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+2 +1
Fears for climate as Trump administration relaxes rules on oil reserves
The Trump administration has relaxed controls on America's oil reserves in a move that makes no mention of climate change. A memo published online with little publicity appears to undermine decades of government campaigns promoting fuel-efficient cars. The new government position follows a decade of fracking, which has unlocked shale oil reserves. That gives the US "more flexibility than in the past to use our oil resources with less concern", the Energy Department memo said.
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+17 +3
Summer weather is getting 'stuck' due to Arctic warming
Summer weather patterns are increasingly likely to stall in Europe, North America and parts of Asia, according to a new climate study that explains why Arctic warming is making heatwaves elsewhere more persistent and dangerous. Rising temperatures in the Arctic have slowed the circulation of the jet stream and other giant planetary winds, says the paper, which means high and low pressure fronts are getting stuck and weather is less able to moderate itself.
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+10 +1
We have more forests now than in 1982
Contrary to the prevailing view that forest area has declined globally — tree cover has increased by 2.24 million km2 (+7.1% relative to the 1982 level). This overall net gain is the result of a net loss in the tropics being outweighed by a net gain in the extratropics.
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+12 +2
Will people have enough water to live?
Freshwater is crucial for drinking, washing, growing food, producing energy and just about every other aspect of modern life. Yet more than 2 billion of Earth’s 7.6 billion inhabitants lack clean drinking water at home, available on demand. A major United Nations report, released in June, shows that the world is not on track to meet a U.N. goal: to bring safe water and sanitation to everyone by 2030. And by 2050, half the world’s population may no longer have safe water.
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+7 +2
World is finally waking up to climate change, says 'hothouse Earth' author
The scorching temperatures and forest fires of this summer’s heatwave have finally stirred the world to face the onrushing threat of global warming, claims the climate scientist behind the recent “hothouse Earth” report. Following an unprecedented 270,000 downloads of his study, Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, said he had not seen such a surge of interest since 2007, the year the Nobel prize was awarded to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
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+13 +4
The heat is on for 4 more years: Extreme temperatures expected through 2022
This summer's heat has shattered records around the Northern Hemisphere, from Algeria to Canada and Japan to California. New research suggests this could be only the beginning of a four-year global "warm spell." Using a new forecasting technique, scientists in a study published Tuesday predict that the rest of 2018 through 2022 may be warmer than expected around the world as human-caused global warming and natural factors combine to heat the planet.
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+3 +1
A year after U.S. left Paris climate pact, Arizona mayors still cling to fight
When the U.S. pulled out of the Paris Accords last summer, five Arizona cities joined hundreds around the country that vowed to live up to the Paris climate standards even if the U.S. wouldn’t. Little has changed in the year since, but the Arizona mayors are sticking to their guns, saying they would rather do something small than nothing at all if the U.S. is going to remain out of the pact.
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+2 +1
Animals suffer in Europe's summer of extreme heat
Humans aren't the only things suffering during this summer's European heat wave. From hedgehogs to birds to insects, the extreme temperatures and lack of rain has taken a toll on animals of all sizes. The faster than usual evaporation of water has forced some animals in the U.K. to leave their natural habitats as they try to quench their thirsts.
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+3 +1
An Inconvenient Truth: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Are Falling Under Trump
Environmental data for 2017 are pouring in, and the results might not be what you’d expect. In the United States, where President Trump has promised to unshackle the coal industry and to abandon an international climate change treaty, greenhouse-gas emissions fell last year and are expected to continue falling. In Europe, where political leaders consider climate change an urgent priority, emissions rose last year.
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+13 +3
News Clip Linked Coal to Climate Change — 106 Years Ago Today
A note published in a New Zealand paper 106 years ago today (Aug. 14) predicted the Earth's temperature would rise because of 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide produced by coal consumption. "The effect may be considerable in a few centuries," the article stated. The clip was one of several one-paragraph stories in the "Science Notes and News" section of The Rodney and Otamatea Times, published Wednesday, Aug. 14, 1912.
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+18 +5
Do you suffer from climate guilt? A dose of philosophy can help
A philosopher's thoughts on how an individual can overcome the feeling of helplessness in the face of global climate change. People cannot engage in something they cannot see or feel. We need concrete reasons to care and act. In this way, climate change presents a threefold intangible challenge:
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+17 +2
Scientists create mineral that can remove CO2 pollution from the atmosphere
Though still in preliminary stages, scientists welcome 'big step forward' in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas levels and curtail climate change.
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+12 +3
Boost for plan to plant one billion trees
An ambitious plan to plant one billion trees has got another $240 million from the Government - taking its cost close to half a billion dollars over the next three years. Forestry Minister Shane Jones said Cabinet had approved the creation of a new grants programme and partnership fund to get more trees in the ground and provide training and employment opportunities.
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+39 +6
Extreme temperatures 'especially likely for next four years'
Cyclical natural phenomena that affect planet’s climate will amplify effect of manmade global warming, scientists warn
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+22 +3
Rising temperatures are causing soil to dump more carbon dioxide into the air
Earth is panting as soil struggles to keep up with climate change.
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+3 +1
Steve Lopez: Ignore the climate change deniers. California’s hellish summer really is a grave warning
Wind-swept wildfires raging. Homes incinerated. Families displaced. Lives lost. In the long, hot, smoky California summer of 2018, as we camp under ash-hued sunset skies, the scariest thought is that the future has arrived, and more intense weather extremes will continue to wreak havoc in years to come. Not just in summer, but with drought-deluge cycles and higher temperatures even in cooler months.
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+3 +1
A warmer world means a greater risk rain lands on snow, triggering floods
In June 2013, Keith Musselman was living in the Canadian Rockies when the nearby Bow River flooded. “We were in a valley, so we were stuck for about five days,” Musselman told Ars. “The community was devastated.” The flood was one of the costliest and most devastating natural disasters in Canada’s history, with five people killed, more than 100,000 evacuated, and extreme property damage. Heavy rainfall falling on late snow in the mountains had overwhelmed rivers and reservoirs, and Musselman, a hydrologist, realized that this kind of rain-on-snow flooding wasn’t properly understood.
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+22 +2
The Fastest-Sinking City in the World
With frequent floods, sinking markets and engulfed homes, by 2050 parts of Jakarta will be underwater.
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+20 +6
We have an ethical obligation to relieve individual animal suffering
Last winter, unforgettable video footage online showed a starving polar bear, struggling in its Arctic hunting grounds. Because of global warming, the ice was thin and the food supply was scarce. The video generated a wellspring of sympathy for the plight of this poor creature, and invigorated calls for stronger efforts to combat climate change – and rightly so.
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+23 +4
Half of the Great Barrier Reef Is Dead
Half of the Great Barrier Reef has been bleached to death since 2016. Mass coral bleaching, a global problem triggered by climate change, occurs when unnaturally hot ocean water destroys a reef’s colorful algae, leaving the coral to starve. The Great Barrier Reef illustrates how extensive the damage can be: Thirty percent of the coral perished in 2016, another 20 percent in 2017. The effect is akin to a forest after a devastating fire.
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