Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The cost of allowing global temperature to rise to 2C, rather than capping warming at 1.5C, is an area of permafrost the size of Mexico, according to new research. The study, carried out by a team of scientists from Sweden, Norway and the UK, is the first to work out what the ambitious targets contained in the Paris Agreement mean for permafrost loss.
We study environmental politics, and believe the health care debate holds an important lesson for green advocates: Policies that create concrete benefits for specific constituencies are hard to discontinue.
The expanding economies of Asia, Africa and the Middle East are placing such great demands on global sand supplies that scarcity could soon prove to be an hyperbole. The sand spoken of here is that used for fracking, construction and industrial processes, e.g. glass and silicone manufacture.
The movements for climate justice and environmental justice are about healing deep wounds of injustice and oppression via environmental action. Climate action can, if done right, be a powerful force for making a society more equal and advancing human rights. It can be a catalyst for positive social change.
To state the obvious, sand mining is—mining. Whatever one might be digging for at the end of their personal rainbows—coal, gold, a short cut to China, or sand—it involves a violation of earth’s surface.
How can the Kissimmee team and others best restore degraded environments in the face of the unpredictable and tumultuous future that climate change promises? A big part of the answer is by building in resilience — the ability to resist change or to recover from disturbance in a way that preserves the essence of a system’s structure and function.
Researchers have once again linked a sequence of devastating climate events to global warming fuelled by prodigal human use of fossil fuels. And this time, they believe they have identified the agency behind the blazing summers that have claimed lives and destroyed livelihoods repeatedly during this century.
The need for rapid changes in the way that we run our societies, and the acceptance that the old geographical and climatic certainties may rapidly change, is needed. The thought that we can simply geo-engineer our way out of trouble may be proven to be the naiveté of a still young civilization.
But how do you save a coral reef? Here’s one way: cultivate it, harvest it, regrow it. Garden it! Austin Bowden-Kerby is a coral gardener.
Cool Labs use the existing financial and technological landscape of the world today and simply change the way products are produced in order to heal the earth, balance carbon, and make more real wealth for more people more quickly.
One of the many facets of humanity threatened by climate change is language itself, our ability to construct narrative to make sense of the world around us. How does a collection of words capture what confounds the limits of human imagination? How do you thread together a story about the unweaving of life?
At Chelsea Green Publishing, where I acquire and develop books, we’ve long understood that the climate issue reaches into every corner of our lives—from the way we structure our local, regional, and national economies and politics to the way we grow our food and feed our families; build, renovate, locate, and power our homes; transport ourselves and our goods; structure our workplaces, communities, our energy grids, industries; and so much more.
