Tag Archives: Climate

NOAA Issues ‘Jaw-Dropping’ Assessment on ‘Unprecedented’ Arctic Warming

Latest Arctic Report Card finds that region’s temperatures continue upward climb twice as fast as global temperature increase

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 12-14-2016

Ice floe with polar bear in Beaufort Sea. (Photo: NOAA Photo Library)

If President-elect Donald Trump’s appointments of a “band of climate conspiracy theorists” weren’t already stoking fears for the ever-warming planet, the latest Arctic Report Card from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) may well provide the ignition.

The annual assessment, released Wednesday, finds that “persistent warming” is driving “extensive changes” to the region. In fact, the average air temperatures were “unprecedented”—the highest on observational record—and “Arctic temperatures continue to increase at double the rate of the global temperature increase,” NOAA states. Continue reading →

Standing Rock: A Moment of Clarity for Progressive Activists

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By Rev. Billy Talen. Published 11-26-2016 by Common Dreams

“The force that upsets entrenched power the most is this compassionate living, this community in plain sight,” writes Talen. (Photo: Dark Sevier/flickr/cc)

Earth-force meets money-force at Standing Rock. I’m so relieved I’m here. It scares me to think that I might have missed this.

We get up at dawn. Four hundred people walk slowly in a light snow to the river by the camp. A teacher is talking. His headdress is a crisscrossing of long, narrow feathers. He is of the Havasupai, the people who live by the blue-green waterfalls at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. He calls out across the river. “Water is life! Take me! My heart beats with you!”

It’s cold at 7am. The children don’t seem cold though. They run around in the mud and ice. There are 80 tribes here. Some say many more. As we stand on the shore with a slow drum beating, the people shout “water” in many languages. Continue reading →

Warning of Global Havoc as Possible Arctic ‘Tipping Points’ Pile Up

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The signals ‘are getting louder,’ says scientist involved in new comprehensive Arctic study

By Jon Queally, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-25-2016

The village of Kulusuk in Greenland. (Photo: Ville Miettinen/flickr/cc)

What is happening in the Arctic will not stay in the Arctic.

In an ominous (though not hopeless) report published Friday, researchers warn that as many as 19 various ‘tipping points’ could be triggered by the increasingly warm temperatures in the world’s northern polar region.

The Arctic Resilience Report, produced under the auspices of the Arctic Council by an international team of researchers from multiple institutes and universities, is the first comprehensive assessment of its kind, looking at the unique region from a combined social and ecological perspective. By surveying and synthesizing a large body of previous research on how both communities and natural systems are responding to global warming, the report offers a worrying conclusion. Continue reading →

Unified Against Trump Threat, World Vows To Push Ahead on Climate Action

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“Climate change is not going to wait for U.S. action and the rest of the world is clear it is moving forward,” said campaigner

By Lauren McCauley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-18-2016

Attendees of the United Nations climate conference in Marrakech, Morocco surround the words: “We Will Move Ahead.” (Photo: Greenpeace)

Underscoring the “climate pariah” that the United States is expected to become under a President-elect Donald Trump, world leaders concluded the United Nations climate talks on Friday by re-committing to the goals of the Paris accord and vowing to take swift action to reduce global emissions.

“We call for the highest political commitment to combat climate change, as a matter of urgent priority,” reads the Marrakech Action Proclamation (pdf), which was signed by 196 countries.

“Indeed, this year, we have seen extraordinary momentum on climate change worldwide,” it states. “This momentum is irreversible—it is being driven not only by governments, but by science, business, and global action of all types at all levels.” Continue reading →

2016 Set to be Hottest Year on Record, UN Announces Amid Climate Talks

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“It’s almost as if mother nature is making a statement”

By Nadia Prupis, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-14-2016

Overall, 2016 was about 1.2°C hotter than preindustrial levels, WMO said. (Photo: Christiaan Triebert/flickr/cc)

2016 is “very likely” to be the hottest year on record, setting a new high for the third year in a row, the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced Monday at the start of the second week of climate talks in Marrakesh, Morocco.

Global warming from greenhouse gas emissions was the biggest factor, but a stronger-than-usual El Niño event helped push temperatures even higher, the organization said, noting that 16 of the 17 hottest years in history occurred in this century. Continue reading →

Forget Paris, Scientists Say ‘Radical Change’ Only Way to Stay Below 2 Degrees

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Study by former IPCC chair comes amid rash of new research, all predicting the Earth will soon blow by key global warming thresholds

By Lauren McCauley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 9-30-2016

Indeed, “There is No Planet B.” (Photo: theverb.org/cc/flickr)

To much fanfare, global leaders have agreed to tackle the climate crisis by ratifying the Paris climate agreement, but a group of esteemed scientists is warning that current pledges to reduce emissions are far from sufficient and, in fact, put the world on track to reaching the dangerous 2°C climate threshold by 2050.

“The pledges are not going to get even close,” said Sir Robert Watson, former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and lead author of a new report out Thursday. “If you governments of the world are really serious, you’re going to have to do way, way more.” Continue reading →

Climate change, racism, and black lives

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Of course climate change is about race.

By Roger Hallam. Published 9-27-2016 by openDemocracy

Black Lives Matter protest against St. Paul police brutality. Photo: Fibonacci Blue [CC BY 2.0,] via Wikimedia Commons

This month marked a historic shift in the way climate change is communicated. Black Lives Matter (BLMUK) blocked City Airport in London to highlight that the climate crisis is a racist crisis. With half a million plus views on YouTube and interviews on BBC, the action has led to a torment of indignation, rage, mixed with the usual blatant racist abuse on the YouTube and Guardian comments threads. Even “progressive left” voices seem to have deemed that mixing climate and race is inappropriate, confusing, and counterproductive. I want to argue the exact opposite.

First it is necessary be clear about the science on climate change. Most people including many left activists seem to still subscribe to the notion that climate change is some vague threat that is going to happen at some point in the distant future. As one well regarded young activist friend put it “at least I will be dead by then”. Continue reading →

Climate Change is Here and Now, Dire NOAA Report Warns

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‘The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle. They are playing out before us, in real time’

By Nadia Prupis, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-2-2016

Last year’s record heat was fueled by a combination of the effects of global warming and one of the strongest El Niño events on record since at least 1950. (Photo: Project LM/flickr/cc)

Environmental records of all kinds are being shattered as climate change takes effect in real time, scientists warned on Tuesday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) released its annual State of the Climate report with the dire warning that 2015 was the hottest year on record since at least the mid-to-late 19th century, confirming the “toppling of several symbolic milestones” in global temperature, sea level rise, and extreme weather.

“The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle,” Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist at Penn State, told the Guardian. “They are playing out before us, in real time. The 2015 numbers drive that home.” Continue reading →

Worse Than Keystone XL? TransCanada’s Terrifying “Plan B”

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“TransCanada’s Energy East proposal is truly Keystone XL on steroids,” says Natural Resources Defense Council

By Deirdre Fulton, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 7-26-2016

Over the course of a single year, the NRDC states, tankers could carry 328 million barrels of tar sands oil down the East Coast—enough oil to fill more than 20,000 Olympic pools. (Photo: Andrew Priest/flickr/cc)

The pipeline giant TransCanada, stymied in its attempt to drive Keystone XL through America’s heartland, is facing renewed opposition to its “new and equally misguided proposal” to build the Energy East pipeline across Canada and ship tar sands oil via tankers along the U.S. East Coast to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico.

In partnership with a number of Canadian and U.S. environmental groups, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)—a major player in the fight to defeat Keystone XL—on Tuesday released a new report outlining how Energy East would “effectively create a waterborne tar sands pipeline with hundreds of new oil tankers traversing the Atlantic coastline, making vast areas of the Eastern Seaboard vulnerable to a dangerous tar sands spill.” Continue reading →

As Major Parties Embrace Fracking, Report Shows Natural Gas ‘Bridge to Climate Disaster’

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‘Currently planned gas production expansion in Appalachia would make meeting U.S. climate goals impossible,’ says Oil Change International

By Deirdre Fulton, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 7-22-2016

It is widely expected that production in the Appalachian Basin region will double over current levels by the early 2030s, leading to an inevitable “pipeline rush.” (Photo: Oil Change International)

As the Democratic Party comes under fire for not taking a strong enough stance on fracking, and Donald Trump considers drilling tycoon Harold Hamm for Energy Secretary in his hypothetical cabinet, a new report out Friday details how proposed natural gas expansion in the U.S. stands to undermine national climate goals as well as public and environmental health.

A Bridge Too Far: How Appalachian Basin Gas Pipeline Expansion Will Undermine U.S.Climate Goals (pdf), from Oil Change International (OCI) in partnership with 11 other organizations, “shows that current projections for U.S. natural gas production—fueled by a boom in the Appalachian basin—will lock in enough carbon to bust through agreed climate goals,” according to a press statement from OCI. Continue reading →

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The Movement Continues – Globally

Tag Archives: Climate

Warning of Global Havoc as Possible Arctic ‘Tipping Points’ Pile Up

The signals ‘are getting louder,’ says scientist involved in new comprehensive Arctic study

Forget Paris, Scientists Say ‘Radical Change’ Only Way to Stay Below 2 Degrees

Study by former IPCC chair comes amid rash of new research, all predicting the Earth will soon blow by key global warming thresholds

Climate Change is Here and Now, Dire NOAA Report Warns

‘The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle. They are playing out before us, in real time’

Worse Than Keystone XL? TransCanada’s Terrifying “Plan B”

“TransCanada’s Energy East proposal is truly Keystone XL on steroids,” says Natural Resources Defense Council

As Major Parties Embrace Fracking, Report Shows Natural Gas ‘Bridge to Climate Disaster’

‘Currently planned gas production expansion in Appalachia would make meeting U.S. climate goals impossible,’ says Oil Change International