The municipality that has billed itself as “Canada’s most sustainable city“ since 2009 now has some solid evidence to back up the claim. The November issue of the journal Climatic Change contains a ranking of the climate-change plans of 63 Canadian municipalities — and Kingston comes out on top. Plans were evaluated based on eight criteria, including how a community sets its climate goals, how effective those goals are, and how it measures and achieves progress. Municipalities are the “most…

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We don’t recommend taking personal actions like limiting plane rides, eating less meat, or investing in solar energy because all of these small tweaks will build up to enough carbon savings (though it could help). We do so because people taking action in their personal lives is actually one of the best ways to get to a society that implements the policy-level change that is truly needed. Research on social behavior suggests lifestyle change can build momentum for systemic change….

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The new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, is out. Its prognosis for the planet is grim: We may have as little as 12 years to act on climate change — to slash global emissions 45 percent — to reach this target. The report was commissioned by the United Nations to see what would happen if global average temperatures rose by 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, and…

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The scorching temperatures and forest fires of this summer’s heatwave have finally stirred the world to face the onrushing threat of global warming, claims the climate scientist behind the recent “hothouse Earth” report. Following an unprecedented 270,000 downloads of his study, Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, said he had not seen such a surge of interest since 2007, the year the Nobel prize was awarded to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “I…

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQliow4ghtU&w=560&h=315] Is there a link between the vanishing Arctic sea ice and extreme weather? Some prominent climate researchers think so. That’s because warming temperatures in the Arctic are altering the behavior of the polar jet stream, a high-altitude river of air that drives weather patterns across the globe. As the winds that propel the jet stream weaken, storms, droughts, and extreme heat and cold move over continents at slower rates, meaning bad weather can stick around for longer. Eli…

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