Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
What the Keeling Curve shows, then, are two separate but connected rifts in Earth’s metabolism. First, an increase in total CO2 that breaks with at least 800,000 years of history. Second, increased CO2 is changing the way that plants absorb and emit CO2, and that in turn is altering a seasonal cycle that has likely been unchanged for hundreds of millions of years.
Environmentalists weren’t able to block the confirmation of Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator based on his horrendous record of climate change denial and plundering natural resources. But Pruitt’s growing corruption scandal has given them new hope.
I have been writing a lot lately about the rising number and variety of environmental lawsuits being filed in state and federal courts. The hundreds of active climate-related cases exhibit a wide range of purpose.
When Marx was writing, the science of metabolic cycles was in its infancy: an enormous amount has been learned since then, especially in recent decades. To be true to Marx’s method, ecosocialists must, as he did, base our understanding of nature on the best contemporary scientific work.
The record-breaking marine heatwave in 2016 across the Great Barrier Reef has left much of the coral ecosystem at an “unprecedented” risk of collapse, research shows. A new study published in Nature finds that the surge in sea temperatures during the 2016 bleaching event led to an immediate and long-lasting die-off of coral.
The Bayou Bridge pipeline will carry oil across southern Louisiana from Lake Charles, near the Texas border, to St. James along the Mississippi River. Rosinski’s home in Arcadia Parish is west of the Atchafalaya Basin, an environmentally sensitive National Heritage Area. Construction there continues despite an ongoing legal challenge against building the pipeline through the basin.
Overall, the consensus in the scientific literature is that climate change will increase the number of people exposed to extreme events and, therefore, to subsequent psychological problems, such as worry, anxiety, depression, distress, loss, grief, trauma and even suicide.
We are living in extraordinary times and transformation is already happening and accelerating all around us. Many technological, social, and environmental changes are racing up the steep end of the exponential curve. I
The impacts are serious. A slow-down in deepwater ocean circulation “would accelerate sea level rise off the northeastern United States, while a full collapse could result in as much as approximately 1.6 feet of regional sea level rise,” as the authors of the U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA) explained in November.
Why do we “March for Science”? A central impulse is to fight the exercise of power for private gain at the expense of broad interest; oil companies ought not determine the quality of climate science!
A few miles off the coast of the rapidly warming Antarctic Peninsula, scientists are getting their first-ever detailed look at one of the most mysterious mammals on the planet, minke whales.
David Vardy is one of those rare individuals who believes that when a government makes a catastrophic mistake, all citizens are responsible. The 78-year-old former civil servant also argues “that in a democracy the true patriot is the one who dissents openly and is not silenced by fear and acceptance.”
