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82 stories tagged ‘Climate Change’
Humanitarian relief workers and climate scientists gathered in Cambridge this week to discuss the connection between climate change and humanitarian disasters and what relief workers can learn from science.
Building with an eye on the sky
Real estate developer Jonathan Rose highlighted recent progress in incorporating green features into affordable housing projects, saying America’s cities provide an energetic counterpoint to the stagnation in Washington, D.C.
People would like to predict the future, says author and mathematician David Orrell, but it remains quite a difficult thing to do, even with lots of data at hand.
Earth feels impact of middle class
The rise of the middle class is a bigger environmental challenge than the rising global population, according to Sir David King, the former science adviser to the British government, who urged the adoption of sustainable development as a way to manage growing global demands in a finite world.
The Harvard University Police Department rolled out six new patrol cars last month. But it wasn’t the flashing lights or fresh paint jobs that were turning heads. It was the 47 mpg, gas-electric hybrid motor under the hoods.
A report co-authored by Professor Michael McElroy and D. James Baker, a former administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, connects global climate change, extreme weather, and national security.
A groundswell on climate change
More vigorous grassroots social action is needed to drive the reforms that could address climate change, panelists said during a discussion at Sanders Theatre.
Former Vice President Al Gore repeated his call for action on climate change Wednesday, saying society is treating the skies as an “open sewer.” He spoke at Harvard’s Memorial Church in a session sponsored by the Harvard School of Public Health’s Center for Health and the Global Environment.
In a question-and-answer session, Professor Robert Stavins discusses the recent international conference on climate change, and the prospects for nations to reach agreement on a plan to confront it.
Harvard researchers have concluded that omitting the adaptive ability of crops from assessments of potential damages from a warming climate could substantially overestimate losses to U.S. maize yields.
Disaster relief dollars flowing to those affected by hurricanes like Sandy and Katrina represent an important opportunity to ensure that communities are better able to withstand the stronger storms and higher seas likely coming as climate change worsens, panelists said.
An international regulatory framework is needed to govern possible research and deployment of engineering approaches to counter climate change, an authority on environmental law says.
Sometimes spring flowers occur in fall
Although there are notable exceptions, the majority of flowering plants in the Arnold Arboretum’s Living Collection bloom over the course of spring and early summer. While it is normal for some plants like the Franklin tree (Franklinia alatamaha) to flower in early fall, the autumn or winter occurence of flowers on plants that normally bloom [...]
Superstorm Sandy’s hurricane winds and torrential downpours killed at least 106 people, left millions without power, and caused billions of dollars in damage. It also got people talking again about climate change.
By tailoring geoengineering efforts by region and by need, a new model promises to maximize the effectiveness of solar radiation management while mitigating its potential side effects and risks.
Harvard has released a sustainability impact report that provides a University-wide snapshot of the progress that has been made by students, staff, and faculty to reduce the environmental footprint and increase the operational efficiency of Harvard’s campus.
A close eye on population growth
Joel Cohen, head of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller and Columbia universities, looked at the latest projections for world population growth, and factors that could alter them, in a Harvard talk.
A Harvard study reveals that over the past 19 years, a warming climate has been reshaping Massachusetts butterfly communities.
Using evolution to understand pollution
A tool rarely used to understand the impact of pollution on the natural world is evolution, an oversight that an environmental toxicologist says is robbing investigators of important information.
The tangled web around spiders
A biologist with an affinity for spiders shared his passion, taking the audience on a tour of arachnids large and small and making a pitch for their conservation as natural pest control.
Airborne pollutants lead a double life
Researchers at Harvard University and the University of British Columbia (UBC) have provided visual evidence that atmospheric particles — which are ubiquitous, especially above densely populated areas — separate into distinct chemical compositions during their life cycle.
Concerns about climate change, health
A team of researchers led by James G. Anderson, the Philip S. Weld Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry, warns that a newly discovered connection between climate change and depletion of the ozone layer over the U.S. could allow more damaging ultraviolet (UV) radiation to reach the Earth’s surface, leading to increased incidence of skin cancer.
Harvard researchers probe environmental shifts on Martha’s Vineyard, where they document one wooded area’s recovery from a massive die-off and another’s passage into the ocean.
‘Warming hole’ delayed climate change
Climate scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have discovered that particulate pollution in the late 20th century created a "warming hole" over the eastern United States — that is, a cold patch where the effects of global warming were temporarily obscured.
Illuminating carbon’s climate effects
Harvard researchers compiled ice and sedimentary core samples collected from dozens of locations around the world, and found evidence that while changes in Earth’s orbit may have touched off a warming trend, increases in CO2 played a far more important role in pushing the planet out of the ice age.
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