Could Climate Change Spark A Global Financial Crisis?

The dire climate change situation continues to make headlines and inspire actions like the Sunrise Movement.

Many parts of Queensland have been declared disaster zones and thousands of residents evacuated due to a 1-in-100-year flood.

Climate change is already occurring, with impacts that will become more intense for decades into the future.

If we don’t make a fundamental change to the way we are living, the world faces the destruction of entire eco-systems, flooding of coastal areas, and ever more extreme weather.

Many parts of Australia have suffered a run of severe and, in some cases, unprecedented weather events this summer.

The Green New Deal endorsed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and more than 40 other US Representatives has been criticized as imposing a too-heavy burden on the rich and upper-middle-class taxpayers who will have to pay for it, but taxing the rich is not what the Green New Deal resolution proposes.

Due to food shortages related to climate change, the Earth may experience a net increase of 529,000 adult deaths by 2050, according to a new review article published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Evidence of the devastating impacts of anthropogenic climate change are stacking up, and it is becoming horrifyingly real.

Environmental activists are teaming up with fresh faces in Congress to advocate for a Green New Deal, a bundle of policies that would fight climate change while creating new jobs and reducing inequality.

A record-breaking cold wave is sending literal shivers down the spines of millions of Americans. Temperatures across the upper Midwest are forecast to fall an astonishing 50 degrees Fahrenheit (28 degrees Celsius) below normal this week – as low as 35 degrees below zero.

Rising temperatures are weakening the jet stream, allowing frigid Arctic air to reach further south.

Massachusetts is leading the charge in dual-use solar installations, making it possible to grow some crops and pasture animals while generating clean energy.

Scientists say the answer is in the ice. Scientists know that sea levels have risen more in some places during the past century than in others.

A carbon tax makes fossil fuels like oil and coal more expensive. That, in turn, leads consumers and industries to use less of them.

Is your morning coffee an espresso or a skinny latte? Is it from a darkly roasted French or Italian blend?

I spend many hours working on my computer while sitting in front of sliding glass doors so as to be part of nature.

Rapid progress towards clean energy is needed to meet the global ambition to limit warming to no more than 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.

2018 has been a year of unprecedented weather extremes around the world.

Climate change news can be incredibly depressing. But things cannot be entirely bad, can they? We asked some climate researchers to peer through the smog and highlight a few positive stories from 2018.

As the scale and impacts of climate change become increasingly alarming, meat is a popular target for action. Advocates urge the public to eat less meat to save the environment. Some activists have called for taxing meat to reduce consumption of it.

It seems like a day doesn’t pass without the release of yet another study that shows human actions will inevitably increase the Earth’s average temperature past a tipping point that will lead to runaway climate change.

The relationship between supply and demand, a fundamental economic concept, holds that when the price of something rises, people use less of it. Similarly, when prices fall, they use more.

The kind of hot, dry conditions that can shrink crop yields, destabilize food prices, and lay the groundwork for devastating wildfires are increasingly striking multiple regions simultaneously as a result of a warming climate, according to a new study.

The latest National Climate Assessment paints a grim future if U.S. cities and states don’t take serious action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Hopes for fewer large wildfires in 2018, after last year’s disastrous fire season, are rapidly disappearing across the West.

Drought, crop failure, storms, and land disputes pit the rich against the poor, and Central America is ground zero for climate change. Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador lie in the trajectory of the so-called “dry corridor” of Central America that stretches from Southern Mexico to Panama. This epithet is a recently adopted description of the region, to describe the droughts that have risen in intensity and frequency over the last 10 years.

What do your car, phone, soda bottle and shoes have in common? They’re all largely made from petroleum. This nonrenewable resource gets processed into a versatile set of chemicals called polymers – or more commonly, plastics. Over 5 billion gallons of oil each year are converted into plastics alone.

Kwan Phayao, a large, crescent moon of a lake in Northern Thailand, is home to about 50 fish species, several hundred small-scale farmers and fishers, and the city of Phayao, where 18,000 people live.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten announced last week that a federal Labor government would create a Just Transition Authority to overseee Australia’s transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

Once again, the summer and fall of 2018 in the Northern Hemisphere has brought us an epidemic of major wildfires. These burn forests, houses and other structures, displace thousands of people and animals, and cause major disruptions in people’s lives.

As temperatures rise, wildfires may get worse in areas that already experience them and become more prevalent in areas where they’re not yet a big risk, a new study warns.

As the price of renewable energy drops and storage technologies mature, hydrogen fuel is drawing fresh attention. Perhaps, finally, hydrogen’s moment has arrived. Japan is planning to use the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games to showcase its vision for a hydrogen society and has invested US$348 million in establishing hydrogen refueling stations and other infrastructure. Germany has launched the world’s first hydrogen-powered trains...

A lazy buzz phrase – ‘Is this the new normal?’ – has been doing the rounds as extreme climate events have been piling up over the past year. To which the riposte should be: it’s worse than that – we’re on the road to even more frequent, more extreme events than we saw this year.

New research digs into how links between economic development, technology, politics, and decision-making affect actions people are willing to take against climate change.

Will taxing meat products based on their carbon footprint reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and improve public health? The answer is maybe, but not notably — and it will come with significant costs.

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been called a “deafening” alarm and an “ear-splitting wake-up call” about the need for sweeping climate action. But will one more scientific report move countries to dramatically cut emissions?

The burning of unwanted gas associated with oil production—called “flaring”—remains the most carbon-intensive part of producing oil, according to a new analysis.

I was recently sent a slick piece of fossil-fuel-propaganda that was mostly full of half-truths to tell a lie. If nothing else, it does make one listen to arguments on possible needed limits to free speech. However, limiting access for venues of speech is a slippery slope, but so is damaging the public with untruths. Is it OK to tell lies for financial gain that harms the public?

The price of beer could double under unchecked climate change, as droughts and extreme temperatures cause barley yields to drop. That’s one conclusion of research we recently published in Nature Plants.

Museums, archaeological sites and historical buildings are rarely included in conversations about climate change, which tend to focus on the wider impact and global threats to our contemporary world. Yet these threats impact everything, from local cultural practices to iconic sites of outstanding universal value. In light of this, it’s worth exploring the relationship between our heritage and the changing global climate in more detail.

As part of the Paris Agreement on climate change, the international community committed in 2015 to limit rising global temperatures to “well below” 2C by the end of the 21st century and to “pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5C”.

Persistent weather conditions, including dry and wet spells, that have increased in the United States may be a result of rapid Arctic warming, according to a new study.

Exposure to air pollution has a staggering effect on human health. It is thought to cause around 7m premature deaths each year worldwide, with around 40,000 occurring in Britain.

Two generations of Australians, Generations X and Y, say climate change is their number one cause for concern, according to a new report. Contrary to stereotypes of young generations being narcissistic or complacent, researchers say both groups are united in concerns about the future of the environment.

Shortly after Hurricane Helene formed off the coast of West Africa on September 7, it did something unusual. Instead of following most hurricanes westward across the Atlantic, Helene turned north towards the UK and Ireland. Now downgraded to an “ex-hurricane”, Storm Helene is nonetheless expected to bring strong winds across much of England and Wales when it hits on September 17.

“Drain the swamp” has long meant getting rid of something distasteful. Actually, the world needs more swamps – and bogs, fens, marshes and other types of wetlands.

The cold, remote Arctic Ocean and its surrounding marginal seas have experienced climate change at a rate not seen at lower latitudes. Warming air, land and sea temperatures, and large declines in seasonal Arctic sea ice cover are all symptoms of the changing Arctic climate. Although these changes are occurring in relatively remote locations, there is growing evidence to link Arctic sea ice retreat to increasingly erratic weather patterns over the northern hemisphere.

This summer, wildfires erupted in California, torrential rains flooded parts of Japan, and record-breaking temperatures led to a number of heat-related deaths around the globe. Disasters like these are augmented by climate change, and scientists say extreme weather like this will increase and worsen as climate change accelerates. And it’s impacting our mental health.

Hurricane Harvey, with its historical amount of rainfall over Texas, followed by a string of Hurricanes Irma, Jose and Katia in the North Atlantic basin in 2017, has triggered longstanding questions about any linkage between hurricanes and climate. Can we really blame these recent hurricanes on climate changes? Or are they simply a coincidence of nature happening once every few decades, similar to the triple of Hurricanes Beulah, Chloe and Doria back in 1967?

Renewable energy is increasingly inevitable, and those that dominate the markets in these new technologies will likely have the most influence over the development patterns of the future. As other major powers find themselves in climate denial or atrophy, China may well boost its power and status by becoming the global energy leader of tomorrow.

The Turnbull government’s flagship energy plan, the National Energy Guarantee, was intended to end a decade-long stalemate on energy and climate policy in Australia. Ironically, since its unveiling in October 2017, the debate has heightened considerably, with the result that the government has now walked away from the emissions-reduction component of the policy.

In Colombia’s coffee-producing region of Risaralda, small trees run along the sharp incline of the Andes Mountains, carefully tended in tidy rows. Thousands of green coffee berries turn brilliant red as they ripen, ready to be harvested by hand. The steep hills here prevent mechanized techniques.

To cool the world and also boost plant growth, geo-engineered crops might do the trick. But if they work by dimming the sunlight, the plants will suffer. Proposals to tackle climate change that rely on geo-engineered crops show neatly the double bind that can await remedies which try to do too much.

A climate scientist talks to a psychologist about coping with the crushing stress related to climate change. Here’s what he learned.

We developed a new prediction system we call PROCAST (PROabilistic foreCAST), and used it to predict the natural variability of the climate system. This refers to how the climate varies naturally from warm to cool phases that last a few years at a time, and is separate from the long-term trend of anthropogenic global warming. PROCAST predicts a warm phase for the next few years.

Local people collect water from a muddy waterhole in 2006 in San Marcos Tlacoyalco. The Tehuacan Valley South-East of Mexico City has long experienced severe water shortages. Drought and climate change have contributed to this but recent industrial growth has also strained the very limited ground water resource. Water resources in the area are largely based on a weekly delivery by truck as well as collecting water from small pools known as Jagueys.

Now it's so hot in Europe that dogs are having to wear shoes. While a nice sunny day may seem like the perfect time for a stroll with your pet pooch, Swiss police are urging dog owners to cover their pets' paws.

Global warming isn’t the cause of slowdown in a huge circulation pattern in the Atlantic Ocean, which is, in fact, part of regular, decades-long cycle that will affect temperatures in coming decades, according to a new study.

A more strategic approach to urban growth can ensure our cities maintain adequate green space and become low-carbon, efficient and affordable.

New research asks a big question: Is there such a thing as a sustainable civilization, perhaps one that lies far beyond our own galaxy? Or are all civilizations doomed to destroy themselves?

More people than ever are acutely aware that rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere are accelerating climate change and global warming.

Every March, glacier “watchers” take to the skies to photograph snow and ice clinging to high peaks along the length of New Zealand’s Southern Alps.

I am afraid my message is going to be controversial. You see, I think there are deep problems with the standard climate change narrative, which has equated "green" with carbon reduction.

Australia is a continent defined by extremes, and recent decades have seen some extraordinary climate events. But droughts, floods, heatwaves, and fires have battered Australia for millennia. Are recent extreme events really worse than those in the past?

The targets set in the Paris Agreement on climate change are ambitious but necessary. Failure to meet them will lead to widespread drought, disease and desperation in some of the world’s poorest regions.

Almost every climate scientist agrees human-caused climate change is a major global threat. Yet, despite efforts over the past 30 years to do something about it, emissions keep increasing.

Scientists have known for a long time that as climate change started to heat up the Earth, its effects would be most pronounced in the Arctic.

Megacities are on the rise. There are currently 47 such areas around the globe, each housing more than 10 million residents.

Transforming U.S. energy systems away from coal and toward clean renewable energy was once a vision touted mainly by environmentalists.

Many projections suggest that burning fossil fuels and the resulting climate change will make it harder to grow enough food for everyone in the coming decades.

The ocean currents that help warm the Atlantic coasts of Europe and North America have significantly slowed since the 1800s and are at their weakest in 1600 years, according to new research my colleagues and I have conducted.

In 2016, more renewable energy was added to the global grid than ever before, and at a lower cost. A global energy revolution is clearly underway. What catalysed this transformation?

Far from protecting U.S. interests, the tariffs are bound to stifle the current solar boom, destroying American jobs and dragging down clean energy innovation. As economists who research climate and energy policies that can foster a greener North American economy, we argue the government should instead create targeted subsidies that support innovation and lower costs across the supply chain.

Science fiction writers can’t seem to agree on the rules of time travel. Sometimes, as in Doctor Who, characters can travel in time and affect small events without appearing to alter the grand course of history.

Land degradation can take many forms, but always entails a serious disruption of a healthy balance between five key ecosystem functions.

On Campbell Island in the Southern Ocean, some 400 miles south of New Zealand, is a single Sitka spruce. More than 170 miles from any other tree, it is often credited as the “world’s loneliest tree”.

You don’t need a supercomputer to predict how the weather above your head is likely to change over the next few hours – this has been known across cultures for millennia. By keeping an eye on the skies above you, and knowing a little about how clouds form, you can predict whether rain is on the way.

If recent trends continue for another two years, the global share of electricity from renewables excluding hydropower will overtake nuclear for the first time.

Imagine then an enlightened “quantitative easing” transferring resources not to banks, but to mobilise a rapid transformation in energy infrastructure, retrofitting existing buildings, decarbonising transport and constructing zero-carbon power stations.

For every 10 degrees north from the equator you move, spring arrives about four days earlier than it did a decade ago, a new study suggests.

In the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, nearly every country on Earth pledged to keeping global temperatures “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels and to “pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5C”.

Much of the public discussion about climate science consists of a stream of assertions. The climate is changing or it isn’t; carbon dioxide causes global warming or it doesn’t; humans are partly responsible or they are not; scientists have a rigorous process of peer review or they don’t, and so on.

The seas will continue to rise for 300 years. That’s the conclusion of a new study, published in Nature Communications, which projects how much the sea level will rise under varying degrees of success in tackling climate change right up to the year 2300.

Agroforestry could play an important role in mitigating climate change because it sequesters more atmospheric carbon in plant parts and soil than conventional farming, report researchers.

Imagine a world where every country has not only complied with the Paris climate agreement but has moved away from fossil fuels entirely. How would such a change affect global politics?

Most of us have a range of white goods (refrigerators, washing machines, etc.) in our homes. These white goods provide a host of benefits, but they also have significant environmental impacts, and it’s important to consider these when using and choosing white goods.

For the first time, the European Union generated more electricity from wind, solar and biomass than from coal in 2017, according to new analysis from two thinktanks.

Forest owners at greater risk of illegally cutting trees on their land prefer to join conservation programs that allow sustainable timber harvesting, a new study suggests.

In tumultuous times, art can and must express the turmoil and help us process what’s going on.

Many cities which endure cold winters are adapting district heating schemes to keep people warm without the use of fossil fuels.

Planting more urban forests is a simple way not only to improve the health of a city’s people, but to make them wealthier too.

The need to cut emissions from the energy sector has motivated the use of hydro, solar and wind power, and the development of more efficient buildings that consume less energy.

A new water-based air-conditioning system cools air to as low as 18 degrees Celsius (about 64 degrees Fahrenheit) without using energy-intensive compressors and environmentally harmful chemical refrigerants.

Recently, National Geographic published an article called “This Tiny Country Feeds the World,” where the author extolled the innovations of a small European country that has managed to become a global powerhouse in agriculture and technology—the Netherlands.

If you read or listen to almost any article about climate change, it’s likely the story refers in some way to the “2 degrees Celsius limit.” The story often mentions greatly increased risks if the climate exceeds 2°C and even “catastrophic” impacts to our world if we warm more than the target.

When fires, floods and other major disruptions alter natural areas, our first instinct is to restore what’s lost. But moving forward may mean leaving some treasured things behind.

The Trump administration, and its allies in Congress, are fighting a losing war. They continue to press forward for the development of oil, gas, and coal when the rest of the world understands the implication of that folly. Global warming is the most pressing issue for our time.

A program of one of the five largest supermarket chains in South Africa, drove increased adoption of environmental practices at the farm level, a new study of the store’s supply chain indicates.