Climate Change

By Piers Forster, University of Leeds | – Greenhouse gas emissions are at an all-time high, with yearly emissions equivalent to 54 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. Humanity has caused surface temperatures to warm by 1.14°C since the late 1800s – and this warming is increasing at an unprecedented rate of over 0.2°C per decade. […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Crisis Is on Track to Push One-Third of Humanity Out of Its Most Livable Environment

ProPublica

By Abrahm Lustgarten | – ( Propublica) – Climate change is remapping where humans can exist on the planet. As optimum conditions shift away from the equator and toward the poles, more than 600 million people have already been stranded outside of a crucial environmental niche that scientists say best supports life. By late this […]

Climate Crisis

Wildfire Smoke can Harm Human Health, Even when the Fire is Distant

The Conversation

By Christopher T. Migliaccio, University of Montana | (The Conversation) – Smoke from more than 100 wildfires burning across Canada has been rolling into North American cities far from the flames. New York City and Detroit were both listed among the five most polluted cities in the world because of the fires on June 7, […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Crisis: North America gets its own Mideast-Style Khamsin, courtesy Freak Canadian Smokestorm

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Not only Toronto in Canada but New York, Washington, D.C. and other cities of the US northeast got a taste of the Middle Eastern Khamsin on Wednesday. Of course, we had our own, North American twist on it, since ours was not a sandstorm but a “smokestorm.” Some 400 wildfires […]

CO2

Carbon Dioxide in our Atmosphere hits High not seen for Millions of Years, threatening Accelerated Global Heating

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Monday that parts per million of carbon dioxide in our planet’s atmosphere averaged 424 ppm in the month of May, reaching a level not seen for millions of years. In May 2022 it was only 421 ppm so this is a tremendous […]

Arctic

Arctic Ocean could be Ice-Free in summer by 2030s, with Global, Damaging and Dangerous Consequences

The Conversation

By Jonathan Bamber, University of Bristol | – (The Conversation) – The Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in summer by the 2030s, even if we do a good job of reducing emissions between now and then. That’s the worrying conclusion of a new study in Nature Communications. Predictions of an ice-free Arctic Ocean have a […]

Climate Crisis

Looking for Home in an Overheating World: If Emissions continue, Will We all be Migrants Someday?

Tomdispatch

By Jane Braxton Little ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Greenville, CA — Pines and firs parched by a three-year drought had been burning for days on a ridge 1,000 feet above my remote mountain town. On August 4, 2021, the flames suddenly flared into a heat so intense it formed a molten cloud the color of […]

Agriculture

Time to Dial it Back: We Humans have Exceeded the Boundaries of 80% of the Planet’s Key Systems

The Conversation

By Steven J Lade, Australian National University; Ben Stewart-Koster, Griffith University; Stuart Bunn, Griffith University; Syezlin Hasan, Griffith University; Xuemei Bai, Australian National University | – (The Conversation) – People once believed the planet could always accommodate us. That the resilience of the Earth system meant nature would always provide. But we now know this […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Crisis: Severe Heat Wave in Israel Leads to 220 Wildfires on Friday, in Omen of Torrid Future

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The land over which Israelis and Palestinians are locked in conflict is itself unstable, subject to the vagaries of human-caused climate change. On Friday, Abdel Rahman Salah at Egypt’s Veto newspaper reports, sweltering temperatures and high winds lashed the land, causing wildfires to burst out throughout the country. Climate change, […]