Global heating

2°C Climate Warming Target Is ‘Dead’

February 6, 2025 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. Educate! Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, Carbon emissions, climate crisis, Global heating

In a new analysis, acclaimed climate scientist Professor James Hansen and colleagues said that scientists had greatly underestimated the rate of global heating, and that the international target of two degrees Celsius is “dead.” The analysis concluded that the combination of recent reductions in shipping pollution — which have the effect of blocking the sun — and increasing emissions from fossil fuels have been greater than previously thought, reported The Guardian. “A shocking rise of warming has been exposed by, ironically, a reduction of pollutants, but we now have a new baseline and trajectory for where we are,” said Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, as The Guardian reported.

Phoenix Is Launching A New Shade Plan

December 7, 2024 Maylin Tu, Next City. Create! Arizona, climate crisis, Global heating, Trees, Urban Design

This year, temperatures in Phoenix soared over 100 degrees for 113 consecutive days, a deadly streak for the hottest big city in America. In November, the city approved a new plan, Shade Phoenix, to add 27,000 trees and 550 shade structures over the next five years — a plan that could save lives and provide some relief, especially to the city’s most vulnerable residents. The city unveiled its last shade plan in 2010, but progress has been slow. David Hondula, director of heat response and mitigation, doesn’t dispute that the follow-through on the last shade plan was “incomplete or uncertain.”

Planet Will Warm As Much As 3.1°C Under Current Policies

October 26, 2024 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. Educate! climate crisis, Global heating, livable future, Report, United Nations

Without greater action, the planet will warm as much as 3.1 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, according to the latest United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report: No more hot air … please!. In the coming round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), countries must commit to slashing their collective yearly greenhouse gas emissions by 42 percent by the end of the decade and by 57 percent by 2035, a press release from UNEP said. Otherwise, the annual report says, the chance of meeting the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average will disappear within a few years.

Summer 2024 Was World’s Hottest Ever Recorded

September 8, 2024 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. Educate! Arctic, climate crisis, European Union (EU), Global heating

According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the summer of 2024 was the planet’s warmest on record for the Northern Hemisphere. The extreme heat of this year’s boreal summer — June to August — means it is more likely that the average global temperature for the entire year will be hotter than that of 2023. “During the past three months of 2024, the globe has experienced the hottest June and August, the hottest day on record, and the hottest boreal summer on record. This string of record temperatures is increasing the likelihood of 2024 being the hottest year on record,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S, in a press release from C3S.

Rural ‘Buffer Ring’ Can Reduce Urban Heat Island Effect

August 11, 2024 Ada Carpenter, Resilience. Create! climate crisis, Global heating, heat islands, Urban Design

Rural land cover surrounding a city has the potential to reduce the “urban heat island” (UHI) effect and cool the city centre by more than 0.5C, new research shows. While heatwaves around the world are becoming more frequent and intense because of human-caused warming, they are made even more severe in cities by the UHI effect, which traps heat in urban areas and keeps them warmer than their rural surroundings. The study, published in Nature Cities, analyses 20 years of data from 30 cities in China and finds that a ring of rural land around a city can bring the urban temperature down. A buffer ring that is at least half the city’s width can have the biggest cooling effect.

77% Of Top Climate Scientists Think 2.5°C Of Warming Is Coming

May 9, 2024 Olivia Rosane, Common Dreams. Educate! climate crisis, Global heating, Global South, Scientists

Nearly 80% of top-level climate scientists expect that global temperatures will rise by at least 2.5°C by 2100, while only 6% thought the world would succeed in limiting global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, a survey published Wednesday by The Guardian revealed. Nearly three-quarters blamed world leaders' insufficient action on a lack of political will, while 60% said that corporate interests such as fossil fuel companies were interfering with progress. "I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the Global South," one South African scientist told The Guardian. "The world's response to date is reprehensible—we live in an age of fools."

Controversial Study Says 1.5°C Warming Target Already Breached

February 7, 2024 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. Educate! climate crisis, Fossil Fuels, Global heating, IPCC

A new study using marine sponges collected off the coast of Puerto Rico has found that the planet has already warmed more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. Researchers analyzed ocean temperature records from sea sponges going back 300 years, a press release from The University of Western Australia (UWA) said. They concluded that global heating had actually increased by 0.5 degrees Celsius more than earlier estimates. “So rather than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimate of average global temperatures having increased by 1.2 degrees by 2020, temperatures were in fact already 1.7 degrees above pre-industrial levels,” said lead author of the study Malcolm McCulloch.

Paris Plans An Urban Forest For A Busy Roundabout

December 8, 2023 Paige Bennett, EcoWatch. Create! Bikes, Environment, France, Global heating, Paris, Transportation, Urban Design

Paris will plant an “urban forest” at Place de Catalogne, a busy roundabout with close proximity to the Gare Montparnasse railway station. The city will add nearly 500 trees to the roundabout. The new urban forest project will help with cooling to combat the urban heat island effect as well as contribute to an overall plan for improving air quality and reducing emissions that contribute to global warming. “The temperatures one could feel in this little forest will be 4 degrees lower compared to what we could have outside it and so, it will be very pleasant,” Mayor Anne Hidalgo said, as reported by Reuters.

Every Degree Matters: Why We Can’t Give Up On Climate Action

October 9, 2023 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast - Clearing The FOG climate crisis, Global heating, History, Science

As the impacts of the climate crisis become more evident, people are understandably struggling with how to respond. Clearing the FOG speaks with climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann, author of "Our Fragile Moment: How lessons from Earth's past can help us survive the climate crisis," about the reality of our current situation and how major climate changes in the past have shaped the world and human societies. Mann urges people to avoid a doomsday mindset and explains that the actions we take now to stop fossil fuels and to develop resilient systems, no matter how bad it gets, matter for the future of humanity.

Global Heat Record For September ‘Shattered’ By Wide Margin

October 5, 2023 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. Educate! climate crisis, extreme heat, Global heating

Earth’s average temperature has “shattered” the previous record for September by more than 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit, the biggest monthly margin ever recorded. According to separate analyses by climate scientists from Japan and Europe, last month temperatures all over the world were more like July, reported The Washington Post. “It’s astounding to see the previous record broken by so much,” said Kristina Dahl, principal climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, as WIRED reported. “And astounding to see that the global temperature this September is on par with what we normally see in July — the hottest month of the year, typically.

‘Death Star’ Law Is Struck Down In Texas

September 3, 2023 Steve Wishnia, Work-Bites. Educate! Death Star Law, Global heating, Texas, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

Austin, Texas - On Aug. 30, at the end of a summer in which the temperature in Austin topped 100° for a record 45 consecutive days, a local judge ruled unconstitutional a new state law intended to nullify local ordinances that require water breaks for construction workers. Travis County District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble held that the law violated a 1912 amendment to the state constitution that gives cities and towns with more than 5,000 people the power of self-government. “The Court DECLARES House Bill 2127 in its entirety is unconstitutional — facially, and as applied to Houston as a constitutional home rule city and to local laws that are not pre-empted under article XI, section 5 of the Texas Constitution,” she wrote in a two-page order.

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