This blog is part of a series on extreme weather. Click here to read about extreme heat and how public lands offer solutions. A 20-year-old living in the southwestern United States has essentially lived their entire life in a megadrought. A dry spell that's especially harsh in the summer has afflicted the region for two decades—and is... Continue Reading →
The skyrocketing cost of fire insurance foreshadows a larger confrontation over so-called managed retreat. Stu Smith got an email from his insurance company last summer with some bad news: His premium was more than quadrupling. Smith is the co-owner of Smith Madrone, a wine operation in the mountains of California’s Sonoma Valley, and he had... Continue Reading →
As wildfires worsen, more California farms are deemed too risky to insure
The skyrocketing cost of fire insurance foreshadows a larger confrontation over so-called managed retreat. If America wants to fight climate change—or enjoy the benefits of a modern economy—it must get much better at building electricity transmission. Yikes. A terrible thing happened to me recently. I started to care about electricity-transmission policy. In energy circles, the... Continue Reading →
Unfortunately, I Care About Power Lines Now
Black is white and white is black HIV does not cause AIDS. The world was created in 4004 BCE. Smoking does not cause cancer. And if climate change is happening, it is nothing to do with man-made CO2 emissions. Few, if any, of the readers of this journal will believe any of these statements. Yet each... Continue Reading →
Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond?
When we consider how to cut down on waste and lower our personal environmental impact, evaluating our grocery-shopping habits plays an important role. A whopping 30-40% of all food in the United States is wasted each year, a considerable portion of which is connected with grocery retail. According to the EPA, food containers and packaging account for 23% of landfill... Continue Reading →
9 Ways to Be an Eco-Friendlier Grocery Shopper
Sarah Myhre talks climate communication
In this interview, John Cook and Peter Jacobs talk with climate scientist Sarah Myhre. She offers challenging advice on climate scientists being more vulnerable in public, showing how they struggle with their science, how we care about the ways that communities are impacted by climate change. She reflects on whether scientists should engage with the... Continue Reading →
A fraction of billionaires’ wealth could help end extreme poverty instead of buying private islands. Not many people can single-handedly transform the world — but billionaires can. Billionaires collectively have trillions of dollars parked in private foundations and donor-advised funds, tax havens, assets, and investment funds. It’s hard to visualize that kind of money, but the analogy of... Continue Reading →
6 Things Billionaires Keep Spending Money on Instead of Helping Solve the World’s Biggest Problems
“Record-shattering” extremes – which break weather records by large margins – will become more likely as a result of climate change, a new study finds. The paper, published in Nature Climate Change, finds that the northern mid-latitudes are particularly vulnerable to record-shattering heat. This is exemplified by the recent heatwave over north-western US and Canada, in which... Continue Reading →
Climate change will drive rise in ‘record-shattering’ heat extremes
Nearly 200 nations started online negotiations Monday to validate a UN science report that will anchor autumn summits charged with preventing climate catastrophe on a planetary scale. "The report that you are going to finalise is going to be very important worldwide," World Meteorological Organization head Petteri Taalas told some 700 delegates by Zoom. The... Continue Reading →
Extreme weather smashes records as scientists convene for UN climate talks
The company was an early adopter of electrified vehicles but has since fallen behind The US is slowing moving toward adopting policies that would put more electric vehicles on the road, but for Toyota, it’s not slow enough. The Japanese automaker, which is the largest car company in the world, has been quietly lobbying policymakers... Continue Reading →
Toyota is quietly pushing Congress to slow the shift to electric vehicles
While terrifying wildfires and flash floods make headlines across the globe, researchers are offering a starkly honest road map for cities looking for the swiftest path to greater resilience. In British Columbia, over 300 fires are burning around the province, the largest being the Sparks Lake Fire north of Kamloops, CBC reports. Formally listed as out... Continue Reading →
empowerment & inner transformation... 