Drought

( Tomdispatch.com ) – It was January 1983 and raining in San Francisco. The summer before, I’d moved here from Portland, Oregon, a city known for its perpetual gray drizzles and, on the 60-odd days a year when the sun deigns to shine, dazzling displays of greenery. My girlfriend had spent a year convincing me […]

Climate Crisis

Western Wildfires destroyed 246% more Homes and Buildings over the past Decade – Scientists explain Why

The Conversation

By Philip Higuera, University of Montana; Jennifer Balch, University of Colorado Boulder, Maxwell Cook, University of Colorado Boulder; and Natasha Stavros, University of Colorado Boulder | – (The Conversation) – It can be tempting to think that the recent wildfire disasters in communities across the West were unlucky, one-off events, but evidence is accumulating that […]

Arctic

‘Blue marble’: how half a Century of Climate Change has altered the Face of the Earth

The Conversation

By Robert Poole, University of Central Lancashire; Nick Pepin, University of Portsmouth, and Oliver Gruner, University of Portsmouth | – In December 1972, Nasa’s final Apollo mission (Apollo 17) took the iconic “Blue Marble” photo of the whole Earth. Many, including science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, had expected that the sight of Earth from […]

Climate Crisis

Desalination could give the Middle East Water without damaging marine Life – but it must be managed carefully

The Conversation

By Jonathan Chenoweth, University of Surrey and Raya A. Al-Masr, University of Surrey | – (The Conversation) – More than 2 billion people live in “water stressed” countries. These are territories where more than 25% of the available freshwater resources are withdrawn for human use each year. Desalination – the process of removing salt from […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Crisis: We’re Seeing Alarming Changes in the entire Global Water Cycle

The Conversation

By Albert Van Dijk, Australian National University | – (The Conversation) – In 2022, a third La Niña year brought much rain to Australia and Southeast Asia and dry conditions to the other side of the Pacific. These patterns were expected, but behind these variations there are troubling signs the entire global water cycle is […]

Climate Crisis

Great Salt Lake Could be gone in 5 Years: Huge Environmental Climate Catastrophe, Arsenic Dust Storms

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Excessive water use is draining the Great Salt Lake so quickly that at this rate, it could be gone in as little as five years. So argue Benjamin W. Abbott and Bonnie K. Baxter, et al. in a new scientific paper. The Great Salt Lake is already not what it […]

Climate Crisis

A Water War Is Brewing Over the Dwindling Colorado River

ProPublica

By Abrahm Lustgarten | – (ProPublica) – On a crisp day this fall I drove southeast from Grand Junction, Colorado, into the Uncompahgre Valley, a rich basin of row crops and hayfields. A snow line hung like a bowl cut around the upper cliffs of the Grand Mesa, while in the valley some farmers were […]

Climate Crisis

2022’s US Climate Disasters: A Tale of too much CO2, Too much Rain – and too Little

The Conversation

By Shuang-Ye Wu, University of Dayton | – The year 2022 will be remembered across the U.S. for its devastating flooding and storms – and also for its extreme heat waves and droughts, including one so severe it briefly shut down traffic on the Mississippi River. During a period of five weeks over the summer, […]

Climate Crisis

Where the Climate Target of 1.5°C (2.7°F) Came from, and Why we must not Lose Sight of its Importance

The Conversation

By Piers Forster, University of Leeds | – The US economist William Nordhaus claimed as early as the 1970s, when scientific understanding of climate change was still taking shape, that warming of more than 2°C would “push global conditions past any point that any human civilisation had experienced”. By 1990, scientists had also weighed in: […]