Climate Change

We all Depend on the Amazon: Can the UN Stop Brazil’s Far-Right Bolsonaro from Completely Destroying It?

By Ash Murphy | – Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil is at its highest rate in a decade, according to new satellite data. This comes after president Jair Bolsonaro has loosened environmental regulations, cut enforcement budgets, and supported further development in the region. Tarcisio Schnaider / shutterstock Trees absorb carbon dioxide naturally, and […]

Climate Change

From New Orleans to Bihar: Why the Climate Emergency is a Poor People’s Issue, Too

OtherWords

By Mallika Khanna | – Poor and working communities stand to gain the most from protections against corporations that expose them to pollution. If you’ve read anything about climate change over the past year, you’ve probably heard about the IPCC report that gives a 12-year deadline for limiting climate change catastrophe. But for many parts […]

Climate Change

If Antarctica Melts, Seas will Rise a Gigantic 190 Feet; It has Started Losing Ice Rapidly

The Conversation

By Nerilie Abram, Matthew England, and Matt King | – A record start to summer ice melt in Greenland this year has drawn attention to the northern ice sheet. We will have to wait to see if 2019 continues to break ice-melt records, but in the rapidly warming Arctic the long-term trends of ice loss […]

Climate Change

Next, Our Food: Climate Emergency Reducing Crop Yields, Global Food Supplies

The Conversation

By Deepak Ray | – Farmers are used to dealing with weather, but climate change is making it harder by altering temperature and rainfall patterns, as in this year’s unusually cool and wet spring in the central U.S. In a recently published study, I worked with other scientists to see whether climate change was measurably […]

Climate Change

Climate Emergency: Reforestation is no Substitute for Leaving Fossil Fuels in the Ground

The Conversation

By Mark Maslin | – Restoring the world’s forests on an unprecedented scale is “the best climate change solution available”, according to a new study. The researchers claim that covering 900m hectares of land – roughly the size of the continental US – with trees could store up to 205 billion tonnes of carbon, about […]

Climate Change

Humans set new Record putting Heat-Trapping CO2 into Atmosphere and What that Means

Juan Cole

By Adam Voiland | – (NASA Earth Observatory) – In May 2019, when atmospheric carbon dioxide reached its yearly peak, it set a record. The May average concentration of the greenhouse gas was 414.7 parts per million (ppm), as observed at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory in Hawaii. That was the highest seasonal peak […]

Climate Change

Vanishing Tropical Rainforests are the Lungs of our Planet: We can Still Save them (and Ourselves)

The Conversation

By Robin Chazdon | The green belt of tropical rainforests that covers equatorial regions of the Americas, Africa, Indonesia and Southeast Asia is turning brown. Since 1990, Indonesia has lost 50% of its original forest, the Amazon 30% and Central Africa 14%. Fires, logging, hunting, road building and fragmentation have heavily damaged more than 30% […]

Climate Change

What Happens when Climate Emergency Drowns Whole Nations?

The Conversation

By Sarah M. Munoz | – Global climate change is endangering small island countries, many of them developing nations, potentially harming their ability to function as independent states. As international environmental co-operation stalls, we must ask what consequences climate change will have on the statehood of vulnerable countries. This is especially important because sovereignty is […]

Climate Change

June Hottest Month on Record, As Antarctica Melts: Top 3 Signs We are Cooking the Planet . . . and Ourselves

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – 1. A European Union satellite has confirmed that June, 2019, was the hottest month on earth since scientific record-keeping began around 1850. In fact, if you take the averages of 1850-1900, June was 5.4 degrees F. warmer (3 degrees C.) Some parts of Europe were actually 10 degrees C. (18 […]