Climate Change Archive

For decades, market fundamentalists pitted capitalism against environmentalism, as if the global economy could be insulated from shocks to the health and stability of the biosphere. At last, those days are ending, and economists and corporate leaders are recognizing the costs of running down Earth’s natural capital. Last week, the nonpartisan business group Environmental Entrepreneurs announced that in 2021 alone, “climate change-related natural disasters inflicted nearly $150 billion in damage to America’s economy.” The U.S. plight is part of a broader pattern. On April 26, the United Nations Office of Disaster Risk Reduction, or UNDRR, declared that the world as […]

Climate change is pushing the world’s oceans toward a mass extinction event, according to a new report published in Science late last month. The authors, Princeton’s Justin Penn and Curtis Deutsch, contend that without swift steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the vast majority of all marine species could vanish over the next three centuries, with dire consequences for the rest of life on Earth. These findings underscore the urgent need to take dramatic action against global warming and to reduce other anthropogenic strains on marine ecosystems. There is still time to limit the damage—but only if the world acts quickly. As a terrestrial species, […]

For everything else that makes Jair Bolsonaro unique as a Brazilian president, he is also the first in the country’s recent history to pursue an explicitly anti-environmental agenda. Since taking office in January 2019, he has promoted deforestation in the Amazon for the sake of economic development, criticized the Paris Agreement and used nationalist rhetoric to vehemently reject European criticism of his handling of the massive Amazon wildfires in 2019. Since U.S. President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, Bolsonaro has slightly moderated his discourse, but has changed little in terms of his policies. Moreover, in what could be […]

On Sunday, New Zealand finally opened its borders to visitors from 60 countries after almost two years, marking a momentous occasion for families, for the country and for the world’s battle against COVID-19. New Zealand has consistently maintained some of the strictest pandemic-related travel restrictions, and with these now lifted, it appears that at least some parts of the world have truly returned to “normal.” As more countries lift restrictions, international travel, and especially international tourism, has seen a resurgence. For the first time since 2020, people are starting to travel abroad en masse, not just to see family and friends, […]