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Governments and corporations have failed to meet commitment after commitment. How do we hold power to account? Leading campaigners, thinkers and artists share their solutions Mary Robinson Power is not [...]

Gazing at the Andromeda Galaxy through binoculars with my science teacher dad is one of my earliest memories. And the more I learned about science, the better it got. Who [...]

The article presents responses from scientists, journalists, politicians, entrepreneurs, activists and chief executive officers (CEO) to a survey about the problems at the intersection of technology and society that demand attention. Among the problems cited are zero carbon footprint, climate crisis, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, minerals extraction and energy storage, misuse of personal data, corruption, security, privacy and human rights.

Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist, emphasizes the importance of the architecture and design community in addressing climate change. She argues that climate change is already impacting every aspect of our lives, including the built environment, and its effects are worsening. Hayhoe believes that architects have a responsibility to construct resilient and sustainable structures for the future. She also highlights the potential of the built environment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and use materials that capture carbon. Hayhoe calls for collective action and policy changes to support these efforts. Additionally, she discusses how climate change exacerbates existing social problems and inequalities, such as the increased vulnerability of low-income neighborhoods during extreme weather events due to racist practices like redlining. The building sector can help address these inequities by creating climate-resilient housing in these neighborhoods. Hayhoe emphasizes the need to overcome fear and take hopeful action to combat climate change, as every action and choice matters in addressing this issue. [Extracted from the article]

A THERMOMETER ISN'T Democratic or Republican. It doesn't give us a different number depending on how we vote. And climate change isn't a liberal or conservative issue. It is a [...]

ONE brisk morning in March, two years ago, I found myself at a bustling diner in Salt Lake City sitting across the table from Steven Amstrup. Lanky and affable, he [...]

'People do not understand the magnitude of what is going on.... This will be unprecedented. Every living thing will be affected.' --Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy, on [...]

An excerpt from the conversation from Katharine Hayhoe, atmospheric scientists on the factors driving climate skepticism is presented.

Climate change poses a threat to the performance and resiliency of flexible pavement systems around the world and can lead to inadequate designs or shortened service life which, in turn, tax the already limited budgets of transportation agencies and increase user costs. This paper aims to provide a high-level overview of three common approaches (scenario-based, asset-based and hybrid) that can be used to incorporate climate change in pavement design and rehabilitation practices. Examples of each approach for a flexible pavement system are presented along with a discussion of their advantages and limitations. Additionally, select results from a pavement life cycle assessment (LCA) case-study comparing the use of simulated future climate projections instead of historical observed climate data is included to demonstrate impacts on maintenance and rehabilitation budgeting and planning. Current knowledge gaps and research needs are identified and discussed to promote future collaboration towards designing and maintaining more resilient flexible pavements under a changing climate.

When people find out I'm a climate scientist from Canada, they have a lot of questions. 'Do you believe it's real?' has been the most common one here in conservative [...]

The authors talks about hope and optimism in tackling issues on climate change. Topics include the record numbers of people in the U.S. and Great Britain who are worried about climate change, the importance of acknowledging the serious effects and risks of climate change, and some practical solutions to reduce the impact of the crisis such as lifestyle choices, sustainable agriculture and greening cities.

Flexible pavement design requires considering a variety of factors including the materials used, variations in water tables, traffic levels, and the climatic conditions the road will experience over its lifetime. Most pavement designs are based on historical climate variables such as temperature and precipitation that are already changing across much of the United States, and do not reflect projected trends. As pavements are typically designed to last 20 years or more, designs that do not account for current and future trends can result in reduced performance. However, incorporating climate projections into pavement design is not a trivial exercise. Significant mismatches in both spatial and temporal scale challenge the integration of the latest global climate model simulations into pavement models. This study provides a national-level overview of what the impact of climate change to flexible pavement could look like, and where regional focus should be placed. It also demonstrates a new approach to developing high-resolution spatial and temporal projections that generates hourly information at the scale of individual weather stations, and applies this as input to the AASHTOWare Pavement ME Design™ model. The impact of three different future climates on pavement performance and time to reach failure thresholds in 24 locations across the United States are quantified. Changes to projected pavement performance differ by location, but nearly all result in decreased performance under current design standards. The largest increases in distress are observed for permanent deformation measures, especially toward the end of the century under greater increases in temperature.

A key assumption in planning is that weather and climate events may vary from year to year but climate remains stable over the long term and can be predicted on the basis of past return values. This assumption underpins most design standards, operations and maintenance programs, and planning for transportation projects and programs. However, climate change is altering the risk of many types of weather extremes, including the frequency, severity, or both, of high temperatures, heavy precipitation events, coastal flooding, and storms. This concept of nonstationarity (i.e., that future climate conditions and weather risks will differ from those in the past) challenges scientists and engineers to incorporate climate change into present-day planning when the future is manifestly uncertain. A general framework is presented for incorporating observed and projected future climate trends into infrastructure planning. The issues that remain to be resolved, including the challenges confronted in translating climate and weather-related extremes to information that is directly relevant to assessing potential impacts on infrastructure, are highlighted.

Beginning a conversation climate solutions with shared values even works on the internet. CLIMATE FOCUS CLIMATE FOCUS This summer, deadly floods struck the German states North Rhine-Westphalia Rhineland-Palatinate. fell at the highest point of the Greenland ice sheet the first time since records began. town of Lytton in my home country of Canada broke the country's high temperature record not once, not twice, but three days in a row… most of the town was lost to a on the fourth day. In the United States, where I live, a February 2021 survey showed that 66 per cent of people are worried about climate change; that number rises to 76 per cent in the UK, 78 per cent in Canada, and 85 per cent in France. [Extracted from the article]

ABSTRACTConceptual change theory holds that pre-existing misconceptions persist under regular instruction and interfere with student acquisition of correct concepts. This implies that effective instruction should address both concepts and common misconceptions. Here, we investigate the efficacy of incorporating corrective information regarding well-documented misconceptions on the greenhouse effect and how the climate is affected by human activities into instruction on the greenhouse effect. Specifically, we compare student acquisition of fundamental concepts related to the greenhouse effect and climate change via traditional reading-based instruction (TRI) to misconceptions reading-based instruction (MRI). Lab sections from a first year Atmospheric Sciences course at a large public university were assigned to either a TRI or MRI treatment group, yielding a total of 197 subjects who successfully completed a pretest, the treatment, an immediate post-test, and a 2-week delayed post-test. Repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) with contrasts reveals that while both treatments produced significant gains in the post-test and delayed post-test overall, only the MRI treatment produced long-term gains on misconception-related questions. These results support the conceptual change model's claims that misconceptions may persist through concept-based instruction, but may be uprooted by instruction that addresses them directly. Based on these findings, it appears that a relatively brief reading passage focused on the basic science underlying a complex phenomenon, such as the greenhouse effect and human impact on climate, can be effective in improving student understanding. In addition, specifically addressing and instructing against misconceptions may improve learner acquisition of key concepts on which misconceptions exist.

An IPCC founder and tenacious advocate for climate action.

Historically, extreme hot, dry summers over the South‐Central (SC) United States are dominated by an isolated dome of high pressure centered over the region. Applying self‐organizing map techniques to North American Regional Reanalysis reanalysis and historical and future Coupled Model Intercomparison Project version 5 (CMIP5) simulations, we find that as the world warms, this type of high‐pressure system is likely to become stronger and more frequent—even after removing the effect of surface warming on the expansion of the lower atmosphere. These projected changes appear to be related to self‐reinforcing ocean‐atmosphere interactions in a warming world. Specifically, intensified easterly winds over the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico drive an increase in the meridional sea surface temperature gradient due to oceanic Ekman transport, which further enhances the ridge of high pressure extending across the SC United States: a dynamical relationship that increases confidence in regional projections of summer drought risk over the SC United States. Water is already a scarce resource in the South‐Central United States. The region's frequent droughts pit its agriculture community against the energy industry, ecosystem managers, and growing municipalities in competition for the region's increasingly over‐allocated water resources. Our study identifies the daily weather patterns associated with historical drought and examines how these are likely to change as the world gets warmer. We find that the main weather pattern associated with drought, an isolated dome of high pressure centered over the South‐Central region, is likely to become stronger and more frequent by the late 21st century under human‐induced climate change. We also find that this appears to be related to self‐reinforcing ocean‐atmosphere interactions: in other words, the warmer the world gets, the stronger this pattern becomes. This is not good news for the region, as it establishes a physical mechanism that explains why projected summer rainfall is expected to decrease, and droughts to become stronger and longer, as climate continues to change. Extreme hot and dry summers over the South‐Central United States are historically characterized by an isolated dome of high pressure over the regionFuture projections indicate that this high‐pressure system is likely to become stronger and more frequent, as climate changesProjected changes in the high‐pressure system appear to be related to self‐reinforcing ocean‐atmosphere interactions in a warming world

The article discusses the reality of climate change by addressing three concerns. Evidence pointing to the natural increase of heat as seen in nature shows that climate change is not a liberal scheme of the environmental activist. That there is no other documented cause to climate change other than the human production of heat-trapping gases disproves that warming is said to be a scientific fantasy. It stresses the gospel teaching of loving others which should be a motivation to care for the earth and the people already affected by the changing climate.

The article discusses the concern on the decline in natural gas and oil resources in Texas due to climatic changes. It mentions that Texas is the largest producer of wind energy in the U.S. as well as offer expertise in advanced biofuels, geothermal energy and low-carbon technology. It highlights the change in climate due to the emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases by humans.

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experiences as a climate scientist of informing people about the issue of climate change.