from blog by Nnimmo Bassey…When one part of an ecosystem is destroyed, it impacts or destroys all the other parts. This means, nothing exists in isolation of everything else. Thus, the web of life is the interrelationships that hold everything together – something we often do not think about.
The last drops of Mexico City
by Rodrigo Cervantes and Jérôme Sessini on longlead.com…Every day, for most of her life, Norma, a 68-year-old woman from the outskirts of Mexico City, has struggled to get something that many of us take for granted: drinking water.
We’ve failed to stop climate change — this is what we need to do next
by Ben Spencer in The Sunday Times…While we can still limit warming by cutting emissions, we now face having to adapt to more extreme weather
The rise of the degrowther right
by David Broder in Jacobin…A new conservative environmentalism that blends anti-modernism with nationalism and austerity is spreading across Europe.
The tasks of now: Toward a new era in climate resilience building
by Susanne Moser, et al…As the climate crisis intensifies, so does the need for philanthropic investments that are strategic,
innovative, and sustained over the long-term. This report identifies a variety of funding opportunities
that align with key transformative strategies.
Exploring critical perspectives on climate security
from NATO Climate Change Center for Change and Security Centre of Excellence…Participants in this workshop were encouraged to re-imagine climate security research by focusing on longer timeframes, deeper cultural connections, and broader spatial scales, and in doing so learn more about the importance of considering humans, non-human entities, and biodiversity as crucial factors in addressing climate change in a nuanced and sustainable manner.
More in this category
Climate change forged a new reality in 2024: ‘This is life now’
by Diana Baptista in Context…In 2024, billions of people endured heatwaves, storms and floods; 2025 is set to be worse as man-made climate change wreaks havoc.
Derailment risk: A systems analysis that identifies risks which could derail the sustainability transition
by Laurie Laybourn in Earth Systems Dynamics…How will the effects of climate change, nature loss, and other environmental change impact our ability to tackle the causes of these problems? There is already a high demand on resources to respond to worsening climate shocks, knock-on impacts for areas such as food production and health, and the many other growing consequences of changes to the Earth system.
Dancing with a permanent emergency
by Jonathan Rowson in The Joyous Struggle…In the real world, there is scope to change the opponent (whether that is fossil fuel companies, politicians, or ourselves), the goal(we can do so much better than GDP), and the rules of the game (climate litigation) and some of those transformative possibilities are where my work is now focussed.
Three-quarters of the Earth has gotten permanently drier
by Jeffrey Kluger in Time…By century’s end, up to 20% of all Earth’s land could experience abrupt ecosystem transformation, such as forests becoming grasslands, with attendant extinction and collapse of ecosystems. Farming could suffer too.
A ‘doom loop’ of climate change and geopolitical instability is beginning
by Laurie Laybourn in The Conversation…It is a common refrain to say that geopolitics gets in the way of climate action. From the war in Ukraine to trade tensions, each year seems to bring another immediate priority that diverts focus from the imperative to act on climate change.
Does talking about climate ‘tipping points’ inspire action — or defeat?
by Kate Yoder in Grist…Kopp said that the emphasis on climate tipping points might have made sense as a call to action 20 years ago, when the consequences of climate change weren’t so obvious. But in 2024, the hottest year ever recorded, its effects are apparent, with floods, fires, and heat waves noticeably worse than they used to be.
Global emergence of regional heatwave hotspots outpaces climate model simulations
by Kai Kornhuber, et al. in PNAS…Multiple recent record-shattering weather events raise questions about the adequacy of climate models to effectively predict and prepare for unprecedented climate impacts on human life, infrastructure, and ecosystems. Here, we show that extreme heat in several regions globally is increasing significantly and faster in magnitude than what state-of-the-art climate models have predicted under present warming even after accounting for their regional summer background warming.
Trees as infrastructure
from Dark Matter Laboratories…An open source model to support municipalities in transitioning toward resilient urban forest management practices
Heat-related mortality in Europe during 2023 and the role of adaptation in protecting health
by Eliso Gallo, et al. in Nature…The year of 2023 was the warmest on record globally and the second warmest in Europe. Here we applied epidemiological models to temperature and mortality records in 823 contiguous regions from 35 countries to estimate sex- and age-specific heat-related mortality in Europe during 2023 and to quantify the mortality burden avoided by societal adaptation to rising temperatures since the year 2000.
He’ll try, but Trump can’t stop the clean energy revolution
by Matt Simon in Grist…The cost of renewables is plummeting, heat pumps are selling like crazy, and red states are raking in cash from the IRA.
Mike Davis, California’s ‘prophet of doom’, on activism in a dying world: ‘Despair is useless’
by Lois Beckett in The Guardian…lHis warnings of ecological and social breakdown have proved accurate. But with months to live, Davis is anything but defeated
The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth
by William J Ripple, et al. in BioScience…The surge in yearly climate disasters shows we are in a major crisis with worse to come if we continue with business as usual. Today, more than ever, our actions matter for the stable climate system that has supported us for thousands of years. Humanity’s future depends on our creativity, moral fiber, and perseverance.
Open letter by climate scientists to the Nordic Council of Ministers
by Climate Scientists….Many further impacts are likely to be felt globally, including a shift in tropical rainfall belts, reduced
oceanic carbon dioxide uptake (and thus faster atmospheric increase) as well as major additional sea-level rise particularly along the American Atlantic coast, and an upheaval of marine ecosystems and fisheries
Derailment risk: A systems analysis that identifies risks which could derail the sustainability transition
by Laurie Laybourn, et al. in Earth Systems Dynamics…How will the effects of climate change, nature loss, and other environmental change impact our ability to tackle the causes of these problems? There is already a high demand on resources to respond to worsening climate shocks, knock-on impacts for areas such as food production and health, and the many other growing consequences of changes to the Earth system (Pörtner et al., 2022). These impacts are expected to increase in a warmer future, placing ever greater demands on our attention and resources as we respond to worsening conditions and larger crises.
Cli-Fi—helping us manage a crisis
by Howard Frumkin in the British Medical Journal…Cli-fi may be important for our patients as they come to grips with the looming climate crisis—a hyper-object too vast to grasp, a threat too frightening to confront directly, a challenge that can feel paralysing. Indeed, health professionals may find cli-fi helpful in the same way. Cli-fi may function in at least three relevant domains: cognitive, emotional, and behavioural.