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Category: Climate Change

Audiences are (finally) paying more attention to climate stories

Audiences are (finally) paying more attention to climate stories

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Andrew McCormick writes: For years, conventional wisdom has held that climate coverage is not especially good for business. The story always seemed too abstract, or too technical, to command attention. “It was pathetic,” David Gelber, who for decades was a producer at CBS’s 60 Minutes, says, reflecting on the consistent absence of environmental reporting in mainstream outlets. “It baffles me. This is such a dramatic story. When they write the history of journalism, this is going to be a very…

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Greenland is melting away before our eyes

Greenland is melting away before our eyes

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Eric Holthaus reports: Amid an ongoing heat wave, new data show the Greenland ice sheet is in the middle of its biggest melt season in recorded history. It’s the latest worrying signal climate change is accelerating far beyond the worst fears of even climate scientists. The record-setting heat wave that sweltered northern Europe last week has moved north over the critically vulnerable Greenland ice sheet, triggering temperatures this week that are as much as 25 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit warmer…

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Alaska’s sweltering summer is ‘basically off the charts’

Alaska’s sweltering summer is ‘basically off the charts’

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The Washington Post reports: Steve Perrins didn’t see the lightning, but he couldn’t miss the smoke that followed. It was around dinnertime on July 23 at Alaska’s oldest hunting lodge, nestled in the wilderness more than 100 miles northwest of Anchorage. What began as a quiet evening at the Rainy Pass Lodge soon turned frantic as Alaska’s latest wildfire spread fast. The Alaska National Guard soon evacuated 26 people and two dogs by helicopter from the lodge, which serves as…

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White House ‘undercutting evidence’ of climate crisis, says analyst who resigned

White House ‘undercutting evidence’ of climate crisis, says analyst who resigned

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The Guardian reports: A former senior government analyst has accused the Trump administration of “undercutting evidence” of the threat to national security from the climate crisis after his report on the issue was blocked by the White House. Rod Schoonover, who worked as an intelligence analyst for the federal government for 10 years before resigning earlier this month, submitted a written testimony on the “wide-ranging implications” of global heating over the next 20 years, for submission to the House intelligence…

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Homes are being built the fastest in many flood-prone areas, study finds

Homes are being built the fastest in many flood-prone areas, study finds

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The New York Times reports: In many coastal states, flood-prone areas have seen the highest rates of home construction since 2010, a study found, suggesting that the risks of climate change have yet to fundamentally change people’s behavior. The study, by Climate Central, a New Jersey research group, looked at the 10-year flood risk zone — the area with a 10 percent chance of flooding in any given year — and estimated the zone’s size in 2050. Then the group…

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Protections slashed and forests fall in the Amazon under Brazil’s far right leader

Protections slashed and forests fall in the Amazon under Brazil’s far right leader

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The New York Times reports: The destruction of the Amazon rain forest in Brazil has increased rapidly since the nation’s new far-right president took over and his government scaled back efforts to fight illegal logging, ranching and mining. Protecting the Amazon was at the heart of Brazil’s environmental policy for much of the past two decades. At one point, Brazil’s success in slowing the deforestation rate made it an international example of conservation and the effort to fight climate change….

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Europe’s historic onslaught of heat

Europe’s historic onslaught of heat

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Bob Henson writes: Even a seemingly minor change in average temperature, such as the 1°C rise observed globally over the last century, makes the most extreme heat events much more probable—and the greater the extreme, the bigger the proportional change, as shown in the illustration embedded below. The good ol' small-increases-in-the-mean-lead-to-large-increases-in-extremes bit. Works everytime, everywhere. https://t.co/ZUgmI1TBzz pic.twitter.com/nhqUzPLVFJ — Gernot Wagner (@GernotWagner) July 25, 2019 There’s bitter irony in the fact that the birthplace of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement on…

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Experts call for ban on glass skyscrapers to save energy in climate crisis

Experts call for ban on glass skyscrapers to save energy in climate crisis

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The Guardian reports: Leading architects and engineers are calling for all-glass skyscrapers to be banned because they are too difficult and expensive to cool. “If you’re building a greenhouse in a climate emergency, it’s a pretty odd thing to do to say the least,” said Simon Sturgis, an adviser to the government and the Greater London Authority, as well as chairman of the Royal Institute of British Architects sustainability group. “If you’re using standard glass facades you need a lot…

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The Arctic on fire

The Arctic on fire

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BBC News reports: Wildfires are ravaging the Arctic, with areas of northern Siberia, northern Scandinavia, Alaska and Greenland engulfed in flames. Lightning frequently triggers fires in the region but this year they have been worsened by summer temperatures that are higher than average because of climate change. Plumes of smoke from the fires can be seen from space. Mark Parrington, a wildfires expert at the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (Cams), described them as “unprecedented”. There are hundreds of fires covering…

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NASA should focus on saving Earth

NASA should focus on saving Earth

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Lori Garver, former deputy NASA administrator, writes: In a July Pew Research Center study, 63 percent of respondents said monitoring key parts of Earth’s climate system should be the highest priority for the United States’ space agency — sending astronauts to the moon was their lowest priority, at 13 percent ; 18 percent favor Mars. The public is right about this. Climate change — not Russia, much less China — is today’s existential threat. Data from NASA satellites show that future generations here…

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Temperature records are shattered across Europe

Temperature records are shattered across Europe

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The Washington Post reports: A historic heat wave has toppled numerous long-standing temperature records with astonishing ease. On Wednesday and Thursday, new national heat records were set in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, and temperatures rose to record highs in major cities such as Paris, which soared to 109 degrees. This is the hottest Paris has been in recorded history. The heat wave, caused by a massive area of high pressure extending into the upper atmosphere, also known as a…

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Oceans are melting glaciers from below much faster than predicted, study finds

Oceans are melting glaciers from below much faster than predicted, study finds

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Inside Climate News reports: Beneath the ocean’s surface, glaciers may be melting 10 to 100 times faster than previously believed, new research shows. Until now, scientists had a limited understanding of what happens under the water at the point where ice meets sea. Using a combination of radar, sonar and time-lapse photography, a team of researchers has now provided the first detailed measurements of the underwater changes over time. Their findings suggest that the theories currently used to gauge glacier…

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The future of humanity and the course of climate change may be determined in the next 18 months

The future of humanity and the course of climate change may be determined in the next 18 months

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Matt McGrath writes: Do you remember the good old days when we had “12 years to save the planet”? Now it seems, there’s a growing consensus that the next 18 months will be critical in dealing with the global heating crisis, among other environmental challenges. Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that to keep the rise in global temperatures below 1.5C this century, emissions of carbon dioxide would have to be cut by 45% by 2030….

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House Democrats plan to develop a plan to achieve net-zero emissions by mid-century

House Democrats plan to develop a plan to achieve net-zero emissions by mid-century

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Think Progress reports: House Democrats on Tuesday announced they plan to develop policies to achieve net-zero emissions by mid-century, a sweeping target in the fight to address climate change. The goal marks a step forward on climate action for lawmakers, but falls short of the 2030 timeline championed by some progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and environmental groups like the youth-led Sunrise Movement. Moreover, the announced target does not amount to a formal plan and Democrats declined to give…

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Restoration of forested land at a global scale could help capture carbon and mitigate climate change

Restoration of forested land at a global scale could help capture carbon and mitigate climate change

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Science News reports: A whopping new estimate of the power of planting trees could rearrange to-do lists for fighting climate change. Planting trees on 0.9 billion hectares of land could trap about two-thirds the amount of carbon released by human activities since the start of the Industrial Revolution, a new study finds. The planet has that much tree-friendly land available for use. Without knocking down cities or taking over farms or natural grasslands, reforested pieces could add up to new…

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Letter to the future: ‘We know what is happening and know what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.’

Letter to the future: ‘We know what is happening and know what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.’

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Brian Kahn reports: We’ve reached the point in our wild planetary experiment where humans are memorializing the things we’re knowingly wiping out. Iceland has lost its first glacier to rising temperatures. Now, scientists from Rice University and Iceland are planning to install a plaque near the sad pile of ice and snow formerly known as Ok Glacier. The researchers say it’s the first memorial to a disappearing glacier, but climate change ensures it almost certainly will not be the last….

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