Concern over climate change is highest in the Northeastern and Western U.S., according to new data released Monday. Sixty-seven percent of Americans surveyed by Gallup living in the Northeast and West believe climate change is now occurring, compared to 60 percent in the Midwest and 53 percent in the South. People in the first two regions were similarly more likely to believe the seriousness of global warming is correct or underestimated.

More than 80% of parents in the U.S. support the teaching of climate change. And that support crosses political divides, according to the results of an exclusive new NPR/Ipsos poll: Whether they have children or not, two-thirds of Republicans and 9 in 10 Democrats agree that the subject needs to be taught in school. A separate poll of teachers found that they are even more supportive, in theory — 86% agree that climate change should be taught.

In the early 1990s, Brazilian photojournalist Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado was stationed in Rwanda to cover the horrific accounts of Rwanda genocide. The on-ground experience left him traumatised. In 1994, he was returning to his home in Minas Gerais, Brazil, with a heavy heart, hoping to find solace in the lap of a lush green forest, where he had grown up. But, instead, he found dusty, barren land for miles and miles, in place of the forest. In only a few years, his beautiful hometown underwent rampant deforestation, leaving it fallow and devoid of all the wildlife. For him, everything was destroyed.

I’ve been asking myself a question – and even posing it makes me queasy. Is it too late – are we beyond saving? As a culture and a polity, when it comes to climate change, have we arrived at a point where we are now expected – even trained – to abandon hope and submit to the inevitable? OK, I guess that’s two questions. In good faith I can still say that the answer to the first is no. But I’d be a liar and a fool to give the same response to the second.

The degree to which climate change threatens the ecosystems of the Earth and societies around the world has been an ongoing subject of debate – and sometimes protest. As Earth Day nears, we take stock of U.S. public opinion about climate change, based on recent Pew Research Center surveys. For more on how people globally see climate change, see our companion post, “For Earth Day, a look at how people around the world view climate change.”

At just 16 years old, Greta Thunberg is making her mark in this world. From a Swedish schoolgirl to a global influencer, her work is inspiring individuals to act. As a result, activism for climate change reform is increasing at an exponential rate. Greta’s platform started with a school strike outside of the Swedish parliament in August 2018. Since then, her strides of progress earned her a position in front of politicians. On April 16, 2019, Greta spoke towards a room of members of the European Parliament and European Union officials.

Sir David Attenborough has issued his strongest statement yet on the threat posed to the world by climate change. In the BBC programme Climate Change - The Facts, the veteran broadcaster outlines the scale of the crisis facing the planet. Sir David says we face "irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our societies". But there is still hope, he says, if dramatic action to limit the effects is taken over the next decade.

Researchers are using AI to tackle the flood of data needed to understand and respond to the effects of climate change.

This is the eighth in a 10-part series about the ongoing global impacts of climate change. These stories will look at the current effects of a changing planet, what the emerging science suggests is behind those changes and what we all can do to adapt to them. Last August, the Gulf of Maine experienced a heat wave. Average water temperatures at the surface reached the second-highest level ever recorded: 20.52° Celsius (68.93° Fahrenheit). That’s still a bit chilly for any person who might go for a dip. And it’s even colder diving beneath the surface.

Governments around the world must fully protect 30% of Earth’s surface and sustainably manage another 20% by 2030 if they’re to have a hope of saving ecosystems and limiting global warming, researchers have said in a new report. The recommendations are part of a fleshed out ‘global deal for nature’ — initially proposed1 by researchers in 2017 as a companion to the Paris climate accord — that outlines what it will take to maintain a liveable planet.

Scientists who study the northern Bering Sea say they’re seeing changed ocean conditions that were projected by climate models – but not until 2050. The rapid changes are leading researchers to wonder if ecosystems near the Bering Strait are undergoing a transformation. The Bering Sea saw record-low sea ice last winter. Oceanographer Phyllis Stabeno says it’s too early to attribute the changes to climate change and she expected a bounce-back this winter.

We are all doomed, it is said. Carbon dioxide is amassing in the atmosphere at levels not seen for millions of years when there were trees at the South Pole and Florida was under water. We have barely a decade to make amends. Protesters are on the streets. But huge numbers of people have not given up. Not yet. Call them the carbon cutters. They are companies and cities, niche groups and nations.

Climate change is often thought of as a partisan issue in the United States, but New York Times journalist Nathaniel Rich says that wasn't always the case. Rich says that from 1979 until 1989, climate change was viewed as a bipartisan problem — then the the oil industry "descended and bared its fangs" and everything changed.

Scientists and officials around the US have told the Guardian that the Trump administration has withdrawn funding for a large, successful conservation program – in direct contradiction of instructions from Congress. Unique in scale and ambition, the program comprises 22 research centers that tackle big-picture issues affecting huge swaths of the US, such as climate change, flooding and species extinction. They are known as Landscape Conservation Cooperatives – or were, because 16 of them are now on indefinite hiatus or have dissolved.

New studies point to the retreat of Earth’s glaciers and discovery of radioactive material in those glaciers that could threaten the global food chain.

About one fourth of the Northern Hemisphere is covered in permafrost. Now, these permanently frozen beds of soil, rock, and sediment are actually not so permanent: They’re thawing at an increasing rate. Human-induced climate change is warming these lands, melting the ice, and loosening the soil. This may sound like any benign Spring thaw, but the floundering permafrost can cause severe damage: Forests are falling; roads are collapsing; and, in an ironic twist, the warmer soil is releasing even more greenhouse gases, which could exacerbate the effects of climate change.

The loss led to a 27-millimeter increase in global sea levels over this period, researchers found. Alaska glaciers were the largest contributors, followed by melting ice fields in Patagonia and glaciers in the Arctic regions. Glaciers in the European Alps, the Caucasus mountain range, and New Zealand were also subject to significant ice loss. Due to their relatively small glacierized areas, however, they played only a minor role when it comes to the rising global sea levels.

Over 3,500 Amazon employees on Wednesday urged the company to take aggressive action on climate change and reduce its carbon footprint. Workers called on Amazon to stop offering custom cloud-computing services that support the oil and gas industry in extracting more fossil fuels. They also said Amazon has failed to disclose a company-wide plan to reach zero carbon emissions within the timeline required by science, and that its 100% renewable energy goal has no deadline.

By the end of the century, the manifold consequences of unchecked climate change will cost the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars per year, according to a new study by scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency. Those costs will come in multiple forms, including water shortages, crippled infrastructure and polluted air that shortens lives, according to the study in Monday’s edition of Nature Climate Change. No part of the country will be untouched, the EPA researchers warned.

Australia's top Great Barrier Reef officials warn the natural wonder will virtually collapse if the planet becomes 1.5 degrees hotter – a threshold that scientists say requires shutting down coal within three decades. This federal election campaign is a potential tipping point for Australia's direction on climate action, as the major parties pledge distinctly different targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

No city better embodies the challenges of climate change than the setting for the first Democratic debate in June. At least 10 candidates who meet the DNC’s set of polling and grassroots fundraising criteria will take the stage in Miami, a city that will face the threat of encroaching seas on a daily basis in the next 25 years.

Everyone knows an electric fan can make people feel cooler on a steamy day. But could fans moderate the planet’s rising temperatures? Some of the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies would like to find out. Chevron, Occidental Petroleum and the Australian mining giant BHP this year have invested in Carbon Engineering, a small Canadian company that claims to be on the verge of a breakthrough in solving a critical climate change puzzle: removing carbon already in the atmosphere.

Earth is likely to take millions of years to recover from the destruction currently being inflicted by humanity, scientists have warned. A “speed limit” on the rate of evolution means it will take at least 10 million years for the world’s diversity to return to pre-human levels, according to a new study. Manmade climate change is decimating ecosystems and currently wiping species out at such a rate that scientists have concluded we are living through the “sixth mass extinction”.

Plans to triple the area of plantations will not meet 1.5 °C climate goals. New natural forests can, argue Simon L. Lewis, Charlotte E. Wheeler and colleagues.

Millions more people could be exposed to mosquito-borne diseases in coming years amid global warming, experts say.

NEW YORK, April 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The lakefront Minnesota city of Duluth has some of the coldest temperatures outside Alaska in the United States, and gets more than seven feet (2 m) of snow each winter on average. But Harvard professor Jesse Keenan thinks the frigid city may eventually prove an appealing relocation destination for Florida residents, as climate change brings increasingly unbearable heat to already warm parts of the United States.

The University of Bristol has become the first in the country to declare a climate emergency. It follows a raft of organisations and local authorities, including the city council and North Somerset Council, across the UK in taking the step. Deputy vice-chancellor and provost Professor Judith Squires said the declaration reaffirmed the institution’s “key role” in fighting climate change.

BERLIN: Former US president Barack Obama, visiting Berlin on Saturday (Apr 6), hailed weekly protests by youths against climate change, saying "the sooner you start, the better." The Friday protests involve schoolchildren and teens and have been inspired by Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg. "Many of these people can't vote, they are too young to vote yet, but they know what's going on," Obama said during a meeting with youths in Berlin.

The Earth has endured many changes in its 4.5-billion-year history, with some tumultuous twists and turns along the way. One especially dramatic episode appears to have come between 700 million and 600 million years ago, when scientists think ice smothered the entire planet, from the poles to the equator — twice in quick succession.

Pollution from fossil fuels in Canada continues to grow by staggering amounts, with the oilsands sector alone responsible for more carbon pollution than all of B.C. or Quebec in 2017, says the federal government in its latest climate change report to the United Nations. The newest edition of Canada’s National Inventory Report, covering data up to two years ago, shows that the oil and gas sector was responsible for 195 million tonnes, or megatonnes (Mt) of greenhouse gas emissions in 2017, up eight Mt from 2016.

Donald Trump’s indifference, punctuated by bursts of mocking disdain, towards climate change has been indulged and even cheered by his supporters. The president has called climate science “bullshit”, donned a coalminer’s helmet at rallies and defenestrated federal rules designed to cut planet-warming emissions.

The Yupik Eskimo village of Kotlik on Alaska’s northwest coast relies on a cold, hard blanket of sea ice to protect homes from vicious winter Bering Sea storms. Frigid north winds blow down from the Arctic Ocean, freeze saltwater and push sea ice south. The ice normally prevents waves from forming and locks onto beaches, walling off villages. But not this year.

Once upon a time, Donald Trump accepted the scientific reality that human activity, primarily burning fossil fuels, causes climate change. He signed on to an ad calling on President Obama to take action on climate change. That was 2009. In the decade since, Trump’s Fox News fixation has led him down a steep path of dangerous denial, culminating in his quoting of an industry PR flack who appeared on Fox and Friends to make some profoundly ridiculous claims.

Next time you're at the beach, give the ocean a big thanks. For decades, the Earth's oceans have absorbed vast quantities of carbon dioxide that would have remained in the atmosphere. This has prevented the full impact of global warming from taking effect, a new study says. Carbon dioxide, emitted when fossil fuels are burned, is the greenhouse gas scientists say is most responsible for global warming.

A climate catastrophe 2 billion years ago almost ended life on Earth. Here's the biggest lesson of all.