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Cement, the ubiquitous material used to build roads, buildings and other infrastructure, absorbs about one billion tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, according to a new study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience. But concrete carbonation is “not currently considered in emissions inventories” kept by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), according to the study’s co-authors, an international team of researchers led by Professor Dabo Guan of the U.K.’s University of East Anglia. The study found that cement’s natural carbonation process not only offsets the fossil fuel emissions released during its production, it also “represents a...

The next head of the UN global climate talks has appealed for the US to "save" Pacific islands from the impacts of global warming. Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said that the islands needed the US now as much as they did during World War Two. He was speaking as global climate talks in Marrakech came to an end. Mr Bainimarama said that climate change was not a hoax, as US President-elect Donald Trump has claimed. Mr Trump has promised to pull the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement and scrap all payments for UN global warming projects. But...

A federal judge has advised two Democratic attorneys general leading the charge against ExxonMobil to appear for pretrial testimony on their climate-change investigations. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey are scheduled to undergo depositions by Exxon attorneys on Dec. 13 in Dallas, according to the Thursday order by U.S. District Court Judge Ed Kinkeade. Exxon is challenging the prosecutors’ subpoenas demanding thousands of documents and communications related to probes into whether the company committed fraud by misleading the public about its research on global warming. Exxon has argued that the investigations are politically motivated...

Delegates from more than 190 countries meeting in Marrakech have issued an urgent call for action to tackle climate change. The Marrakech Action Proclamation calls for the highest political commitment to fight global warming It is being seen as the united response of countries to the threat of president-elect Donald Trump to pull the US out of the landmark agreement. The promise by Mr Trump to "cancel" the Paris Agreement and end financial support for international climate action has galvanised the countries meeting here in Morocco. The Marrakech Action Proclamation sees 197 parties assert their belief that the world is...

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — Got milk? Chances are it’s from California. There are more dairy cows in the Golden State than anywhere else in the country. But all that milk and cheese comes at a cost to the planet. Tom Frantz keeps a running count. He says dairy farms have taken over his farming community in the San Joaquin Valley. “There are ten of them within what I call smelling distance of my home,” he said, noting they’ve moved in in just the last 10 years.

Last week, a group of 21 young people, aged 9 to 20 years, won the right to sue the US government for its inaction in mitigating climate change, when an Oregon federal judge ruled that the plaintiffs' lawsuit was valid and could proceed in court. The chief legal counsel for the plantiffs, Julia Olson, had this to say about the significance of the ruling, urging outgoing President Obama to come to an agreement with a binding court order before Trump's inauguration early next year: We have a President-elect who is an obvious climate denier and both political branches controlled by...

(videos at link) Full Title : Donald Trump looking for fast way to QUIT climate agreement: President-elect who said global warming is a 'hoax' wants to 'leave Paris deal as soon as possible' Subtitle : Since Trump was elected, governments ranging from China to small island states have reaffirmed support for the 2015 Paris Agreement Trump has called global warming a hoax and has promised to quit the Paris Agreement He was considering ways to bypass a theoretical four-year procedure for leaving the accord, according to the source 'It was reckless for the Paris agreement to enter into force before...

Donald Trump is already eyeing ways for the U.S. to pull out of the landmark Paris climate agreement that the Obama administration formally signed on to in September, according to Reuters. A source on Trump’s transition team told Reuters that the president-elect wants to bypass the stipulation in the agreement that calls for a four-year process for a country to exit the accord. "It was reckless for the Paris agreement to enter into force before the election," the source said.

A global ban on genetically modified crops would raise food prices and add the equivalent of nearly a billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, a study by researchers from Purdue University shows. Using a model to assess the economic and environmental value of GMO crops, agricultural economists found that replacing GMO corn, soybeans and cotton with conventionally bred varieties worldwide would cause a 0.27 to 2.2 percent increase in food costs, depending on the region, with poorer countries hit hardest. According to the study, published Oct. 27 in the Journal of Environmental Protection, a ban on GMOs would...

Marrakesh (Morocco) (AFP) - Stunned participants at UN climate talks in Marrakesh insisted Wednesday that climate change denier Donald Trump cannot derail the global shift to clean energy, although some called his victory in US presidential elections a "disaster". Trump "cannot prevent the implementation" of the landmark Paris pact, inked in the French capital last December, said Segolene Royal, France's environment minister and outgoing head of the UN climate forum. "As I speak, 103 countries representing 70 percent of (greenhouse gas) emissions have ratified it, and he cannot -- contrary to his assertions -- undo the Paris Agreement," she told...

Overview The sun has been completely spotless on 21 days in 2016 and it is currently featuring just one lonely sunspot region. In fact, on June 4th of this year, the sun went completely spotless for the first time since 2011 and that quiet spell lasted for about four days. Sunspot regions then reappeared for the next few weeks on a sporadic basis, but that was followed by several more completely spotless days on the surface of the sun. The increasingly frequent blank sun is a sign that the next solar minimum is approaching and there will be an even...

To achieve victory, we must treat climate change as an issue of historic importance that is worthy of a true political social movement to create change. This political social movement must be founded on moral principles with stark definitions of who is right and who is wrong, and it is important to outline the historically negative, irreversible implications if we were to not succeed. “By pursuing this as a political social movement, President Obama and his Administration will best be able to assure that his legacy includes his unprecedented leadership on climate that initiated the shifting of the country’s political...

(Rest of Headline: and Third-Party Risks)[snip]“When it comes to the most urgent issue facing our country and the world, the choice in this election is extremely clear,” Gore told the crowd at Miami Dade University. “Hillary Clinton will make solving the climate crisis a top national priority. Her opponent based on the ideas that he has presented would take us towards a climate catastrophe.”

President Barack Obama spoke to reporters on Wednesday afternoon on the Paris climate change agreement and, almost on cue, NBC’s Ron Allen connected global warming to Hurricane Matthew set to bear down on the Bahamas, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. Speaking on MSNBC Live to host Kate Snow, Allen first gushed about how the President “believes so deeply in protecting the environment” that the deal marks “one of the most significant aspects of his legacy” before bringing in Hurricane Matthew as a intriguing “practical matter.” It was "what the president was talking about as the threat that the planet faces...

Miami (AFP) - Levels of the planet's three most dangerous greenhouse gases are rising, and fossil fuels must be taxed to protect children from the turmoil of rising seas and extreme storms, climate scientist James Hansen warned Tuesday. Otherwise, young people face the "dubious" proposition of somehow sucking carbon dioxide from the air at a price tag of hundreds of trillions of dollars in the next century, said Hansen, who leads the climate science program at Columbia University's Earth Institute. "The science has become crystal clear," Hansen told reporters on a conference call to discuss his latest research paper, entitled...

“It’s too late to prevent climate crisis; we’re in it. If we don’t take radical steps to transform our energy system… and conduct a society-wide mobilization, our children will inherit an inhospitable planet,” he said... Stephenson stated that politicians and fossil fuel industries continue to exploit natural resources and the people who live around them to stay in power. Despite scientific evidence and regard for human safety, “politics and fossil fuel industry deny the science. These are crimes against humanity,” he said. The activist drew parallels between the moral, spiritual and political metamorphosis of society due to the influence of...

Hydropower has always been touted as a clean source of generating electricity, despite of the facts that it displaces thousands of people from their natural abodes, destroys their lives and livelihoods and submerges huge amounts of lands and forests. Now, a new study claims that it is also accelerating global warming. […] The study is done by Washington State University the has found that during times of drawdown — a period in which the water level behind a dam is rapidly lowered — temperate reservoirs can produce up 20 times more methane than normal. …

Most people across the world do not care about climate change On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard arguments in the litigation over President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan (CPP). If implemented, CPP regulations will require states to develop and bring into force plans to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from existing power plants. Arguments against the CPP focussed primarily on its questionable legality. However, the ten judges considering the case should also keep in mind that the rules are pointless. No matter what one believes about the causes of climate change, the...

-- snip --Mr Frydenberg said more than 40 per cent of South Australia's energy supply comes from renewable energy, but emphasised that was not the cause for the blackout. "That does raise questions for the stability of the system — not just for supply, because when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining, electricity is not being generated — but also for the stability of the system because of the frequency that is generated as opposed to base-load power which has historically been more coal and more gas," Mr Frydenberg said. "So questions are raised by...

President Obama’s signature effort to combat global warming was alternately lauded as a reasonable attempt to move the nation toward cleaner energy sources and faulted as an unconstitutional, job-killing power grab during seven hours of vigorous legal arguments Tuesday. With the Clean Power Plan’s future on the line, a 10-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struggled to discern whether the proposal goes too far in trying to compel power plants to cut carbon-dioxide emissions. The Obama administration contends it merely used its authority to nudge the industry in a direction many companies...