Climate Change

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Barack Obama launched America’s most ambitious attempt yet to tackle greenhouse gas emissions Monday, pushing ahead with tough restrictions on power stations in the teeth of fierce opposition from industry and the Republicans. 

Global climate models aren’t given nearly enough credit for their accurate global temperature change projections. As the 2014 IPCC report showed, observed global surface temperature changes have been within the range of climate model simulations.

FAIRBANKS, Alaska — Hundreds of wildfires are continually whipping across this state this summer, leaving in their wake millions of acres of charred trees and blackened earth.

When Bolivian President Evo Morales announced in May that his government was allowing oil and gas drilling in national parks, mainstream and progressive media outlets alike were quick to condemn his supposed hypocrisy on environmental issues.

Writing for the Associated Press, Frank Bajak argued that although Morales is known internationally for his outspoken campaigning on climate change, at home he faces constant criticism from conservationists “who say he puts extraction ahead of clean water and forests”.

Democratic presidential contender Martin O’Malley sparked controversy this week by saying that the conditions for the rise of ISIL (ISIS, Daesh) were set by the impact on Syria of climate change, which drove farmers from their land into slums around cities and created extreme poverty. O’Malley’s assertion was immediately ridiculed on Fox News Channel and by Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, who called the allegation a “disconnect from reality.” Who is right in this debate?

One more effect of the drought.

The tribal council representing eight First Nation communities in British Columbia’s Okanagan has suspended the area’s recreational and commercial sockeye salmon fishery – and says a full closing of food fishing is likely coming – as the salmon run comes in far lower than expected.

The Okanagan Nation Alliance was set to open the fishery on Osoyoos Lake this weekend with a historic salmon run forecast for the Columbia River system. But only about 18,000 to 45,000 of the projected 375,000 fish are expected to survive the journey.

If one were to search for an example of the utterly and inherently life, climate, and economy destroying impacts of fossil fuel burning, they wouldn’t have to look too far. They could look to the rapidly destabilizing glaciers now putting our coastal cities, our island nations in dire peril.

Garth Lenz's 2011 TED talk (17.4 minutes), illustrated by striking photographs of the tar sands and northern boreal forest.

It’s time to stop waffling and say that the evidence is pretty strong … multi-meter sea level rise is an issue for today, not for the next millennium

Dr. James Hansen, formerly Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, where he directs the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions.