Climate Change

The mercury doesn’t lie: We’ve hit a troubling climate change milestone

Brian Brinks
Record Low Sea Ice Cover

Record Low Sea Ice Cover

Thursday, while the nation debated the relative size of Republican genitalia, something truly awful happened. Across the northern hemisphere, the temperature, if only for a few hours, apparently crossed a line: it was more than two degrees Celsius above “normal” for the first time in recorded history and likely for the first time in the course of human civilization.

That’s important because the governments of the world have set two degrees Celsius as the must-not-cross red line that, theoretically, we’re doing all we can to avoid. And it’s important because most of the hemisphere has not really had a winter. They’ve been trucking snow into Anchorage for the start of the Iditarod; Arctic sea ice is at record low levels for the date; in New England doctors are already talking about the start of “allergy season.”

This bizarre glimpse of the future is only temporary. It will be years, one hopes, before we’re past the two degrees mark on a regular basis. But the future is clearly coming much faster than science had expected. February, taken as a whole, crushed all the old monthly temperature records, which had been set in … January. January crushed all the old monthly temperature records, which had been set in … December.

Read the full article by Bill McKibben on the Bostonglobe.com website.

The Next Generation Asks: Why Not Act on Climate Change? (Video)

Brian Brinks
Young People Demanding Action

Young people worldwide are demanding answers on climate change. Watch their auditions and add your voice. Thousands heard the call from all over the planet and while it wasn’t easy, we’ve been able to select eight inspiring young people to attend the United Nations Climate Summit in New York on September 23 and ask “Why […]

Bill Nye The Science Guy Explains The Basics Of Climate Change (Video)

Brian Brinks
Climate Change 101

Originally posted on UpWorthy.com by Megan Kelly If you know anyone who’s having trouble wrapping their head around climate change as a human-driven crisis, this video could really come in handy. Stick around to the end for some empowering words from Bill Nye the Science Guy about how we can work together to turn things […]

Climate Desk – Cutting edge journalism covering all facets of Climate Change

Brian Brinks 1 Comment

climate-desk-logo

What a great website, lots of interesting and insightful stories all focused squarely on climate change and how it is affecting all of us. Bookmark this site. In their own word:

About Climate Desk

The Climate Desk is a journalistic collaboration dedicated to exploring the impact—human, environmental, economic, political—of a changing climate. The partners are The Atlantic, Center for Investigative Reporting, Grist, The Guardian, Mother Jones, Slate, Wired, and PBS’s Need To Know.

http://climatedesk.org

A link between climate change and Joplin tornadoes? Never (Video)

Brian Brinks

Bill McKibben published a must-read op-ed in The Washington Post last month about the connection between climate change and recent extreme weather events. Now Stephen Thomson has combined McKibben’s words with striking footage of the events he writes about. The result is a chilling must-see video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhCY-3XnqS0

It’s time to start connecting the dots. I am glad Bill McKibben wrote the article he did, and I am thankful Stephen Thomson converted it to an easy to absorb video, as I was planning on writing something along the same lines. Far too often I hear people saying “there have been large storms before”, “there have been severe floods before”, “there have been giant hurricanes before”, “their have been severe droughts before” … but what they aren’t taking into consideration is the fact that these types of typically isolated weather events are happening in much greater frequency, but more importantly, they are happening all over the planet, NOW. Not one, isolated, bigger than normal natural disaster, but a series of bigger than normal natural disasters happening, well, everywhere. Every country on every continent (and yes even in Antarctica) is experiencing abnormal and catastrophic weather. So it isn’t simply a case of a single isolated severe weather event happening, but it is a case that severe weather is quickly becoming the norm for our once ‘stable’ climate. And again, not just for us in North America, severe weather is affecting the entire planet. In fact The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre in a recent study discovered that natural disasters have more than doubled in the last two decades. Elisabeth Rasmusson, the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council:

The intensity and frequency of extreme weather events is increasing, and this trend is only set to continue. With all probability, the number of those affected and displaced will rise as human-induced climate change comes into full force.

Speaking at the Oslo conference, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres called the issue of climate-related displacement “the defining challenge of our times” and criticized the international community for lacking the political will to reduce to pace of climate change.

There is increasing evidence to suggest that natural disasters are growing in frequency and intensity and that this is linked to the longer-term process of climate change.

As they said in the video, I think we have a lot more to be concerned about than $4 a gallon gasoline.