Climate Science

Aug 3, 2016 - NASA researchers have helped produce the first map showing what parts of the bottom of the massive Greenland Ice Sheet are thawed – key information in better predicting how the ice sheet will react to a warming climate.

The steady loss of the kelp removes an important habitat for other species and has a cascading effect through the marine environment, a Halifax marine biologist warns.

Once rich forests of willowy kelp that stretch along Nova Scotia’s coast have been decimated by warming water temperatures, says a marine biologist who warns that the loss could harm other species that rely on them for food.

Here at the Energy and Environment blog, we cover, regularly, the tipping points of climate change — how, for instance, the glaciers of West Antarctica may already have passed a key threshold that leads to

"Copyright, Truthout.org. Reprinted with permission"  http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/36133-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-concentration-has-passed-the-point-of-no-return

A recent trip up Washington State's Mount Rainier brought home to me how rapidly things are changing, even in the high country.

A cloud of noxious particles brewing in the air above the Alberta oil sands is one of the most prolific sources of air pollution in North America, often exceeding the total emissions from Canada’s largest city, federal scientists have discovered.

The finding marks the first time researchers have quantified the role of oil sands operations in generating secondary organic aerosols, a poorly understood class of pollutants that have been linked to a range of adverse health effects.

Last Friday evening I was asked to speak at the international launch of Canadian ecosocialist Ian Angus’ new book Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System. The transcript of my address is reproduced below (spoiler – I really liked this book!):

Click below for this visualization of the changes in global temperature over the past two centuries.

​The number of climate refugees could increase dramatically in future. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and the Cyprus Institute in Nicosia have calculated that the Middle East and North Africa could become so hot that human habitability is compromised. The goal of limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius, agreed at the recent UN climate summit in Paris, will not be sufficient to prevent this scenario.