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Making up for years of delay and denial will not be easy, nor will it be cheap. Climate polluters must be held accountable
Fifty years ago, the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) delivered a report titled Sources, Abundance, and Fate of Gaseous Atmospheric Polluters to the American Petroleum Institute (API), a trade association for the fossil fuel industry.
The report, unearthed by researchers at the Center for International Environmental Law, is one of the earliest attempts by the industry to grapple with the impacts of rising CO2 levels, which Stanford’s researchers warned if left unabated “could bring about climatic changes” like temperature increases, melting of ice caps and sea level rise.
With each decade of delay and denial the impacts and costs of climate change have continued to mount
Related: Climate change is a disaster foretold, just like the first world war | Jeff Sparrow
Continue reading...Empty rhetoric from corporates is not enough as climate change is accelerating far faster than expected
Business leaders seem astonished that community trust in their activities is at an all-time low, trending toward the bottom of the barrel inhabited by politicians. To the corporate leader dedicated to the capitalist, market economy success story of the last 50 years, that attitude is no doubt incomprehensible and downright ungrateful.
Related: Arctic warming: scientists alarmed by 'crazy' temperature rises
Related: Marketing campaigns don’t cut through to a public sceptical of big business | Peter Lewis
Continue reading...Havoc as heavy snow affects US east coast, cyclones brush New Zealand and Arctic sea ice melts
Cyclone Hola continued its path south-eastwards across the South Pacific this week, brushing along the northern-most fringes of New Zealand’s North Island. The cyclone, which intensified to category 4, brought with it heavy rain and strong winds in excess of 70mph to communities along the Bay of Plenty and Gisborne as well as to the country’s capital, Auckland. It was the third big storm to strike the country this year.
Related: Third nor'easter storm in two weeks hits New England
Continue reading...We’re not yet optimizing biofuel production for both economic and environmental factors
Facing the reality of human-caused warming, we now look for ways to reduce the problem so that future generations will not inherit a disaster. So, what can we do now to help the future?
The easiest answer is to use energy more wisely and quit wasting our precious resources. Second, we can increase our use of clean energy, particularly wind and solar power. These are great starts but we will still need some liquid fuels and for those, we can make decisions about the best fuels for the environment. There has been extensive conversation recently about biofuels and how they may help solve the climate problem.
Agriculture is being challenged by increasing food demand, and changes to regional climate. On top of this, most plans to combat climate change rely on the agricultural sector to increase carbon storage in soils, and to produce raw materials for the large-scale production of biofuels and power. Modeling studies like ours attempt to predict on a farm-by-farm basis where the best opportunities for biofuel crop production and soil carbon storage lie, how much they might cost, and how those two goals trade off.
Our results suggest that biofuels can have a wide range of environmental outcomes depending on exactly where and how those crops are grown, but climate benefits can be increased at relatively low cost.
Continue reading...From the Amazon to Africa, WWF report predicts catastrophic losses of as much as 60% of plants and 50% of animals by the end of the century
The world’s greatest forests could lose more than half of their plant species by the end of the century unless nations ramp up efforts to tackle climate change, according to a new report on the impacts of global warming on biodiversity hotspots.
Mammals, amphibians, reptiles and birds are also likely to disappear on a catastrophic scale in the Amazon and other naturally rich ecosysterms in Africa, Asia, North America and Australia if temperatures rise by more than 1.5C, concludes the study by WWF, the University of East Anglia and the James Cook University.
Related: What is biodiversity and why does it matter to us?
Continue reading...Scientists found a strong link between high temperatures near the pole and unusually heavy snowfall and frigid weather farther south.
The sort of severe winter weather that has rattled parts of the US and UK is becoming more common as the Arctic warms, with scientists finding a strong link between high temperatures near the pole and unusually heavy snowfall and frigid weather further south.
A sharp increase in temperatures across the Arctic since the early 1990s has coincided with an uptick in abnormally cold snaps in winter, particularly in the eastern US, according to new research that analyzed temperature data from 1950 onwards.
Continue reading...Tax on luxury fossil fuel cars to fund expansion of Australia’s charging network
The Greens have proposed introducing mandatory fuel efficiency standards, ending the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, and imposing a four-year 17% tax on luxury petrol and diesel cars as part of an electric vehicle policy announced on Tuesday.
Under the proposal Australia would adopt a mandatory fuel efficiency standard of 105g of CO2 a kilometre by 2022, three years earlier than a proposal being considered by the federal government.
Related: Auto industry fights back at plan to cut cars' greenhouse gas emissions
Related: Curbs on fuel pollution ruled out in favour of cheaper options
Continue reading...Climate modelling does not take account of how ice crystals form in the region’s atmosphere, with ramifications for meteorologists
What is the recipe for a cloud? This is like asking for the recipe for curry. There are many different types of curry, and the result depends upon which spices are used and how they are combined.
For a long time, clouds over the Southern Ocean have puzzled meteorologists; there are more of them and they hang around for longer than climate models predict. Benjamin Murray and his colleagues from the University of Leeds have shown this is because of the delicate ingredients that goes into Southern Ocean clouds.
Related: Southern Ocean sucks up 1.2bn tonnes of carbon in 2011 and buries it deep
Continue reading...New geological research from Utah suggests the end-Permian extinction was mainly caused by burning coal, ignited by magma
Earth has so far gone through five mass extinction events – scientists are worried we’re on course to trigger a sixth – and the deadliest one happened 252 million years ago at the end of the Permian geologic period. In this event, coined “the Great Dying,” over 90% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species went extinct. It took about 10 million years for life on Earth to recover from this catastrophic event.
Scientists have proposed a number of possible culprits responsible for this mass extinction, including an asteroid impact, mercury poisoning, a collapse of the ozone layer, and acid rain. Heavy volcanic activity in Siberia was suspected to play a key role in the end-Permian event.
Things went from bad to worse, and you can now begin to understand how life nearly died out. Global warming, acid oceans, anoxia, not to mention a toxic atmosphere. We are lucky to be alive at all!
Continue reading...The warnings about an unfolding climate catastrophe are getting more desperate, yet the march to destruction continues
“The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.”
The mournful remark supposedly made by foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey at dusk on 3 August 1914 referred to Britain’s imminent entry into the first world war. But the sentiment captures something of our own moment, in the midst of an intensifying campaign against nature.
Related: Arctic has warmest winter on record: 'It's just crazy, crazy stuff'
It may seem impossible to imagine, that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we’re now in the process of doing.”
Related: The Guardian view on snow and ice: it’s too cold here but too warm in the Arctic | Editorial
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