From atmospheric changes, to timelapse imagery from Google Earth…our planetary presence is hard to miss. This past week has seen the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Earth’s atmosphere reach a level of 400 parts-per-million, a value the planet hasn’t seen since several million years ago. To put this into some kind of context let’s [...]

Here’s the scam. A Chinese company manufactures hydrofluorocarbons, the refrigerant gases partially responsible for the ozone hole and climate change. The gases can efficiently be turned into cash, either by using them in products like refrigerators or air conditioners or, more lucratively, by destroying them. In the early part of the last decade, Chinese manufacturers [...]

400 PPM: What’s Next for a Warming Planet Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached this level for the first time in millions of years. What does this portend? » On May 2, after nightfall shut down photosynthesis for the day in Hawaii, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere touched 400 parts-per-million there [...]

Australia had to add a new color to its weather maps this week. Meteorologists used royal purple to denote an off-the-charts high temperature of 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit), part of an unprecedented heat wave and ongoing wildfires occurring down under this month. On the other side of the globe, 2012 proved the hottest [...]

“I am a firm believer that climate change is real, that it is impacted by human behavior and carbon emissions. And, as a consequence, I think we’ve got an obligation to future generations to do something about it.” So spoke newly re-elected President Barack Obama at a press conference on November 14 when questioned by [...]

Here’s some good news about climate change: emissions of greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide have slowed and, in some cases, begun to decline. That means fewer molecules drifting in the atmosphere and blocking the escape of heat radiated by an Earth warmed by sunlight. The bad news is no one knows why. Now a [...]

SAN FRANCISCO—A mantra that has driven global negotiations on carbon dioxide emissions for years has been that policy-makers must prevent warming of more than two degrees Celsius to prevent apocalyptic climate outcomes. And, two degrees has been a point of no return, a limit directly or indirectly agreed to by negotiators at international climate talks. [...]

The U.S. has begun to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants—quietly, with little fanfare and starting in Texas. The Thomas C. Ferguson Power Plant in Llano County is being modernized with the installation of a combined cycle natural gas-fired turbine for improved efficiency at generating electricity. The refurbished “peaker” plant—so-called because it is fired [...]

p>Mimicking volcanoes by throwing particles high into the sky. Maintaining a floating armada of mirrors in space. Burning plant and other organic waste to make charcoal and burying it—or burning it as fuel and burying the CO2 emissions. Even replanting trees. All have been mooted as potential methods of “geoengineering“—”deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary [...]

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory was meant to precisely measure carbon dioxide throughout Earth’s atmosphere. Instead, it wound up shattering on the Pacific Ocean* near Antarctica in 2009, a victim of a failed fairing—the aerodynamic nose cone shroud that keeps the satellite from burning up during launch. The loss of the satellite was a blow to [...]

The bulk of the world’s nations ignored a January 31 deadline to submit action plans to combat climate change under the terms of the Copenhagen Accord (pdf). But the majority of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions will be affected by commitments that were submitted to the United Nations in recent days, in keeping with the [...]

At the beginning of this year, the Golden State officially launched its long-discussed market-based system to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. California’s GHG cap-and-trade program is not the first of its type. Carbon trading schemes are popping up around the world. But, it’s only the second program to takeoff in the U.S. The first, the [...]

New York City is well on its way to meeting a citywide goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2017. This goal was adopted in 2007 as a part of PlaNYC 2030 to “build a greener, greater New York” and has catalyzed new parkland, housing improvement, and public transportation projects throughout the city. [...]

How to Explain Climate Change to a Skeptic Rick Santorum has recently described climate change as a hoax – a bunch of “bogus” science that tries to make nature’s normal “boom and bust” cycle into something man-made.  His comments illustrate how, despite the fact that the scientific community accepts climate change as truth, and despite [...]