Bloomberg (November 4)
A United Nations panel released its latest grim report on climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change asserts that irreversible damage could result unless climate change is arrested quickly. Unfortunately, “another report won’t slow climate change…. All this was known. Doing something about it—that’s the hard part, and where most politicians, especially in the U.S., are failing.” Governments need to take action and “change their policies.”
Tags: Climate change, Damage, IPCC, Irreversible, Policies, Politicians, U.S., UN
New York Times (October 2)
Last week, President Obama “created the largest marine preserve in the world,” expanding it more than five-fold from 87,000 square miles to nearly half a million square miles. “At a time when the world’s oceans are threatened by rampant pollution, overfishing and climate change, the benefits of Mr. Obama’s decision will be profound, particularly if other countries now follow the United States’ excellent example.”
Tags: Climate change, Marine preserve, Obama, Oceans, Overfishing, Pollution, Threatened, U.S.
New York Times (August 17)
China is both the world’s largest consumer of coal and the world’s largest producer of CO2 emissions. Encouragingly, that may be set to change. “The wretched air in China’s cities is forcing Chinese officials to change their energy policies. If they do a good job tackling local pollution, they could also have a big impact on climate change.” Details are still scarce, but could include a ban on the use of coal in urban areas by 2020.
Tags: Ban, China, Cities, Climate change, CO2 emissions, Coal, Consumer, Energy policies, Officials, Pollution, Producer, Urban areas
Bloomberg (July 29)
We need to treat climate change like fire. “You insure your house against fire not because you are certain it will burn down but to guard against the risk that it might. Yes, climate change involves various costs known with reasonable confidence—but it also creates big risks. It’s only rational to insure against them.
Tags: Climate change, Confidence, Costs, Fire, Insurance, Rational, Risk
New York Times (July 17)
Australia became the first country to repeal a carbon tax, and “opposition politicians and environmentalists in Australia reacted with dismay…saying that it made Australia the first country to reverse progress on fighting climate change.”
Los Angeles Times (June 25)
“Billions of dollars of property damage along the Eastern Seaboard. Sharply reduced yields of corn, wheat and soy at Midwestern farms. Rising sea levels threatening military installations in Southern California.” A bipartisan report entitled Risky Business quantifies these and other climate change risks in an attempt “to push what has been a highly politicized issue into corporate boardrooms for serious consideration.” Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg were just two of the prominent leaders backing the report.
Tags: Bipartisan, Bloomberg, Climate change, Corn, Hank Paulson, Property damage, Risks, Risky Business, Sea levels, Soy, U.S., Wheat, Yields
Los Angeles Times (June 17)
Despite the politicians who still deny climate change, major insurers are taking steps to manage the potentially costly reality created by climate change. “As insurers begin to shift the costs of that reality through rate increases, exclusions, lawsuits and market retreat, consumers can ask such politicians, ‘Why, if climate change is a hoax, are we paying for it?’”
Tags: Climate change, Consumers, Costs, Exclusions, Hoax, Insurers, Lawsuits, Market retreat, Politicians, Rate increases
National Geographic (April 1)
“The world is not ready for the impacts of climate change, including more extreme weather and the likelihood that populated parts of the planet could be rendered uninhabitable,” according to 772 scientists who worked on a report released in Yokohama by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report “warns that the world is close to missing a chance to limit the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.”
Tags: Climate change, Extreme weather, Global warming, Impacts, Industrial Revolution, IPCC, Planet, UN, Uninhabitable, Yokohama
Chicago Tribune (February 27, 2014)
“Even if climate change turns out to be overblown, there’s no real downside in a carbon tax. We merely would have traded a tax that reduces good things, such as work and investment, for a tax that reduces bad things, such as environmental harms and hazards. If done in a revenue-neutral way, it would more likely speed economic growth than slow it.”
Tags: Carbon tax, Climate change, Downside, Economic growth, Environment, Investment, Overblown, Revenue-neutral, Speed, Work
New York Times (November 25, 2013)
“The last-minute deal at the United Nations Climate Conference in Warsaw keeps hopes for a comprehensive successor agreement to the 1997 Kyoto protocol alive. But let us be clear: Much more decisive action will be needed if we are to stand any chance at fending off the dangers of climate change.”
