global warming

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The Battle Over the New Climate Bill

By Jonathan Isham / On June 29th, 2009
Today, hundreds of citizens are on the forefront of the climate movement; 20 years ago, in the summer of 1989, the fight against global warming had only two well-known spokespeople: Senator Al Gore and NASA Scientist Jim Hansen.  (Bill McKibben, now at the helm of the indispensable 350.org, joined this august roster with the publication of The End of Nature).  Recently, I was lucky enough to hear each of them share their strong opinions about American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), the House’s energy and climate bill that
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Geography of Hope

By Anthony Barnosky / On May 12th, 2009
People sometimes ask me what they will learn by reading Heatstroke. Basically there are two key messages. One I've already highlighted in past blogs and in a recent op-ed. Simply put, the first message is this: we've got a problem.
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Nature-al Resources

By Anthony Barnosky / On April 20th, 2009
What comes to mind when you hear the words "natural resources?" Oil. Water. Nature. Nature? In fact, yes, nature is one of the big ones. Ecologists and economists have a name for the natural resources that nature provides: "ecosystem services." They've calculated that globally the dollar-value of those services could be $54 trillion annually in 1997 dollars--for comparison the Gross World Product for 2008 was around $62 trillion.
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Anthony D. Barnosky: Now for Some Good News

By Anthony Barnosky / On April 10th, 2009
My extended family tells me they're getting a little depressed about hearing all the bad things that might happen from global warming. So I guess it's time to point out that maybe it's not as bleak as it seems. Here's the good news.
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Hoping for the Best

By Anthony Barnosky / On April 3rd, 2009
I admit it. In my heart of hearts, I'm hoping for the best. Those scenarios of climate change we see splashed across the newspapers and magazines include a wide range of possibilities, and I keep my fingers crossed that we'll end up closer to the best case. But just three weeks ago the best case got a lot worse. A group of climate scientists meeting in Copenhagen announced that sea level very likely is going to rise almost twice as much as we thought.
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After the Storm

By Anthony Barnosky / On March 18th, 2009
When you’re in the middle of a forest fire, trees exploding all around you, smoke burning your lungs, and fireballs dropping from the sky, it’s hard to think about much except getting out of there alive.  That’s kind of where we are with thinking about global warming nowadays—the direct impacts on people.  How many lose their homes when sea level rises?  What new diseases are going to make their way out of the tropics?  How many dollars will it take to cut carbon emissions?
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Obama Needs Churchill 101

By Jonathan Isham / On February 25th, 2009
In times of great trial, the best politicians strive for Churchillian rhetoric – or better yet, simply quote Churchill.  And in tough times, no quote resounds more than Churchill’s memorable assessment, in late 1942, of the Battle of El Alamein, the first major British victory in WW II: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
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Don’t Wait. Communicate!

By [node:field_contributor] / On February 20th, 2009
I know of a scientist who wrote that changes in small constituents of the atmosphere-namely carbon dioxide-could greatly influence the heat budget of the Earth. He predicted Arctic temperatures would rise about 8 or 9 degrees Celsius if atmospheric carbon dioxide was increased 2.5 to 3 times its present value. He later became concerned that man-made carbon dioxide pollution could contribute to this warming, and he even published a few books on the subject.
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Fireflies, Chrysler, and Auto Bailout

By Paul Ehrlich / On December 22nd, 2008
Horrible-and we thought it couldn't get worse when we were in southern Africa six months ago......Paul Ehrlich

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