Desertification

By Katie Woolaston and Judith Lorraine Fisher | – Human damage to biodiversity is leading us into a pandemic era. The virus that causes COVID-19, for example, is linked to similar viruses in bats, which may have been passed to humans via pangolins or another species. Environmental destruction such as land clearing, deforestation, climate change, […]

Acidification of Oceans

The Black Hole of Depressions: Doing nothing about Climate Emergency could cost more than all the Wealth in the World

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A study in Nature Communications has found that if you add in variability to calculations of the impact of climate change, the upper range of the damage it could do to property is $563 trillion.* That is in the worst case scenario where the world does virtually nothing to stop […]

Desertification

Pandemic Karma: Destroying Forests to Raise certain Foods Put us Closer to Viruses

The Conversation

By Terry Sunderland | – As the global population has doubled to 7.8 billion in about 50 years, industrial agriculture has increased the output from fields and farms to feed humanity. One of the negative outcomes of this transformation has been the extreme simplification of ecological systems, with complex multi-functional landscapes converted to vast swaths […]

Climate Crisis

As Party of Climate Denial Meets, Wildfires Rage and Hurricanes Target Gulf Coast

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – One of the speakers at the Republican National Convention on Monday evening was Nikki Haley, formerly Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, who helped usher the U.S. out of the Paris climate accords and who slammed Bernie Sanders’ Green New Deal. Haley when pressed will admit that the climate is […]

Desertification

Experts: Trump Border wall construction may imperil sacred stream, biodiversity in Desert

Cronkite News Arizona PBS

By Alisa Reznick/Arizona Public Media ( Cronkite News) – Wedged between a sprawl of saguaros and a busy highway in Mexico, Quitobaquito is a tiny oasis. Wildlife and Indigenous communities have long relied on this rare spring system for fresh water in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. The spring flows into a pond just […]

Climate Crisis

Heat the Earth more than 3.6° F. and Rain Forests will Release Hundreds of Billions of Tons of CO2

The Conversation

By Aida Cuní Sanchez and Martin Sullivan | – As they photosynthesise and grow, tropical forests remove enormous amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, reducing global warming. However, forests are also themselves affected by this warming. If it gets too hot or too dry, trees will grow less and may start to die faster, decomposing […]

Climate Crisis

Global warming now pushing heat into territory humans cannot tolerate

The Conversation

By Tom Matthews and Colin Raymond | – The explosive growth and success of human society over the past 10,000 years has been underpinned by a distinct range of climate conditions. But the range of weather humans can encounter on Earth – the “climate envelope” – is shifting as the planet warms, and conditions entirely […]

Climate Crisis

Anti-Immigrant Trump promotes Burning Fossil Fuels that will displace Millions toward US

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences presents findings that shocked the authors themselves. If the world (by which I mean you and me, dear reader) does not swing into prompt action to deal with the climate emergency, some 3.5 billion people are going to […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Change is already Diminishing the Colorado River, U.S. Researchers Find

Cronkite News Arizona PBS

By Luke Runyon /KUNC | ( Cronkite News) – GREELEY, Colo. – A warming climate already is reducing stream flows in the Southwest’s largest watershed, according to a new study from scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey. And as the planet continues to heat up, it said, the shortages are likely to get worse. Using […]