The oceans are huge carbon sinks for the world. Fish and whales comprise only a tiny part of their overall biomass. Nevertheless, studies have shown that fishing and whaling by humans have altered the ocean’s carbon storage and sequestration capabilities by causing a change in the food chain, or a trophic cascade. As naturalist and
Not only posing significant risks for Earth’s natural systems, the effects of global warming on humans and human systems have only recently begun receiving the expanded attention they critically require. From hazardous effects causing potential loss of life, injury, or other negative health impacts, to the potential exposure of social, economic, and infrastructure assets to
Releasing this exclusive freely in the public interest, best-selling author Dr. Nafeez Ahmed is offering a unique view of the critically significant impact that climate change is having on our lives, our livelihoods, and even our likelihood of survival on this planet. Dr Nafeez Ahmed is an international security scholar and investigative journalist, currently serving as a
Declaring that the sixth mass extinction has arrived, Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich confirms that species are disappearing off the face of Earth faster now than at any time since the mass extinction of dinosaurs. Calling for “fast action to conserve threatened species, populations and habitat before the window of opportunity closes,” Ehrlich and his team
According to sources, a copy of a papal encyclical regarding Church doctrine and climate change will be issued by Pope Francis on Monday of next week.
Droughts, lengthy hot spells, heavy downpours, floods, and other extreme weather events are occurring more frequently and intensely every year. Around the world, research teams are analyzing these trends, noting the changes in temperature, rainfall, ice mass, sea level, and many other variables recorded by weather measuring devices. The trends are undeniable: the Earth is
With a national election under a fortnight away the attitude Australian’s have to climate change continues to shift. With Australian’s going to the polls on the 21st of August a new poll by Gallup shows that the countries attitudes towards global warming could be a factor in an election which follows many others with global
And the global warming news keeps coming…. What else could you expect? Think this July is ridiculously hot? It may be relative to the past, but relative to the future it looks like it will be quite normal or even cooler than normal (unless we turn things around fast).
Big global warming news of the weekend, other than it being global warming’s birthday, is that a giant island of ice has broken off a Greenland glacier. The massive ice island is 4 times the size of Manhattan. It is the largest chunk of ice to break off of the Arctic since 1962.
The following letter is from members of the 1Sky Board of Directors: Jessica Bailey, KC Golden, Bracken Hendricks, Bill McKibben, Billy Parish, Vicky Rateau, Gus Speth and Betsy Taylor
In addition to the numerous climate change stories we reported on this week, here are 7 more definitely worth a share.
I love this cartoon — a picture’s worth a thousand words. Joe Mohr, the cartoonist, wrote on Planetsave awhile back, and I’ll take this opportunity to announce that we’ll start featuring his cartoons on Planetsave once a week now.
A new study suggests that by 2100 only 18% to 45% of the plants and animals that make up tropical forests will still be there. The study, led by Greg Asner at the Carnegie Institutions Department of Global Ecology, combined new deforestation and selective logging data with climate change projections to consider their combined effects
Clues found near the summit of Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii suggest that changes in a far flung climate system had implications all over the world. Boulders deposited on the summit of Mauna Kea by an ancient glacier have provided evidence of ancient glacier formation, a result of the most recent ice age,
10-minute video summarizing the science of global warming and how we know it’s happening. We have written extensively on the causes and effects of global warming on Planetsave over the years, including how humans are causing global warming and the near scientific consensus on global warming being real and caused by humans. Nonetheless, when a
One of my favorite people on the web, Peter Sinclair, has a double-header “Climate Denial Crock of the Week” this week. How climate deniers continue to claim that the planet has been cooling, when we have just experienced the hottest decade on record (in the deepest solar minimum), is one of the most shocking things
Heatwaves like the one that hit the northeast of America in July are likely to be more commonplace in the future. A new study from climate scientists at The City College of New York (CCNY) suggests that densely built urban environments like Manhattan are likely to suffer more frequent and more intense heatwaves in the
The latest EPI release is on carbon emissions trends and the potential results. by Amy Heinzerling In 2009, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in China—the world’s leading emitter—grew by nearly 9 percent. At the same time, emissions in most industrial countries dropped, bringing global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use down from a high of 8.5 billion
America’s winter just passed might be melting in the current heat, but the snow that fell was not affected by climate change or a warming planet. New research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters found that the heavier than normal snows that fell along the east coast of America, making it the snowiest winter
CO2 emission estimates based on coal and fossil fuel production are pessimistic at best, says new research. A new study by Tad Patzek, chair of the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Austin, has shown that CO2 emission estimates used for government policy decisions assume unlimited coal and fossil fuel
Tons of big green news stories in one short article. There are tons of big green news stories out there every day. Although we can’t (and probably shouldn’t) cover all of them here on Planetsave, it drives me crazy not to cover everything I think is big news. Hopefully, a new idea I’ve had to
A new exploratory study out of George Mason University has found that people will care more about climate change if it is framed as a public health problem. The authors of the study interviewed 70 Americans and had the respondents read a public health framed essay on climate change. Their results found that, on the
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/vmv3NAO9sRc&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1] I mentioned this video in last week’s greencast, but I have decided that really didn’t do it justice. This is such an excellent video it deserves its own post. I highly recommend watching it now.
Using peer-reviewed science and Google Earth technology, a new map shows what will happen if the global average temperature goes 4°C above the pre-industrial average. Climate change is very abstract, even to those who think, read, and write about it a lot (ahem…). Creating visuals that show what will happen (or is happening) as a
What a great cartoon. I ran across it on ClimateProgress today, but think I’ve heard this idea mentioned before. As Horsey (the cartoonist) shows, if the threats we are facing due to climate change were coming from any external source, most people would be acting quite differently (similar to the point conservative writer Jonathan Kay
Want to understand why climate deniers refuse to believe climate change is happening despite a nearly perfect consensus amongst climate scientists that it is? Want to know why “climategate” got so much attention despite there being no good reason for it? Want to read one of the best commentaries on the global warming denier movement
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/fgT-QfcjXw4&hl=pl_PL&fs=1] Here is this week’s “greencast” or screencast of great green news from around the internet (that we didn’t already cover). Enjoy the video above via YouTube or in high definition on screenr. By the way, if you happen to notice the sound of pedestrians, cyclists or streetcars in the background, it is because I
A new study shows that glaciers that lose their attachment to the seafloor and begin floating start behaving very erratically. The study, led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego glaciologist Fabian Walter and colleagues, to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, present the first detailed observations of a glacier detaching from
Lizards are fairly robust and adaptive creatures owing to their ability to tolerate high body temperatures and resist water loss, but warming trends seem to be pushing temperatures past the thermal threshold that these reptiles need for successful reproduction and long-term survival.
Massive retreat of Greenland glacier happens overnight. The north branch of Greenland’s Jakobshavn glacier retreated one mile from July 6 to July 7, new NASA photos show. “The calving front – where the ice sheet meets the ocean – retreated nearly 1.5 kilometers (a mile) in one day and is now further inland than at
Here is our latest “greencast’ of green news from around the internet. Check out our summary of these 10 green news stories in high-definition via screenr or on YouTube below.
An independent report into the climategate scandal has left the involved scientists mostly vindicated, with only a minor slap on the wrist. The panel of inquiry, led by former U.K. civil servant Muir Russell, found that the scientists “rigour and honesty as scientists [is] not in doubt.” The report went on to say that they
One degree of warming may be too much for some countries, with heat waves possibly commonplace by the year 2039. A new study by Stanford University climate scientists has looked at two dozen climate models to project what could happen in America if carbon dioxide emissions raised the planet’s temperature by 1 degree Celsius between
Latest news from the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Rep. Ed Markey is a true environmental and energy leader. I don’t think I have seen anyone in government more focused on solving our fossil fuel and foreign oil addiction than him. As an intro to the 4th of July weekend that has
Researchers Overpeck and Udall cite a litany of troubling trends to support their prediction: “soaring temperatures, declining late-season snow pack, northward-shifted winter storm tracks, increasing precipitation intensity (note: not total rainfall), the worst drought since measurements began, steep declines in Colorado River reservoir storage, widespread vegetation mortality, and sharp increases in the frequency of large wildfires.”
A new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder suggests that the Arctic climate system may be more sensitive to greenhouse warming than first thought. The international study suggested that the current levels of Earth’s atmospheric carbon dioxide could be high enough to cause significant and irreversible shifts in the various Arctic ecosystems.
Farming has always been hard, and in the last 50 years has become incrementally harder with the need to make more, pollute less, satisfy everyone while still supporting yourself. All of this has to happen with increasingly scarce natural resources and the looming crisis of climate change and the effect farming is having on climate
The Sunday Times has just retracted its horrible and misleading Amazongate story, five months after being published. Remember Amazongate? It was a “big” news story that was supposed to show corruption and misrepresentation of data by climate change scientists. Well, if you couldn’t guess it before, the not-so-big news (as in, hardly covered news) now
A new study looking at more than 900 climate researchers have found that the majority of scientists with prominence and credentials in climate research believe humans are behind global warming. The small number of scientist’s who have come out against anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change have far less expertise in the area and much less prominence.
Climate scientists are turning the heat up on Alaska in a hope to test the effects of global warming on the region. American’s Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have already conducted extensive studies on the impact of climate change on temperate regions such as East Tennessee. But less is known about how
[social_buttons] Ancient lizards from the time of dinosaurs may go extinct due to climate change in the coming decades. A 200-million-year-old lizard, the three-eyed Tuatara, may go extinct due to climate change, scientists warn. The problem is that climate change is reportedly turning the whole species into males.
Almost every month this year is setting a new record as the hottest, according to the NOAA. [social_buttons] Yes, it wasn’t long ago I was writing about April being the hottest April and Jan-April being the hottest Jan-April on record. Now, the NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center has published its next monthly “State of the Climate
Senate rejects “Dirty Air Act”, votes “no”. Reportedly, the Senate has just made one of the biggest environmental or climate change decisions of the year and voted against Senator Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) infamous “Dirty Air Act” (53-47).
A new survey points to the humble TV weathercaster as the most public educator of climate change and science as a whole. [social_buttons]In the largest survey of TV weathercasters to date, George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication found that two thirds of the respondents reported on science issues once per month or more
A new study by researchers at Yale and George Mason Universities shows an uptick in public conern about global warming. [social_buttons]The study comes at a time when the U.S. Senate prepares to vote on a resolution to block the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant as well as the crisis taking place in
The UN’s Millennium Development Goal of ending global under-nourishment by 2015 will not be met, but a new set of “mega” initiatives are being implemented to achieve more efficient delivery of “research outputs” to speed agricultural development.
Three days after reaching the summit of Mount Everest for the 20th time Apa Sherpa has described Mount Everest as more dangerous to climb thanks to climate change. [social_buttons]Apa Sherpa, nicknamed the “super Sherpa” for the apparent ease with which he makes the climb, helping him to break his own record by making a 20th
Earlier this Spring, 200 climate science experts and policy makers gathered in Pacific Grove, California for ‘Asilomar 2’ (named after the first conference on bio-engineering held there in 1975), a pivotal conference for the emerging science of geoegineering. It was a meeting that many attendees regretted was even necessary. [social_buttons] 2009 was a big year for
