By David Wallace-Wells 6 September 2023 (The New York Times) – Canadian wildfires have this year burned a land area larger than 104 of the world’s 195 countries. The carbon dioxide released by them so far is estimated to be nearly 1.5 billion tons — more than twice as much as Canada releases through transportation, […]
By Jamey Keaten 1 September 2023 GENEVA (AP) – A top glacier watcher has warned that a warm early summer combined with a heat wave last week may have caused severe glacier melt in Switzerland, threatening to make 2023 its second-worst year for ice loss after a record thaw last year. Matthias Huss of the GLAMOS […]
By Stephen Trimble 3 September 2023 (Los Angeles Times) – Christopher Nolan believes J. Robert Oppenheimer is the most important person who ever lived. “By unleashing nuclear power,” the film director concludes, “he gave us the power to destroy ourselves.” Nolan might exaggerate, but Oppenheimer, the subject of Nolan’s hit movie, is surely worthy of the […]
By Saul Elbein 7 September 2023 (The Hill) – Human civilization came to be thanks to the comparatively stable climate of the past 10,000 years. But the unchecked burning of fossil fuels is undermining that foundation, according to a leading climate scientist. “There is no analog in the past for the rapid warming” we are […]
By Jacob Bogage 3 September 2023 (The Washington Post) – In the aftermath of extreme weather events, major insurers are increasingly no longer offering coverage that homeowners in areas vulnerable to those disasters need most. At least five large U.S. property insurers — including Allstate, American Family, Nationwide, Erie Insurance Group and Berkshire Hathaway — […]
By Elizabeth Rush 13 August 2023 (The Atlantic) – Out on the bow of the R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer, the air is dense and almost warm. We have punched through miles of Antarctic ice floes to reach the Amundsen Sea’s foggy interior. I want to honor the remaining distance between us and Thwaites Glacier’s calving […]
By Juan José Rodríguez 6 September 2023 (AFP) – On a tiny Caribbean island, hundreds of people are preparing to pack up and move to escape the rising waters threatening to engulf their already precarious homes. Surrounded by idyllic clear waters, the densely populated island of Carti Sugtupu off Panama’s north coast has barely an […]
By George Wright 6 September 2023 (BBC News) – Torrential rain and winds caused by a cyclone have left at least 27 people dead in southern Brazil, with more flooding expected. The governor of Rio Grande do Sul said it was the state’s worst-ever weather disaster. Thousands have been forced from their homes, officials said. […]
24 August 2023 (PA Media) – Measures taken during the Covid pandemic such as social distancing and wearing face masks “unequivocally” reduced the spread of infections, a report has found. Experts looked at the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) – not drugs or vaccines – when applied in packages that combine a number of measures […]
By Liny Lamberink 28 August 2023 (CBC News) – Wildfires in the N.W.T have emitted 97 megatonnes of carbon into the air so far this year — 277 times more than what was caused by humans in the territory back in 2021. Mark Parrington, a senior scientist working at the European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), […]