Climate Crisis (Formerly Climate Change)

Although I am convinced that Climate Change is happening, is devastating, and we humans are the main cause of it - the much more important issues now are:

• ADAPTATION: How can we make sure that hopefully all people and all species of plants and animals on the planet can survive the effects of climate change that are now inevitable?
• MITIGATION: How can we bring green house gases (GHGs) down to avoid worse conditions than the ones we cannot stop anymore.

Forward-thinking people and institutions are just now starting to plan for the inevitable and discuss the most efficient methods to bring down GHGs. I will soon post you important documents and links about climate adaptation and mitigation and keep you updated on the results of a task force of 14 people commissioned by the board of the Sierra Club that I have the pleasure and duty to serve on.

The climate adaptation task force finished its work - our report to the board of the Sierra Club can be found at: http://wassmer.org/climate/1977 Climate Adapt Report 06_web_complete_pagenumbers.pdf


Climate Change and Health: Climate change and the impacts on health are being increasingly reported and documented. It is expected that with continued rises in global temperature and greenhouse gas emissions the effects on health will become more widely experienced and extreme. Throughout July PLOS Medicine is publishing a Special Issue on climate change and health. Guest edited by Dr. Jonathan Patz (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Dr. Madeleine Thomson (Columbia University), the issue focuses on topics including the health effects of extreme heat and flooding, food system effects, non-communicable disease risk, such as air pollution, infectious disease risks and the health benefits of greenhouse gas mitigation policies. The issue has a particular focus on evidence based studies focused on policy-relevant work on adaptation and mitigation options. http://collections.plos.org/climate-change-and-health




Link List Climate Change – February 2017

• Climate Change Vital Signs of the Planet: https://climate.nasa.gov
• Climate Change - US EPA: https://www.epa.gov/climatechange
• 350.org – The Science: https://350.org/about/science/
•  CCL - The Basics of Carbon Fee and Dividend:http://citizensclimatelobby.org/basics-carbon-fee-dividend/
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the international body for assessing the science related to climate change. The IPCC was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to provide policymakers with regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation: https://www.ipcc.ch
• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: http://unfccc.int/2860.php
• The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) was established by Presidential Initiative in 1989 and mandated by Congress in the Global Change Research Act (GCRA) of 1990 to “assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change.”: http://www.globalchange.gov
• Digital version of the 2014 National Climate Assessment, produced in collaboration with the U.S. Global Change Research Program: http://nca2014.globalchange.gov
• The impacts and risks posed by climate change highlight the need for action to deliver on the Paris Agreement on climate change, reached in December 2015. The World Bank Group’s Climate Change Action Plan of April 2016 aims to help developing countries accelerate efforts to tackle climate change and deliver on their national climate plans submitted for Paris:http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/climatechange
• The Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA) leads the European Commission's efforts to fight climate change at EU and international level. Causes of climate change: https://ec.europa.eu/clima/change/causes_en
• Nature - Climate Change - Current Issue. Understanding the Earth's changing climate, and its consequences, is a scientific challenge of enormous importance to society. Nature Climate Change is a monthly journal dedicated to publishing the most significant and cutting-edge research on the science of climate change, its impacts and wider implications for the economy, society and policy: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/current_issue.html
• Skeptical Science is a non-profit science education organisation, run by a global team of volunteers. The goal of Skeptical Science is to explain what peer reviewed science has to say about global warming. When you peruse the many arguments of global warming skeptics, a pattern emerges. Skeptic arguments tend to focus on narrow pieces of the puzzle while neglecting the broader picture. For example, focus on Climategate emails neglects the full weight of scientific evidence for man-made global warming. Concentrating on a few growing glaciers ignores the world wide trend of accelerating glacier shrinkage. Claims of global cooling fail to realise the planet as a whole is still accumulating heat. This website presents the broader picture by explaining the peer reviewed scientific literature: https://www.skepticalscience.com
• Climate change – The Economist - World News, Politics, Economics, Business & Finance: http://www.economist.com/topics/climate-change
• Global Warming & Climate Change - The New York Times:https://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/global-warming-climate-change
• Climate change - Environment - The Guardian:https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-change
• Climate News – ScienceDaily, your source for the latest research news: https://www.sciencedaily.com/news/earth_climate/climate/
• Global News, Canada - Climate Change: http://globalnews.ca/tag/climate-change/
• Ecology, evolution, & climate change: G. Evelyn Hutchinson and the founding of modern ecology: http://news.yale.edu/2015/11/21/ecology-evolution-climate-change-g-evelyn-hutchinson-and-founding-modern-ecology
• Scientists warned the US president about global warming 50 years ago: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/nov/05/scientists-warned-the-president-about-global-warming-50-years-ago-today
• The Rolling Stone: The Point of No Return: Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-point-of-no-return-climate-change-nightmares-are-already-here-20150805