Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
This article is the latest in the current series looking to the 2018 midterm Congressional elections as an opportunity to broaden support for federal clean energy and climate policies. Today’s installment addresses alternative facts and how membership in an identity group can impact the way people process climate data.
According to alarming weather data released this week, the Arctic just experienced its warmest winter on record. This is devastating news for polar bears, who are suffering as their sea-ice habitat melts from under their paws.
The declining health of trees globally is starting to have profound effects on Earth’s carbon cycle. The rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide has been picking up speed over the past few years, even though human CO2 emissions have flattened. The net effect: Climate change is starting to accelerate.
Over the last decade, it’s become safer to drive and more dangerous to walk. That’s the conclusion of a new report on pedestrian safety released earlier this week, which documents that from 2007 to 2016, “The number of pedestrian fatalities increased 27 percent … while at the same time, all other traffic deaths decreased by 14 percent.”
The fact is, Millennials do not have the capital or political power sufficient to undertake the massive infrastructural transition necessary for mitigating climate change in the narrow window of time we have—that is, between zero and a few years.
The morning after Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Accords, this old climate warrior climbed out of bed feeling better about the chances of the sizzling, souring world than I have for months. Not just feeling better, feeling positively energized.
Nearly all, if not all, possible solutions to rising sea levels along all the coasts in the world are listed below, along with their challenges. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the Rockefeller foundation will award $4.6 million dollars to the ten best ideas for how the Bay Area could adapt to sea level rise in May. I am eager to see their solutions given the challenges below, and whether they come up with alternatives.
Mann’s story-telling skills shine when he’s narrating the life and times of Borlaug, Vogt and the colourful characters they worked with. When The Wizard and the Prophet embarks on a 200-page tour of today’s many global ecology challenges, Mann’s discursions are fascinating but the quality is uneven.
Despite my somewhat snarky title, which is based on my assessment that Half-Earth is missing a key strategic component, E. O. Wilson’s book is engaging and even inspiring. Wilson makes a compelling case that our planet is facing serious and accelerating species loss, that human beings are the primary cause of this phenomenon, and that, most importantly, we are capable of doing something about it.
Simply put, the environmental sciences have a diversity problem, and it’s not just costing us eureka moments like Burchard’s. After all, people of color are more likely to live in places with dirty air and are, thus, more often at risk from health problems linked to polluting industries and climate change. Yet they’re often getting overlooked.
The Donald and his Congressional budget hawks are looking pretty profligate at the moment—having just added $1.5 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years for tax reforms, $300 billion for fiscal years 2018/2019 by the budget deal and a possible $25 billion more to build a Wall. Spending pressures on one side will be met with saving pressures on another.
Seldom are missed books truly missed opportunities — but nothing could possibly be worse than missing an opportunity that could have saved your life, and those of your family and friends.
