We slipped on the ice, scrambled for child care and spent good money on snow and ice dam removal. We saw barns collapse and were forced to cancel, cancel, cancel. As Minnesotans, we expect winter disruptions, but this winter put those expectations -- and the systems designed to meet them -- to the test.
As students around the globe participate in Earth Day, a new NPR/Ipsos poll finds 55 percent of teachers don't teach or talk about climate change and 46 percent of parents haven't discussed it with their kids.
Walmart, GM, Google, Johnson & Johnson and other corporations are forming a trade organization to promote the interests of renewable energy buyers. The group hopes to remove barriers to going green.
The military has warned that climate change is a security threat on many fronts. That includes "through direct impacts on U.S. military infrastructure and by affecting factors, including food and water availability, that can exacerbate conflict outside U.S. borders," the government's grim climate report said last year.
Minnesota is among the fastest warming states, and Minnesota's winters are warming faster than its other seasons. Data show that since 1970, Minnesota's winters have warmed at an average rate of 1.1 degrees per decade -- that's more than five times faster than the rate of winter warming in previous years.
Students around the world and across the U.S. skipped classes Friday to protest inaction on climate change. It's part of a wave of pressure from young people who say their future is at stake.
The report concludes "unsustainable human activities globally have degraded the Earth's ecosystems, endangering the ecological foundations of society." But it also says changes in the way the world eats, buys things, gets its energy and handles its waste could help fix the problems.
Let's imagine that we've ended global warming. Humans no longer are releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Here's what life is like in a zero-carbon world.
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