Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... Graphic of the Week... SkS in the News... SkS Spotlights... Video of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... Climate Feedback Reviews... SkS Week in Review... 97 Hours of Consensus...
The rise of the machines isn’t the biggest threat to humanity. It’s climate change, extreme weather and other environmental factors.
The World Economic Forum surveyed 750 experts on what the most likely and impactful risks facing humanity are in 2017. In a report released Thursday, they ranked extreme weather as the most likely risk and the second-most impactful, trailing only the use of weapons of mass destruction. Climate change is responsible for driving an increase in the likelihood and intensity of extreme weather events, notably heat waves.
Failing to adapt to or mitigate climate change and a host of other climate-connected risks including water and food crises and involuntary migration also rank in the top 10.
A matrix outlining the most likely and most impactful risks facing the world in 2017. Credit: World Economic Forum
Climate Change Is the World’s Biggest Risk, in 3 Charts by Brian Kahn, Climate Central, Jan 12, 2017
Mr. Pruitt, if confirmed, will take over the agency in an odd position: He has spent the last seven years suing it to block regulations that he would be expected to put into effect and enforce. Some legal scholars say he should recuse himself from major pending environmental matters, while groups like the Environmental Defense Fund are urging Congress to reject his confirmation.
“The president’s choices deserve a lot of deference from Congress and even environmental groups,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. “But at some point when the nominee has spent his entire career attempting to dismantle environmental protections, it becomes unacceptable. That’s why Mr. Pruitt is the first E.P.A. nominee from either party that the Environmental Defense Fund has opposed in our 50-year history.”
Scott Pruitt, Trump’s E.P.A. Pick, Backed Industry Donors Over Regulators by Eric Lipton & Coral Davenport, New York Times, Jan 14, 2017
Winter Warming Trends in the U.S., Climate Central, Jan 4, 20117
I'm in the process of writing up a longer post on climate change, something we know to be true based on scientific data. Regardless of one's beliefs, the world's climate is warming and that warming is primarily caused by humans. The data is absolutely clear on this. Before digging deeper into this, however, I want to share with you an amazing website that helps clear up some of the misconceptions regarding climate change. The name of the site is Skeptical Science.
Climate Change - SkepticalScience.com, Cool Science Dad, Jan 9, 2017
The Center for Climate and Security (CCS), a non-partisan security and foreign policy institute with a distinguished Advisory Board of military, security and foreign policy experts, envisions a climate-resilient international security landscape. This is a world which recognizes that climate change threats to international security are significant and unprecedented, and acts to address those threats in a manner that is commensurate to their scale, consequence and probability. To further this goal, CCS facilitates policy development processes and dialogues, provides analysis, conducts research, and acts as a resource hub in the climate and security field.
CIA Director Designate Evasive on Climate Change, Climate Denial Crock of the Week, Jan 13, 2017
Climate Feedback asked its network of scientists to review the article, Ocean acidification: yet another wobbly pillar of climate alarmism by James Delingpole, Spectator. April 20, 2016. Six scientists analyzed the article and estimated its overall scientific credibility to be 'very low'.
Click here to access the detailed review.
Ailie Gallant's bio page & Quote source
High resolution JPEG (1024 pixels wide)
Posted by John Hartz on Sunday, 15 January, 2017
The Skeptical Science website by Skeptical Science is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. |