Disaster, Pestilence, War, and Famine are riding as horsemen of a particular apocalypse. In 2016, the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere reached 403 parts per million, higher than it has been since at least the last ice age. By the end of 2017, the United States was on track to have the most…
Month: December 2017
Terracotta in the fight against climate
Terracotta is durable, breathes, offers a natural system to transfer water and heat, lasts for hundreds of years, and can be sculpted, transforming buildings into artwork, according to the University at Buffalo (UB). ACAW participants came together to work on terracotta facade prototypes with an emphasis on bioclimatic design. Workshop co-organizer and UB chair of…
Climate Change Is Happening Faster Than Expected, and It’s More Extreme
New research suggests human-caused emissions will lead to bigger impacts on heat and extreme weather, and sooner than the IPCC warned just three years ago. In the past year, the scientific consensus shifted toward a grimmer and less uncertain picture of the risks posed by climate change. When the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued…
Climate change raising risk for Superfund sites
TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. — Anthony Stansbury propped his rusty bike against a live oak tree and cast his fishing line into the rushing waters of Florida’s Anclote River. Stansbury is among nearly 2 million people in the U.S. who live within a mile of 327 Superfund sites in areas prone to flooding or vulnerable to…
Climate Change Is Driving People From Home. So Why Don’t They Count as Refugees?
The treaty that defines the status of refugees was written with the Second World War in mind. Now, research shows that weather shocks are forcing millions to move. More than 65 million people are displaced from their homes, the largest number since the Second World War, and nearly 25 million of them are refugees and asylum seekers…
Double snowfall around NA’s tallest peaks? Warming Oceans
Research finds dramatic increases in snowfall since the beginning of the Industrial Age and explains global climate connections linking northern mountains with tropical oceans. “We were shocked when we first saw how much snowfall has increased,” said Erich Osterberg, an assistant professor of earth sciences at Dartmouth College and principal investigator for the research. “We…
Censoring ‘Climate Change’ in Nafta
The U.S. is fighting against any mention of “climate change” in a potential new environmental chapter of the North American Free Trade Agreement, according to two people familiar with talks. … In a list of Nafta negotiating objectives, the U.S. called for the countries to bring environmental provisions, along with labor, from side agreements into…
Columbia engineers develop floating solar fuels rig for seawater electrolysis
Chemical engineering professor Daniel Esposito has developed a novel photovoltaic-powered electrolysis device that can operate as a stand-alone platform that floats on open water. His floating PV-electrolyzer can be thought of as a ‘solar fuels rig’ that bears some resemblance to deep-sea oil rigs — but it would produce hydrogen fuel from sunlight and water…
A military warning on climate change
Climate change will bring more failed states and terrorist organizations, radar failures, and military bases underwater, according to the US military. The bill’s acknowledgement and anticipation of climate change as an urgent threat contrasts sharply the Trump administration’s past denial. The administration has scrubbed mentions of climate change from agency websites, blocked federal scientists from…
Erasing Human History
UTQIAĠVIK, ALASKA—On a crumbling heap of thousand-year-old garbage overlooking a leaden sea, Anne Jensen shakes her head disapprovingly. A gust of Arctic air whips her hair around her face as she scrutinizes the beige house perched sixty feet above us, atop an Iñupiat archaeological site that’s fast eroding into the ocean. Source: Climate Change Is…