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Last month, Washington's top environment advocate went to the Cleveland Clinic to talk about how President Barack Obama's landmark efforts to crack down on power-plant carbon emissions would ease a range of respiratory illnesses. The proposed curbs will form the cornerstone of Obama's climate action plan, a multi-layered blueprint for fighting global warming unveiled a year ago. The plan is critical to fulfilling U.S. commitments to reduce emissions agreed to at an international forum in Copenhagen in 2009. It is also key to carving out a legacy for Obama's second term.

Climate change threatens to undermine not only how much food can be grown but also the quality of that food as altered weather patterns lead to a less desirable harvest, according to a new study. Crops grown by many of the nation's farmers have a lower nutritional content than they once did, according to the report by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Research indicates that higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have reduced the protein content in wheat.

More than 40 members of Congress will hold a climate rally at the Capitol Wednesday afternoon, part of a drum roll to the Obama administration’s impending rule to tighten emissions on existing coal-fired power plants, a major source of carbon pollution. The rally is drawing an unusual number of Democrats who are following Obama’s lead on climate change, despite serious election-year hazards that could cost the party control of the Senate. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco will lead the rally’s House contingent, which will also include Bay Area Democrats Barbara Lee of Oakland, Jackie Speier of San Mateo...

In a "wake-up call," climate change scientists contend rising seas endanger America's newest and oldest landmarks such as the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral and the first English colony at Virginia's Jamestown, portending a new century of disasters if Americans don't act. Listing 30 at-risk sites, the Union of Concerned Scientists notes how heritage sites such as Liberty and Ellis Islands have already prepared themselves for "human-induced climate change." But many historic treasures from Florida to Hawaii will be imperiled in the 21st century to bigger oceans and more wildfires and floods, the group asserted.

In the past several years, one of the topics covered in detail on these pages has been the surge in such gimmicks designed to disguise lack of demand and end customer sales, used extensively by US automotive manufacturers, better known as “channel stuffing”, of which General Motors is particularly guilty and whose inventory at dealer lots just hit a new record high. But did you know that when it comes to flat or declining sales and stagnant end demand, channel stuffing is merely the beginning? Presenting… Where the World’s Unsold Cars Go To Die Above is just a few of...

A group of independent scientists, economists, and meteorologists has issued a pointed response to the scientific foundation of the Obama administration's claims that humans are drastically changing the climate by burning fossil fuels. With expertise in multiple disciplines, including climate research, weather modeling, physics, geology, statistical analysis, engineering, and economics, the 15 signers make the case that the foundation of the White House National Climate Assessment (NCA) is a "masterpiece of marketing" that crumbles like a "house of cards" under the weight of real-world evidence.

... For insurers, it’s not about the political machinations but rather, it’s about the potential economic losses. If even part of the predictions hold — the ones released by the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change that ascribe temperature change to humans with 95 percent certainty — then the rate of extreme weather events will only increase and the effects would be more severe. That, in turn, would lead to greater damages and more payouts. Meantime, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services just issued a report saying that the credit ratings of sovereign countries would be affected by global warming. It pointed...

... Think of it this way: Once upon a time it was possible to take climate change seriously while remaining a Republican in good standing. Today, listening to climate scientists gets you excommunicated - hence Rubio's statement, which was effectively a partisan pledge of allegiance. And truly crazy positions are becoming the norm. A decade ago, only the GOP's extremist fringe asserted that global warming was a hoax concocted by a vast global conspiracy of scientists (although even then that fringe included some powerful politicians). Today, such conspiracy theorizing is mainstream within the party, and rapidly becoming mandatory; witch hunts...

The fallout from the new government’s budget is still being seen in Australia, but it is already obvious that climate change is a loser when it comes to funding. The budgetary facts are inescapably grim for researchers and scientists based in renewable energies and research. The funding for all government programs related to climate change is set to shrink at an alarming rate, going from $5.75 billion this year to a scant $500 million in the next four years.

A major insurance company is accusing dozens of localities in Illinois of failing to prepare for severe rains and flooding in lawsuits that are the first in what could be a wave of litigation over who should be liable for the possible costs of climate change. Farmers Insurance filed nine class actions last month against nearly 200 communities in the Chicago area. It is arguing that local governments should have known rising global temperatures would lead to heavier rains and did not do enough to fortify their sewers and stormwater drains. The legal debate may center on whether an uptick...

A scientific study which suggests global warming has been exaggerated was rejected by a respected journal because it might fuel climate scepticism, it was claimed last night. The alarming intervention, which raises fears of ‘McCarthyist’ pressure for environmental scientists to conform, came after a reviewer said the research was ‘less than helpful’ to the climate cause. Professor Lennart Bengtsson, a research fellow at the University of Reading and one of five authors of the study, said he suspected that intolerance of dissenting views on climate science was preventing his paper from being published. If he and his four co-authors are...

Friend -- In case you missed it, a sitting United States senator just doubled down on doubting climate science. Senator Marco Rubio said in an interview this week that he didn't believe scientists are right in stating that human activity is affecting climate change. Sometimes you just have to call it like you see it: Marco Rubio is a climate change denier. By our count, there are more than 130 of them in Congress. For anyone who knows how serious this issue is, that denial is dangerous. We need to fight back against climate change denial every single time we...

Scientists have warned about climate change and its consequences for decades. Now, the military is taking a stand. “I think the days of isolation are over,” Donald Hoffman, a retired four-star general in the Air Force, said yesterday during a Columbus Metropolitan Club panel discussion. “We will be pulled into things ... because it’s the right thing to do and there’s no one else to do them.” Hoffman is one of 16 retired military leaders who contributed to a report on climate change and national security that was released this week. “The one thing we didn’t get right was the...

Professor Lennart Bengtsson - the leading scientist who three weeks ago signalled his defection to the climate sceptic camp by joining the board of the Global Warming Policy Foundation - has now dramatically been forced to resign from his position. His views on the weakness of the "consensus" haven't changed. But as he admits in his resignation letter, he has been so badly bullied by his alarmist former colleagues that he is worried his health and career will suffer. Bengtsson's recruitment by the GWPF (the London-based think tank set up by former Chancellor Lord Lawson) represented a huge coup for...

What keeps you up at night? That’s the question economist Gary Yohe, one of the architects behind the White House’s 2014 Climate Assessment report, posed to several of his co-authors during a May 6 panel in Washington D.C. Unsurprisingly, the assembled team of climate experts and other academics had no lack of answers, ranging from the possibility of more extreme weather events to the risk of climate-induced mental health degradation. But what keeps Iowa State University climate scientist Gene Wanker up at night is what climate change could do to one of humanity’s most basic needs. “I worry about food...

Kerry to warn of climate threats to national security in speech By Laura Barron-Lopez - 05/14/14 11:43 AM EDT Secretary of State John Kerry plans to give a major speech on the connection between climate change and national security this summer. In an interview with the New York Times, Kerry said the speech would also be an opportunity to build political support for President Obama's climate agenda. “We’re going to try to lay out to people legitimate options for action that are not bank-breaking or negative," Kerry said. A central part of that agenda are regulations to curb carbon emissions...

A slow-motion and irreversible collapse of a massive cluster of glaciers in Antarctica has begun, and could cause sea levels to rise across the planet by another 4 feet within 200 years, scientists concluded in two studies released Monday. Researchers had previously estimated that the cluster in the Amundsen Sea region of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would last for thousands of years despite global climate change. But the new studies found that the loss is underway now as warming ocean water melts away the base of the ice shelf, and is occurring far more rapidly than scientists expected.

A justice of the peace in Messina, Italy has fined three girls an amount of approximately $3,500 each for wearing what is considered common beach wear in Italy, based upon the supposed offense to the sensitivities it created for some Saudi Arabian tourists who were also at the private resort of Taormina. It has become common place for Muslims to make demands upon others to adhere to their standards, so it should not come as too great of a surprise that they filed their complaint. What is surprising is that the Italian court concurred and fined their citizens for engaging...

Replacing fossil fuels with renewables as the world’s primary source of energy will not only save the planet from dangerous levels of warming – it will also save the global economy US$ 71trillion by 2050. This is the finding of a report, Energy Technology Perspectives 2014, released today by the International Energy Agency, which looks at the direction of the energy sector over the next 40 years. The changes needed to keep the world within 2C of warming— a widely agreed target in efforts to tackle climate change – will benefit the global economy, confirms the report, although a “coordinated...

Meteorologist Lennart Bengtsson has long been considered a cool head in the often heated conflict over global warming. In an interview, he defends his decision to join an organization that is skeptical of climate change. The debate over climate change is often a contentious one, and key players in the discussion only rarely switch sides. But late last month, Lennart Bengtsson, the former director of the Hamburg-based Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, one of the world's leading climate research centers, announced he would join the academic advisory council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). ANZEIGEGWPF, based in Britain, is...