climate – Page 3

Cut Emissions 50% This Decade, But Can Biden Make A New US Climate Pledge Happen?

23Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT

Cut Emissions 50% This Decade, But Can Biden Make A New US Climate Pledge Happen?

President Joe Biden announced an ambitious new national climate target at the world leaders’ climate summit on April 22. He pledged to cut U.S. carbon emissions in half by the end of this decade – a drop of 50-52% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels – and aim for net zero emissions by 2050. The new goal is a big deal because it formally brings together the many different ideas on infrastructure, the budget, federal regulatory policy and disparate actions in the states and industry for transforming the U.S. economy into a highly competitive, yet very green giant. It also signals to the rest of the world that “America is back” and prepared to work on climate change. Stopping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius – the aim of the Paris climate agreement – will require an immediate global effort...

Here’s How To Tell If Your Favorite Fishing Stream Is At High Risk From Climate Change

5Mar

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT

Here’s How To Tell If Your Favorite Fishing Stream Is At High Risk From Climate Change

Many of the streams that people count on for fishing, water and recreation are getting warmer as global temperatures rise. But they aren’t all heating up in the same way. If communities can figure out where these streams will warm the most, they can plan for the future. That has been difficult to predict in the past, but a new method involving temperature patterns may make it easier. People have widely assumed that streams fed by substantial amounts of groundwater are more resistant to climate change than those fed mostly by snowmelt or rain. It turns out that this groundwater buffering effect varies quite a bit. The depth of the groundwater affects the stream temperature response to warming, which in turn affects the habitats of fish and other wildlife and plants. In a study published ...

Scholars Explain – Why The US Rejoining The Paris Climate Accord Matters At Home And Abroad

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SCIENCE, VIDEO REELS

Scholars Explain – Why The US Rejoining The Paris Climate Accord Matters At Home And Abroad

The United States helped bring the world into the Paris climate accord, the groundbreaking global agreement reached in 2015 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to slow climate change. Under Donald Trump, the U.S. became the only country to withdraw. Now, the U.S. is coming back. On his first day as president, Joe Biden formally started the 30-day process to rejoin the Paris Agreement, effective Feb. 19. We asked five scholars to describe what U.S. involvement in the Paris Agreement means for the nation and the rest of the world, and for food security, safety and the future warming of the planet. What rejoining Paris means for America’s place in the world Morgan Bazilian, Public Policy Professor and Director of the Payne Institute, Colorado School of Mines Amanda Gorman, the ...

As The Climate Warms Two-Thirds Of Earth’s Land Is On Pace To Lose Water – That’s A Problem For The People, Crops And Forests

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT

As The Climate Warms Two-Thirds Of Earth’s Land Is On Pace To Lose Water – That’s A Problem For The People, Crops And Forests

The world watched with a sense of dread in 2018 as Cape Town, South Africa, counted down the days until the city would run out of water. The region’s surface reservoirs were going dry amid its worst drought on record, and the public countdown was a plea for help. By drastically cutting their water use, Cape Town residents and farmers were able to push back “Day Zero” until the rain came, but the close call showed just how precarious water security can be. California also faced severe water restrictions during its recent multiyear drought. And Mexico City is now facing water restrictions after a year with little rain. There are growing concerns that many regions of the world will face water crises like these in the coming decades as rising temperatures exacerbate drought conditions. Unde...

Layers Of Peatlands Trap Huge Amounts Of Carbon Helping To Cool The Climate, But That Could End With Warming And Development

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT, VIDEO REELS

Layers Of Peatlands Trap Huge Amounts Of Carbon Helping To Cool The Climate, But That Could End With Warming And Development

Peatlands are a type of wetland where dead plant material doesn’t fully decompose because it’s too soggy. In these ecosystems, peat builds up as spongy dark soil that’s sometimes referred to as sod or turf. Over thousands of years, yards-thick layers of peat accumulate and trap huge amounts of carbon, helping to cool the climate on a global scale. More valuable than it looks. David Stanley/Flickr, CC BY But that might not be true for much longer. Warming temperatures and human actions, such as draining bogs and converting them for agriculture, threaten to turn the world’s peatlands from carbon reservoirs to carbon sources. In a newly published study, our multidisciplinary team of 70 scientists from around the world analyzed existing research and surveyed 44 leading experts to identify fa...

Raising More Concerns About Climate Change – A Record-Smasher, The 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT, TECHNOLOGY

Raising More Concerns About Climate Change – A Record-Smasher, The 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season

It was clear before the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season started that it was going to be busy. Six months later, we’re looking back at a trail of broken records, and the storms may still not be over even with the season’s official end on Nov. 30. This season had the most named storms, with 30, taking the record from the calamitous 2005 season that brought Hurricane Katrina to New Orleans. It was only the second time the list of storm names was exhausted since naming began in the 1950s. Ten storms underwent rapid intensification, a number not seen since 1995. Twelve made landfall in the U.S., also setting a new record. Six of those landfalling storms were hurricane strength, tying yet another record. Tropical storm tracks show how busy the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was. Brian McNoldy, ...

Can Biden’s Climate Change Plans Quickly Raise The Bar, And Be Transformative?

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT, POLITICS, SCIENCE

Can Biden’s Climate Change Plans Quickly Raise The Bar, And Be Transformative?

The day Joe Biden becomes president, he can start taking actions that can help slow climate change. The question is whether he can match the magnitude of the challenge. If his administration focuses only on what is politically possible and fails to build a coordinated response that also addresses the social and economic ramifications of both climate change and the U.S. policy response, it is unlikely to succeed. I have spent much of my career working on responses to climate change internationally and in Washington. I have seen the quiet efforts across political parties, even when the rhetoric was heated. There is room for effective climate actions, particularly as heat waves, wildfires and extreme weather make the risks of global warming tangible and the costs of renewable energy fall. A...

Black Voters Know Climate Justice Is Racial Justice

2Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Journalism, POLITICS

Black Voters Know Climate Justice Is Racial Justice

It’s not only been a summer season (now autumn) of a deadly pandemic, toxic politics, and social unrest, but the nation has been rocked by a nonstop series of environmental calamities triggered by the human-pressed climate crisis. Hurricane Sally was a destructive slow-moving mix of high winds and epic flooding battering the Gulf Coast and other parts of the South. That was after Hurricane Laura and ahead of an unprecedented number of cyclones forming in the Atlantic for what’s building up into one of the most active—if not the most active—hurricane season on record. The entire West Coast is either, literally, on fire or under a blanket of choking smoke from said fire. This summer was the fourth hottest on record, with nights no longer cooler and city neighborhoods burning up because of l...

Climate Issues At The Forefront Of The 2020 Elections

21Sep

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Journalism, POLITICS

Climate Issues At The Forefront Of The 2020 Elections

After decades on the political periphery, the climate movement is entering the mainstream in 2020, with young leaders at the fore. The Sunrise Movement now includes more than 400 local groups educating and advocating for political action on climate change. Countless students around the world have clearly communicated what’s at stake for their futures, notably Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who just finished her yearlong school strike for climate. Youth activists have been praised for their flexible, big-picture thinking and ability to harness social media to deliver political wins, as Sunrise recently did for U.S. Sen. Ed Markey’s primary campaign. They necessarily challenge the status quo. “Every social movement in the U.S. that has been successful has always had strong youth and stude...

Faith and politics mix to drive evangelical Christians’ climate change denial

9Sep

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE

Faith and politics mix to drive evangelical Christians’ climate change denial

U.S. Christians, especially evangelical Christians, identify as environmentalists at very low rates compared to the general population. According to a Pew Research Center poll from May 2020, while 62% of religiously unaffiliated U.S. adults agree that the Earth is warming primarily due to human action, only 35% of U.S. Protestants do – including just 24% of white evangelical Protestants. Politically powerful Christian interest groups publicly dispute the climate science consensus. A coalition of major evangelical groups, including Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council, launched a movement opposing what they describe as “the false worldview” of environmentalism, which supposedly is “striving to put America, and the world, under its destructive control.” Studies show that bel...