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Maybe we should retire the term “global warming,” which makes climate change sound like a nice, pleasant bath. It’s true that climate change—caused chiefly by the rapid increase in manmade carbon emissions—will result in warmer temperatures, fewer cold days and longer and more intense heat waves. But the real damage, both economically and in human [...]
Water is a fact of life in Thailand and its capital of Bangkok, where one of the easiest ways to get around the traffic-clogged megacity is on water taxis. This is a country, after all, that celebrates a water festival—involving some serious Super Soakers—every year. But weeks of rains have caused the worst floods Thailand [...]
The people of Soay Island, off the west coast of Scotland, have notice something strange. Over the years, their sheep have begun to shrink, as I wrote in 2009: Why? In short, because of climate change. Generally, the sheep’s life cycle goes like this: they fatten up on grass during the fertile, sunny summer; then [...]
2010 was a pretty serious year for Atlantic hurricanes. The season tied with 1995 and 1887 for the third largest number of named storm, with 19, and tied with 1969 for the second largest number of hurricanes, with 12. One of those hurricanes—Earl—reached Category 4 status, with winds hitting a maximum of 145 mph, stronger [...]
Maybe, like Al Gore, you believe we are our own worst enemies in battling climate change. You too might think politicians manufacture denial-rhetoric to appease special interest groups, that industries are stubborn and cowardly in their resistance to the facts, and that the media sees science as a playground for concocting deception and falsehood. If [...]
When I woke up today at my apartment in upper Manhattan, it was nearly 80 F. It’s nearly 90 F right now, and it will likely scrape 100 F before the day is blessedly over. On a weather map, the entire broiling eastern half of the U.S. looks like it has a bad Memorial Day [...]
Thanks to the spring from hell—in the U.S., at least—much of the concern about climate change has shifted to the fear of the violent weather that could become the norm in a warmer world. (See Sharon Begley’s sobering take in Newsweek.) But while tornadoes and hurricanes and floods may get our attention, the greater threat [...]
The hidden story of 2011 has been the record-breaking rise in global food prices. Global corn prices doubled between April 2010 and April 2011, while wheat prices are up some 60 to 80%. Exactly why food has gotten so expensive in recent months is the subject of an ongoing debate—biofuel policy, inflation, oil prices, natural [...]
Yesterday afternoon, as we were closing this week’s issue of Time, I ended up in a debate with one of my editors over how the air travel system had responded to a December of terrible weather. I’d written a short piece coming out in the magazine describing the travel Armageddon the storm had created for [...]
Of all the projected impacts of climate change, the scariest one in a world is the effect warming could have on our ability to feed ourselves. Scientists have looked at the impact of major heat waves in the past, and have found that such abnormally hot weather tends to hurt agriculture, with maize productivity levels [...]
