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Category: Climate Change

Catastrophic tipping point in Greenland: crystal blue lakes turn brown, belch out carbon dioxide

Catastrophic tipping point in Greenland: crystal blue lakes turn brown, belch out carbon dioxide

Live Science reports: Thousands of Greenland’s crystal-clear blue lakes have turned a murky brown thanks to global warming — and the worst part is that they’ve started emitting carbon dioxide. Record heat and rain in 2022 pushed the lakes of West Greenland past a tipping point, so rather than absorbing carbon dioxide (CO₂), they began to emit it into the atmosphere, according to a new study. The changes began in fall, which is normally a snowy time for Greenland. However,…

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The changing climate of the Little Ice Age forced radical thinkers to reconsider humanity’s place in the universe

The changing climate of the Little Ice Age forced radical thinkers to reconsider humanity’s place in the universe

Timothy Grieve-Carlson writes: The sky in the northern hemisphere had been darkened, the winters unusually harsh, and the summers barely arriving for decades when the German Lutheran author Johann Arndt published his Four Books on True Christianity in 1610. Arndt warned his readers that: when the sky burns like this, and the sun turns blood-red, it is telling us: Behold, one day I will perish in fire. In this way, all the elements speak to us, announcing our wickedness and…

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Increasing climate losses threaten the insurance industry and financial stability

Increasing climate losses threaten the insurance industry and financial stability

Ilan Noy writes: The impact of climate change on insurance markets has been systematically underestimated, with profound implications for financial stability and the sustainability of the risk-sharing services insurance provides. In my research on the economic impacts of climate change and other disasters, I’ve observed a persistent pattern: insurers treat climate change primarily as a future risk while failing to recognise how it has been transforming the risk landscape for some time now. This misunderstanding is now coming home to…

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Biden administration reaches deal limiting controversial protections for multinational corporations

Biden administration reaches deal limiting controversial protections for multinational corporations

Inside Climate News reports: The Biden administration announced a last-minute deal on trade this week, reaching an agreement with Colombia to limit protections for investors between the two countries. The move represents a small step toward reforming a system that has awarded multinational corporations more than $100 billion in taxpayer funds from countries around the globe. Investor state dispute settlement, or ISDS, allows foreign companies to bypass national courts and sue governments before panels of arbitrators if they believe their…

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John Vaillant: ‘Virtually any city on Earth can burn now’

John Vaillant: ‘Virtually any city on Earth can burn now’

Kiley Bense writes: The journalist John Vaillant’s book “Fire Weather” begins in the spring of 2016 in the boreal forests surrounding the remote Canadian city of Fort McMurray, where a fire is growing. Although wildfire is a regular part of life in northern Alberta, this fire was destined to be different. “A new kind of fire introduced itself to the world,” Vaillant writes. Ushered in by soaring temperatures, drought and high winds, this wildfire obliterated thousands of buildings, forced 88,000…

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We can still get out of the climate Hellocene and into the clear

We can still get out of the climate Hellocene and into the clear

Rob Jackson writes: The NASA scientist James Hansen gave landmark testimony to a US Senate committee in 1988 that brimmed with evidence of climate change. More than 35 years ago, he concluded: ‘The greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now.’ Viewing the climate carnage of 2023 and the lack of action since 1988, Hansen was even stronger: ‘We are damned fools.’ But who is the ‘we’? The top 1 per cent of the world’s population…

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Wildfire: Even in a blue city in a blue state, disaster does not force its residents to focus on climate change

Wildfire: Even in a blue city in a blue state, disaster does not force its residents to focus on climate change

David Siders writes: Residents of California’s San Gabriel Valley had been coexisting with wildfire danger for generations before this week’s firestorm. Even relative newcomers, like me, know the house will shake when helicopters carrying water to fires in the foothills fly low overhead, or how to tape plastic to the windows and hose down our eaves. We’ve swept ash and burnt leaves that have rained down in our yards. We trim the trees and hope our insurance companies won’t drop…

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California wildfire season should be over. So why is Los Angeles burning?

California wildfire season should be over. So why is Los Angeles burning?

Science News reports: Unusually dry conditions and hurricane-force seasonal winds are fueling multiple fast-moving and destructive wildfires in Los Angeles County. Gusts that reached over 145 kilometers per hour (90 miles per hour) quickly drove the blazes into urban areas, forcing more than 100,000 people to evacuate from their homes and killing at least two people as of January 8. The largest of the blazes, known as the Palisades fire, erupted the morning of January 7 on the west side…

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Will Trump just let California burn?

Will Trump just let California burn?

Ed Kilgore writes: Right now, as Los Angeles deals with a horrendous wildfire emergency, Donald Trump is just an extremely unhelpful critic of the people trying to save lives and homes. The torrent of abuse and misinformation he is spewing is unfortunate but not calamitous. But in ten days he will become once again the president of the United States, and his intensely politicized approach to natural disasters, particularly in blue states like California, will become highly relevant to real-life…

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From nuts to kelp: The ‘carbon-negative’ foods that help reverse climate change

From nuts to kelp: The ‘carbon-negative’ foods that help reverse climate change

Joseph Poore writes: We all know that producing most foods creates greenhouse gas emissions, driving climate change. These emissions come from hundreds of different sources, including tractors burning fuel, manufacturing fertiliser and the bacteria in cow’s guts. Overall, food production contributes a quarter of human caused greenhouse gas emissions. However, there are some foods that remove more greenhouse gases than they emit, often referred to as “carbon negative” foods. These foods leave the climate better than they found it. Producing…

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Jimmy Carter might have saved the climate, if the country had let him try

Jimmy Carter might have saved the climate, if the country had let him try

Dave Levitan writes: It’s an old and well-worn story, of course. On June 20, 1979, President Jimmy Carter stood in front of 32 newly installed solar panels on the White House roof, and announced a set of recommendations he sent to Congress regarding a grand new solar strategy. “Today, in directly harnessing the power of the Sun, we’re taking the energy that God gave us, the most renewable energy that we will ever see, and using it to replace our…

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To escape extreme heat, farmers and fisherfolk worldwide are adopting overnight hours

To escape extreme heat, farmers and fisherfolk worldwide are adopting overnight hours

Modern Farmer reports: Every morning, for years, Josana Pinto da Costa would venture out onto the waterways lining Óbidos, Brazil, in a small fishing boat. She would glide over the murky, churning currents of the Amazon River Basin, her flat nets bringing in writhing hauls as the sun ascended into the cerulean skies above. Scorching temperatures in the Brazilian state of Pará have now made that routine unsafe. The heat has “been really intense” this year, said Pinto da Costa…

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The Sunbelt’s growing population faces increasing climate hazards

The Sunbelt’s growing population faces increasing climate hazards

Inside Climate News reports: Counties across the southern half of the U.S., especially those with large and socially vulnerable populations, will be much more exposed to wildfire, drought and extreme heat than other parts of the country as the region’s climate warms in the coming decades, according to new research from the U.S. Forest Service and Resources for the Future. The report, “Changing Hazards, Exposure, and Vulnerability in the Conterminous United States, 2020–2070,” builds on the Forest Service’s 2020 Resources…

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How the renewable energy boom is remaking the American West

How the renewable energy boom is remaking the American West

Inside Climate News reports: Local conservationist Patrick Donnelly drove east along the Loneliest Road in America, a ribbon of pavement in north central Nevada that deserves its name. Before him, sprawling in every direction, was a green-gray sagebrush basin so large you could probably plop Las Vegas in it and still have room to spare. Save for a stiff wind and the occasional cow bleat, a heavy silence sat on the valley. Not much moved aside from skittish grouse and…

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The state of the Arctic: High temperatures, melting ice, fires and unprecedented emissions

The state of the Arctic: High temperatures, melting ice, fires and unprecedented emissions

NBC News reports: The Arctic just experienced its second-hottest year on record. And concerningly, the region’s tundra has transitioned from being a sink for carbon to a source of emissions as permafrost melts to release methane. That will only amplify the amount of heat-trapping gases that enter the atmosphere, paving the way for further warming. The findings, shared Tuesday in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Arctic report card, show how climate change is scrambling ecosystems and shape-shifting the landscape…

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Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check

Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check

Andrew Dessler writes: One of the most important concepts in climate science is the idea of committed warming — how much future warming is coming from carbon dioxide that we’ve already emitted. Understanding the extent of committed warming is vital because it informs our current climate situation. If there is a significant amount of committed warming already “locked in,” then we have much less ability to avoid the levels of warming that policymakers judge as dangerous. In a previous post…

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