Warming of planet
Shifts global winds and rain clouds.
Land parched, people starve.

Dry river bed in Eritrea - northern East Africa. Photo courtesy WFP/Brenda Barton.

I had an encouraging experience on Monday and Tuesday. I visited our nation's capitol to speak with some House members and their staff about climate change.

Read more »

This is the fourth installment of a four-part series published each Wednesday on Action Needed to Stop Global Warming.

1. How Warm is Too Warm?
2. Worldwide Emissions Target
3. U.S. Emissions Target
4. Technologies to Get Us There

In Part 1 of this series, I defined the global tipping point as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which could cause sea levels to rise 20 feet. In Part 2, I showed that to avoid this tipping point, global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) must start to decline around 2020. In Part 3, I showed what the U.S. must do to help the world meet these targets.Meeting these targets will require significant changes in how we produce and use energy, and this makes many people nervous. They worry that the cost will wreck the economy, and they'll have to give up their cars and air conditioning. Not true!

Read more »

Last Friday I was a guest on NPR's "Talk of the Nation: Science Friday", answering questions about carbon trading. You can listen to the broadcast here.

Apple blossoms bloom
On too-warm winter days, then
Frost, dead. No apples.

Yesterday was the first day of spring, so it's a good time to look back on the winter we just had. For most of the United States, it was really crazy. It started off with balmy, record-breaking temperatures in December and January, then turned bitter cold in February and March with some memorable and deadly snow storms.

Read more »

Climate change can be a gloomy topic - sometimes you need a laugh! So I thought I'd share a funny item that caught my eye this week.

Read more »

This is the third installment of a four-part series to be published each Wednesday on Action Needed to Stop Global Warming.

1. How Warm is Too Warm?
2. Worldwide Emissions Target
3. U.S. Emissions Target
4. Technologies to Get Us There

In Part 1 of this series, I defined the global tipping point as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which could cause sea levels to rise 20 feet. In Part 2, I showed by how much global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) must drop to avoid this tipping point. They must start to decline around 2020, drop 50 percent by 2050, and drop at least 75 percent by the end of the century.

Meeting these global emissions targets will require a global effort. Even if the U.S. and other developed countries were to cut their emissions to zero, global emissions would likely exceed the targets by mid-century. This is because of the rapid rise in emissions from China and other developing countries.

Read more »

How do you know that concern about climate change has reached the mainstream? When a product's carbon footprint is a factor in every buying decision.

And how do you know the carbon footprint of a product? Through eco-labeling - a label disclosing the amount of energy used to produce the product, or the amount of CO₂ that producing the product released into the atmosphere. The idea is similar to nutrition labeling - give consumers the knowledge they need to make informed choices.

Read more »

Hopefully my posts have sparked your curiosity about global warming and climate change. Here is a short list of user-friendly books and other resources that may interest you.

Read more »

Coral reef brilliance
Bleached white by loss of algae,
Killed by warming sea.

Left: Healthy corals (iStockphoto). Right: bleached corals (Ray Berkelsman, CRCReef, Townsville).