Tag: earth

‘We are damned fools’: scientist who sounded climate alarm in 80s warns of worse to come

James Hansen, who testified to Congress on global heating in 1988, says world is approaching a ‘new climate frontier’

Firefighters try to control a wildfire in New Peramos, near Athens, Greece. Photograph: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images
Firefighters try to control a wildfire in New Peramos, near Athens, Greece. Photograph: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images

The world is shifting towards a superheated climate not seen in the past 1m years, prior to human existence, because “we are damned fools” for not acting upon warnings over the climate crisis, according to James Hansen, the US scientist who alerted the world to the greenhouse effect in the 1980s.

Hansen, whose testimony to the US Senate in 1988 is cited as the first high-profile revelation of global heating, warned in a statement with two other scientists that the world was moving towards a “new climate frontier” with temperatures higher than at any point over the past million years, bringing impacts such as stronger storms, heatwaves and droughts.

LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/19/climate-crisis-james-hansen-scientist-warning

“The Heat Will Kill You First”: Rolling Stone’s Jeff Goodell on Life and Death on a Scorched Planet

The world is in the grips of a dangerous heat wave that has sent temperatures skyrocketing to deadly levels throughout Asia, Europe and the Americas. Unless urgent action is taken to reduce carbon emissions, the United Nations says, Earth could pass a temperature threshold in the next decade when climate disasters are too extreme to adapt to. We speak with longtime climate journalist Jeff Goodell, author of the new book, _The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet_, about how the climate crisis is raising temperatures, the toll such heat can have on the human body, and how “heat is the primary driver for this climate transformation we are undergoing right now,” fueling natural disasters such as floods, wildfires and more. Transcript: https://www.democracynow.org/2023/7/1…

World’s oceans changing colour due to climate breakdown, study suggests

The sea is becoming greener due to changes in plankton populations, analysis of Nasa images finds

Bright swirls caused by phytoplankton in the deep blue waters off Canada in early July 2023. Photograph: Nasa
Bright swirls caused by phytoplankton in the deep blue waters off Canada in early July 2023. Photograph: Nasa

Earth’s oceans are changing colour and climate breakdown is probably to blame, according to research.

The deep blue sea is actually becoming steadily greener over time, according to the study, with areas in the low latitudes near the equator especially affected.

LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/12/worlds-oceans-changing-colour-due-to-climate-breakdown-study-suggests

Sun To Reach Solar Maximum In 2 Years, May Lead To “Internet Apocalypse”

Outages caused by solar storms could last for months, leading to huge economic impact

LINK: https://www.ndtv.com/science/sun-to-reach-solar-maximum-in-2-years-may-lead-to-internet-apocalypse-4199522

‘A Wake Up Call’: The World Needs to Prepare for Massive Crop Failure

Climate change is messing with the jet stream, and it means more extreme weather events in the future.

 

Drought-stricken corn crops bake in the sun as temperatures continue to hover around 100 degrees Monday, July 25, 2011, in Tomball, Texas.

LINK: https://gizmodo.com/study-world-needs-to-prepare-for-massive-crop-failure-1850605691

Are We Facing the Reality of Civilizational Collapse?

The Hottest Days in 100,000 Years. How Long Do We Have, and What Does “Collapse” Mean for a Civilization?

The Hottest Days in 100,000 Years. How Long Do We Have, and What Does “Collapse” Mean for a Civilization?

 

The hottest series of days in 100,000 years. The world, for its part, looked away. Nobody much noticed. Us, humankind, going through this historic, epochal change. Things will never be the same again — not even if, somehow, the temperature “goes back down,” because the planet, of course, will by then have been altered, profoundly.

Those of us who are paying attention, though, might have begun to wonder: what about this thing called “civilizational collapse”? How close is it? What does it really mean?

LINK: https://eand.co/are-we-facing-the-reality-of-civilizational-collapse-18d2817cf85d