In The News

The New York Times: Hurricane Harvey Was No Surprise

Noah S. Diffenbaugh August 29, 2017
The slow-moving disaster of Hurricane Harvey for the Houston area shouldn’t have surprised anyone. The US National Weather Service was accurate in forecasting the slow-moving storm with heavy rain, and researchers around the globe have long warned about the risks of climate change, including increased precipitation. But many in the United States, especially those living in fossil-fuel production...

Deutsche Welle: Climate Change Sets the World on Fire

Ruby Russell August 21, 2017
Fierce wildfires rage throughout the Americas and Europe, even Greenland. The fires move swiftly and disrupt congested areas, with 64 people caught by surprise and killed in Portugal. Researchers connect the growing threat to rising temperatures of climate change and dried plant life. “With global temperatures rising, scientists say wildfires are likely to become increasingly frequent and...

Project Syndicate: Weathering the Violence of Climate

Gulrez Shah Azhar August 17, 2017
Severe weather threatens livelihoods and increases despair. A study from University of California, Berkeley, connects rising temperatures with suicides among Indian farmers. Other studies demonstrate that aggression increases with hot temperatures. “As global temperatures rise and droughts become more common, political agitation, social unrest, and even violence will likely follow,” explains...

The Washington Post: We May Have Less Time to Stop Global Warming Than We Thought

Chris Mooney July 26, 2017
Despite warnings from numerous scientists over the course of several decades, many people remain uncertain about climate change and the human role. A team of scientists has revised the estimate of carbon dioxide emissions that can enter the atmosphere before the planet exceeds a 2-degree Celsius rise in temperatures. “Many analyses have taken the late 19th century as the starting point, but the...

The Conversation: Foreign “Conservation Armies” in Africa May Do More Harm Than Good

Rosaleen Duffy, Hannah Dickinson and Laure Joanny July 24, 2017
British troops are collaborating with Gabonese park rangers in an effort to fight Boko Haram, which is allegedly using ivory poaching to fund its terrorist activities. This type of “conservation army” is emblematic of rising militarization to prevent elephant and rhino poaching in Africa. From groups of Western army veterans to “foreign national armies, private military companies and even UN...

The Guardian: Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction Event Underway, Scientists Warn

Damian Carrington July 13, 2017
The world’s loss of biodiversity is not proceeding at a gradual pace. Instead, a “biological annihilation” of wildlife signals that a sixth mass extinction is more severe than previously assumed, explains Damian Carrington for the Guardian. The study led by Gerardo Ceballos of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,...

Science: Cocaine Trafficking Is Destroying Central America’s Forests

Emiliano Rodríguez Mega July 12, 2017
Researchers at US universities are positing that that cocaine trafficking accounted for more than 900,000 acres of deforestation in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua from 2001 to 2013. The drug trade directs 90 percent of cocaine in the United States through Central America, and “traffickers in the region had to figure out a way to funnel their money into the legal economy,” notes Emiliano...