Bil McKibben has spent his career warning the world about the wages of climate change. Now, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, he’s seeing his fears come true.
Weather
Flying Blind: America’s Aging Weather Satellites
“I know this isn’t climate science. This is political science.”
The Daily Weather Really Is Getting Weirder
Human beings have notoriously bad memories about weather, like just about everything else. We tend to overemphasize extreme events and downplay the dull normal, which is why your Granddad’s stories about walking uphill in the snow, both ways, probably aren’t true.
But if you think that the daily weather has gotten weirder
…
How to Make Crops Flood-Proof
Water is a fact of life in Thailand and its capital of Bangkok, where one of the easiest ways to get around the traffic-clogged megacity is on water taxis. This is a country, after all, that celebrates a water festival—involving some serious Super Soakers—every year. But weeks of rains have caused the worst floods Thailand has …
Climate Change Caused Crises Half A Millennium Ago, Too
Al Gore’s televised, 24-hour PowerPoint extravaganza last month predictably sparked some hot debate – much of it not about the science itself, but about Gore as its mouthpiece (common themes: he’s a hero, he’s become irrelevant, he’s a hypocritical capitalist). But a key message within Gore’s Climate Reality Project was …
Texas Sets Records During the Second Hottest Summer in U.S. History—and the Worst Is Still to Come
Usually when Texas beats Oklahoma it’s something for the Lone Star state to celebrate, like when the Longhorns defeat the Sooners in college football’s storied Red River Rivalry. But not every record is worth holding. This year Texas set a new national record for the hottest months of June through August, besting a record formerly …
Why Bad Heat = Bad Air
As if the stifling, tripe-digit temperatures gripping much of nation weren’t bad enough, the heat wave is also contributing to dangerously high levels of air pollution—especially around the cities of the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic region. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) air quality rankings range from 0 to 500—500 …
Famine in Somalia: When Does the World Decide to Use the ‘F’ Word?
The word ‘famine’ may be a familiar one, but it is not thrown around lightly by the people who decide when there is one. The fact that most of us today probably associate the term with the 1984 crisis in Ethiopia is testament to its exceedingly careful dispensation; to use it too often would dilute its power to command the attention …
How the Heat Wave Is Stressing Out the Electricity Grid
As I emerged from the hellmouth that is the New York City subway system in July and walked into the Time-Life building in midtown Manhattan this morning, I noticed something odd. Most of the lights in the lobby were switched off. For a moment I hoped we were having the summer equivalent of a snow day, but then I remembered that the …