Extreme Weather

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

Burning Fossil Fuels made Coronavirus Death Rate Worse, and Kills 200K Americans per Year, Not to Mention Global Heating

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Air pollution, producing medical conditions such as asthma and other lung problems as well as heart disease, is responsible for some of the thousands of coronavirus deaths in the United States. This, according to a just-published Harvard study, which is well summarized by Matthew Yglesias of Vox. Yglesias notes that […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Crisis will also be Killing 250K / year Soon, and Needs same Planetary Swift Action as Covid-19

The Conversation

By Eric Galbraith and Ross Otto | – In the past few weeks, governments around the world have enacted dramatic measures to mitigate the threat of COVID-19. It’s too soon to know whether these measures will prove too little to limit mass mortality, or so extreme that they set off economic catastrophe. But what is […]

Bangladesh

Rich v. Poor: New York faces Climate Crisis, But Bangladesh Faces Climate Apocalypse

The Conversation

By Saleh Ahmed | – Unpredictable weather and climate patterns recently prompted New York Times columnist Paul Krugman to proclaim in January 2020 that “Apocalypse will become the new normal.” Extreme storms, tides and other awful surprises the world has experienced in recent years suggest that Krugman could be right. July 2019 registered the hottest […]

Climate Crisis

We Can’t Stop what We Can’t Visualize: How We can Get our Minds around the Climate Crisis

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – The climate crisis suffers from an odd contradiction. The seriousness of the issue is not matched by comparable efforts to articulate and address the crisis. Though activism among the young has picked up dramatically, older citizens, even those who completely accept climate science, generally remain politically quiescent. […]

Australia

We’re All Australians Now: The Climate Conflagration is Coming for Us, too

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Let me betray my age for a moment. Some of you, I know, will be shocked, but I still read an actual newspaper. Words on real paper every day. I’m talking about the New York Times, and something stuck with me from the January 9th edition of that “paper” paper. Of […]

Climate Crisis

Hot Blob: Worst Ocean Heatwave on Record just Killed 1 Million Seabirds in N. Pacific

The Conversation

By Tim Birkhead | – The common guillemot (known as the common murre in North America) breeds in both the Pacific and the Atlantic and is among the most abundant seabirds in the northern hemisphere. But like many other seabirds, its numbers have declined over the last few decades. Part of that decline is due […]