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We Still Have Time to Restore Our Climate. But the Climate Time Bomb Is Ticking

By Alex Carlin

A recent New York Magazine article about the climate ruin we are facing, by David Wallace Wells, has caused a furor for describing the catastrophes that could happen to our planet by the end of the century if we do not mitigate the harms to our climate and reverse course. This op-ed by guest contributor Alex Carlin contends that those crises could happen much sooner, and he details steps he believes could help forestall disaster.

Yes, Virginia, we still have time to restore our climate. But the Climate Time Bomb is undeniably ticking–and Trump has pulled out of the Paris agreement.

What should we do?

Trump climate policy is blind and deaf to the fact that the Climate Bomb can cause millions—or even potentially billions—of deaths by mid-century. I believe Trump's rogue refusal to defuse the Bomb is an unfathomably heinous crime against humanity.

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NOAA: Earth Had its Third Warmest June on Record

By Dr. Jeff Masters

June 2017 was the planet's third warmest June since record keeping began in 1880, said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information on Monday. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) rated June 2017 as the fourth warmest June on record. The only warmer Junes came in El Niño years: 1998, 2015 and 2016. Minor differences can occur between the NASA and NOAA rankings because of their different techniques for analyzing data-sparse regions such as the Arctic.

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Scientists Alarmed as Delaware-Sized Iceberg Breaks Off Antarctic Ice Shelf

By Ilissa Ocko and Mason Fried

Scientists watched with alarm this week as the fourth-largest ice shelf in Antarctica rapidly broke apart, causing an enormous, Delaware-size iceberg to float into the Southern Ocean.

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Massive Iceberg Finally Breaks Off: Antarctic Landscape 'Changed Forever'

One of the biggest icebergs ever recorded has "finally" broken away from the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica, researchers studying the event announced.

The iceberg, which will likely be dubbed A68, weighs more than a trillion tonnes, has a volume twice that of Lake Erie, and is about 5,800 square kilometers in size—roughly the size of Delaware.

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If We Stopped Emitting Greenhouse Gases Right Now, Would We Stop Climate Change?

By Richard B. Rood

Earth's climate is changing rapidly. We know this from billions of observations, documented in thousands of journal papers and texts and summarized every few years by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The primary cause of that change is the release of carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil and natural gas.

One of the goals of the international Paris agreement is to limit the increase of the global surface average air temperature to two degrees Celsius, compared to preindustrial times. There is a further commitment to strive to limit the increase to 1.5℃.

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Scientists Rescue History From Melting Glaciers

Scientists climbed a mountain to preserve 18,000 years of climate history before it melts.

Check out this video from Vocativ and watch the Ice Memory expedition collect ice cores from glaciers in the Andes of Bolivia. Storing them will allow current and future scientists to study the important climate and environmental data they hold.

Ice Memory was established by French glaciologists and their Italian partners from IGE Grenoble, Institut des géosciences de l'environnement.

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Massive Antarctic Ice Shelf Days From Breaking Off

By Andy Rowell

Any day now we will truly witness climate change in action. Within days at worst, maybe weeks at best, scientists predict that a huge section of the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica will break off into the ocean, in what is called a major "calving" event.

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A seal entangled in plastic netting on Bird Island. Claire Waluda

Plastic Pollution in Antarctica 5 Times Worse Than Expected

Not only have microplastic particles infiltrated the pristine Antarctic, the problem is much worse than anyone thought.

Scientists from the University of Hull and the British Antarctic Survey have determined that the levels of microplastics are five times higher than previous estimates. The results were published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

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The rift in Larsen C. Photo credit: NASA

Massive Crack in Larsen C Ice Shelf Grew 11 Miles in 6 Days

The widening crack in Antarctica's Larsen C Ice Shelf has grown even longer. An iceberg the size of Delaware is now precariously hanging on to the main ice shelf by 8 miles of ice.

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