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Chronicles of the Rings: What Trees Tell Us
Reading the climate stories trees tell will help with forecasting. “One of the big questions in the field is what’s going to happen to the jet stream,” said Dr. Trouet. “This data helps the modeling of climate change become more reliable.”
Trees, it seems, are giant organic recording devices that contain information about past climate, civilizations, ecosystems, and even galactic events, much of it many thousands of years old…
As climate change bites in America’s midwest, farmers are desperate to ring the alarm
“Richard Oswald did not need the latest US government report on the creeping toll of climate change to tell him that farming in the midwest is facing a grim future, and very likely changing forever.
For Oswald, the moment of realisation came in 2011.
The 68-year-old lives in the house he was born in and farms 2,500 acres with his son, some of it settled by his great-great-grandfather. The land sits where the Missouri river valley is about four miles wide.
Growing up, Oswald heard tales of a great flood in 1952 which prompted the army to construct levees…”
Greta Thunberg: Saving Your World
“Greta Thunberg cut a frail and lonely figure when she started a school strike for the climate outside the Swedish parliament building last August. Her parents tried to dissuade her. Classmates declined to join. Passersby expressed pity and bemusement at the sight of the then unknown 15-year-old sitting on the cobblestones with a hand-painted banner.
Eight months on, the picture could not be more different. The pigtailed teenager is feted across the world as a model of determination, inspiration and positive action. National presidents and corporate executives line up to be criticised by her, face to face. Her skolstrejk för klimatet (school strike for climate) banner has been translated into dozens of languages. And, most striking of all, the loner is now anything but alone…” [excerpt from The Guardian].
Greta leads the world in fighting climate change because she confronts people with reality—while using language that connects to what people care about and provides us with a way to change. Check out a video compilation of her speeches.
Why the US bears the most responsibility for climate change, in one chart
“Carbon dioxide emissions reached a record high in 2019, according to a report published Wednesday by the Global Carbon Project. The report also found that the rate of emissions growth is slowing down among some of the world’s largest emitters.
But climate change is a cumulative problem, a function of the total amount of greenhouse gases that have accumulated in the sky. Some of the heat-trapping gases in the air right now date back to the Industrial Revolution. And since that time, some countries have pumped out vastly more carbon dioxide than others…”
To save the monarch butterfly, Mexican scientists are moving a forest 1,000 feet up a mountain
The world is losing monarch butterflies at a startling rate, as logging, herbicides, and other human activities destroy natural habitats. But the biggest threat yet has only recently come into focus. Climate change, with its extreme storms, prolonged droughts, and warming temperatures, is poised to eradicate the forest that serves as the butterfly’s winter refuge.
To help his beloved butterflies, Ramirez has partnered with scientists on a monumental experiment: They are trying to move an entire forest 1,000 feet up a mountain…
Where we stand on important issues
“The American Conservation Coalition believes that people, businesses, and the government can work together to solve the nation’s environmental issues without sacrificing our economic prosperity or our rights as Americans. Market-based environmental action allows us to conserve our energy, wildlife, land, air, and water, while also ensuring continued economic growth…”
The young Republicans breaking with their party over climate change
“I think conservatives for a long time have been too willing to just let this be a leftwing issue. We can talk about this. Conservatives that care about the environment do exist.”
Fischer heads campus operations for the American Conservation Coalition (ACC), a Republican youth group founded 18 months ago but already with a presence in 125 colleges across the U.S., holding events and organizing campaigns. In January, 41 state college Republican chairs signed an ACC letter to GOP leaders urging “action on clean energy and environmental issues” to ensure “conservative values are not lost on the next generation”…
Leading on climate change solutions
“Forests are the best nature-based solution to climate change. Annually in the United States, forests and forest products capture and store almost 15 percent of the country’s carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels. They have the potential to capture nearly twice as much if we plant more trees, use climate-smart practices to manage our forests and take other actions.
And we are not just talking about big forests in national parks and rural mountain communities. Trees in metropolitan areas and small towns in the U.S. are responsible for almost one-fifth of the country’s captured and stored carbon emissions. They also shade buildings in the summer and block wind in the winter, which reduces the use of air conditioners and heaters—avoiding millions of tons of carbon emissions…”
Parks Are a Critical Solution to Climate Change
Parks mitigate the urban heat island effect, improve air quality, and absorb carbon from the atmosphere. They support local biodiversity and can act as buffer zones for flooding or mudslides. Parks add both important social and environmental infrastructure…
Urban parks are also important because they provide the foundation for urban forests, which help cities both mitigate carbon emissions and adapt to a changing climate. According to Jad Daley, CEO of American Forests, urban forests absorb some 100 million tons of carbon each year—about 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Trees found in these green areas can reduce energy use up to 7% because they provide wind blocks for homes in the winter and cooling in the summer…
If you’re feeling hopeless of late, remember that your work matters and you do too
“Hi everyone, the last few weeks have been rough. I was glad to end it with the #NonprofitHaiku contest to bring some levity and humor. A colleague on Twitter, though, pointed out the seriousness of all the challenges we face beneath the lightheartedness:
‘It’s a cute joke that there are raccoons in our supply closet. It’s hilarious. […] The conditions we work in, the demoralizing chaos and the barriers to success is literally killing people…'”