Billy Barr moved into a remote part of the Rocky Mountains in search of solitude over 40 years ago. To avoid boredom, he documented snow levels, animal sightings, and the date flowers first bloomed. “…collectively his work has become some of the most significant indication that climate change is rearranging mountain ecosystems more dramatically and quickly than anyone imagined.”
climate change
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Hermit Who Inadvertently Shaped Climate-Change Science
Billy Barr moved into a remote part of the Rocky Mountains in search of solitude over 40 years ago. To avoid boredom, he documented snow levels, animal sightings, and the date flowers first bloomed. “…collectively his work has become some of the most significant indication that climate change is rearranging mountain ecosystems more dramatically and […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Changing Face of Reindeer Herding
The Economist goes into the frigid north to examine how climate change and economics have endangered the centuries-old relationship between Finn and reindeer.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Are We Too Late to Save Antarctica?
On a cruise through Antarctica’s stunning (and endangered) landscapes, Julia Whitty observes the spectre of climate change from up close.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Can We Sustain Our Coffee Habit?
[Dr. Stephen] Gliessman argues that these resilient coffee forests will be able to survive climate change. “It is the low elevation robusta variety of coffee and the coffee that is grown in large monoculture, full sun plantations (the bulk of the coffee traded on the open commodity market) that will not be resilient.” Single species […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
National Audubon Society v. Jonathan Franzen
It’s not clear what the Audubon Society did to piss off Jonathan Franzen. But the Audubon that emerges from Franzen’s essay is a band of once-scrappy conservationists who have grown content to peddle squeaky plush toys and holiday cards; we’ve seized on climate change, apparently, in a last grab at relevance. In order to gin up […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Is ‘Garden City’ Urbanism the Answer?
Could garden cities help fix these problems? Advocates think so. They argue that garden cities can deliver the humane, sustainable, equitable communities that people want and the planet needs, by slashing emissions, preserving green space, and encouraging neighborly interaction. Today, garden-city projects are popping up from England to India to Cambodia. In particular, China, where […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Climate Change and the Language of Mourning
There is the scientific and ideological language for what is happening to the weather, but there are hardly any intimate words. Is that surprising? People in mourning tend to use euphemism; likewise the guilty and ashamed. The most melancholy of all the euphemisms: “The new normal.” “It’s the new normal,” I think, as a beloved […]
Posted inUncategorized
Meet the researchers who are developing new methods for countering global warming using geoengineering. Some solutions come with great risks: While such tactics could clearly fail, perhaps the greater concern is what might happen if they succeeded in ways nobody had envisioned. Injecting sulfur dioxide, or particles that perform a similar function, would rapidly lower […]