Global Warming

Climate vs Lifestyle

A new study finds that the public won’t be willing to do the most important things necessary to cut their carbon footprint unless they are forced to through the introduction of new regulations.

Because household consumption and travel habits contribute 72 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, a team of scientists asked urban residents in five European countries what they would be willing to do to combat climate change.

The lifestyle changes they said they would be willing to adopt would cut only about 50 percent of the emissions needed by 2030 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

While those interviewed were somewhat more willing to change what they eat, such as consuming less meat, they were far less inclined to fly less and cut back on their vehicle use.

“We are entering territory that is very much taboo,” says one of the report’s authors, Benjamin Sovacool. “The things we may have to force or nudge people to do are more intertwined with identity. They are stickier, harder to change.”

The Svalbard 'Doomsday Vault' is succumbing to global warming

Just over a decade after it first opened, the world's "doomsday vault" of seeds is imperiled by global warming as the polar region where it's located warms faster than any other area on the planet.

Embedded deep in the permafrost of a remote island in the Svalbard archipelago, halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault was built to withstand the test of time - including climate change - and the challenge of any natural or man-made disasters.

Opened in 2008, the seed vault contains nearly one million packets of seeds, all carefully labeled. The seeds come from almost every country in the world and are a vast sampling of unique varieties of major African and Asian food staples such as maize, rice, wheat, cowpea, and sorghum to European and South American varieties of lettuce, eggplant, squash, and potatoes.

The seed vault was built to be indestructible but in May of 2017, soaring Arctic temperatures, coming at the end of the world's hottest year on record proved the scientists to be wrong. The extreme temperatures and rainfall started thawing the permafrost deep inside the mountain where the vault is located.

A 105-page report based on research published by the Norwegian Centre for Climate Services (NCCS) released this year, revealed that the islands that make up the Svalbard archipelago where the Seed Vault is located are experiencing rapid warming.

The thawing permafrost, once as hard as rock, has made the ground unstable, causing great cracks to form in buildings and structures to sink.