The debate over climate change has long focused on determining attribution—whether rising greenhouse gases and global warming caused a particular storm, drought, flood, or blizzard. Now, a new study inNature Climate Change published Monday seeks to shift the underlying question from “if” to “how.” “The climate is changing,” wrote National Center for Atmospheric Research scientists Kevin Trenberth and John Fasullo and …
Pope Francis vs. vampire capitalism: The real reason why his climate-change encyclical is revolutionary – ROBERT HENNELLY
Leave it to Pope Francis, a Jesuit trained as a chemist, who has only one lung, to breath new life into a tired global environmental debate. It has been droning on for so long now that it has become background noise, easily drowned out in the din of the 24-hour news cycle. While the glaciers melt, and close to 2,500 …
“Care For Our Common Home” Mother Earth By Pope Francis
An extract from Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth. In many parts of the planet, the elderly lament that once beautiful landscapes are now covered with rubbish. Industrial waste and chemical products utilised in cities and agricultural areas can lead to bioaccumulation …
The Crisis: Regeneration or Degeneration? Ronnie Cummins
“If governments won’t solve the climate, hunger, health, and democracy crises, then the people will.” —Dr. Vandana Shiva, speaking at the founding meeting of Regeneration International, La Fortuna de San Carlos, Costa Rica, June 8, 2015 When literally billions of people, the 99 percent, are hungry or struggling to survive with justice and dignity; when the majority of the global body …
NASA: The Earth is Running Out of Water – Lauren McCauley
Bottom line: the Earth is running out of water. Two new NASA studies led by researchers from the University of California Irvine and published Tuesday show that the depletion of global groundwater resources, due to the dueling impacts of global warming and growing human demand, has caused the world’s water supply to drop to dangerous levels. The first report compares statistical analysis …
Pope Backs Climate Change Science, Denounces World Leaders by John Follain
Pope Francis has endorsed the science behind global warming and denounced the world’s political leaders for putting national self-interest ahead of action. Now, Catholic priests are gearing up to spread the word. The 192-page leaked draft of a papal encyclical, published Monday by the Italian magazine L’Espresso, is an attempt to influence the debate before United Nations climate talks scheduled …
Feds Still have No Idea How Illegal GM Wheat Got Into this Montana Field – Christina Sarich
It’s been nearly a year since illegal, unexpected GM wheat was found growing at a Montana State University test lab field, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service told The Gazette they still have no idea how the genetically modified grain turned up at the Southern Agricultural Research Center. Funny how no one from the USDA mentions that the …
Long-lived carbon dioxide warms the world for many millennia By Tim Radford
Gun the engine, and the ignition of fossil fuel produces not just working energy but heat that dissipates quickly into the atmosphere. But it also produces carbon dioxide that dissipates into the atmosphere. And in less than two months, according to new research, that pulse of carbon dioxide will have engendered more heat for the planet than the original touch …
In Fight Against Global Warming, the World is Way Off Target – Deirdre Fulton
In what is being called the most definitive assessment yet of national emissions pledges aimed at meeting global climate goals, the International Energy Agency on Monday released a major report showing that without “learning to live within its means,” the world is set to miss a critical target. In its World Energy Outlook Special Report 2015: Energy and Climate Change (pdf), the Paris-based agency states that …
Pope Francis’s Encyclical Could Have Bigger Impact Than the Paris Climate Talks, Says NASA Scientist – Lorraine Chow
As the world eagerly awaits Pope Francis′s encyclical on climate change this Thursday, some scientists have come out and said that the papal letter could draw a larger impact than the world leaders hammering out emissions negotiations at the UN climate summit in Paris this December. “I’m not a religious person at all,” NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt told USA TODAY, adding that faith-based efforts to shift thinking on climate …