“Hurricanes don’t care if you’re rich, poor, white or black — but that doesn’t mean that every person is equally vulnerable to a storm.”
The future of climate change is here. Or at least it’s here if you’re in India. Or Pakistan.
It’s Earth Day 2022. Since President Biden took office last year, the United States has had its first-ever climate czar in John Kerry, and an administration working to put back together the shattered pieces of the environmental Humpty Dumpty that Trump shoved off the wall.
There is perhaps no starker a picture of how incredibly environmentally reckless — or ignorant — Russian troops have been as they attack Ukraine.
There has been a lot of talk in the fight against climate change about focusing on reducing emissions in the most pollutive countries, like China, the United States, and India. But a new report says we’re concentrating on the wrong thing. We should, researchers say, be looking instead at the most pollutive people.
We’ve been hearing for a number of years now about the disastrous melting of the polar ice caps. The warming oceans. But there is one part of the world that may affect the speed of climate change sooner than any of these other nightmarish issues, even while it is a place that still appears lush and relatively healthy: the Amazon rainforest.
Last year, President Biden pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by half of 2005 levels by the end of the decade. Of course, this didn’t make the fossil fuel industry happy. But the march toward cleaner energy appears inevitable, as natural gas takes the place of coal, and wind and solar energy production ramps up to replace all fossil fuels.
The past few years have brought some of the worst wildfires the world has ever seen. Between the United States, Australia, and Siberia, fires have eaten up millions of acres of land. Siberia’s 2021 fires alone burned more than all the others around the world combined, destroying more than 21 million acres of boreal forest — an area about the size of Serbia.
With the pandemic insanity of the last couple of years, you may have missed a controversy that toppled the head of the Sierra Club last summer.
About 21 million people live in Mumbai, India. Between 2 and 3 million of them live within a half a mile from the Arabian Sea. And climate scientists predict that 80 percent of the land they live on may be under water by 2050 due to global warming.
What do you do when your once-dry village suddenly turns into an island? When your only source of fresh drinking water disappears, and dangerous snakes, alligators, and hippos unexpectedly live too close for comfort?
Everyone is affected by climate change. But some people — who are already less visible than others — are at greater risk of harm than most. People with disabilities face different and more intense challenges than non-disabled people in the face of events like extreme heat, wildfires, hurricanes, and droughts.
There are more than 190 countries in the world — the number varies depending on who you ask. Another statistic, more widely agreed upon, is that the United States has, cumulatively, emitted more than 28 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions since 1750, a hefty share.
Many people from developing countries did not make it to the U.K. because of inequality — the ubiquitous kind of inequality that leaves poor people behind when it comes to the climate crisis, health outcomes, and pretty much anything else you can think of.
We talk a lot about carbon dioxide when we talk about climate change. But, in reality, methane is a much more active contributor to global warming. While less ubiquitous in the atmosphere, methane is more effective at trapping radiation.
If you’ve ever been in New York City during the September convening of the UN General Assembly, you know that there are alt-events ringing the Secretariat throughout Midtown’s tony East Side. Everything from corruption to global health to sustainable agriculture — any human rights issue you can think of usually has at least one panel, if not a dozen.
It’s been just four years since President Trump chucked paper towels at survivors of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, but the act left an enduring image of the president’s callousness to people suffering in the storm’s aftermath.
As Hurricane Ida rips its way through the country’s Southeast — on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, no less — newscasters across America are referring to the storm as a “she.” Not odd, considering the name. But behind that single pronoun is a fascinatingly sexist history.
With fears ramping up about the fate of women and girls in Afghanistan now under Taliban rule, climate change likely seems very far from related to the outcome. But it isn’t.
Wherever you are in the U.S, you’re likely experiencing extreme heat, wildfires, or drought. As of Aug. 3, 40 percent of the U.S. was under drought conditions, and 2021 is looking like it may end up being one of the driest years in a millennium. And, as of today, the wildfires have burned 2,063,146 acres of land. But while that’s bad news, here’s the really bad news.
As someone who just decamped from New York City to the Pacific Northwest, you could probably call me a climate refugee.
New York City is in the middle of an air-quality alert because of the massive wildfires out West and in Canada. Of course, what we’re experiencing here is nothing next to what those in the direct areas of the fires are feeling. But it’s not insignificant if you’re elderly, pregnant, have existing health issues, or are a child.
During this pandemic year (which, really, is nearing a year and a half), the world became cleaner: Dolphins swam the canals of Venice! Blue skies lit up normally smoggy Shanghai! Pumas wandered the streets of Santiago!
Now that we’re past the first 100 days, can Biden sustain his a blistering pace in his fight against climate change?
In its four years, the Trump administration managed to make a hash out of decades of efforts to slow climate change. But now we have President Biden, who some are calling the first “climate president.” Still, not everyone is thrilled with Biden’s record on the environment, and wonder whether his term will manage to repair the damage done under Trump.















