The Elephant
A resource for journalists, politicians, policy makers, activists and citizens interested in climate change and the environmental emergency
The ElephantA resource for journalists, politicians, policy makers, activists and citizens interested in climate change and the environmental emergency
Visit: insideclimatenews.org
Academics and Lawmakers Slam an Industry-Funded Report by a Former Energy Secretary Promoting Natural Gas and LNG - Inside Climate News
2024-05-05 by in Inside Climate NewsWith a pair of fossil-fuel friendly senators at his side, former U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz on Tuesday released a favorable report on U.S. natural gas and liquified natural gas (LNG), funded by the natural gas industry. The report, “The Future of Natural Gas in a Low-Carbon World,” was written by the EFI Foundation, a nonprofit […]
Zambians Feel the Personal Consequences of Climate Change—and Dream of a Sustainable Future - Inside Climate News
2024-04-07 by in Inside Climate NewsZambia, like its southern African neighbors, depends on rain for its food, energy and economy. But it hasn’t gotten enough this year, and likely won’t in the future, a victim of a climate crisis it didn’t cause.
Enbridge Wants Line 5 Shutdown Order Overturned on Tribal Land in Northern Wisconsin - Inside Climate News
2024-02-20 by in Inside Climate NewsA “Hail Mary” legal tactic by the pipeline company invokes a 1977 pipeline treaty between the U.S. and Canada. The Bad River Band says the treaty is superseded by 1854 tribal treaty rights.
Tagged under: Rivers
How One of the Nation's Fastest Growing Counties Plans to Find Water in the Desert - Inside Climate News
2024-02-10 by in Inside Climate NewsThe booming population in the southwest corner of Utah has tapped out the Virgin River and its dreams of piping water from Lake Powell are running dry with the reservoir, leaving wastewater recycling and conservation as the best options to keep watering the growth.
Tagged under: Rivers
Extreme Climate Impacts From Collapse of a Key Atlantic Ocean Current Could be Worse Than Expected, a New Study Warns - Inside Climate News
2024-02-09 by in Inside Climate NewsDisruption of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current could freeze Europe, scorch the tropics and increase sea level rise in the North Atlantic. The tipping point may be closer than predicted in the IPCC’s latest assessment.
Tagged under: Oceans | Sea Level | Collapse | Tipping Points
With the World Stumbling Past 1.5 Degrees of Warming, Scientists Warn Climate Shocks Could Trigger Unrest and Authoritarian Backlash - Inside Climate News
2024-01-28 by in Inside Climate NewsMost of the public seems unaware that global temperatures will soon push past the target to which the U.N. hoped to limit warming, but researchers see social and psychological crises brewing.
Tagged under: Global Warming
Another Hot, Dry Summer May Push Parts of Texas to the Brink - Inside Climate News
2024-01-22 by in Inside Climate NewsSome areas are starting the year with low water reserves, and forecasters don’t expect substantial relief from the weather.
Tagged under: Heatwaves | Texas
What If the Clean Energy Transition Costs Much Less Than We’ve Been Told? - Inside Climate News
2024-01-18 by in Inside Climate NewsTalk about astronomical costs of a sustainable economy is leaving out some of the savings of using fewer fossil fuels, according to a new analysis.
Tagged under: Fossil Fuels
How Wealthy Corporations Use Investment Agreements to Extract Millions From Developing Countries - Inside Climate News
2024-01-14 by in Inside Climate NewsA case in point: When Ecuador placed a windfall tax on foreign oil operations, French and U.S. companies filed claims—and were awarded more than $800 million.
Tagged under: Colonialism | Litigation | France
New Research Explores a Restorative Climate Path for the Earth - Inside Climate News
2024-01-09 by in Inside Climate NewsWith Earth’s average annual temperature speeding toward 1.5 degrees Celsius faster than expected and global climate policy on a treadmill, an increasing number of researchers say it’s time to consider a “restorative pathway” to avoid the worst ecological and social outcomes of global warming. In a study published today in Environmental Research Letters, an international […]
The Climate Treadmill Speeds Up At COP28, But Critics Say It’s Still Not Going Anywhere - Inside Climate News
2023-12-25 by in Inside Climate NewsEsa Sharon Mona Ainuu, Niue minister of natural resources and environment, was in tears as she met the press on Dec. 11, near the end of COP28 in Dubai. After 12 days of meetings, any references to a fossil fuel phase-out had suddenly been stripped out of the text by Sultan al-Jaber, the presiding officer […]
Tagged under: COP28
An Alabama Landfill Has Repeatedly Violated State Environmental Laws. State Regulators Waited Almost 20 Years to Crack Down - Inside Climate News
2023-12-21 by in Inside Climate NewsAfter 20 years of repeated environmental citations, the Ashberry Landfill in rural Opp, Alabama, has finally been issued a civil penalty of $151,950 as part of a proposed Dec. 15 consent order issued by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM). ADEM officials appeared to crack down on Ashberry back in February, following years of […]
Tagged under: Alabama
Deemed Sustainable by Seafood Industry Monitors, Harvested California Squid Has an Unmeasurable Energy Footprint - Inside Climate News
2023-12-08 by in Inside Climate NewsTens of thousands of tons of the cephalopods caught off the California coast are shipped to China for processing, then sold to consumers around the world.
Tagged under: California
An Inevitable Showdown With the Fossil Fuel Industry Is Brewing at COP28 - Inside Climate News
2023-12-05 by in Inside Climate NewsDUBAI, United Arab Emirates—The growing momentum at COP28 for a fossil fuel phaseout has not gone unnoticed by the fossil fuel industry, which has sent a record number of representatives and lobbyists to this year’s climate summit. A report released this morning by a coalition of nonprofit climate policy watchdog groups shows that at least […]
Tagged under: COP28
Corruption and Rights Abuses Are Flourishing in Lithium Mining Across Africa, a New Report Finds - Inside Climate News
2023-11-15 by in Inside Climate NewsOn a Sunday afternoon in March 2023, Darlington Vito was shot in the head outside an industrial lithium mine in Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe. A subsistence miner, he had been searching for chunks of ore in a rubble pile when a security guard at the mine site fired his weapon without warning, family members and local […]
Tagged under: Colonialism | Zimbabwe | Africa | Lithium
New Study Warns of an Imminent Spike of Planetary Warming and Deepens Divides Among Climate Scientists - Inside Climate News
2023-11-02 by in Inside Climate NewsDuring the past year, the needles on the climate dashboard for global ice melt, heatwaves, ocean temperatures, coral die-offs, floods and droughts all tilted far into the red warning zone. In summer and fall, monthly global temperature anomalies spiked beyond most projections, helping to drive those extremes, and they may not level off anytime soon, […]
Tagged under: Drought | Oceans | Global Warming | Coral Reefs | Heatwaves
EPA to Fund Studies of Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Agriculture - Inside Climate News
2023-10-30 by in Inside Climate NewsThe Environmental Protection Agency announced on Thursday $8 million in new research funding to understand how the toxic compounds known as “forever chemicals” are affecting plants and animals in agricultural, rural and tribal communities. The agency announced the new funds as part of an effort to develop ways to identify and mitigate exposure pathways to […]
A Shadowy Corner of International Law Is Threatening Climate Action, U.N. Expert Warns - Inside Climate News
2023-10-21 by in Inside Climate NewsSoon after Italy approved a ban on offshore oil drilling, in 2015, the country received some alarming news: A British oil company that had been planning to drill was suing the government, seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation. The company, called Rockhopper, brought its claim not in Italian courts but through a system […]
Tagged under: Colonialism
Scientists Disagree About Drivers of September’s Global Temperature Spike, but It Has Most of Them Worried - Inside Climate News
2023-10-11 by in Inside Climate NewsSeptember’s stunning rise of the average global temperature is all but certain to make 2023 the warmest year on record, and 2024 is likely to be even hotter, edging close to the “red line” of 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming above the pre-industrial level that the 2015 Paris climate agreement is striving to avoid. As […]
As Climate-Fueled Weather Disasters Hit More U.S. Farms, the Costs of Insuring Agriculture Have Skyrocketed - Inside Climate News
2023-09-07 by in Inside Climate NewsThe country’s farmers took in a record $19 billion in insurance payments in 2022, many because of weather-related disasters, according to a new analysis that suggests climate change could stoke the cost of insuring the nation’s farmers and ranchers to unsustainable levels. The Environmental Working Group, which has for decades critically scrutinized the Federal Crop […]
Tagged under: Farming | Climate Change | Insurance
Scientists Find Success With New Direct Ocean Carbon Capture Technology - Inside Climate News
2023-09-02 by in Inside Climate NewsAs human activity and climate change increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the ocean, harming coral reefs and marine life, researchers have designed a new technology using aqueous sodium hydroxide and sodium carbonate to remove carbon dioxide from ocean water, helping reverse acidification and reduce global warming. “It took years to pull this off […]
Tagged under: Oceans | Climate Change | Ocean Acidification | Coral Reefs
Green Groups Are Divided Over a Proposal to Boost the Nation’s Hydropower. Here’s Why - Inside Climate News
2023-09-01 by in Inside Climate NewsAmerica’s hydropower industry is hoping to reestablish some of its former glory by making itself central to the nation’s transition to clean energy—and it’s turning to Congress for help. The era of big dams arguably ended long ago. At one point referred to as “white coal,” hydropower was once a major source of electricity around […]
Tagged under: Climate Change | US Politics | Electricity
After Decades Of Oil Drilling, Indigenous Waorani Group Fights New Industry Expansions In Ecuador - Inside Climate News
2023-08-30 by in Inside Climate NewsAfter 50 years of expanding oil operations in its Amazonian region, Ecuador will close the door on crude extraction in three oil fields that are home to Indigenous communities, including one of the country’s uncontacted groups. The reversal in policy for the oil-exporting nation was sealed when 59 percent of voters chose in an Aug. […]
Tagged under: Amazon Rainforest
Carbon Offsets to Reduce Deforestation Are Significantly Overestimating Their Impact, a New Study Finds - Inside Climate News
2023-08-24 by in Inside Climate NewsCarbon offset projects claiming to curb deforestation are significantly overestimating their impact, according to a new study published in Science on Thursday. Sold as a way to lessen the impact of greenhouse gas emissions by allowing polluters or consumers to purchase offsets or credits that allow them to keep emitting in return for funding projects […]
Tagged under: Deforestation
Fracking Linked to Increased Cases of Lymphoma in Pennsylvania Children, Study Finds - Inside Climate News
2023-08-16 by in Inside Climate NewsChildren living within a mile of a natural gas fracking well were up to seven times more likely to suffer from lymphoma, a rare kind of cancer, than those who had no such wells within five miles of their homes, according to a long-awaited study that adds to a growing number of investigations into possible […]
Tagged under: Children | Fracking | Women and Children
Montana Youth Sued Their Government Over Climate Change and Won. Here’s Why That’s a Big Deal - Inside Climate News
2023-08-15 by in Inside Climate NewsA Montana judge issued a landmark ruling this week, siding with a group of young plaintiffs who accused their state government of violating their constitutional right to “a clean and healthful environment” by promoting fossil fuel development without considering how those projects contribute to climate change. In 2020, 16 young Montanans, whose ages today range […]
Tagged under: Climate Change | Health
Mike Huckabee’s “Kids Guide to the Truth About Climate Change” Shows the Changing Landscape of Climate Denial - Inside Climate News
2023-07-31 by in Inside Climate NewsBeverly Grimmett thought the kids magazines she saw stacked on a coworker’s desk this spring were perfectly innocent, until she picked one up. “My stomach turned,” Grimmett said. The guides were decorated in bright colors and cheerful cartoons, with titles like “The Kids Guide to Socialism,” “The Kids Guide to Our One Nation Under God,” […]
Tagged under: Climate Change
The One-Mile Rule: Texas’ Unwritten and Arbitrary Policy Protects Big Polluters from Citizen Complaints - Inside Climate News
2023-07-30 by in Inside Climate NewsState of Denial: First in a series about Texas’ environmental regulators. On a rugged stretch of the Gulf Coast in Texas, environmental groups called foul in 2020 when an oil company sought pollution permits to expand its export terminal beside Lavaca Bay. Led by a coalition of local shrimpers and oystermen, the groups produced an […]
Tagged under: Texas
Tucker Carlson Spread Lots of Climate Misinformation. His Replacement Isn’t Much Better - Inside Climate News
2023-07-21 by in Inside Climate NewsTucker Carlson may be gone from Fox News, but his spirit of climate denialism lives on in his replacement, Jesse Watters. On Monday, Fox debuted Watters’ show—Jesse Watters Primetime—at 8 p.m. That’s the old timeslot of Carlson, whom Fox fired back in April after a defamation lawsuit relating to Carlson’s coverage of the 2020 presidential […]
Tagged under: Disinformation and Misinformation
June Extremes Suggest Parts of the Climate System Are Reaching Tipping Points - Inside Climate News
2023-07-04 by in Inside Climate NewsJune 2023 may be remembered as the start of a big change in the climate system, with many key global indicators flashing red warning lights amid signs that some systems are tipping toward a new state from which they may not recover. Earth’s critical reflective polar ice caps are at their lowest extent on record […]
Tagged under: Climate Change | Tipping Points
Students and Faculty at Ohio State Respond to a Bill That Would Restrict College Discussions of Climate Policies - Inside Climate News
2023-05-31 by in Inside Climate NewsCOLUMBUS, Ohio—Keely Fisher chose to pursue her Ph.D. at Ohio State University because she wanted to learn about climate change from a world-class faculty. Now one year into her program, she wonders if she belongs here. The problem has nothing to do with Ohio State and everything to do with the Ohio General Assembly and […]
Tagged under: Climate Change | Fish
Environmentalists in Virginia and West Virginia Regroup to Stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline, Eyeing a White House Protest - Inside Climate News
2023-05-28 by in Inside Climate NewsIf Russell Chisholm stands in his kitchen in Newport, Virginia and looks east, through his window, he can see the tree-line of the Thomas Jefferson National Forest, a federally-protected ecosystem that is part of the Appalachian Mountains. Soon, the forest could be bisected by the Mountain Valley Pipeline. On May 15, the U.S. Forest Service […]
Tagged under: Trees
Not Winging It: Birders Hope Hard Data Will Help Save the Species They Love—and the Ecosystems Birds Depend On - Inside Climate News
2023-05-27 by in Inside Climate NewsThe magnolia warbler travels as many as 2,000 miles, high above the Gulf of Mexico and across the entirety of the United States, before arriving in the cool climate of Canada’s boreal forest to breed. On a morning in May, one of the tiny yellow songbirds found itself entangled in a black net strung up […]
Fossil Fuel Companies Should Pay Trillions in ‘Climate Reparations,’ New Study Argues - Inside Climate News
2023-05-19 by in Inside Climate NewsOne of the most contentious climate policy debates revolves, unsurprisingly, around money. Who should pay the monumental sums needed to protect against extreme weather and transition to clean energy, particularly because the damage has been caused by fossil fuel pollution from the rich, while the costs will be borne disproportionately by the poor? Add to […]
How Wildfire Smoke from Australia Affected Climate Events Around the World - Inside Climate News
2023-05-10 by in Inside Climate NewsThe aerosol fallout from wildfires that burned across more than 70,000 square miles of Australia in 2019 and 2020 was so persistent and widespread that it brightened a vast area of clouds above the subtropical Pacific Ocean. Beneath those clouds, the ocean surface and the atmosphere cooled, shifting a key tropical rainfall belt northward and […]
Tagged under: Oceans | Climate Change | Wildfires
More Than a Decade of Megadrought Brought a Summer of Megafires to Chile - Inside Climate News
2023-04-09 by in Inside Climate NewsCHIGUAYANTE, Chile—As the dark curtain descended, turning the blazing afternoon sun over the braided currents of the Bío Bío River into a burnt orange twilight, a firefighting helicopter with a gigantic bucket dangling below it emerged from the gloom and followed the river back toward the city of Concepcion. Life in Chiguayante, across the river […]
Corporate Interests ‘Watered Down’ the Latest IPCC Climate Report, Investigations Find - Inside Climate News
2023-03-28 by in Inside Climate NewsFierce negotiations between countries working to protect their financial and political interests ultimately “watered down” a landmark climate report released last week by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, according to a series of recent reports and investigations. The findings highlight what activists have long warned is hampering meaningful global action to curb […]
Tagged under: IPCC | Climate Change | Activism
Do Solar Farms Lower Property Values? A New Study Has Some Answers - Inside Climate News
2023-03-15 by in Inside Climate NewsA new study finds that houses within a half-mile of a utility-scale solar farm have resale prices that are, on average, 1.5 percent less than houses that are just a little farther away. The research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory helps to refute some of the assertions of solar opponents who stoke resistance to projects […]
Tagged under: Solar Energy
One State Generates Much, Much More Renewable Energy Than Any Other—and It’s Not California - Inside Climate News
2023-03-09 by in Inside Climate NewsA new batch of data about the country’s electricity generation shows the increasing dominance of one state as the clean energy leader. No, it’s not California. It’s Texas. This isn’t new. Texas has produced more gigawatt-hours of electricity from renewable sources than any other state for several years running, thanks largely to wind energy. Now, […]
Tagged under: Renewable Energy | Texas | Electricity | California | Wind Power
60 Scientists Call for Accelerated Research Into ‘Solar Radiation Management’ That Could Temporarily Mask Global Warming - Inside Climate News
2023-02-27 by in Inside Climate NewsA scientific showdown over whether dispersing massive amounts of reflective particles high into the atmosphere could temporarily and safely mask global warming intensified this week, as a group of more than 60 researchers published a letter Monday calling for accelerated research and small-scale field experiments into what is called solar radiation management. As the planet’s […]
Tagged under: Solar Energy
Scientists Examine Dangerous Global Warming ‘Accelerators’ - Inside Climate News
2023-02-17 by in Inside Climate NewsRecent climate projections may be underestimating the pace of global warming in an atmosphere damaged by greenhouse gas emissions, because the interaction of powerful climate feedback loops that can accelerate warming are not well-represented in key climate models, an international team of scientists concluded in a study published today in the journal One Earth. Their […]
Tagged under: Global Warming
Twice as Much Land in Developing Nations Will be Swamped by Rising Seas than Previously Projected, New Research Shows - Inside Climate News
2023-02-07 by in Inside Climate NewsRising seas will swamp farmlands, pollute water supplies and displace millions of people much sooner than expected, scientists said last week, as they released new research that accurately calculates the vulnerability of coastal areas, especially in developing countries that have not had access to expensive coastal mapping technologies. Sea level rise keeps speeding up, and […]
Tagged under: Farming | Sea Level
One of the World’s Coldest Places Is Now the Warmest it’s Been in 1,000 Years, Scientists Say - Inside Climate News
2023-01-18 by in Inside Climate NewsGlobal warming is spiking in one of the world’s coldest places, atop the 2-mile thick ice sheet in central Greenland, where new research shows that the first decade of the 2000s was clearly the warmest 10 years on record in at least 1,000 years. The findings, published today in Nature, are based on some of […]
Why the Language of Climate Change Matters - Inside Climate News
2022-12-24 by in Inside Climate NewsIn a 1920 edition of a local Pennsylvania newspaper, a brief article appeared with a simple title: “The Chestnut.” Although this was a story about a species of tree, it read more like an obituary for a beloved relative. “All hope is abandoned of saving the American chestnut from the blight,” the writer declared, predicting […]
Tagged under: Predictions | Climate Change
With Fossil Fuel Companies Facing Pressure to Reduce Carbon Emissions, Private Equity Is Buying Up Their Aging Oil, Gas and Coal Assets - Inside Climate News
2022-10-24 by in Inside Climate NewsWhen Continental Resources announced a deal last week to take the oil company private, it joined a trend that has swept across the fossil fuel sector in recent years. With investors agitating for energy companies to lower their greenhouse gas emissions, many oil and gas drillers and utilities have sold off wells and coal plants […]
Tagged under: Greenhouse Gases | Coal | Fossil Fuels
Environmentalists Fear a Massive New Plastics Plant Near Pittsburgh Will Worsen Pollution and Stimulate Fracking - Inside Climate News
2022-10-16 by in Inside Climate NewsFifteen years after Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry began to raise worries about air and water pollution, the industry’s critics now fear a new source of harmful emissions from the fledgling petrochemical industry, which is poised to become a major customer for the state’s abundant gas reserves. In a state that has long nurtured the extraction […]
Tagged under: Fracking
The Choice for Rural Officials: Oppose Solar Power or Face Revolt - Inside Climate News
2022-09-30 by in Inside Climate NewsThis story is the third in a series about the conflict over solar power in Williamsport, Ohio, reported in partnership with ABC News. WILLIAMSPORT, Ohio—Chris Weaver stood up from his chair in the audience and looked across the village hall at the mayor. “I’m here to ask you to resign,” said Weaver, a journeyman carpenter, […]
Tagged under: Solar Energy
Judge Upholds $14 Million Fine in Long-running Citizen Suit Against Exxon in Texas - Inside Climate News
2022-09-02 by in Inside Climate NewsA federal judge this week rejected a third appeal by ExxonMobil in the 12-year legal battle over toxic emissions from one of the Texas-based energy giant’s Gulf Coast facilities. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans upheld a $14.25 million fine—thought to be the largest-ever fine resulting from citizen enforcement of environmental law—in […]
Experts Debunk Viral Post Claiming 1,100 Scientists Say ‘There’s No Climate Emergency’ - Inside Climate News
2022-08-23 by in Inside Climate NewsTo the average consumer of news, the petition’s message might seem reasonable—a healthy dose of skepticism in a debate that affects everyone. “Computer models are human-made,” the petition begins. “This is precisely the problem of today’s climate discussion to which climate models are central. Climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not […]
Tagged under: Health
It’s Happened Before: Paleoclimate Study Shows Warming Oceans Could Lead to a Spike in Seabed Methane Emissions - Inside Climate News
2022-08-22 by in Inside Climate NewsThe slowdown of a key ocean current could release methane that is frozen in layers of organic seabed sediments along some of the world’s coastlines, a new study shows. Cold temperatures and high pressure on sea floors currently sequester about one-sixth of the world’s methane, a potent but short-lived greenhouse gas, in an ice-like form […]
Tagged under: Oceans | Greenhouse Gases | Methane
After 25 Years of Futility, Democrats Finally Jettison Carbon Pricing in Favor of Incentives to Counter Climate Change - Inside Climate News
2022-08-12 by in Inside Climate NewsThe nation’s first comprehensive climate law, expected to be sealed with a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday, will not look anything like the program imagined by either climate economists or those in Washington and the environmental movement who had faith in bipartisan action. From the time that the world first agreed […]
Tagged under: Carbon Pricing | Climate Change
Space Tourism Poses a Significant ‘Risk to the Climate’ - Inside Climate News
2022-06-29 by in Inside Climate NewsThe burgeoning space tourism industry could soon fuel significant global warming while also depleting the protective ozone layer that is crucial for sustaining life on Earth, a new study concludes. The findings, published Saturday in Earth’s Future, raise additional concerns about the “billionaire space race” fueled by some of the world’s richest men. A key […]
‘Apocalypse Papers’: Scientists Call for Paradigm Shift as Biodiversity Loss Worsens - Inside Climate News
2022-05-29 (or before) in Inside Climate NewsWhen scientists from the United States and Europe published a study two weeks ago, warning that climate change was on track to push more than half of the world’s species of cactus—a plant known for its extraordinary ability to survive heat and drought—into extinction by midcentury, Tierra Curry simply filed it among the quickly growing […]
Tagged under: Drought | Climate Change
In a Bid to Save Its Coal Industry, Wyoming Has Become a Test Case for Carbon Capture, but Utilities are Balking at the Pricetag - Inside Climate News
2022-05-29 by in Inside Climate NewsPipe Dreams: Fourth in a continuing series on whether capturing carbon is a climate solution or a dangerous distraction. Wyoming has bet its future on carbon capture technology. The state has poured money into research on how to remove carbon dioxide from industrial emissions, and what to do with the gas once it has been captured. State […]
Tagged under: Coal
UN Report Says Humanity Has Altered 70 Percent of the Earth’s Land, Putting the Planet on a ‘Crisis Footing’ - Inside Climate News
2022-04-27 by in Inside Climate NewsDamage to the Earth’s lands, largely caused by the expansion of agriculture, has put the planet on “crisis footing,” say the authors of a sweeping new report that urgently calls for the restoration of billions of acres of terrain to forestall the worst impacts of climate change. The report, published Wednesday, is the second major […]
Tagged under: Climate Change | Climate Change Impacts | Trees
Biden Could Score a Climate Victory in a Single Word: Plastics - Inside Climate News
2022-02-28 in Inside Climate NewsWith Biden’s ambitious climate agenda blocked in the Senate, the administration now has an opportunity to look for a win through diplomacy, while at the same time addressing one of the most pressing problems facing the planet. The plastics industry has exploded in recent decades, with plastic products becoming ubiquitous in daily life. But plastic […]
Tagged under: Joe Biden | US Politics
Panama Enacts a Rights of Nature Law, Guaranteeing the Natural World’s 'Right to Exist, Persist and Regenerate' - Inside Climate News
2022-02-25 in Inside Climate NewsPanama is the latest country to recognize the legal rights of nature, giving environmentalists a new tool to fight ecological harm. After just over a year of debate in Panama’s National Assembly, President Laurentino Cortizo signed legislation on Thursday that defines nature as “a unique, indivisible and self-regulating community of living beings, elements and ecosystems […]
Tagged under: Legislation
Corn-Based Ethanol May Be Worse For the Climate Than Gasoline, a New Study Finds - Inside Climate News
2022-02-16 in Inside Climate NewsEthanol made from corn grown across millions of acres of American farmland has become the country’s premier renewable fuel, touted as a low-carbon alternative to traditional gasoline and a key component of the country’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But a new study, published this week, finds that corn-based ethanol may actually be worse […]
Tagged under: Renewable Energy | Farming | Greenhouse Gases | Climate Change
Nature’s Say: How Voices from Hawai’i Are Reframing the Climate Conversation - Inside Climate News
2022-02-13 in Inside Climate NewsThe Parc Chanot exhibition space in Marseille, France, early last September was a sea of slim-tailored suits tapered tight at the ankles. Diplomats and agents consulaires floated through pavilions, vibing protocol. After a one-year Covid delay, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which gathers members from more than 160 nations every four years […]
Tagged under: France
To Counter Global Warming, Focus Far More on Methane, a New Study Recommends - Inside Climate News
2022-02-09 by in Inside Climate NewsThe Environmental Protection Agency is drastically undervaluing the potency of methane as a greenhouse gas when the agency compares methane’s climate impact to that of carbon dioxide, a new study concludes. The EPA’s climate accounting for methane is “arbitrary and unjustified” and three times too low to meet the goals set in the Paris climate […]
Tagged under: Methane
The Year in Climate Photos - Inside Climate News
2021-12-27 in Inside Climate NewsJANUARY President Biden Rejoins Paris Agreement and Kills Keystone XL on Day 1 of His Administration Joe Biden, who ran on the most progressive and comprehensive climate plan of any presidential candidate in history, took the oath of office just before noon on Jan. 20 outside a Capitol building that had been ransacked just two […]
Tagged under: Joe Biden
The Essential Advocate, Philippe Sands Makes the Case for a New International Crime Called Ecocide - Inside Climate News
2021-12-22 in Inside Climate NewsBRUSSELS—Philippe Sands steps off his train at Brussels’ Midi station and sees a familiar face amidst a flurry of passengers. The British lawyer is flush with energy, despite being at the tail end of a week-long visit with clients on the island nation of Mauritius. His casual black jacket, navy blue scarf and black boots […]
Ecuador’s High Court Affirms Constitutional Protections for the Rights of Nature in a Landmark Decision - Inside Climate News
2021-12-03 by in Inside Climate NewsMining in a protected region of the Ecuadorian rainforest violates the rights of nature, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court ruled on Wednesday, in a landmark decision interpreting the country’s constitutional provisions that grant rights and confer protections to ecosystems. The decision means that Ecuador’s government will have to revoke mining permits granted to Enami, Ecuador’s state mining […]
‘A Trash Heap for Our Children’: How Norilsk, in the Russian Arctic, Became One of the Most Polluted Places on Earth - Inside Climate News
2021-11-28 in Inside Climate NewsThis article is part of a series produced in partnership with NBC News and Undark Magazine, a non-profit, editorially independent digital magazine exploring the intersection of science and society. It was 2 a.m. and the sun was shining, as it does day and night in mid-July in Norilsk, a Siberian city 200 miles north of the […]
Tagged under: Children | Arctic | Russia | Women and Children
COP26 Presented Forests as a Climate Solution, But May Not Be Able to Keep Them Standing - Inside Climate News
2021-11-09 in Inside Climate NewsThe first week of the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, saw a global pledge to cut emissions of the climate super-pollutant methane, more than 40 countries promise to phase out coal and 20 agree to stop public funding for some fossil fuel projects. But to stop global warming soon, the world needs to remove […]
Tagged under: COP26 | Coal | Climate Change | Methane | Trees
Indigenous Women in Peru Seek to Turn the Tables on Big Oil, Asserting ‘Rights of Nature’ to Fight Epic Spills - Inside Climate News
2021-11-05 in Inside Climate NewsIn Peru’s northern Amazon rainforest, across a million acres known as Lot 1AB, a parade of foreign oil companies have for over 50 years drilled, spilled crude and dumped billions of gallons of toxic “production water” on the once pristine land. Throughout that time, the firms have largely evaded responsibility for cleaning up the mess […]
Tagged under: Rainforests | Amazon Rainforest | Women and Children
Q&A: A Republican Congressman Hopes to Spread a New GOP Engagement on Climate from Washington, D.C. to Glasgow - Inside Climate News
2021-10-29 in Inside Climate NewsThe founder of a new Conservative Climate Caucus is part of a Republican delegation headed to the international climate talks in Glasgow next week. Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah) said his party should have a seat at the table when climate change is being discussed at home and abroad. Republicans, including those in the new caucus, […]
Tagged under: US Politics | COP26 | Climate Change
Catholic Bishops in the US Largely Ignore the Pope’s Concern About Climate Change, a New Study Finds - Inside Climate News
2021-10-26 in Inside Climate NewsIn the six years since Pope Francis published his landmark teaching document on the environment, or “care for our common home,” the leader of the global Catholic Church has only strengthened his call for action to curb climate change. However, a new study out of Creighton University in Nebraska finds that bishops in the United […]
Tagged under: Climate Change | Pope Francis
The Rate of Global Warming During Next 25 Years Could Be Double What it Was in the Previous 50, a Renowned Climate Scientist Warns - Inside Climate News
2021-09-15 in Inside Climate NewsJames Hansen, a climate scientist who shook Washington when he told Congress 33 years ago that human emissions of greenhouse gases were cooking the planet, is now warning that he expects the rate of global warming to double in the next 20 years. While still warning that it is carbon dioxide and methane that are […]
Tagged under: US Politics | Greenhouse Gases | Methane
Surface Water Vulnerable to Widespread Pollution From Fracking, a New Study Finds - Inside Climate News
2021-08-20 in Inside Climate NewsFossil fuels don’t just damage the planet by emitting climate-warming greenhouse gases when they are burned. Extracting coal, oil and gas has a huge impact on the surface of the earth, including strip mines the size of cities and offshore oil spills that pollute country-sized swaths of ocean. Years of research has shown how the […]
Tagged under: Oceans | Greenhouse Gases | Coal | Fracking | Fossil Fuels
Fossil Fuel Companies Are Quietly Scoring Big Money for Their Preferred Climate Solution: Carbon Capture and Storage - Inside Climate News
2021-08-17 in Inside Climate NewsOver the last year, energy companies, electrical utilities and other industrial sectors have been quietly pushing through a suite of policies to support a technology that stands to yield tens of billions of dollars for corporate polluters, but may do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These policies have fast-tracked environmental reviews and allocated billions […]
Tagged under: Greenhouse Gases
New Research Explores the Costs of Climate Tipping Points, and How They Could Compound One Another - Inside Climate News
2021-08-16 in Inside Climate NewsCalculating the future cost of global warming is one of society’s most urgent challenges. And that math will depend on the speed of major shifts in Earth’s climate system, like the complete loss of summer Arctic sea ice or the disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which could raise sea level much faster and […]
Tagged under: Tipping Points | Arctic | Antarctic | Sea Level
A Crisis Of Water And Power On The Colorado River - Inside Climate News
2021-08-08 in Inside Climate NewsTwo decades of the West’s warming and drying climate came into sharp focus last month, when federal officials ordered water to be released above the nation’s second-largest reservoir to ensure that the Glen Canyon Dam can continue generating hydropower. The decision is the culmination of factors both in and out of human control. The Colorado […]
Tagged under: Colorado River | Rivers
Judge Scales Back Climate Scientist's Case Against Bloggers - Inside Climate News
2021-07-27 in Inside Climate NewsA Washington, D.C. judge has ruled that the conservative think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute cannot be held responsible for an outside blogger’s 2012 online attack on a prominent climate scientist. At the same time, the judge decided that a jury should decide whether the blogger, Rand Simberg, should be held liable for his post, […]
An Indigenous Group’s Objection to Geoengineering Spurs a Debate About Social Justice in Climate Science - Inside Climate News
2021-07-07 in Inside Climate NewsIt was February in northern Sweden and the sun was returning after a dark winter. In the coming months the tundra would reawaken with lichens and shrubs for reindeer to forage in the permafrost encrusted Scandinavian mountain range. But the changing season also brought some unwelcome news to the Indigenous Sámi people, who live across […]
Tagged under: Geoengineering | Climate Justice
Is the Controlled Shrinking of Economies a Better Bet to Slow Climate Change Than Unproven Technologies? - Inside Climate News
2021-06-18 by in Inside Climate NewsExisting plans to limit global warming rely too much on “increasingly unrealistic assumptions” that societies will be able to remove huge amounts of carbon from the atmosphere while simultaneously maintaining incessant economic growth over the next 50 years, according to a May 2021 study in Nature Communications. These strategies appear to be speeding the planet […]
Tagged under: Economic Growth
Extreme Heat Risks May Be Widely Underestimated and Sometimes Left Out of Major Climate Reports - Inside Climate News
2021-05-16 in Inside Climate NewsWhile scientists warn with increasing urgency that global warming is sharply increasing the likelihood of deadly heat waves, many regions are doing little to protect vulnerable populations. Recent research shows that the global death toll from extreme heat is rising, but still, “Large parts of society don’t think of heat as a threat,” said University […]
Tagged under: Extreme Weather | Climate Change
Big Meat and Dairy Companies Have Spent Millions Lobbying Against Climate Action, a New Study Finds - Inside Climate News
2021-04-02 by in Inside Climate NewsTop U.S. meat and dairy companies, along with livestock and agricultural lobbying groups, have spent millions campaigning against climate action and sowing doubt about the links between animal agriculture and climate change, according to new research from New York University. The study, published this week in the journal Climatic Change, also said the world’s biggest […]
Nine Years After Filing a Lawsuit, Climate Scientist Michael Mann Wants a Court to Affirm the Truth of His Science - Inside Climate News
2021-02-07 in Inside Climate NewsWhen Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann first threatened to sue two conservative bloggers and their publishers for defamation in 2012, they seemed to welcome the opportunity for a face-off in court. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, an anti-regulation think tank, and National Review magazine defended their online commentaries in which they attacked Mann’s science and […]
Global Ice Loss on Pace to Drive Worst-Case Sea Level Rise - Inside Climate News
2021-01-26 in Inside Climate NewsFrom the polar caps to the glaciers of Europe, Asia and South America, global warming is melting the planet’s ice faster than ever and speeding the inundation of the world’s coastlines. New research shows the annual melt rate grew from 0.8 trillion tons in the 1990s to 1.3 trillion tons by 2017, and has accelerated […]
Tagged under: Global Warming | Ice Melting | Sea Level
American Petroleum Institute Chief Promises to Fight Biden and the Democrats on Drilling, Tax Policy - Inside Climate News
2021-01-14 in Inside Climate NewsIt’s a tough time for the nation’s oil and gas industry. Last year was among its least profitable in memory, and companies are bracing themselves for a new president focused on climate change, a Congress controlled by Democrats who increasingly shun their financial support and a world beginning to look past fossil fuels towards a […]
Tagged under: US Politics | Joe Biden | Climate Change | Fossil Fuels
Wheeler Announces a New ‘Transparency’ Rule That His Critics Say Is Dangerous to Public Health - Inside Climate News
2021-01-06 in Inside Climate NewsIn one of his final, boldest strokes as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler on Tuesday announced a new “transparency” rule that could keep the agency from considering some of the most well-documented health research in the world. The Trump administration argues that because the patient information in these studies remains confidential, they […]
Tagged under: Health
War on NOAA? A Climate Denier’s Arrival Raises Fears the Agency's Climate Mission Is Under Attack - Inside Climate News
2020-10-25 in Inside Climate NewsIn the shadow of the Trump administration’s dismissal of climate change, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has continued to press on with its work measuring the breadth and pace of the climate crisis. So far in 2020, NOAA recorded the nation’s hottest summer on record, the second-lowest Arctic sea ice minimum and the greatest […]
Tagged under: Oceans | Donald Trump | Arctic | Climate Change
Clouds of Concern Linger as Wildfires Drag into Flu Season and Covid-19 Numbers Swell - Inside Climate News
2020-10-24 in Inside Climate NewsWildfire smoke had choked the mountain valleys of western Montana for nearly two months when a team of university researchers landed in Seeley Lake in the fall of 2017. Students and faculty left their labs behind, headed to the small community and launched a study on how the relentless wildfire smoke was affecting the health […]
Tagged under: Wildfires | Health
Exxon Turns to Academia to Try to Discredit Harvard Research - Inside Climate News
2020-10-20 in Inside Climate NewsExxonMobil is not known for its acquiescence—tenacious litigation and well-funded advertising are the oil giant’s favored methods for trying to swat away opponents. And in the latest flare-up in an ongoing battle between the company and two Harvard researchers, Exxon has now turned to the pages of an academic journal to continue its relentless self-defense. […]
Tagged under: Exxon | Litigation
New Climate Warnings in Old Permafrost: 'It’s a Little Scary Because it’s Happening Under Our Feet.' - Inside Climate News
2020-10-16 in Inside Climate NewsA dive deep into 27,000 years worth of muck piled up on the bottom of the Arctic Ocean has spurred researchers to renew warnings about a potential surge of greenhouse gas emissions from thawing permafrost. By tracking chemical and organic fingerprints in long-buried layers of sediments remaining from previously frozen ground, the scientists showed that […]
Tagged under: Oceans | Arctic | Greenhouse Gases | Climate Change
Maui Has Begun the Process of Managed Retreat. It Wants Big Oil to Pay the Cost of Sea Level Rise. - Inside Climate News
2020-10-14 in Inside Climate NewsWith nearly 300 miles of coastline, the Hawaiian islands that make up Maui County face the threat of sea level rise from all sides. It’s that assault that has formed the foundation of a lawsuit Maui filed this week against 20 fossil fuel companies seeking compensation for the rising costs of climate change. The lawsuit […]
Tagged under: Climate Change | Sea Level
Alabama Public Service Commission Upholds and Increases 'Sun Tax' on Solar Power Users - Inside Climate News
2020-09-02 in Inside Climate NewsEnergy regulators in Alabama voted Tuesday to uphold what critics have dubbed a “sun tax” on people who put solar panels on their homes and businesses across much of the state. The Alabama Public Service Commission, which regulates the investor-owned Alabama Power Co., not only rejected a petition by the Southern Environmental Law Center to […]
Tagged under: Solar Energy | Alabama
A Climate Change Skeptic, Mike Pence Brought to the Vice Presidency Deep Ties to the Koch Brothers - Inside Climate News
2020-08-31 in Inside Climate NewsFind profiles of all the presidential election candidates here. Vice President Mike Pence’s fight to block climate action began long before he became President Donald Trump’s stalwart second-in-command. The former Indiana governor came into Trump’s orbit with a reputation as a culture warrior who sought to restrict gay marriage and reproductive rights, and he has described […]
Tagged under: Donald Trump | Climate Change
California and Colorado Fires May Be Part of a Climate-Driven Transformation of Wildfires Around the Globe - Inside Climate News
2020-08-22 by in Inside Climate NewsThe wildfires that exploded over the past few days in California and Colorado show clear influences of global warming, climate scientists say, and evidence of how a warming and drying climate is increasing the size and severity of fires from the California coast to the high Rocky Mountains. They may also be the latest examples […]
Tagged under: Colorado State | Wildfires | Climate Change | California
In a Move That Could be Catastrophic for the Climate, Trump’s EPA Rolls Back Methane Regulations - Inside Climate News
2020-08-13 in Inside Climate NewsThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a long-anticipated rollback of methane emission regulations for the oil and gas industry on Thursday, marking the latest in a long series of attacks on federal climate policy by the Trump administration. The move, which was opposed by several leading oil and gas companies, could result in a catastrophic […]
Tagged under: Donald Trump | Methane
Pools of Water Atop Sea Ice in the Arctic May Lead it to Melt Away Sooner Than Expected - Inside Climate News
2020-08-11 in Inside Climate NewsThe thickening atmospheric stew of greenhouse gases is punching holes in Arctic sea ice, leading it to crumble at a rapidly increasing rate. Last spring, ponds of meltwater on the ice sped the melting of the glossy shield that reflects incoming heat from the sun back to space. By July, the ice had dwindled to […]
Tagged under: Arctic | Greenhouse Gases | Ice Melting
Five Years After Speaking Out on Climate Change, Pope Francis Sounds an Urgent Alarm - Inside Climate News
2020-08-07 in Inside Climate NewsWhen Pope Francis issued his landmark teaching document on climate change in 2015, his words went straight to the heart of Susan Varlamoff. Varlamoff, 70, a biologist, read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in the 1960s and speaks proudly of a Catholic faith that embraces science and calls on church members to take care of the […]
Tagged under: Climate Change | Cars | Religion | Pope Francis
House Democrats’ Climate Plan Embraces Much of Green New Deal, but Not a Ban on Fracking - Inside Climate News
2020-07-01 in Inside Climate NewsHouse Democrats unveiled a sweeping plan for climate action Tuesday that embraces much of the ambition of the Green New Deal, while avoiding the use of the name and steering clear of calls for abrupt bans on fossil fuel development. Instead, the package of more than 120 pieces of legislation seeks to drive a transition […]
Tagged under: Fracking | Legislation
50 Years From Now, Many Densely Populated Parts of the World Could be Too Hot for Humans - Inside Climate News
2020-05-04 in Inside Climate NewsBy 2070, the world’s habitable climate zone will shift so much that billions of people will be pushed past human comfort levels. A new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows a “surprisingly narrow” human climate niche—between 52 degrees Fahrenheit to 59 degrees Fahrenheit. And it will shift geographically […]
Unchecked Global Warming Could Collapse Whole Ecosystems, Maybe Within 10 Years - Inside Climate News
2020-04-08 in Inside Climate NewsGlobal warming is about to tear big holes into Earth’s delicate web of life, pushing temperatures beyond the tolerance of thousands of animals at the same time. As some key species go extinct, entire ecosystems like coral reefs and forests will crumble, and some will collapse abruptly, starting as soon as this decade, a new […]
Tagged under: Coral Reefs | Collapse | Trees
Joe Biden on Climate Change: Where the Candidate Stands - Inside Climate News
2020-01-10 in Inside Climate News“It’s almost like denying gravity now. … The willing suspension of disbelief can only be sustained for so long.” —Joe Biden on climate denial, March 2015 Been There Among the current candidates, only former Vice President Joseph Biden has debated a Republican opponent during a past contest for the White House—when he was Barack Obama’s running […]
Tagged under: Joe Biden | Climate Change
The Paris Climate Problem: A Dangerous Lack of Urgency - Inside Climate News
2019-11-07 in Inside Climate NewsWhile nearly all of the world’s countries have pledged to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, the reductions they’re planning in the short term—over the next 10 years—aren’t nearly enough, leading scientists warn in a new report. Nearly two-thirds of the pledges under the Paris climate agreement are “totally insufficient” to meet critical climate targets, the […]
Tagged under: Greenhouse Gases | IPCC
With Greenland's Extreme Melting, a New Risk Grows: Ice Slabs That Worsen Runoff - Inside Climate News
2019-09-18 in Inside Climate NewsScientists have added a new item to the long list of Greenland Ice Sheet woes. Along with snow-darkening algae and increasing rainfall, giant slabs of ice have been thickening and spreading under the Greenland snow at an average rate of two football fields per minute since 2001, new research shows. The slabs prevent surface meltwater […]
Tagged under: Extreme Weather | Extreme Rainfall | Climate Change | Ice Melting | Sea Level
'Trollbots' Swarm Twitter with Attacks on Climate Science Ahead of UN Summit - Inside Climate News
2019-09-16 by in Inside Climate NewsCNN’s seven-hour climate change town hall for presidential candidates was not a TV ratings bonanza, but it set off a marked surge of activity on Twitter aimed at ridiculing the Democrats and dismissing the science. “Climate change” became the top two-word trending topic on Twitter for several hours after the event among the accounts being […]
Tagged under: Climate Change | Disinformation and Misinformation
Oceans Are Melting Glaciers from Below Much Faster than Predicted, Study Finds - Inside Climate News
2019-07-25 in Inside Climate NewsBeneath the ocean’s surface, glaciers may be melting 10 to 100 times faster than previously believed, new research shows. Until now, scientists had a limited understanding of what happens under the water at the point where land-based glaciers meet the sea. Using a combination of radar, sonar and time-lapse photography, a team of researchers has […]
Tagged under: Oceans | Arctic | Predictions | Climate Change | Antarctic
Arctic Bogs Hold Another Global Warming Risk That Could Spiral Out of Control - Inside Climate News
2019-02-19 in Inside Climate NewsIncreasing spring rains in the Arctic could double the increase in methane emissions from the region by hastening the rate of thawing in permafrost, new research suggests. The findings are cause for concern because spring rains are anticipated to occur more frequently as the region warms. The release of methane, a short-lived climate pollutant more […]
Tagged under: Arctic | Methane | Climate Change
These Climate Pollutants Don't Last Long, But They’re Wreaking Havoc on the Arctic - Inside Climate News
2018-03-19 in Inside Climate NewsWhen people talk about climate change, the focus is often on carbon dioxide, and for good reason. The CO2 pumped into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels today will hang around for centuries, building up over time and continuing to warm the planet. It isn’t the only culprit, though. Mixing in are other pollutants that […]
Tagged under: Arctic | Methane | Climate Change
Climate Change Is Happening Faster Than Expected, and It’s More Extreme - Inside Climate News
2017-12-26 in Inside Climate NewsIn 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 its 5th Climate Assessment in 2014, it formally declared that observed warming was “extremely likely” to be mostly caused by human activity. This year, […]
Tagged under: Extreme Weather | Climate Change
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