Free Republic

How much is a tree worth to the environment? It might seem like an abstract, even whimsical question. But it’s one that Hawaii policymakers soon will try answer, thanks to two bills passed by the Legislature during the session that ended on Thursday. House Bills 2182 and 1986 seek to make Hawaii a “carbon neutral” state by 2045. That means Hawaii would offset more carbon dioxide than it produces, through activities like planting trees, which can essentially store carbon, the greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. In a sense, by mid-century, Hawaii aims to be fossil fuel-free and carbon neutral....

Doctors have long raised alarm about the potential health risks of climate change, but it turns out that children are particularly vulnerable. Children are estimated to bear 88% of the burden of disease related to climate change, according to a paper published Tuesday in the journal Pediatrics. The new paper highlights some studies on the implications of climate change for children's health and then calls for the world to better prepare for these health risks, not just in the future but in the present. "We already have seen the impacts," said Dr. Kevin Chan, chairman of pediatrics at Memorial University...

Salmon and trout anglers across the Pacific Northwest are going to have fewer places to fish over the next 40 years, concludes a new study published this month. Scientists at the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station in Boise found that in the summer and early fall, rivers in the Pacific Northwest have already warmed 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since 1976. That's the same rise measured at the Bonneville Dam over the last 80 years and used in models by climate scientists. The researchers studied 391 monitoring sites. The temperature pattern gives them confidence the warming trend is going to continue...

Al Gore has been accused of hypocrisy for talking the talk on climate change despite burning through fossil fuels at a rapid clip, but it turns out he’s not alone. A study by Cornell and the University of Michigan researchers found that those “highly concerned” about climate change were less likely to engage in recycling and other eco-friendly behaviors than global-warming skeptics. Published in the April edition of the Journal of Environmental Psychology, the one-year study broke 600 participants into three groups based on their level of concern about climate change: “highly concerned,” “cautiously worried,” and “skeptical.” The “highly concerned”...

As temperatures in the East Valley were predicted to hit over 100 the early part of next week, some climate researchers predict Arizona could be unlivable by 2050. Not all climate forecasts are so dire, but experts say Arizonans need to prepare for extreme heat and related events. The problem is not centuries in the future, they say; it’s immediate. The state’s average temperature is projected to increase by more than 10 degrees by 2090, according to States at Risk, a project through Climate Central, a nonprofit news organization aimed at showing Americans the impacts of climate change. This means...

If Floridians residing in coastal communities presume sea level rise is a turn-of-the-century problem for future generations, a group of scientists is delivering a weather forecast they may consider unsettling. Five Florida communities - Cape Sable (the southern point of the peninsula), Key Biscayne, Key West, the Lower Keys and the Middle Keys - could experience recurring tidal flooding unrelated to any storm events by 2035, according to their study. Three of those locations - Cape Sable, the Lower Keys and Middle Keys - already find themselves partially submerged at times but the forecast says their frequently inundated areas will...

Student groups placed signs displaying refugee statistics along the walkways of the Arts Quad to foster discussion about the global refugee crisis, including the plight of climate change refugees. The South Asian Council installed the signs in collaboration with Cornell Welcomes Refugees and Climate Justice Cornell for People’s Climate Week. “I think the U.S. should provide sanctuary to those who it has indirectly and directly, temporarily and permanently, displaced by being the highest greenhouse gas emitter (and largest contributor to climate change) for most of modern history despite its fairly modest population density,” said Elizabeth Chi ’18, former campaign coordinator...

A working paper recently published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond concludes that global warming could significantly slow economic growth in the US. Specifically, rising summertime temperatures in the hottest states will curb economic growth. And the states with the hottest summertime temperatures are all located in the South: Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Arizona. All of these states voted for Donald Trump in 2016. This paper is consistent with a 2015 Nature study that found an optimal temperature range for economic activity. Economies thrive in regions with an average temperature of around...

The world's growing collection of climate models has a high-profile new entry. Last week, after nearly 4 years of work, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released computer code and initial results from an ambitious effort to simulate the Earth system. The new model is tailored to run on future supercomputers and designed to forecast not just how climate will change, but also how those changes might stress energy infrastructure. Results from an upcoming comparison of global models may show how well the new entrant works. But so far it is getting a mixed reception, with some questioning the need...

LISBON - The Green Climate Fund, set up to help developing countries tackle climate change, could seek to refill its coffers in 2019, a year which is likely to see “a huge amount of attention on climate finance”, said the fund’s executive director. The fund began making investment decisions in 2015, with pledges from donor governments of $10.3 billion. But it is expected to receive only about $8 billion of that after U.S. President Donald Trump - a climate change skeptic who plans to pull out of the Paris climate accord - indicated he would not make good on the...

Fourteen climate researchers, including six from U.S. universities, have been selected for French President Emmanuel Macron’s “Make Our Planet Great Again” initiative. The scientists applied to move to France to carry out climate science projects in the country’s top research laboratories. The selected researchers include some of America’s brightest scientific talents: Alexey Fedorov, a Yale professor and Guggenheim fellow, and James Clark, a Duke University climate expert, according to a press release Wednesday from France’s Ministry of Higher Education and Research. The applicants’ projects, covering a range of topics including Arctic climate change and improving air quality, are expected to...

Finance for poor countries to help them reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and deal with climate change is lagging behind the promises of rich countries, an Oxfam report finds. While taxpayer-funded finance has increased, and the private sector has stepped up with some initiatives, the amount raised could still fall short of the goal of providing $100bn a year to the developing world by 2020. The 2015 Paris agreement on climate change re-stated the $100bn financial target, but Oxfam says the taxpayer-funded finance from rich countries in 2015-16 stood at about $48bn, or nearly half the amount promised for 2020....

New research suggests that global warming could cause temperature swings to get unusually extreme. And the regions where the biggest swings will occur are among the poorest in the world — and the least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Climate scientists already know that as the planet warms, there's a bigger chance of extreme weather: bigger hurricanes, for example, or heavier rainfall. But a temperature roller coaster could be on the way as well, according to the study, which appears in the journal Science Advances. Sebastian Bathiany at Wankeningen University in the Netherlands says his...

The clean energy transition and other initiatives to decarbonise Europe’s economy will represent 25% of EU spending under a seven-year EU budget plan put forward by the European Commission on Wednesday (2 May). Another key aspect is whether the EU will commit to stop funding fossil fuel projects like gas pipelines, which environmentalists claim risk locking Europe into unnecessary infrastructure. “I’m not sure it’s reached the upper layers of the Commission yet,” Gaventa said. Other parts of the budget could prove controversial, like a proposal to allocate 20% of revenue from carbon trading to the EU budget, as well as...

Detroit News: April on track to be the coldest in 143 years A year ago today, on April 19, 2017, it was 78 degrees and sunny, while Thursday's expected high is 48 degrees, said National Weather Service meteorologist Trent Frey. As of Thursday, the average temperature for April is 38.3 degrees, slightly warmer than April 1874, the coldest on record at 37.6 degrees. Chicago Tribune: More spring snow in Chicago, and forecasters call April's start among coldest in 130 years The first half of April marks the second-coldest start to the month since 1881, about when the weather service started...

A Finnish climate group is raising $500,000 to carve President Donald Trump’s face onto an arctic iceberg. In an attempt to prove global warming exists, a Finnish group called Melting Ice wants to carve a 115-foot ice sculpture of Trump’s face into a glacier for an effort they call "Project Trumpmore." Etc...

Old divisions between rich and poor over money and ambition are again threatening to limit progress in UN climate negotiations. Discussions between negotiators from nearly 200 countries have resumed in Germany, aiming to flesh out the rules on the Paris climate pact. But developing countries say they are "frustrated" with the lack of leadership from the developed world. Commitments to cut carbon are still "woefully inadequate" they said. The developing nations are incensed that enthusiasm for the $100bn per year in climate finance support from the rich, due to start in 2020, has started to wane. "It has been frustrating...

An Anchorage judge heard arguments Monday on whether a lawsuit brought by sixteen young Alaskans suing the state over climate change should advance. The plaintiffs in the case, Sinnok v. State of Alaska, argue the state is violating their constitutional rights by failing to limit greenhouse gas emissions – and they’re asking the courts to intervene. But the state says climate change policies must be decided by the legislature and the executive branch, not the courts. About a dozen of the young plaintiffs, ranging in age from elementary school to their early 20s, sat in the front row of the...

California’s air pollution levels are among the worst in the country, and climate change is making the situation worse, according to a new report from the American Lung Association. Despite the state’s efforts to reign in air pollution, 90 percent of California residents are exposed to unhealthy air at some point during the year, according to the State of the Air 2018 report. While air pollution is bad for everyone’s health, low-income communities, children, seniors, and people with underlying health problems tend to be most impacted when ozone and particle pollution levels soar, experts said. Afif El-Hasan, a pediatrician in...

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