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The Paris climate agreement’s momentum has taken another big hit with a new challenge. Brazil’s presidential forerunner has indicated that the country will quit the Paris agreement if he gets elected.Will the outdated climate agreement survive the departure of developing countries?BRIC is an acronym that refers to the countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China—countries that are at a similar stage of economic development and considered to be the big developing countries.All these four countries signed the Paris climate agreement (2015), which required the 195 Signatory countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions to limit the increase of global average...

A particular challenge of the fight over climate change, if not a unique one, is that the shifts accrue subtly. The climate has changed stunningly quickly in global terms but slowly in human terms, allowing us to rationalize, wave away and downplay. The issue of climate change rose to the national consciousness as polarization in U.S. politics spiked. Gallup polling shows that there’s a nearly 50-point gap between the parties in belief in the effects of a warming planet having already begun. More than 8 in 10 Democrats think global warming has been demonstrated; only a third of Republicans agree....

QUINCY, Mass. - Gov. Charlie Baker says a new environmental infrastructure law will help make Massachusetts more resilient to climate change. The bill ceremonially signed by the governor in Quincy on Tuesday authorizes the state to borrow up to $2.4 billion for environmental projects in the coming years. About $500 million is earmarked specifically for helping communities prepare for extreme weather events that many scientists believe will become more frequent with global warming. Baker, a Republican seeking a second term in November, says Massachusetts is a "national leader" in addressing the challenges posed by climate changes.

"These beaches are doomed." Those are the sobering words from Duke University geology professor emeritus Orrin Pilkey, who told our media partners at the News & Observer that the days are numbered for North Carolina's beaches. "The buildings are doomed, too," he said. Pilkey, who is also the founder and director emeritus of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University, has been sounding the alarm about rising sea levels for decades. Pilkey said rising sea levels are an imminent threat to North Carolina's 18 barrier islands and to the Inner Banks, the areas just behind...

Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice. Their latest modelling studies indicate northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years. Professor Wieslaw Maslowski told an American Geophysical Union meeting that previous projections had underestimated the processes now driving ice loss. Summer melting this year reduced the ice cover to 4.13 million sq km, the smallest ever extent in modern times. Remarkably, this stunning low point was not even incorporated into the model runs of Professor Maslowski and his team, which used data sets...

Researchers no longer hesitate to blame climate change for floods, fires and heat waves. Here's how the science works. When the heat waves, droughts, wildfires and deluges come - as they seem to with increasing regularity these days - the question inevitably arises: Did climate change play a role? The answer scientists gave for years was that greenhouse gases created by humans likely contributed to extreme weather, but it was hard to definitively tie the warming atmosphere to any single episode. But that cautious approach, repeated in thousands of news reports for more than a decade, has been changing in...

As temperatures rise in the U.S. West, so do the flames. The years with the most acres burned by wildfires have some of the hottest temperatures, an Associated Press analysis of fire and weather data found. As human-caused climate change has warmed the world over the past 35 years, the land consumed by flames has more than doubled. Experts say the way global warming worsens wildfires comes down to the basic dynamics of fire. Fires need ignition, oxygen and fuel. And what’s really changed is fuel — the trees, brush and other plants that go up in flames. “Hotter drier...

During an appearance on Friday’s CBS This Morning, and without being challenged by the pro-science “journalists” of the morning show, Wonder was allowed to spread his conspiracy theory about Global Warming being linked to cancer: "I just feel that all these various diseases that we have and all that is happening in the world in part is because there are those who don’t believe in global warming, don’t believe that what we do affects the world,” he said. “Heat affects the world and affects us. I just hope that people will grow up out of the foolishness and know that...

Self-described "ass-kicking, motorcycle-riding, Texas Democrat" MJ Hegar, a candidate for Texas’ deep-red 31st district, has a novel approach to environmental politics: she doesn’t care if her supporters believe in man-made climate change, but says it's hard to deny the corrupting effects of petroleum dependence on American foreign policy. "Our dependence on foreign oil is just so damaging to our country on so many levels," Hegar told ABC News in a June interview. "I respect other people’s freedom to be discerning and to make their own decisions. But they can’t deny that the U.S. military pays the price for our dependence...

This summer’s heatwave has provided a glimpse of the future, and it is not a pretty one. On current trends, the years to come will see rising temperatures, droughts, a fight to feed a growing population, and a race against time to reduce dependency on fossil fuels. The struggle to combat climate change brings out the best and worst of capitalism. Decarbonisation of the economy requires alternatives for coal and cars that run on diesel, and that plays to capitalism’s strengths. The good news is that in Beijing and New Delhi, policymakers have woken up to the idea that green...

They claim inaction on climate change has blighted their future - just one of many challenges now hitting the courts. And they might just succeed. HIGH-SCHOOL student Aji Piper goes snowboarding in the mountains behind Seattle – but for how much longer, he wonders. Miko Vergun fears her native Majuro atoll in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific could soon be under water. In Alaska, Nathan Baring’s friends can no longer hunt for seals because the ice is too thin. Nine-year-old Levi Draheim, who lives in low-lying, coastal Florida, says of his president: “It’s scary having someone in the White...

Coastal cities could face bigger and more dangerous tsunamis thanks to global warming with even small earthquakes capable of unleashing killer waves, scientists have warned. Researchers say that earthquakes which would pose no threat today could lead to cities being swamped by water as the sea level rises. The researchers focused on the city of Macau in China, which is currently considered safe from tsunamis, despite lying in an earthquake zone. But a three-foot rise in sea level would increase the risk of tsunamis inundating the city by up to 4.7 times, the researchers found. Such a rise is predicted...

An individual tree has roots and, of course, it doesn’t move. But trees, as a species, do move over time. They migrate in response to environmental challenges, especially climate change. Surprisingly, they don’t all go to the Poles, where it is cooler. As it turns out, more of them head west, where it is getting wetter. Sure, some species, such as evergreens, are heading to the Poles to escape the heat. But others, like certain oaks and maple, are going west in search of rain. For the most part, “tree migrations are moisture related,” said Songlin Fei, associate professor at...

Editor's note: This column was co-authored by David Wojick.Authors' note: This is part three of a three-part series explaining how the U.S. Agency for International Development continues to use climate change, sustainability, subsistence farming and other Green fads to justify lethal Obama era anti-development policies.USAID policies perpetuate disease and malnutritionA decade ago, USAID finally put DDT back in its anti-malaria arsenal, so that the walls and doorways of mud-and-thatch, cinderblock and other primitive homes could be sprayed with the most powerful and long-lasting mosquito repellant ever invented. One DDT spraying every six months keeps the vast majority of these flying killers...

SEATTLE - A Washington state judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by young activists who argued the state is violating their rights by failing to protect them from climate change. In his ruling Tuesday, King County Superior Court Judge Michael Scott says the issues in the case are political questions that must be addressed by the legislative and executive branches and cannot be resolved by a court.

“We think we may have found the answer. Increased circulation in the Southern Ocean allowed carbon dioxide to leak into the atmosphere, working to warm the planet,” said Princeton University’s Professor Daniel Sigman, co-author of the study. For years, researchers have known that growth and sinking of phytoplankton pumps carbon dioxide deep into the ocean, a process often referred to as the ‘biological pump.’ “The biological pump is driven mostly by the low latitude ocean but is undone closer to the poles, where carbon dioxide is vented back to the atmosphere by the rapid exposure of deep waters to the...

Gore: Trump not yet as damaging to environment as he feared By Associated Press Published: 16:38 EDT, 13 August 2018 | Updated: 16:59 EDT, 13 August 2018 REENSBORO, N.C. (AP) - Former Vice President Al Gore says the Trump administration has made some dangerous changes to environmental policy, though so far it's having less of an impact than he initially feared. In an interview Monday with The Associated Press in Greensboro, Gore cited the Paris Climate Accord as one example of the Trump administration failing to change environmental rules as quickly as it might want. While the United States withdrew...

Editor's Note: This column was co-written by Paul Driessen and David Wojick. Part 1 of a 3-part series. It’s obscene enough when the Multilateral anti-Development Banks do it. But Trump agencies?!? In a prime example of Deep State revanchism, despite the profound change in administrations, the US Agency for International Development is still funding and advancing anti-energy Obama-era climate change dogmas and policies for developing countries. USAID handles tens of billions of dollars a year, roughly half of all US foreign aid, so this climate alarmism puts literally millions of lives at risk.USAID calls its “flagship” program “low emissions development.” Emissions of course...

And in Lovelock’s view, the Earth’s self-regulating system is seriously out of whack, thanks largely to our 150-year fossil fuel binge. “You could quite seriously look at climate change as a response of the system intended to get rid of an irritating species: us humans,” Lovelock told me in 2007 when I visited him at his house in Devon, England, for a profile in Rolling Stone. “Or at least cut them back to size.” By 2020, droughts and other extreme weather will be commonplace. By 2040, the Sahara will be moving into Europe, and Berlin will be as hot as...

The New York Times has devoted an entire edition of its magazine, some 30,000 words, to a terrifying piece about climate change. With 2C warming – an unlikely best-case scenario at this point, scientists were quoted as saying – the planet faces “long-term disaster”. I was having lunch with friends in Brooklyn on Sunday, in a low-lying area that will be under water when all of this comes to pass and, political analysis aside, all we could focus on was: what on earth are we going to do? More specifically, how to ensure the survival of our children, and should...