In The News

New Study Shows Climate Change Largely Irreversible

January 28, 2009
A new scientific study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warns that the world approaches the point of no return with regards to climate change. Soon, even halting carbon-dioxide emissions altogether would not reverse the crucial planetary shifts in rainfall, surface temperature and sea level that threaten human life, not to mention geography itself, as huge coastal regions...

Western US Forests Suffer Death by Degrees

Elizabeth Pennisi January 27, 2009
It's suspected that some redwoods, yellow cedars and hemlocks of the temperate rain forests of the Pacific Northwest can live 1000 years and well beyond. But a new study from the US Geological Survey, reported on in Science, suggests that the lifespan for such confers is on the decline. “Warmer temperatures and subsequent water shortfalls” are pinpointed as the likely cause of the trees...

Politically Incorrect

Nayan Chanda January 23, 2009
Battles rage to save some products ill-suited in a world worried about energy shortages: In the US, CEOs of auto companies who long depended on oversized vehicles for profits now lobby politicians for financial aid, while protesters in Kolkata aim to protect noisy, polluting auto-rickshaws by burning buses and disrupting traffic. “Allowing the city’s 60,000-odd auto-rickshaws to carry on...

A Green Revolution Blooms in the Desert

Elisabeth Rosenthal January 15, 2009
Countries in the Middle East have bountiful supplies of oil, but the leaders also recognize that such fossil fuels are limited and make what Elisabeth Rosenthal calls in the International Herald Tribune “a concerted push to become the Silicon Valley of alternative energy.” The countries are using their oil wealth to invest in alternative technologies, create alternative-energy investment funds...

Climate Scientists: It's Time for “Plan B”

Steve Connor January 5, 2009
Nations around the globe have failed to curb carbon emissions, and more than half of climate researchers surveyed in a poll agree that humans can expect to rely on technology to control the most volatile effects of climate change. Some “geoengineering” approaches, as listed in the article from the Independent, resemble strategies described in science fiction novels and include using artificial...

The Limits of Growth – Part II

Chandran Nair November 24, 2008
Governments pursue rapid growth as a path to prosperity, and policymakers generally depend on markets to reveal and control problems. In the second of this two-part YaleGlobal series on the limits to growth, Chandran Nair, founder of the Global Institute for Tomorrow, points to parallels between the global economic crisis and climate change. Both challenges are rooted in the pursuit of excessive...

The Limits of Growth – Part I

Bo Ekman November 21, 2008
The double whammy of two global crises – recession and climate change – emerged after too many of the world’s citizens pursued lifestyles that the planet simply cannot sustain. This YaleGlobal series explores the limits of growth and calls for global governance that will encourage sustainable lifestyles that could ensure the planet’s survival. Fractured regional or national governance only...