You are already very familiar with bamboo. Where did you learn about its climate change potential? Before [my post with the UNFCCC] I was the Climate and Environment Director of the FAO, which is not only a food and agriculture organisation but also the world forestry organisation. We were looking into combined solutions for climate change mitigation, adaptation, and disaster risk reduction. Very much like mangroves in coastal regions, bamboo offers a lot of benefits that rea

President Trump’s own Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conceded Tuesday that replacing President Obama’s climate plan for electric utilities with his new plan will be a public health disaster and cost the economy billions. Obama’s original “Clean Power Plan” would significantly reduce both carbon pollution and many toxic pollutants, including fine particulate matter and ozone smog. Trump’s new “Affordable Clean Energy Plan” proposes to scuttle the Obama plan and replace

Australia is suffering its worst drought in living memory, as dozens of bushfires are blazing out of control. It's hard to believe that it's winter "down under." Summer is yet to come. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Sunday committed 1.8 billion Australian dollars ($1.3 billion) in relief funds for farmers, whose livelihoods are disappearing down the cracks of their dry, barren land. The very next day, he announced he was dropping a national policy to cut carbon

The Arctic is warming at a rate twice as fast as the rest of the globe, and now the region's thickest and oldest sea ice—also known as "the last ice area"—is breaking up for the first time on record, the Guardian reported Tuesday. The breakage has opened up waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen-solid even in the peak of summer. The loss of ice, which meteorologist Thomas Lavergne called "scary," has already been seen twice this year due to warm winds and a climat

EARTH is smouldering. From Seattle to Siberia this summer, flames have consumed swathes of the northern hemisphere. One of 18 wildfires sweeping through California, among the worst in the state’s history, is generating such heat that it created its own weather. Fires that raged through a coastal area near Athens last week killed 91 (see article). Elsewhere people are suffocating in the heat. Roughly 125 have died in Japan as the result of a heatwave that pushed temperatures i

In 2008, coffee rust almost killed Colombia's $2.6 billion coffee industry. A decade later, it's about to harvest its biggest ever crop. Colombia managed to turn things around with significant government intervention, research into the disease and by planting varieties resistant to the fungus. The battle, however, is not over. Coffee rust -- or la roya as it's called in Latin America -- is a persistent problem, exacerbated by climate change. It's making coffee more and more e

This summer of fire and swelter looks a lot like the future that scientists have been warning about in the era of climate change, and it’s revealing in real time how unprepared much of the world remains for life on a hotter planet. The disruptions to everyday life have been far-reaching and devastating. In California, firefighters are racing to control what has become the largest fire in state history. Harvests of staple grains like wheat and corn are expected to dip this yea

The water comes slowly at first. The skies open up in the afternoon now. People start avoiding certain streets at high tide. The nuisances pile up. Houses get raised, then raised again. Insurance people are talking about “repetitive loss properties.” Homeowners are worrying. Or the water comes suddenly. In the high tide during a nor’easter that breaks records. Or in the sudden downpour that causes rivers to overrun their banks yet again. Or in the hurricane that floods neighb

London: Huge, deadly wildfires in Greece and California, forest fires out of control across Sweden, a record-setting heatwave in northern Europe, heatstroke deaths up fourfold in a baking Tokyo … and British academic Dr Rupert Read got a call. BBC Radio Cambridgeshire wanted the Green House think tank chairman to debate climate change on air with a climate science denier. https://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/could-the-heat-and-extreme-weather-shift-climate-change-denial

Each year, Dylan Jennings harvests wild rice from the lakes and rivers near his home in northern Wisconsin. He and a partner use a canoe, nosing carefully through rice beds and knocking rice kernels into the boat's hull using special sticks. "It's a really long process," he says. "It starts with identifying the area where you are going to go ricing and knowing those areas in a very intimate way." Northern wild rice, also known as manoomin, is a staple food in Ojibwe communiti