Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued its second of four planned reports examining the state of climate science…As with every recent IPCC report, it is super-cautious to a fault and yet still incredibly alarming.
"On Wall Street you no longer get a lot of climate denial," according to author McKenzie Funk. Largely indifferent to the causes of climate change, his respondents decided early on that investing in green technology was a losing proposition. Instead "the warmer the world, the less habitable it became, the bigger the windfall."
•Panel’s Warning on Climate Risk: Worst Is Yet to Come •Conservative Climate Panel Warns World Faces ‘Breakdown Of Food Systems’ And More Violent Conflict •Big impacts: The main messages from today’s big UN climate report
Despite its serious tone, The Energy of Nations: Risk Blindness and the Road to Renaissance, published by the reputable academic publisher Routledge, makes a compelling and ultimately hopeful case for the prospects of transitioning to a clean energy system in tandem with a new form of sustainable prosperity.
While the ecological and infrastructure impacts of climate change are becoming ever more self-evident, what about the social impacts?
A climate victory will come when Exxon — the second-biggest corporate carbon polluter in the world — actually makes a real commitment to diversify, and take responsibility for its own contribution to climate change.
Batten down the hatches; fill the grain stores; raise the flood defenses. We cannot know exactly what is coming, but it will probably be nasty…
The nature of property insurance, with premiums reliant on projections of future claims and financial market performance, will pull forward the societal effects of climate change and energy constraints.
•Climate Risks as Conclusive as Link between Smoking and Lung Cancer •The New 400ppm World: CO2 Measurements at Mauna Loa Continue to Climb •Official prophecy of doom: Global warming will cause widespread conflict, displace millions of people and devastate the global economy •Newly Discovered Greenland Melting Could Accelerate Sea-Level Rise •Why We Must Divest From Fossil Fuels: A Student’s Open Letter to Harvard President Drew Faust •Exxon agrees to disclose ‘unburnable carbon’ reservesI•saac Cordals incredible tiny sculptures offer a chilling view of climate change
Student and activist groups have been urging universities to take a stand against climate change by divesting from companies that produce oil, natural gas, or coal. In a Yale Environment 360 debate, activist Bob Massie makes the case for divestment as a necessary tool in pushing for action on climate, while economist Robert Stavins argues it would be merely symbolic and have little effect.
East-West tensions spiralled to levels not seen since the end of the cold war as Russia annexed Crimea this week.
Has the climate debate stalled? Does extreme weather in the UK mean we’re talking about it more or less?
