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
International meetings on climate change have progressed in anything but a straightforward fashion since the inception of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988; and they have been anything but quick. This year’s climate change talks in Lima have been no exception to the rule. The infographic above by the Climate Group puts forth
The National Audubon Society issued a somber report yesterday about how America’s birds will react to anticipated climate changes. Another is expected today from Cornell. According to the Audubon bird study, half of all 588 bird species in North America—including the bald eagle, a national symbol—face large climate shifts that could cut their habitats and cause
(All figures are from the 2014 National Climate Assessment draft.) Later today (Tuesday, May 6), at 8 a.m. EDT, the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee of experts meets by conference call to approve the final version of the Third National Climate Assessment. The gist of their message, as Suzanne Goldenberg of The Guardian
Last week something rare and extraordinarily positive occurred on American television. Fortunately, through YouTube and 350.org, the rest of the world got to see it too. “Something positive?” a critic questions. “If climate change is as bad as you tree-hugger people claim it is, how can anything about it be positive?” The phenomenon tends to
BREAKING: Late this evening (8 pm EST, or tomorrow, March 31, at 9 am in Tokyo), something large and unpleasant will hit the fan about climate change. At a press conference in Yokohama, the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will release its Fifth Assessment Report on impacts of human activities on current and
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society of London debut Climate Change: Evidence & Causes, a new publication produced jointly by the two world-leading scientific institutions, live on the internet on Thursday, February 27, 2014, from 10:00-11:30 EST. The new publication bills itself as “a brief, readable reference document for decision makers,
At the late November meeting of UN climate delegates in Warsaw, negotiators from Canada–once a strong supporter of fast-start financing to limit greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries–and Australia, now led by a rashly conservative government, sat on their hands. Reeling from the costs of mitigation at Fukushima and a stopgap return to fossil fuels,
Officials open the 2013 UNFCCC meetings with determination and louder warnings…. (Photo source: http://ow.ly/qL43P) It’s time for the governments of the world to struggle with climate change policy again. Every year, late in November and early in December, representatives of 195 nations gather for two weeks to try to negotiate global responses to the increasingly
In the latest example of the widening gap in climate change policies between the USA and Europe, the Government of Norway last week announced the world’s largest new tax on carbon emissions, stating in explicit terms its desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate against global warming — just two weeks after the
New research which contradicts 2007’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s assessment suggests that billions of tons of carbon dioxide trapped in high-latitude permafrost may be released into the atmosphere by the end of this century if the temperatures continue to rise apace, which in turn will only further and quicken global warming.
A new study has found that the worst case scenarios calculated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which were released in 2007 may not realistically calculate the actual worst case scenarios facing planet Earth and her inhabitants.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has unveiled its latest salvo in the fight to curtail human-caused global warming: an interactive ‘Climate Hot Map Scavenger Hunt’. The Climate Hot Map educate sand entertains as it stimulates the user’s curiosity to sift clues and scavenge for answers. What’s more, completing the scavenger hunt qualifies you for a chance to win the fabulous Grand Prize: an Earthwatch Institute trip for two to assess climate impacts in Rio Cachoeira national Reserve in Brazil!
Members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meeting this past week in Abu Dhabi for their annual conference have announced the adoption of new procedures to address questions of conflicts of interest, data analysis errors and other policy procedures.
The member report comes in the wake of the 2009 pseudo-scandal at the UK-based University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, and more recently, in response to recommendations submitted by the InterAcademy Council, an international group of representatives from top science academies.
In many climate models and scientists’ theories the West Antarctic ice sheet is expected to melt over the coming hundreds of years and raise the sea levels. Much of this is based on the theory that during the last interglacial period the ice sheet must have melted in order to raise the sea levels as much as they had been. However new research suggests that the West Antarctic ice sheet may be more stable than had been previously realised.
In the longest study to date of changes in polar ice sheet mass, researchers funded by NASA have found that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass at a drastic and accelerating rate, contrary to the findings in 2007 of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. These findings suggest rather dramatically
Too many distractions put the IPCC on the defensive It’s been almost a year since the conveniently-timed hacking of computers at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit on the eve of the COP15 climate conference ushered in what climate deniers breathlessly dubbed “climategate.” Soon after came embarrassing reports of mistaken Himalayan glacier data allowed into
