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Category: Climate Change

As climate warms, plants will absorb less carbon dioxide

As climate warms, plants will absorb less carbon dioxide

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The New York Times reports: The last time the atmosphere contained as much carbon dioxide as it does now, dinosaurs roamed what was then a verdant landscape. The earth’s lushness was at least partly caused by the abundance of CO₂, which plants use for photosynthesis. That has led to the idea that more CO₂ in the atmosphere could create a literally greener planet. Today, plants and soil around the world absorb roughly a quarter of the greenhouse gases that humans…

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Record number of Americans are worried about climate change

Record number of Americans are worried about climate change

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The New York Times reports: A record number of Americans understand that climate change is real, according to a new survey, and they are increasingly worried about its effects in their lives today. Some 73 percent of Americans polled late last year said that global warming was happening, the report found, a jump of 10 percentage points from 2015 and three points since last March. The rise in the number of Americans who say global warming is personally important to…

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Corporate America sees opportunities to profit from diseases and disasters caused by climate change

Corporate America sees opportunities to profit from diseases and disasters caused by climate change

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Bloomberg reports: Climate change isn’t all downside for the largest U.S. companies. Many of those that filed reports with CDP [formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project] said they believe climate change can bolster demand for their products. For one thing, more people will get sick. “As the climate changes, there will be expanded markets for products for tropical and weather related diseases including waterborne illness,” wrote Merck & Co. The company didn’t respond to a request for comment. More…

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Greenland’s ice melting faster than scientists previously thought

Greenland’s ice melting faster than scientists previously thought

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The Guardian reports: Greenland is melting faster than scientists previously thought, with the pace of ice loss increasing four-fold since 2003, new research has found. Enormous glaciers in Greenland are depositing ever larger chunks of ice into the Atlantic ocean, where it melts. But scientists have found that the largest ice loss in the decade from 2003 actually occurred in the southwest region of the island, which is largely glacier-free. This suggests surface ice is simply melting as global temperatures…

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Sixfold increase in ice loss from Antarctica since 1970s, new research finds

Sixfold increase in ice loss from Antarctica since 1970s, new research finds

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The Washington Post reports: Antarctic glaciers have been melting at an accelerating pace over the past four decades thanks to an influx of warm ocean water — a startling new finding that researchers say could mean sea levels are poised to rise more quickly than predicted in coming decades. The Antarctic lost 40 billion tons of melting ice to the ocean each year from 1979 to 1989. That figure rose to 252 billion tons lost per year beginning in 2009,…

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Hotter oceans mean we are in the emergency phase of climate change

Hotter oceans mean we are in the emergency phase of climate change

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Eric Holthaus writes: The Earth’s surface is 70 percent water, but even that underestimates how vital ocean health is to our planet’s ability to maintain life. Recent results from scientists around the world only further confirm that our waterworld is in serious danger. Last week, a bombshell study confirmed that the oceans are warming 40 percent faster than many scientists had previously estimated. The finding partially resolved a long-running debate between climate modelers and oceanographers. By measuring the oceans more…

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As international cooperation tackling climate change becomes more urgent, global divisions widen

As international cooperation tackling climate change becomes more urgent, global divisions widen

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The Guardian reports: Growing tension between the world’s major powers is the most urgent global risk and makes it harder to mobilise collective action to tackle climate change, according to a report prepared for next week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The WEF’s annual global risks report found that a year of extreme weather-related events meant environmental issues topped the list of concerns in a survey of around 1,000 experts and decision-makers. But with Donald Trump announcing protectionist measures…

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Are we living through climate change’s worst-case scenario?

Are we living through climate change’s worst-case scenario?

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Robinson Meyer writes: The year 2018 was not an easy one for planet Earth. Sure, wind and solar energy kept getting cheaper, and an electric car became America’s best-selling luxury vehicle. But the most important metric of climatic health—the amount of heat-trapping gas entering the atmosphere—got suddenly and shockingly worse. In the United States, carbon emissions leapt back up, making their largest year-over-year increase since the end of the Great Recession. This matched the trend across the globe. According to…

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New plant-focused diet would ‘transform’ planet’s future

New plant-focused diet would ‘transform’ planet’s future

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The Guardian reports: The first science-based diet that tackles both the poor food eaten by billions of people and averts global environmental catastrophe has been devised. It requires huge cuts in red meat-eating in western countries and radical changes across the world. The “planetary health diet” was created by an international commission seeking to draw up guidelines that provide nutritious food to the world’s fast-growing population. At the same time, the diet addresses the major role of farming – especially…

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Ocean warming is accelerating faster than thought, new research finds

Ocean warming is accelerating faster than thought, new research finds

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The New York Times reports: Scientists say the world’s oceans are warming far more quickly than previously thought, a finding with dire implications for climate change because almost all the excess heat absorbed by the planet ends up stored in their waters. A new analysis, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that the oceans are heating up 40 percent faster on average than a United Nations panel estimated five years ago. The researchers also concluded that ocean temperatures have…

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U.S. carbon emissions surged in 2018 even as coal plants closed

U.S. carbon emissions surged in 2018 even as coal plants closed

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The New York Times reports: America’s carbon dioxide emissions rose by 3.4 percent in 2018, the biggest increase in eight years, according to a preliminary estimate published Tuesday. Strikingly, the sharp uptick in emissions occurred even as a near-record number of coal plants around the United States retired last year, illustrating how difficult it could be for the country to make further progress on climate change in the years to come, particularly as the Trump administration pushes to roll back…

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The struggle for climate justice and gender justice must go hand in hand

The struggle for climate justice and gender justice must go hand in hand

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Winnie Byanyima writes: Climate change affects women in a profoundly different way than men. Culture and tradition in many places puts the role of caring for families on women. It is women, for example, who are responsible for collecting firewood, fetching water, and growing food to feed hungry mouths. So as the impacts of climate change take grip, it is women who must be on the front lines of adapting and finding solutions: new sources of water; new ways to…

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Despite what Trump says, most Americans want climate action — even if China doesn’t do its part

Despite what Trump says, most Americans want climate action — even if China doesn’t do its part

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Jonathon P. Schuldt and Y. Connie Yuan write: Eighty-nine percent of Democrats — in which we include those who identify as independents but who say they lean toward the Democratic Party ­— said they support climate action, no matter what China does. By contrast, only 53 percent of Republicans (including leaners) say the same. But still, that means a majority of Republicans we surveyed said they want climate action, no matter what. And even among Republicans — a group that…

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Climate change is already here

Climate change is already here

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Carolyn Gramling writes: The grim reality of climate change grabbed center stage in 2018. This is the year we learned that the 2015 Paris Agreement on global warming won’t be enough to forestall significant impacts of climate change. And a new field of research explicitly attributed some extreme weather events to human-caused climate change. This one-two punch made it clear that climate change isn’t just something to worry about in the coming decades. It’s already here. This looming problem was…

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The denial of climate change and the denial of racism rest on the same foundation

The denial of climate change and the denial of racism rest on the same foundation

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Ibram X. Kendi writes: For two years, they formed a community of experts, about 1,000 in all, including 300 leading climate scientists inside and outside 13 federal agencies. For two years, they volunteered their time and expertise to produce the Fourth National Climate Assessment. There is no parallel process to tackle the questions I study; there is no ongoing national racial assessment mandated by a law summarizing the impact of racism on the United States, now and in the future….

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More Republicans than you think support action on climate change

More Republicans than you think support action on climate change

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Arlie Hochschild and David Hochschild write: Democrats and Republicans have clashed fiercely on many issues — the Mueller investigation, immigration, gun control — but can the two parties come together on climate change, the biggest issue of all? Most analysts say no. After all, since President Trump took office, the terms “global warming” and “climate change” have been expunged from some government websites. Mr. Trump says his “very high level of intelligence” has led him to reject the findings of…

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