One of the biggest myths about climate change is that emissions reductions cool Earth. This is nowhere close to reality. Even the Paris Commitments of 80 percent emissions reductions by 2050 allow warming to triple by 2050 and quintuple by 2100. We (the royal we) have great challenges as climate reform decision makers. If our…
March 21, 2012: — Henry David Thoreau, Concord Massechusetts, Walden Pond. Among temperature and non temperature dependent flowering species, climate change has affected and will likely continue to shape the pattern of species loss in Thoreau’s woods. Species that have decreased greatly in abundance include anemones, buttercups, asters, campanulas, bluets, bladderworts, dogwoods, lilies, mints, orchids,…
This one is stranger than strange. scientists have long been puzzled by what looked like fungal bodies that seem to cover many fossils of different kinds from what is called the end-Permian. This “end-Permian” is how the end of the Permian Epoch is described. It’s also called Permian Triassic Extinction 251 million years ago when…
This little guy is one of my (and my wife’s) favorite animals on the planet. It lives in alpine scree or talus slopes – giant rock piles created as craggy mountains disintegrate over eons. These rock piles are devoid of trees and have scanty alpine vegetation (arctic tundra basically) in patches where a little dirt…
The International Polar Year resulted in this study by a team of 25 Arctic researchers. Seven degrees of warming in some parts of the Arctic have changed more than just the average temperature. The Arctic biosphere is collapsing. Arctic sea ice is projected to disappear like it has not done in 14 million years (here)….