In what could be the world's first climate-induced migration of modern times, Anote Tong, the Kiribati president, said he was in talks with Fiji's military government to buy up to 5,000 acres of freehold land on which his countrymen could be housed.
The Earth's surface really is getting warmer, a new analysis by a US scientific group set up in the wake of the "Climategate" affair has concluded.
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Funding came from a number of sources, including charitable foundations maintained by the Koch brothers, the billionaire US industrialists, who have also donated large sums to organisations lobbying against acceptance of man-made global warming.
...scientists ... have discovered that people's carbon emissions are practically the same in the city and in the rural areas. More than anything else, CO2 emissions that cause climate change are dependent upon how much goods and services people consume, not where they live.
Just shy of the halfway mark, 2011 has seen eight $1-billion-plus disasters, with total damages from wild weather at more than $32 billion, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Agency officials said that total could grow significantly, since they expect this year's North Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1, will be an active one.
Last year, global carbon emissions hit a record high, and the latest science tells us that we're almost certainly locked into roughly 2 degrees Celsius (or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming. It might not sound like much, but 2 degrees Celsius will redraw maps, change landscapes, and force cities to deploy aggressive adaptation measures.
A new book by Abrams Books, 100 Places to Go Before They Disappear, uses stunning photography to show us all exactly what's at stake...
Actually going to these places—flying around the globe, spewing greenhouse gases all the while—would, of course, exacerbate the problem in a small way. But this isn't a travel book. It's more of an educational project, providing a vivid picture of what we actually have to lose.
We have to stand up and say, ‘Enough is enough,’ ” said Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota. “While oil prices are gouging the pocketbooks of American families, these companies are on a pace for a record profit this year.
