Plan now for climate-related disasters: U.N. report (Reuters) – A future on Earth of more extreme weather and rising seas will require better planning for natural disasters to save lives and limit deepening economic losses, the United Nations said on Wednesday in a major report on the effects of climate change. The U.N. climate panel [...]
Ever since the global food price spike in 2007-2008, grain crops, which make up half of the total human caloric intake around the world, have been subject to much discussion as climate impacts such as droughts, heat waves and temperatures increases have continued to shift their prices upward. A recent article by Janet Larsen of [...]
Recovery from Hurricane Irene is taxing the rescue and recovery resources of areas of the eastern United States hit last weekend by 115-mile-per-hour winds. Coastal residents are dealing with damage from extreme wind and storm surge, and towns hundreds of miles inland are experiencing severe flooding and rushing water that have resulted in hundreds of [...]
Forest fires have already left an indelible imprint in 2011, according to Renata D’Aliesio’s article, 2011 shaping up to be the year of the forest fire, published in the Globe and Mail. Flames razed or heavily damaged nearly 500 homes and businesses in the northern Alberta town of Slave Lake, while the threat of destruction [...]
In the American south, 14 states are baking in blast-furnace conditions — from Arizona, which is battling the largest wildfire in its history, to Florida, where fires have burned some 200,000 acres so far. Climatologists call drought a creeping disaster because its effects are not felt at once; however, there is little disagreement about the [...]
By Deborah Harford As published in the June 15, 2011 Embassy feature: Climate Security: Preparing for a future of increasing uncertainty on page 19. When we talk about security we mean a number of things, key among these being physical safety and economic stability. Both forms of security depend on systems that protect and support [...]
Global climate change is anticipated to drive increasingly extreme weather phenomena, such as heat waves that impact human health, in the coming decades. A recent analysis led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health calculates that the city of Chicago could experience between 166 and 2,217 excess deaths per year attributable [...]
When a topic like ‘extreme weather’ gets front-page coverage on Canada’s leading current affairs magazine, you can bet that policy-makers are listening. On August 30, 2010, Maclean’s ran a cover story on extreme weather events – an undeniable reality-check that every country, community, and industry is in need of ways to adapt to the extreme [...]
