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global warming
The Presidential Politics of Ignoring Climate Change
One issue has been nowhere on the radar during the Republican presidential primaries: addressing global climate change.
Rural India Turns to Solar Power
The use of solar power in rural parts of India is growing. Small loans have made solar panels available to homes and businesses that otherwise suffer from India’s severe electricity shortage.
Sea Levels May Rise Faster Than Expected
Climate scientists say that as the world is warming up, polar ice is melting a lot faster than expected.
Climate Change Talks in South Africa
International climate change negotiators are back at it his week in Durban, South Africa. Negotiators are scrambling to make significant progress in a process that seems to have fallen far behind the urgency of the the problem.
Greenhouse Gas Numbers Are Up
A new report from the International Energy Agency says the latest emissions numbers put the world on a dangerous track toward significant climate change.
Thousands Protest Canada-US Pipeline
Thousands of protesters march outside the White House, urging US President Barack Obama to stop the planned pipeline between Canada and the US.
Uncertain Future for Asian Island Nation
The Maldives are only about five feet above sea level, so there’s big concern the islands’ days ware will become inundated as sea levels rise in the coming century.
Global Warming Makes a Splash
I’m traveling the world in search of the human face of the impacts of climate change. I encountered a sobering example yesterday, in Carhuaz, Peru. There, I met Juana, a middle-aged woman dressed in a white embroidered shirt, orange skirt and a grey felt hat. One Sunday morning in April 2010 Juana puttered around the rustic house she rented by a stream on the outskirts of Carhuaz, at the base of Peru’s Cordillera Blanca range. The day, like every Sunday in Carhuaz [pronounced car-WHAS], a bustling town of 60,000, was market day [...]
An Optimist
I’ve never before met anyone as thoroughly optimistic as Peruvian glaciologist Benjamin Morales. I asked him today if his rosy take on life began when he narrowly missed death in 1970. On May 31st 41 years ago Morales lunched near his home in the town of Yunguay. Despite protestations of friends who had joined him for the meal, he left just before 3 p.m. He had promised to drive his mother to another town. At 3:23, a powerful earthquake struck the region [...]
Waiting for Water
Steep conical hills of brown sand and stone ring the city of Lima. Massive cement water tanks cap many of the summits, some bearing a slogan of the city’s powerful water utility, Sedepal: Agua Para Todo (water for all). To an inhabitant of the eastern United States, where water is generally plentiful, and where few lack a working tap, the motto appears at first to be either simply a statement of fact or an easily achievable promise [...]
Lima’s Brown Coast
Lima and its contiguous suburbs and shantytowns sprawl between a sand-brown desert of undulating hills on the east to the Pacific Ocean on the west. Today, accompanied by my translator, Dado, and driver, Juan Carlos, I sped down an avenue that hugs the shoreline [...]
Glacier Closeup
Nearly all the world’s tropical glaciers cap mountains of the Andes. If you wonder why, look at where the highest peaks in the tropics are located and you’ll have your answer. About three quarters of these glaciers top Peruvian peaks providing the South American country with a natural resource of immense value and justifiable pride. But Peru’s glaciers, like most glaciers in the world, are melting at an alarming rate [...]
Lima’s Future Water Shortage
As I type these words, I’m flying 39,000 feet over Ecuador. Shortly, I will land in Lima, a sprawling city of about nine million people. Lima is one of the cities of the world most immediately threatened by global warming. The city was built on the edge of a desert, one of the driest in the world. And its primary source of water is a small river, the Rimac. The Rimac’s water trickles of glaciers high in the Andes which, unfortunately for Limeños, are rapidly melting. Peru has lost about 30 percent of its glacial ice in the last 40 years [...]
Big changes in the world’s cold regions
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Melting ice, snow and permafrost figure in our Geo Quiz this time. You’ve heard about the earth’s atmosphere and probably its biosphere. However, we’re looking for a different sphere. This one is the collective name of all of the coldest parts of the planet. A new report out this week documents how fast the Arctic and Greenland are changing as the planet warms up. Download MP3
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