Wall Street Journal (October 30)
Al Gore warns a carbon asset bubble “is still growing because most market participants are mistakenly treating carbon risk as an uncertainty, and are thus failing to incorporate it in investment analyses. By overlooking a known material-risk factor, investors are exposing their portfolios to an externality that should be integrated into the capital allocation process.” If we are to avoid catastrophic levels of global warming, many fossil fuel reserves will ultimately end up as stranded carbon assets. “The transition to a low carbon future will revolutionize the global economy and present significant opportunities for superior investment returns. However, investors must also acknowledge that carbon risk is real and growing. Inaction is no longer prudent.”
Tags: Al Gore, Capital, Carbon assets, Carbon risk, Fossil fuel, Global economy, Global warming, Investment, Investors, Material-risk factor, Opportunities, Returns
Washington Post (August 27)
Governments need to rapidly “head off the ample risks of continuing to release huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the air and to set about it with speed and ambition.” A draft report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) concludes “the increasing amount of greenhouse gases that humans have emitted into the atmosphere has almost certainly been the chief driver of the warming of the planet over the past half-century…. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the IPCC notes, has shot up by 40 percent since 1750, with concentrations of the gas now increasing at a faster rate than at any time in the last 22,000 years.”Governments need to rapidly “head off the ample risks of continuing to release huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the air and to set about it with speed and ambition.” A draft report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) concludes “the increasing amount of greenhouse gases that humans have emitted into the atmosphere has almost certainly been the chief driver of the warming of the planet over the past half-century…. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the IPCC notes, has shot up by 40 percent since 1750, with concentrations of the gas now increasing at a faster rate than at any time in the last 22,000 years.”
Tags: Atmosphere, Climate change, CO2, Global warming, Governments, Greenhouse gases, IPCC, Planet
Washington Post (June 12)
“The world is wildly off-target in its effort—if you can call it that—to limit global temperature rise to only 2 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels. Last year saw the highest level of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions ever, and the Earth is on a path to warm between 3.6 and 5.3 degrees, an outcome the World Bank recently warned would be very disruptive to human civilization.”
Tags: CO2, Earth, Emissions, Energy, Global warming, Temperature, World Bank
Forbes (April 23, 2013)
Is growth the root of problems like global warming? No, growth is a panacea that “must not be sold short. Growth is not just morally defensible; it is a moral imperative for achieving lasting human flourishing.” Of course, there have been cases of reckless growth. Overall, however, “hard data documents its positive impact on the things that ultimately matter: education, environmental care, physical health, political freedom, and healthy culture. Failure to realize the transformative power of growth would be a failure of our moral imaginations.”
Tags: Culture, Education, Environment, Freedom, Global warming, Growth, Health
New York Times (April 20, 2013)
“The central Arctic Ocean has been covered in ice for eons, but under the influence of global warming, nearly half of it is now open water for part of the year.” Humans must now step up with a treaty to protect this fragile ecosystem, which includes some of Earth’s last untouched fishing stocks. “No matter how severe, how austere, the Arctic may seem in our imaginations, it is almost unbelievably fragile, as are many of the species newly exposed under what is now open water. It is time, now, to intercede and protect this environmental oasis.”
Tags: Arctic Ocean, Environment, Fishing, Fragile, Global warming, Humans, Ice, Species
Los Angeles Times (January 8)
“Last year was the hottest year on record for the contiguous 48 states, marked by near-record numbers of extreme weather events such as drought, wildfire, tornadoes and storms.” Furthermore, a growing body of research now indicates what many have long suspected: “global warming is linked to extreme weather events.”
Tags: Extreme weather, Global warming, Heat, Record heat, U.S.
Los Angeles Times (October 4)
“The United States experienced the warmest July in its history, with more than 3,000 heat records broken across the country.” Globally, it was 36th year in a row that temperatures in July have exceeded the average of the 20th century. There’s one good thing about all the heat. “The increasingly powerful evidence of a long-term warming trend is making climate-change denial more difficult to defend.”
Tags: Climate change, Denial, Global warming, Summer, Temperatures, U.S.
Washington Post (August 10)
The Earth is warming up as climate change creates increasingly extreme weather. “The average temperature last month was 77.6 degrees — a full 3.3 degrees warmer than the 20th-century norm for July. This follows the warmest 12-month period ever recorded in the United States, and it continues a long-term trend that is obvious to all except those who stubbornly close their eyes: Of the 10 hottest years on record, nine have occurred since 2000.”
The Earth is warming up as climate change creates increasingly extreme weather. “The average temperature last month was 77.6 degrees — a full 3.3 degrees warmer than the 20th-century norm for July. This follows the warmest 12-month period ever recorded in the United States, and it continues a long-term trend that is obvious to all except those who stubbornly close their eyes: Of the 10 hottest years on record, nine have occurred since 2000.”
Tags: Climate change, Earth, Global warming, Temperature, U.S.
New York Times (July 28)
Richard Muller had been one of the most outspoken climate-change skeptics. No longer. The “converted skeptic” writes, “three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.”
Richard Muller had been one of the most outspoken climate-change skeptics. No longer. The “converted skeptic” writes, “Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.”
Tags: Climate change, Global warming, Humans, Muller, Skeptic
New York Times (July 10)
“The recent heat wave that has fried much of the country, ruined crops and led to heat-related deaths has again raised the question of whether this and other extreme weather events can be attributed to human-induced climate change. The answer, increasingly, is a qualified yes.” While individual events such as floods, hurricanes and heat waves cannot be blamed directly on global warming, the consensus is that global warming increases the frequency of these and other extreme weather events.
“The recent heat wave that has fried much of the country, ruined crops and led to heat-related deaths has again raised the question of whether this and other extreme weather events can be attributed to human-induced climate change. The answer, increasingly, is a qualified yes.” While individual events such as floods, hurricanes and heat waves cannot be blamed directly on global warming, the consensus is that global warming increases the frequency of these and other extreme weather events.
Tags: Extreme weather, Floods, Global warming, U.S.
