Climate Change

Both mitigation — the efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — and adaptation to existing climate changes will be on the table at the critical climate negotiations in Paris this fall. But until recently, adaptation was considered throwing in the towel, says Heather Coleman ’04 M.E.M., the Climate Change Policy Manager at Oxfam America. In that role, Coleman works on climate policy to help protect vulnerable communities from the worst effects of climate change.

Sarah Uhl leads CATF's team focused on minimizing emissions of potent, short-lived climate pollutants including methane and black carbon. She also serves as co-chair of the Methane Partners Campaign, which advocates for nationwide methane pollution standards for the U.S. oil and gas industry. Read more

Amy Luers is currently serving as Assistant Director, Climate Resilience and Information, White House Office of Science & Technology Policy.

Marissa McMahan spent that notoriously warm summer of 2012 lobstering with her father out of Georgetown and encountered a different visitor, a large, stout gray-and-black fish she’d never seen before. The fish, which began turning up in lobster traps up and down the coast, was the black sea bass, a succulent mid-Atlantic species normally unable to tolerate Maine’s cold sea.

Today is a hot day in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is 100 degrees F in Palo Alto. At the beach it is in the 80s, and about 50 miles inland it’s hitting 110. In San Francisco, it’s 90. If the fog comes in tomorrow the beach temperatures will drop into the 60s, while staying in the 100s inland. Even in one area, the difference in temperature from a southern exposed slope to a northern exposed slope could be 15 degrees or greater.

"I spend a lot of time in the woods, and I'm not concerned that what we're seeing this year is particularly unusual," said Frank Lowenstein, deputy director of the New England Forestry Foundation. Lowenstein, who is also a member of the Environmental Studies Department at Brandeis University, said shifting climate patterns is only one part of what causes trees to change early. "We are definitely seeing weather patterns shifting in the Northeast," Lowenstein said. "We're getting more rainfall, specifically heavy rainfall."

In a bid to cement his legacy as a champion of the environment, President Obama’s administration recently unveiled regulations aimed at tackling climate change by fostering our use of clean, renewable energy. While we applaud the federal government for taking a stand on one of the most important issues of our time, we believe the most pressing issue of climate change is economic.

Climate change could initially benefit rich countries while damaging the economies of poor nations. That’s the conclusion of a new way of modelling its impact, which challenges earlier forecasts. Previous methods of estimating the economic effects of climate change usually looked at how individual sectors like agriculture or tourism would be affected, then added them all up to give the net effect on each country’s economy.

Can West Virginia comply with President Obama’s Clean Power Plan? And if so, at what cost? Those are the questions Randy Huffman is trying to answer. Huffman is Secretary of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. ... Is it even possible for West Virginia to comply? Environmental consultant Evan Hansen of Downstream Strategies says yes. He issued a report recommending an “All of the above” approach – less coal-fired power, more renewables, and increased energy efficiency.