http://westcoastclimateequity.org Climate science and climate change information - West Coast Climate Equity is dedicated to providing facts about the causes of climate change and the evidence for global warming. We report the latest climate science news, information, research and studies to educate about the true impact of dangerous climate change on our world. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:35:33 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2011/10/26/the-cure-for-climate-change-despair/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-cure-for-climate-change-despair http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2011/10/26/the-cure-for-climate-change-despair/#comments Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:51:51 +0000 Greenfyre http://westcoastclimateequity.org/?p=7202 New article by North Island Columnist Ray Grigg.The cure for the "well-informed futility syndrome" is action. But not just any action.

]]> http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2011/10/26/the-cure-for-climate-change-despair/feed/ 0 http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2011/10/26/do-and-despair-not/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=do-and-despair-not http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2011/10/26/do-and-despair-not/#comments Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:22:31 +0000 Greenfyre http://westcoastclimateequity.org/?p=7214 Receiving worsening news about climate change, to some extent we choose to be dis-empowered. As Ray Grigg discusses in his post "Well-Informed Futility Syndrome", for those predisposed to inaction news of this sort is a harbinger of doom. For those inclined to act it is a call to arms. An oversimplification, but as Grigg explains, we do have some choices about which we want to be.

]]> http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2011/10/26/do-and-despair-not/feed/ 0 http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2010/11/05/human-species-at-risk-because-of-climate-change-denial/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=human-species-at-risk-because-of-climate-change-denial http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2010/11/05/human-species-at-risk-because-of-climate-change-denial/#comments Fri, 05 Nov 2010 23:42:14 +0000 Dorothy http://westcoastclimateequity.org/?p=6729 Two new articles, "Inaction on Climate Change Putting Decades of Human Progress at Risk" and "Is climate science disinformation a crime against humanity?"

]]> http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2010/11/05/human-species-at-risk-because-of-climate-change-denial/feed/ 2 http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2010/02/15/can-you-sit-in-a-snowstorm-and-imagine-a-warming-world/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=can-you-sit-in-a-snowstorm-and-imagine-a-warming-world http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2010/02/15/can-you-sit-in-a-snowstorm-and-imagine-a-warming-world/#comments Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:05:38 +0000 Dorothy http://westcoastclimateequity.org/?p=4897 The weird and disruptive weather patterns around the world are pretty much exactly what you'd expect as the planet warms. Here's how it works: In most places, winter is clearly growing shorter and less intense. We can tell, because Arctic sea ice is melting, because the glaciers on Greenland are shrinking and because a thousand other signals send the same message. Here in the mountains of the Northeast, for instance, lakes freeze later than they used to, and sometimes not at all: Lake Champlain remained open in winter only three times during the 19th century, but it did so 18 times between 1970 and 2007. But rising temperature is only one effect of climate change. Probably more crucially, warmer air holds more water vapor than cold air does. The increased evaporation from land and sea leads to more drought but also to more precipitation, since what goes up eventually comes down. The numbers aren't trivial -- global warming has added 4 percent more moisture to the atmosphere since 1970. That means that the number of "extreme events" such as downpours and floods has grown steadily; the most intense storms have increased by 20 percent across the United States in the past century.

]]> http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2010/02/15/can-you-sit-in-a-snowstorm-and-imagine-a-warming-world/feed/ 0 http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2010/01/20/where-in-the-world-is-the-worst-place-for-cold-weather/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=where-in-the-world-is-the-worst-place-for-cold-weather http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2010/01/20/where-in-the-world-is-the-worst-place-for-cold-weather/#comments Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:29:59 +0000 Dorothy http://westcoastclimateequity.org/?p=4236 The past year, 2009, tied as the second warmest year in the 130 years of global instrumental temperature records, in the surface temperature analysis of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). The Southern Hemisphere set a record as the warmest year for that half of the world.

]]> http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2010/01/20/where-in-the-world-is-the-worst-place-for-cold-weather/feed/ 1 http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2009/12/30/watch-ross-gelbspans-great-and-profound-new-video-at-climate-progress/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=watch-ross-gelbspans-great-and-profound-new-video-at-climate-progress http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2009/12/30/watch-ross-gelbspans-great-and-profound-new-video-at-climate-progress/#comments Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:16:11 +0000 Dorothy http://westcoastclimateequity.org/?p=4172 Pulitzer Prize-winning Investigative journalist Ross Gelbspan has a new video out — and is very much interested in your feedback on it. Please click here to get to the ClimateProgress site and post your own comment. There are over 90 comments to read, most of them very useful, some truly inspiring. And Ross is responding personally to many of them. Something important is beginning to happen here, and we may all want to be part of it.

]]> http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2009/12/30/watch-ross-gelbspans-great-and-profound-new-video-at-climate-progress/feed/ 0 http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2009/12/12/final-episode-of-bbc-worlds-hot-cities-available/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=final-episode-of-bbc-worlds-hot-cities-available http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2009/12/12/final-episode-of-bbc-worlds-hot-cities-available/#comments Sat, 12 Dec 2009 22:19:48 +0000 Dorothy http://westcoastclimateequity.org/?p=4121 Los Angeles is one of the most polluting cities in the world thanks largely to its love affair with the car. It is a city built on consumption. Each person produces around 20 tonnes of emissions per year - twice as much as anyone else. Now they are about to reap what has been sown. In LA there has been a big increase in wildfires, water supplies are under threat, rising sea levels could have a massive impact on LA's huge port and destroy thousands of homes. “Hot Cities” goes to LA just as the city launches its adaptation strategy.

]]> http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2009/12/12/final-episode-of-bbc-worlds-hot-cities-available/feed/ 0 http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2009/12/10/an-optimistic-take-on-the-copenhagen-climate-conference-by-gwynne-dyer/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=an-optimistic-take-on-the-copenhagen-climate-conference-by-gwynne-dyer http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2009/12/10/an-optimistic-take-on-the-copenhagen-climate-conference-by-gwynne-dyer/#comments Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:07:55 +0000 Dorothy http://westcoastclimateequity.org/?p=4114 It is hard to celebrate a process as clumsy, and occasionally as ugly, as the horse-trading and arm-twisting going on at Copenhagen, but that is how human politics works. We may all recognize that there is a global emergency, but every government still has its own interests to protect. Nevertheless, we have come a long way.

]]> http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2009/12/10/an-optimistic-take-on-the-copenhagen-climate-conference-by-gwynne-dyer/feed/ 0 http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2009/12/10/the-physics-of-copenhagen-why-politics-as-usual-may-mean-the-end-of-civilization/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-physics-of-copenhagen-why-politics-as-usual-may-mean-the-end-of-civilization http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2009/12/10/the-physics-of-copenhagen-why-politics-as-usual-may-mean-the-end-of-civilization/#comments Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:38:28 +0000 Dorothy http://westcoastclimateequity.org/?p=4106 In Copenhagen, if the U.S. is willing to treat climate change as politics-as-usual, most of the other major players will simply follow suit. They'll sign some kind of paper in Denmark -- that became all but certain on Friday night when Obama announced he'd jet in for the meeting's close. European leaders and some environmental groups may then call it a “qualified success,” and on we will go through more years of negotiation. In the meantime, physics will continue to operate, permafrost will continue to thaw, sea ice to melt, drought to spread. It’s like nothing we’ve ever faced before -- and we’re facing it as if it’s just like everything else. That’s the problem.

]]> http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2009/12/10/the-physics-of-copenhagen-why-politics-as-usual-may-mean-the-end-of-civilization/feed/ 0 http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2009/12/09/56-newspapers-around-the-world-in-20-languages-publish-the-same-editorial-calling-for-action-from-world-leaders-on-climate-change/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=56-newspapers-around-the-world-in-20-languages-publish-the-same-editorial-calling-for-action-from-world-leaders-on-climate-change http://westcoastclimateequity.org/2009/12/09/56-newspapers-around-the-world-in-20-languages-publish-the-same-editorial-calling-for-action-from-world-leaders-on-climate-change/#comments Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:38:18 +0000 Dorothy http://westcoastclimateequity.org/?p=4101 Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency. Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year's inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world's response has been feeble and half-hearted.

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