Coral reefs and their ecosystem serve important roles on Earth – they flourish with biodiversity, offering habitat to 25% of known marine species[1,2], and offer coastal protection from storm surges and cyclones[1]. However, coral reefs are also one of the most sensitive marine ecosystems on Earth, and more than half of the world’s coral reefs … Continued
Roughly 900 million people lived in low-lying coastal cities and settlements in 2020; a figure that is projected to reach 1 billion by 2050. Is there anything we can do now to reduce sea-level rise and its impacts? Our past actions will already impact sea-levels for thousands of years. But not everything is set in stone. We possess the power to reduce sea-level rise and its impacts over the next century and beyond with our current actions. Some advocate to mitigate the causes, and others to adapt to the consequences. But what do experts say?
There is no doubt about it – climate science can be complex. But sometimes this complexity is mistaken for uncertainty. A recurring example is our scientific understanding of carbon dioxide’s (CO2) effects as a greenhouse gas[2]. However, the evidence for CO2 as a greenhouse gas is well-established and is built on a body of scientific … Continued
Although there are multiple things at play when it comes to wildfires, climate change is becoming increasingly important. Wildfires are the result of complex interactions between biophysical and human factors, and it only takes one poorly managed campfire to cause a serious, widespread wildfire disaster. Many wildfires are indeed the direct result of human activities. However, many more and much worse wildfires are now possible because of climate change, leading to greater environmental and economic negative impacts.
The increasing number of measures to limit greenhouse gas pollution that can be expected in the future will certainly present opportunities for future weaponization and misrepresentation. Writers, editors, and journalists should be aware of these manipulation tactics when discussing the aftermath of COVID-19 restrictions or future climate policies, knowing that some actors are trawling for any evidence to boost the manufactured ‘climate lockdown’ outrage.
These findings were widely covered by popular media outlets, including in articles published by The Guardian, CNN, and BBC, which all reported that this temperature increase would represent a breach of the key IPCC threshold. However, this is missing some important context.
“A single year above 1.5°C does not mean the world has passed that particular warming level”, said Zeke Hausfather. Such nuance was better captured by articles published in Reuters and Axios, which both correctly did not report that these new temperature projections, if realized, would constitute a breach of the threshold.
Science has shown consistently that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is changing the climate in various ways, including raising the surface temperature of the oceans and atmosphere. One of the climate change mitigation technologies is carbon capture and storage (CCS), where CO2 is captured from power plants and other industrial processes instead of being emitted … Continued
“It is true that renewable energy developments like solar and wind farms (along with the power lines to connect them to the grid) can impact negatively on birds and other wildlife, but compared to other human driven causes of bird mortality the impact remains small,” noted Aldina Franco, an avian ecologist at the University of East Anglia.
ProPublica finds that Google still monetizes many websites and articles that promote harmful misinformation, much of which is in direct breach of its stated demonetization policy. Enforcement of its own rules on languages other than English is particularly lacking.
The uncertainty surrounding how hurricane frequency could change as the climate warms has been brought up in claims seeking to undermine climate change’s impact on hurricanes. These claims are examples of straw man arguments: noting that climate change may not lead to a higher number of hurricanes in the future does not mean that climate change has had – or will have – no impact on hurricanes at all.
