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Climate Change

CLIMATE CRISIS

Video: A stunning prediction of climate science may now be coming true

29th July 2016

Chris Mooney reports: A recent report showed Greenland lost 1 trillion tons of ice mass between 2011 and 2014. A new NASA study shows that key areas where glaciers have been melting have actually experienced a reduction in gravitational pull, which has in turn reduced sea levels, confirming an age old prediction of climate science….

CLIMATE CRISIS

What would a global warming increase of 1.5 degrees be like?

27th July 2016

Fred Pearce writes: How hard would it be to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees? At various times in the past six months, global average temperatures have sometimes gone above 1.5 degrees. The truth is that scientists are only now getting out of the blocks to address what a 1.5-degree world would really look like….

Bookshelf

The Great Derangement: Conversations with Amitav Ghosh – 1

22nd July 2016

Acclaimed novelist Amitav Ghosh‘s non-fiction take on climate change and our collective inability to acknowledge its danger – titled The Great Derangement – has been hailed as a landmark, which promises to change the conversation around this crucial issue. In this series, we’re re-publishing interviews which feature the writer at his forceful and articulate best….

ALTERNATIVES

Clean energy won’t save us – only a new economic system can do that

21st July 2016

Jason Hickel writes: When it comes to climate change, the problem is not just the type of energy we are using, it is what we’re doing with it. What would we do with 100% clean energy? Exactly what we are currently doing with fossil fuels: raze more forests, build more meat farms, expand industrial agriculture….

CLIMATE CRISIS

It’s only July, but 7 climate records have already been broken in 2016

19th July 2016

The Guardian reports: India recorded its hottest day ever on 19 May, with the temperature in Rajasthan’s Phalodi rising to 51C. But it’s only one among many climate records broken this year. From soaring temperatures in Alaska and India to Arctic sea ice melting and CO2 concentrations rising, 2016 is smashing records around the world….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Are you too young to be worried about climate change?

17th July 2016

Ayesha Banerjee reports: “Climate change’s not something which will happen in the future. It’s happening right now. April 2016 was one of the hottest months on record.” The warning comes from climate change researcher Mihir Mathur, at TERI in Delhi, who is picking up danger signals from planet earth and wants to mitigate the impact….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Global warming is changing cloud distribution, with profound consequences

16th July 2016

Chris Mooney reports: In a new study published in Nature, scientists say they have for the first time thoroughly documented one of the most profound planetary changes yet to be caused by a warming climate: The distribution of clouds all across the Earth has shifted, in such a way as to make global warming worse….

CLIMATE CRISIS

We just broke the record for hottest year, nine straight times

13th July 2016

Dana Nuccitelli reports in The Guardian: 2014 and 2015 each set the record for hottest calendar year since we began measuring surface temperatures over 150 years ago, and 2016 is almost certain to break the record once again. It will be without precedent: the first time that we have seen three consecutive record-breaking hot years….

Bookshelf

Why we do not hear the waters: The Great Derangement by Amitav Ghosh

Raghu Karnad writes: The mysterious absence of climate disaster from contemporary arts and fiction is the central issue in Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement, a genuinely important book. The book’s about much else: but stops at every point to ask why our pressing concern, that we are wrecking our climate and habitat, is so ignored….

ALTERNATIVES

Bookshelf: Our Renewable Future

6th July 2016

The introduction to Our Renewable Future, a new book on the profound, all-encompassing energy transformation that will be witnessed throughout the world over the next few decades. Two irresistible forces will drive this historic transition: the necessity of avoiding catastrophic climate change and the ongoing depletion of the world’s oil, coal, and natural gas resources….

CLIMATE CRISIS

In Bangladesh, a growing movement to save the world’s largest mangroves from coal power attack

Bangladesh’s 1,320 megawatt Rampal coal power project threatens to devastate the Sundarbans and the communities whose livelihoods depend on it. If completed, it will consume about 13,000 tons of imported coal daily, result in over six miles of river dredging each year, discharge highly toxic sludge, and release ten million tons of carbon dioxide annually….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Study: Paris climate goals fall way short of what’s necessary

5th July 2016

Chris Mooney reports: A large team of researchers have reviewed individual country climate pledges made at the Paris talks to conclude that they fall short, forecasting that the full carbon “budget” that we’ve left to emit if we want to stay below 2 degrees Celsius of warming could be emitted by as early as 2030….

ALTERNATIVES

Research paper: Envisioning carbon neutral villages

2nd July 2016

This paper, published in Current Science Journal, is an outcome of the author’s 5 year engagement of working closely with rural communities in India for a climate change adaptation programme. It had 10+ thematic areas of research and intervention, including on local money flows, climate risk impact assessment, carbon neutrality, livelihood resilience and alternate energy….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Ten years on: how Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ made its mark

1st July 2016

John Cook writes: An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary about the threat of climate change, starring former US vice president Al Gore, was released ten years ago. It has undoubtedly made a mark, winning two Oscar awards, and the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for Gore. But has the film achieved what it set out to do?…

CLIMATE CRISIS

CO2 levels breach climate red line, and will remain there for our lifetime

30th June 2016

G.B.S.N.P. Varma writes: CO2 concentration levels in the atmosphere have risen above 400 parts per million (ppm), which scientists consider a red line for climate change, for the second year in succession, but this time they will endure for our lifetimes, according to the Mauna Loa Observatory, global record-keeper of carbon emissions since the 1950s….

CLIMATE CRISIS

India’s heat waves spell doom for the working poor

25th June 2016

Deaths due to heat waves in India have been in the thousands–in the years 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2015 in particular. Numbers, which are how the deaths are usually reported, are class- and gender-neutral. It’s one of the grave ironies of global warming that those least responsible for it are affected the most by it….

CLIMATE CRISIS

The climate change PR disaster

20th June 2016

Bob Pickard writes: It is remarkable how little has actually been done to deal with climate change – and the current lack of public affairs urgency is absolutely breathtaking… There are many reasons why climate change is such a vexing communications conundrum; but as a PR professional, here is what I‘ve pieced together so far….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Report card: Environmental governance under NDA government

17th June 2016

Two years of NDA government have meant a mixed bag for environmental governance in India, according to a performance review by the non-profit Centre for Science and Environment, While there was commendable progress on pollution control and waste management, forest governance took on a more industry-centric approach and the Paris Agreement was a missed opportunity….

Representational pic

CLIMATE CRISIS

From floods to forest fires: a warming planet – in pictures

16th June 2016

Droughts, floods, forest fires and melting poles – climate change’s impacting Earth like never before. From the Australia to Greenland, photographer Ashley Cooper’s work spans over 30 countries. This selection from his new book shows a changing landscape, scarred by pollution and natural disasters – but there’s hope too, with the rise of renewable energy….

ALTERNATIVES

Time to wake up and smell the climate change coffee

15th June 2016

Jayanta Bandopadhya writes: We no longer need meteorologists to tell us that the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere is growing steadily. Our most urgent task will be to take action towards reduction and reversal of global warming and consequent climate change, and thus, avoid a great threat to the survival of all life forms….