gear Push settings
The landmark Paris climate agreement has become an official agreement, fulfilling the necessary condition: over 55 countries covering over 55% of global emissions have ratified it.
While many officials are celebrating the climate agreement reached in Paris, the world is still massively heating up.
A new huge source of carbon emissions has been confirmed by scientists.
We'll have some explaining to do when our kids grow up.
This week, New York is the world's capital for climate action.
Partisan belief is promoting anti-science views which might cost us all dearly.
Rats have their part of the blame, but climate change is the main threat.
Scientists showed that consistent global warming started in the 1830s.
The consequences are not known at the moment.
We've become very cynical. "Hottest year? Doh!"
Developing countries, yet again, will be the most vulnerable in the face of such risks.
DiCaprio absolutely killed it -- and we now have the numbers to prove it.
The main cause lies in the lack of available data from the Arctic.
The findings could have implications for the survival of modern animals in the face of global warming.
The UK seems hell bent on making unfortunate decissions.
Turning air into rock.
These movements could in turn help speed up global warming.
Global warming is greening the planet, but there's only so much CO2 plants can absorb.
2016 will go in history as the first year carbon emission stay above 400ppm all year round. I don't think anyone's proud about this.
Climate refugees may become more and more common.
Scientists have also quantified the effects of climate change as they relate to oxygen depletion. Their analysis suggests that by 2030 oxygen dissolved due to climate change will overpower the natural variability in the ocean, putting further stress on marine life.
It’s glorious and depressing at the same time: NASA used its official Facebook account to shut down one user who was misrepresenting climate science: It’s climate change denial 101: you take some random fact, gobble it up without even thinking about it, add in some buzzwords to make it look more scientific and spit it […]
The Environmental Defense Fund’s Oil and Gas program has released a new nation-wide report of the most common sites of methane leaks at oil and gas pads. Surprisingly, most of the leaks were traced back to faulty piping, vents or doors on gas tanks in newer, not older, wells.
A new study analyzing sea level rise forecasts as well as population growth projections found that we've underestimated just how many people would be impacted by rising waters. Anywhere from 4.3 to 13.1 million people from the US alone will face the risk of inundation by 2100, according to their estimate.
The saddening story of global warming continues in 2016 like it did in 2015. According to NASA, this January was the warmest January on record, in more than 150 years.
Today, sea levels rise at a rate double that recorded in the 20th century. That's a lot, but not nearly as much as climate scientists expected. Researchers at NASA claim they now know why: thirsty continents absorb a great deal of the extra water coming from melting glaciers. They warn, however, that the system will become saturated at one point and the water will be returned to the oceans, as part of the global water cycle.
There’s almost no need to say it again – it’s been an exceptionally warm December, and an exceptionally warm year. In fact, it’s been the hottest year on record, with 7 of 11 months so far breaking the record. Things aren’t very different in the capital of the US, where temperatures have exceeded 50 degrees […]
2015 is set to be the hottest year on record as November smashed previous records, being 1.75 degrees Fahrenheit (0.97 degrees Celsius) above the 20th century average. As if that wasn’t enough, 7 of the first 11 months of the year broke the record, according to reports by both NOAA and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. […]
According to a NY Times/CBS poll two out of three Americans support the signing of a global climate pact, but only one in five agrees to increasing taxes on electricity
You know things are messed up when the head of the House committee that covers science doesn't really understand it. Or, worse even, chooses to bury it and persecute scientists. Such is the case of Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, who suspects of fraud a group of scientists that explained in a new paper that the global warming hiatus isn't actually thing. Seems like the world is warming at the same rate as in the 20th century - fast. That didn't bode well with an obviously biased conservative Republican, so Smith subpoenaed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to gain access to the private documents and emails of scientists involved in the study.
The world enters uncharted territory in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, as concentrations reach record levels, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced.
Before the official talks at the UN climate change summit start next month in Paris, each nation was invited to submit a pledge in which it details how it plans to reduce its carbon emissions. The plan is for the world's leaders to reach a sensible agreement such that the climate might avert warming by more than 2 degrees Celsius by 2100 past pre-industrial levels. The climate is already 0.9 degrees Celsius warmer. More than 155 countries have responded to the call, amounting to 128 Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). Each country outlined the progress it wants to make differently, depending on how many resources they can dispose of and, of course, how serious they take the issue
A recent study published Wednesday in the journal Nature shows that there is a strong functional relationship between a region's average recorded temperature and economic productivity -- further warning of the damage climate warming would inflict on our economy.
The European Union, generally considered the world's 3rd biggest emitter after China and the US, reported that its emissions fell by 4 percent last year.
By now, it's almost a statistical certainty: in January 2016, we will say that 2015 was the warmest year on record; for the moment, we can clearly say that this September was the hottest on record.
Bad news for us -- and fish.
A study assessed how sea level rise at the hand of global warming will affect coastal populations in the United States. The analysis made by Climate Central, a nonprofit news organization that analyzes and reports on climate science, found 20 million Americans’ homes might be flooded, and more than 1,500 U.S. cities and municipalities could have at least half of their residential area under water if the world emits under a 'business-as-usual' scenario. Unfortunately, there's a lot of damage that's already been done. Carbon emitted today will continue to warm the planet for hundreds of years and its effects on the climate are already locked in. Cities like Miami and New Orleans are 'already lost in the long run,' said Ben Strauss, vice president for sea level and climate impacts at Climate Central.
With the Paris summit being just around the corner, it's time to step back and look at who the big actors are.
Less than two months away, 200 governments will join the U.N. Paris talks where an international agreement might be reached seeking to limit the amount of greenhouse gas emissions for each country. The goal is to eventually level emissions significantly relative to 1990 levels for developed countries and cap emissions as soon as possible for developing countries like India and China. Each country, however, wants to get the best deal and many critics are weary that we're simply heading for another Copenhagen bust like six years ago, or worst even - another Kyoto which failed miserably.
Enticed by warming waters, king crabs might soon make a run for Antarctica's continental shelf where they haven't been seen for at least 10 million years. As such, the fragile wildlife comprised of creatures like sea stars, sea worms, sponges, sea anemones, sea lilies and feather stars - all lacking protection against the crushing claws of the king crab - could face rapid annihilation.
Six years ago, at the 2009 climate talks in Copenhagen, things seemed to have taken a dire turn, with no solution in sight. Basically, no one really wanted to pledge anything significant. But then, Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, brought forth a proposal.
A while ago I wrote about how the fossil fuel divestment movement is gathering a huge momentum, as more and more funds, universities and companies are choosing to migrate their financial assets away from fossil. The movement is spearheaded by Bill McKibben, one of the founders of the 350.org group, who first organized rallies and lobbied key partners. "Almost from the start, academics have called it the fastest growing such anti-corporate campaign in history, and it’s clearly accelerating by the day,” said McKibben. But I don't even think McKibben himself predicted how far divestment would go. It was launched more like an awareness campaign on the dangers of global warming. It's grown fast, for sure, but this fast? Let me run some numbers: according to a report released by Arabella Advisors, $2.6 trillion in assets have moved away from fossil portfolios or 50 times more than last year. That's not just a dent anymore - that's serious cash!
Specialists from the University of Cambridge and the University of Colorado estimate that the effects of climate change are going to take a hefty toll on our economy -- $326 trillion in damage by the year 2200, roughly $201 million each hour, the Christian Science Monitor reports.
As a new investigation showed today, the scientists of the biggest oil company in the world, Exxon Mobil knew about climate change back in the 70s - but they still helped block the Kyoto protocol in the 90s, and invest massive amounts of money into climate skepticism propaganda. Today, 9 out of 10 funded climate change deniers can be linked to Exxon.
The world is heating up, that's no longer up for debate, but there are many ways through which we can discuss how much the planet has warmed. You can calculate global averages, chart rising levels, discuss freak weather events, but that's all difficult to understand and sometimes debatable.
One of the largest banks in the world says choosing not to invest in renewable energy and divest from fossil fuel might come at a significant financial cost. Up to $1.8 trillion through 2040 or $44 trillion by 2060, when compared to the business-as-usual model.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. In a bid to curb global emissions, the carbon credit scheme was introduced by the UN as an annex to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Apparently, this honestly good idea has backfired after some participants in the scheme, most notably from Russian and Ukraine, took advantage. Lack of international oversight means a couple of factories have turned in a huge profit while emissions have actually gone up to support the scheme. A classic case of perverse incentive or good idea gone bad. This time, at the global climate's expense.
The revolutionary wave that swept Arab nations beginning with 2011 displaced millions and cost the lives of hundreds of thousands. On the bright side, the dampened economic activity caused a significant lapse in greenhouse emissions. In some extreme cases, nitrogen dioxide values have decreased by 40 to 50% over Damascus and Aleppo, according to a new study published by the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry.
A team at George Washington University has found a way to hit two birds with one stone: mitigate climate change by pulling CO2 from the atmosphere and make a valuable material at the same time. The solar powered setup reacts a molten lithium carbonate in the presence of heat and an electrical current to produce carbon fibers, recently highly prized in engineering applications from cars and airplanes to wind turbines to tennis rackets.
Glaciers covering Asia's Tian Shan mountains have lost a quarter of their mass over the past 50 years, at a rate four times higher than the global average due to the particularly dry climate of the area. At this rate, by 2050 half of the remaining ice that covers the 2,500 kilometers long mountain rage could melt, threatening the water supply and affecting millions of people. If left unchecked, the situation might even turn into a conflict for the most basic resources (water and food).
