Reduced monsoon rainfall and increased river flow are two extremes that new research has linked to man-made impacts on climate caused by air pollution.
The exotic lionfish, already a long way from the reefs of its Indo-Pacific home, is heading further north up the US coast as global warming causes big changes to ocean habitats.
New scientific research confirms that global warming is melting increasingly larger areas of Arctic sea ice ? and reducing its vital function of removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
Here’s an historical tidbit you may not be aware of. Between the years 1860 and 1940, as the number of Methodist ministers living in New England increased, so too did the amount of Cuban rum imported into Boston – and they both increased in an extremely similar way. Thus, Methodist ministers must have bought up lots of rum in that time period!
Scientists simulating changes in mountain glaciers over the last century and a half have established that rates of melting have increased greatly in recent years – and that humans are the main culprits.
Dire warnings of imminent human-induced climate disaster are constantly in the news but predictions of the end of the world have been made throughout history and have never yet come true.
The newly released National Climate Assessment spans 30 chapters with thousands of references on how climate change is impacting the U.S. The report took more than 300 scientists and 4 years to prepare, including addressing more than 4,000 comments from the public. The message of the report is that climate change is already happening across the country.
Parts of ancient Antarctica were as toasty as today’s California coast, say scientists who used a new method to measure past temperatures. The study focused on Antarctica during the Eocene epoch, 40 to 50 million years ago, a period with high concentrations of atmospheric CO2 and consequently a greenhouse climate.
- By Robert Reich
If wealth and income weren’t already so concentrated in the hands of a few, the shameful “McCutcheon” decision by the five Republican appointees to the Supreme Court wouldn’t be as dangerous. But by taking “Citizen’s United” one step further and effectively eviscerating campaign finance laws, the Court has issued an invitation to oligarchy.
It’s being billed as “the biggest story of our time.” This weekend viewers of Showtime, the US cable channel, will be watching the first of an nine-part documentary series on climate change: some of the biggest names in Hollywood are involved.
Can the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change most recent report or a star-studded Showtime mini-series change the way people talk and think about climate change? Katharine Hayhoe urges her fellow climate scientists to ramp up their messaging game.
Warming in the Arctic has now reached the northernmost sections of the Greenland ice sheet. After a long period of stability (more than 25 years), we have found in a new study of the region that the northeast section of the ice sheet is no longer stable. This means global sea levels may rise even faster than was previously anticipated.
Ice in the Arctic continues to retreat. It’s long been established that Arctic ice is on the retreat but it’s the pace of change that’s surprising scientists: latest studies show the region is at its warmest since 40,000 years.
The head of the World Meteorological Organization tells Climate News Network there is no standstill in global warming, which is on course to continue for generations to come.
The United States is currently engaged in secret negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a multinational trade agreement with the goal of liberalizing trade among a dozen or so countries that border on the Pacific Ocean.
First it was Wisconsin. Now it’s North Carolina that is redefining the term “battleground state.” On one side: a right-wing government enacting laws that are changing the face of the state. On the other: citizen protesters who are fighting back against what they fear is a radical takeover.
- By Bobby Magill
U.S. carbon dioxide emissions related to energy increased in 2013 for the first time in three years, possibly the first sign that a trend in declining emissions from energy consumption has ended for now. The U.S. Energy Information Administration released a report on Monday showing that 2013 energy-related CO2 emissions in the U.S. are expected to have increased 2 percent over 2012 emissions once all the data for the year are tallied.
- By Robert Reich
For almost forty years Republicans have pursued a divide-and-conquer strategy intended to convince working-class whites that the poor were their enemies. The big news is it’s starting to backfire.
A corner of the USA forever linked with the name of one of America’s foremost naturalists is changing as the temperature rises. Walden Pond’s familiar vegetation is not what it was in Thoreau’s day.
- By Robert Reich
For years political scientists have wondered why so many working class and poor citizens of so-called “red” states vote against their economic self-interest. The usual explanation is that, for these voters, economic issues are trumped by social and cultural issues like guns, abortion, and race.
Far below the surface, the waters of south-east Asia are heating up. A region of the Pacific is now warming at least 15 times faster than at any time in the last 10,000 years. If this finding – so far limited to the depths where the Pacific and Indian Oceans wash into each other – is true for the blue planet as a whole, then the questions of climate change take on a new urgency.
The world may be warming more than twice as fast as thought because some key data has been overlooked, two scientists argue. But others think seasonal changes in the Pacific have led to an over-estimate of the warming.
An end to greenhouse gas emissions is possible by 2050, a report finds. But a decade before that, other researchers say, the world is set to cross a fateful threshold.