Testing by an EU-funded research group has revealed discrepancies between the amount of energy used by Samsung TVs in official testing compared to real life. [The Independent] The world’s energy infrastructure is at risk from the extreme weather expected to result from climate change, a group of prominent energy companies has warned. [The Guardian] Spanish energy… Keep reading →
Just two weeks ago, the year 2014 was dubbed the hottest year on earth since the start of record keeping in 1880. Separate data compilations from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed this 2014 record, as reported by Justin Gillis of The New York Times. Now, the Australian Climate Institute finds… Keep reading →
Four of nine ‘planetary boundaries’ have now been breached as a result of human activity and not natural variability, says a new research paper published in the journal Science entitled “Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet”. The ‘planetary boundaries’ framework was first introduced in 2009 by an international group of scientists led… Keep reading →
Germany’s Munich Re, one of the world’s largest and leading reinsurers, released on January 7 its review of natural catastrophes in 2014 – measuring the economic impact of natural catastrophes on its reinsurance business bottom line. Attributing the much lower 2014 financial losses vis-à-vis previous years to the “absence of very severe catastrophes and a… Keep reading →
Again and again, severe weather events wreak havoc around the globe and thus tend to dominate international newspaper headlines. No continent has been spared with the strongest storms swirling both in the Pacific and Atlantic basins, in addition to extreme droughts and massive floods geographically well diversified. Knock-on effects seem straightforward and include spread of… Keep reading →
The Hamilton Project at Brookings and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment recently hosted a forum on the water crisis in the US. This resulted in the release of two interesting new discussion papers – “New Directions for US Water Policy” – charting feasible paths for improving water management in the US in the… Keep reading →
One of the most difficult tasks among climate scientists is predicting how climate change will play out over the longer term and how anthropogenic contributions will further impact those climatic shifts. There is widespread agreement that carbon emissions have significantly increased since the industrial revolution and these emissions are playing a climate-changing role, but the… Keep reading →
Will it make a difference? Maybe. Certainly the fact that the Risky Business Project is fronted by a bipartisan and big-money bunch gives a high-profile twist to the U.S. climate-change discussion, at least in the short term. Led by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, ex-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and hedge-fund billionaire Tom Steyer, the… Keep reading →
The National Climate Assessment – reportedly the most detailed yet – finds widespread climate impacts and says that while actions are underway to mitigate the effects and adapt to new conditions, these efforts are likely insufficient to avoid some of the most extremely negative consequences associated with anthropogenic global warming. “A team of more than… Keep reading →
New York City’s government found out just how complex the challenges to its resilience can become when Superstorm Sandy hit in late 2012, as lives, homes and power supply were lost and the scale of not just recovering but preparing for future challenges in the largest US city became evident. While the work to fix… Keep reading →
