 4 News: Remember that heatwave back in August? Well, the Arctic remembers it too. Record rates of ice melt have been recorded on the great ice-shelf of Greenland. It’s critical for all of us because of its potential effect on global sea levels. In the first of a series of special reports from Greenland, we examine the threat to the giant glaciers and to those whose lives depend upon the sea ice.

Dangerous new hot zones are spreading around the world

Dangerous new hot zones are spreading around the world

The Washington Post reports: The day the yellow clams turned black is seared in Ramón Agüero’s memory. It was the summer of 1994. A few days earlier, he had collected a generous haul, 20 buckets of the thin-shelled, cold-water clams, which burrow a foot deep into the sand along a 13-mile stretch of beach near Barra del Chuy, just south of the Brazilian border. Agüero had been digging up these clams since childhood, a livelihood passed on for generations along…

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World ‘gravely’ unprepared for effects of climate crisis, says new report

World ‘gravely’ unprepared for effects of climate crisis, says new report

The Guardian reports: The world’s readiness for the inevitable effects of the climate crisis is “gravely insufficient”, according to a report from global leaders. This lack of preparedness will result in poverty, water shortages and levels of migration soaring, with an “irrefutable toll on human life”, the report warns. Trillion-dollar investment is needed to avert “climate apartheid”, where the rich escape the effects and the poor do not, but this investment is far smaller than the eventual cost of doing…

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In Brazil’s rainforests, the worst fires are likely still to come

In Brazil’s rainforests, the worst fires are likely still to come

By Robert T. Walker, University of Florida The number of fires this year in the Amazon is the highest since 2010, reaching more than 90,000 active fires. Farmers and ranchers routinely use fires to clear the forest. But this year’s number reflects a worrisome uptick in the rate of deforestation, which had started to drop around 2005 before rebounding earlier this decade. Many people blame the Brazilian government and its pro-agriculture policies for the current crisis. But as an environmental…

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We scientists must rise up to prevent the climate crisis. Words aren’t enough

We scientists must rise up to prevent the climate crisis. Words aren’t enough

Charlie Gardner and Claire Wordley write: As scientists, we tend to operate under an unspoken assumption – that our job is to provide the world with factual information, and if we do so our leaders will use it to make wise decisions. But what if that assumption is wrong? For decades, conservation scientists like us have been telling the world that species and ecosystems are disappearing, and that their loss will have devastating impacts on humanity. Meanwhile, climate scientists have…

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Dorian one of strongest, longest-lasting Atlantic hurricanes on record

Dorian one of strongest, longest-lasting Atlantic hurricanes on record

InsideClimate News reports: Hurricane Dorian spun away from North Carolina’s Outer Banks on Friday as one of the longest-lasting named storms and the most powerful on record to hit the Bahamas, and it wasn’t finished yet—a hurricane warning had been posted for Nova Scotia, Canada. Compared to the path of devastation Dorian left across the northern Bahamas, the U.S. coast had largely been spared. Dorian had struck the northern Bahamas‘ Great Abaco and Grand Bahama islands as one of the…

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How climate change is driving emigration from Central America

How climate change is driving emigration from Central America

A farmer carries firewood during the dry season in Nicaragua, one of the Central American countries affected by a recent drought. Neil Palmer for CIAT/flickr, CC BY-NC-ND By Miranda Cady Hallett, University of Dayton Clouds of dust rose behind the wheels of the pickup truck as we hurtled over the back road in Palo Verde, El Salvador. When we got to the stone-paved part of the road, the driver slowed as the truck heaved up and down with the uneven…

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Climate crisis town hall tested Democratic candidates’ boldness and credibility

Climate crisis town hall tested Democratic candidates’ boldness and credibility

InsideClimate News reports: Views of Hurricane Dorian’s destruction across the Bahamas and its path toward the Carolinas punctuated the first U.S. presidential candidates’ televised forum dedicated to climate change, reminding viewers of the stakes as 10 leading Democratic candidates pitched their climate policy ideas Wednesday night. CNN’s juxtaposition of its unprecedented political forum with coverage of the record-breaking storm seemed to signal a new era in the long struggle over the U.S. role in addressing global warming. There was none…

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How many Americans believe in climate change? Probably more than you think, research in Indiana suggests

How many Americans believe in climate change? Probably more than you think, research in Indiana suggests

Concern about climate change is broader than many Hoosiers think. Katherine Welles/Shutterstock By Matthew Houser, Indiana University Indiana certainly doesn’t look like a state that’s ready to confront climate change. Its former governor, Vice President Mike Pence, has questioned whether human actions affect the climate. In 2016 the majority of Indiana residents voted for Donald Trump, who rejects mainstream climate science. And the state ranks first in the proportion of its population that identifies as conservative – a position that…

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15 things a president can actually do to tackle the climate crisis

15 things a president can actually do to tackle the climate crisis

Zachary B. Wolf writes: Here are some things any president could do on Day One in office: 1. Rejoin the Paris climate agreement Promising to withdraw the US from the landmark 2015 climate agreement was Trump’s benchmark action rebutting the responsibility to act on climate change. He said, without much evidence, that it was a demeaning failure for American workers, who would be expected to do more than those in other countries. The result is the US is one of…

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Global heating made Hurricane Dorian bigger, wetter – and more deadly

Global heating made Hurricane Dorian bigger, wetter – and more deadly

Michael Mann and Andrew E Dessler write: The Bahamas, for those who live there, is simply a place to call home. For many Americans, it’s a dream vacation spot. But Hurricane Dorian turned that dream into a nightmare. And the worst part is this is only the beginning. Because unless we confront the climate crisis, warming will turn more and more of our fantastic landscapes, cities we call paradise and other dream destinations into nightmarish hellscapes. While the science has…

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How has climate change affected Hurricane Dorian?

How has climate change affected Hurricane Dorian?

The New York Times reports: The links between hurricanes and climate change are complex, but some aspects are getting clearer. Tropical storms draw their energy from ocean heat — and more than 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions is being stored in the ocean. Storms that survive the cradle of formation can intensify quickly and become immensely powerful. While it’s common to hear the question, “Was it caused by climate change?” scientists argue that this is…

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The misogyny of climate deniers

The misogyny of climate deniers

Martin Gelin writes: Researchers at Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology, which recently launched the world’s first academic research center to study climate denialism, have for years been examining a link between climate deniers and the anti-feminist far-right. In 2014, Jonas Anshelm and Martin Hultman of Chalmers published a paper analyzing the language of a focus group of climate skeptics. The common themes in the group, they said, were striking: “for climate skeptics … it was not the environment that was…

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Australian Medical Association declares climate change a health emergency

Australian Medical Association declares climate change a health emergency

The Guardian reports: The Australian Medical Association has formally declared climate change a health emergency, pointing to “clear scientific evidence indicating severe impacts for our patients and communities now and into the future”. The AMA’s landmark shift, delivered by a motion of the body’s federal council, brings the organisation into line with forward-leaning positions taken by the American Medical Association, the British Medical Association and Doctors for the Environment Australia. The American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians…

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What does ’12 years to act on climate change’ (now 11 years) really mean?

What does ’12 years to act on climate change’ (now 11 years) really mean?

InsideClimate News reports: We’ve been hearing variations of the phrase “the world only has 12 years to deal with climate change” a lot lately. Sen. Bernie Sanders put a version of it front and center of his presidential campaign last week, saying we now have “less than 11 years left to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy, if we are going to leave this planet healthy and habitable.” But where does the…

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