If we stand together against powerful special interests we can eliminate poverty, increase life expectancy and tackle climate change...

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Valerie Trouet takes a pencil-thin core from an old Bosnian pine (Pinus heldreichii) growing on Mount Olympus in Greece. (Photo: Greg King © 2010)

By using tree rings, the UA-led team developed the first reconstruction of historical changes in the North Atlantic jet stream prior to the 20th century...

A truly global foe. Photographer: Ricardo R. Guzman/U.S. Navy via Getty Images

The Trump administration is ignoring a huge threat to national security and global stability...

In this photo provided by Santa Barbara County fire department, Kerry Mann navigates the large boulders and mudflow that destroyed the home of her friend in Montecito, California. Photograph: Xinhua / Barcroft Images

Montecito is a scene of devastation after an avalanche of mud and debris swept through the wealthy enclave north of Los Angeles leaving 18 dead...

Harvesting rice. Phuong D. Nguyen / Shutterstock.com

Below is a chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook page during the past week. 

Editor's Pick:

Climate change is triggering a migrant crisis in Vietnam...

For farmworkers, the difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius warming can be the loss or survival of crops and the ability to labor all day in high heat. A 2016 heat wave and drought dried up this farmer's crop in the Philippines and led to deadly protests as people went hungry. Credit: Jes Aznar/Getty Images

The difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees is 'a greater likelihood of drought, flooding, resource depletion, conflict and forced migration,’ a new IPCC draft warns...

This figure is from paper #20.

A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below...

The street sign for the Moselle street is flooded by the river Moselle in Reil, Germany, January 5, 2018. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

"More than half of the United States must at least double their protection level within the next two decades"...

Despite some inroads, Christians remain largely unconcerned about the environment...

Eugene Mullen clears his driveway in Norwell, Mass. in frigid conditions on Jan. 5, 2018. Image: Charles Krupa/AP/REX/Shutterstock

The first week of January was the coldest such week on record in most locations in the Eastern United States. It was so frigid that week, and the week preceding it, that sea ice formed around Cape Cod and Chesapeake Bay, sharks froze to death on Massachusetts beaches, and alligators went into a resting state while entombed in ice...

U.S. President Trump holds joint news conference with Norwegian Prime Minister Solberg at the White House in Washington Thomson Reuters

WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Wednesday his primary concern with the Paris climate accord was that it treated the United States unfairly and that if a better deal could be reached, Washington might be persuaded to rejoin the agreement...

Superstorm Sandy flooded New York's subway and highway tunnels, buildings and parking garages in 2012, causing about $19 billion in dollars in damage there. The city has been developing storm surge protection plans as sea level rises. Credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images.

The lawsuit against Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell and ConocoPhillips is the latest from a coastal city seeking to hold fossil fuel producers accountable...

Fires raged across Southern California, leaving a charred landscape vulnerable to erosion after heavy rains.CrClockwise from top left, Noah Berger/Associated Press; Hilary Swift for The New York Times; Mike Eliason/Santa Barbara County Fire, via European Pressphoto Agency; Eric Risberg/Associated Press

This week, we’re looking at the causes behind California’s mudslides; why coal and nuclear power are fighting for survival; and the Trump administration’s effort to delete “climate change.”

Some coastal California cities now build up sand berms to help protect houses from storm surges and high tides. Others are dealing with erosion and coastal flooding as sea levels rise with climate change. Credit: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

The oil giant is attacking its accusers through a Texas court, similar to how it tried to block investor fraud investigations by New York and Massachusetts...

‘A Frost Fair on the Thames at Temple Stairs’, c1684. These fairs held on the frozen River Thames in the UK are often referenced by those peddling the ‘impending mini ice age’ myth. Photograph: Heritage Images/Getty Images

We can’t accurately predict solar activity, and a quiet solar cycle would have a small impact on Earth’s climate anyway...

A brown pelican tries to raise its wings as it sits on the beach at East Grand Terre Island along the Louisiana coast after being drenched in oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. An April 20, 2010 explosion at the offshore platform killed 11 men, and the subsequent leak released an estimated 172 million gallons of petroleum into the gulf. Photo: AP

Oil drilling is not healthy for America's coastal waters, nor is Trump administration policy that rides roughshod over states, 37 Democratic senators said Tuesday in a blunt reprimand to U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke...

Satellite image showing Hurricane Harvey approaching the Texas coast on Aug. 25, 2017. Image: noaa/nasa

A disastrous hurricane season combined with wildfires and other extreme weather events inflicted a record-setting toll on the U.S. in 2017, with 16 billion-dollar weather and climate events costing a total of $306 billion in damage. These events caused 362 direct deaths...

Photo: Dreamstime, TNS

In a court filing submitted Monday, Exxon Mobil said California communities quietly met six years ago to concoct plans to use government investigations and legal action to force oil producers to respond to climate change...

People walk through floodwater near Interstate 10 in Houston on Aug. 27, in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria combined with devastating Western wildfires and other natural catastrophes to make 2017 the most expensive year on record for disasters, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Monday...

Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, on Sunday as the temperature reached as high as 117 degrees.CreditGlenn Campbell/European Pressphoto Agency

You probably heard about the arctic blast that turned much of North America into a Popsicle last week, but in Australia, where Christmas is a summer holiday, it was so hot this weekend that the asphalt melted on a stretch of highway...

President Donald Trump was flanked by Vice President Mike Pence and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt as he spoke before signing an order in March 2017 designed to promote coal and roll back the Obama administration's efforts to rein in climate change. Credit: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

The administration's culture of denialism and support for fossil fuels has pushed rollbacks of policies meant to protect public health, safety and the environment...

Image: World Economic Forum

We invite you to consider the following percolating caldron of the seven most critical global challenges that face Millennials, our younger generations, and humanity...

Photo Sydneysiders are flocking to the beach to cope with the heat. AAP: Glenn Campbell

Penrith in Sydney's west has reached a top of 47.3C/117.14F, the highest temperature recorded by a weather station in the Sydney metropolitan area in 79 years...

A strong polar vortex (left, from December 2013) is centered over the Arctic. A weakened polar vortex (right, from January 2014) allows cold air to dip farther south. Credit: NOAA

The loss of sea ice may be weakening the polar vortex, allowing cold blasts to dip south from the Arctic, across North America, Europe and Russia, a new study says...

NASA

For decades, scientists have warned that climate change would make extreme events like droughts, floods, hurricanes, and wildfires more frequent, more devastating, or both...

You might ask "So what is this supposed to mean?"  Scroll down and see...

Editor's Pick:

Show this cartoon to anyone who doubts we need huge action on climate change...

This story focuses on a scenario from climate scientist Joeri Rogelj, which would give us a 66 percent chance at limiting warming to 2 degrees, which would requires no emissions by 2065, followed by negative emissions. But a previous version of this story said we would need to reach no emissions by 2050, which is part of a scenario in which we give ourselves a 50 percent chance at staying under 1.5 degrees warming — a far less realistic goal.

A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below...

Is it warm in here?(Shutterstock)

If we mean what we say, no more new fossil fuels, anywhere.

Yesterday, President Trump's Interior Department announced plans to open up oil and gas drilling in nearly all United States marine waters, putting more than 100 million offshore acres under imminent threat from the Trump administration and Big Oil.¹

This is unacceptable, and we need you to take action today!

Dr. Pablo Clemente-Colon, National Ice Center/NOAA

Drawing clear borders around the Arctic Ocean matters for the future of the people who live there — and for the planet as a whole...

Roberto Figueroa Caballero’s home in San Juan, P.R., was destroyed by Hurricane Maria last year. Credit Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press

Insurers are set to pay out a record $135 billion to cover losses from natural disasters in 2017, the world’s largest reinsurer said Thursday, driven by the costliest hurricane season ever in the United States and widespread flooding in South Asia...

NASA

What a year. Take a virtual world tour of our 21 top stories, from forest diamonds to Fiji-on-the-Rhine climate talks. Yes, Donald Trump makes an appearance...

The Perito Moreno glacier in Los Glaciares national park, southern Argentina, breaks. ‘It seems the hope and fear camps of the climate debate are each seeing only part of the puzzle.’ Photograph: Ariel Molina/EPA

Communication is everything when it comes to the climate change debate – and there isn’t just one way to speak to people’s emotions...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Anchorage, Alaska, was warmer Tuesday than Jacksonville, Florida. The weather in the U.S. is that upside down...

Niagara Falls, on the border of New York and Ontario, on Wednesday. Scientists are studying how climate change is influencing cold snaps in North America and Europe. Credit Aaron Lynett/Reuters

As bitter cold continues to grip much of North America and helps spawn the fierce storm along the East Coast, the question arises: What’s the influence of climate change?

Sea level forecast alarming: Report predicts hundreds on Big Island would be displaced, great economic loss...

Aridification is a serious threat – as well as leading to droughts and wildfires it can also have an impact on agriculture, water quality, and biodiversity. Photograph: Javier Blasco/EPA

More than 25 percent of the Earth will experience serious drought and desertification by the year 2050 if the attempts made by the Paris climate agreement to curb global warming are not met, according to a new study by the journal Nature Climate Change...

President Trump walks out after an announcement in the Rose Garden on June 1 that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News) 

President Trump made his mark in the energy and environment world during his first year in Washington. Many of his actions aimed to undo work from the Obama era....

Organic Permaculture

Together as a society we choose to embrace an agro-ecology ethic that governs our relationship with our food and the natural world or we face the coming climate anarchy including mass famine, needless societal and economic collapse, horrendous suffering and depredation, and then death. EcoInternet is committed to re-localizing, de-toxifying, and making global food systems ecologically sustainable (and more tasty, nutritious, and healthy as well). Critically this will require reducing human populations and greater equity...

Firefighters lighting backfires as they try to contain the Thomas wildfire in Ojai, California on on December 09, 2017. Photograph: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

Climate scientists predicted the rapid rise in global surface temperatures that we’re now seeing...

ouruniversevisualized.tumblr.com

Announcing the 9th annual Universe Day! Universe Day is an annual birthday for the Universe event starting December 31st at noon running through January 1st at noon...

A man rides on his bicycle on Friday, Dec. 29, 2017, in Erie, PA. (CREDIT: AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

Weather does not equal climate...

Most of our posts to our website members and subscribers at Job One, Factnet and Universe Spirit are long and science detailed.

This one is refreshingly short and simple...

Departure of surface temperature from average for December 28, 2017. Areas in red and orange are not necessarily warm, but they are above the average for this time of year at that location. While the Northeast U.S. was experiencing near-record cold, the globe as a whole was 0.5 °C above average, thanks to global warming. Image credit: ClimateReanalyzer.org, University of Maine Climate Change Institute.

Are we safe to ignore global warming because it’s cold outside?

A dance troop marches by Shell’s Norco refinery during Norco, Louisiana’s Christmas Parade. All images © Julie Dermansky

The year 2017 was, in many ways, stormy. It brought more storms super-sized due to global warming and more people, including scientists, taking to the streets in response to the political climate...

Typhoon Tembin at peak intensity over the South China Sea at 0550 UTC December 24, 2017. At the time, Tembin was a Category 1 storm with 90 mph winds. Image credit: NASA.

The relatively inactive 2017 Northwest Pacific typhoon season saved its worst for last, as the final storm of the year, Typhoon Tembin, was also the deadliest...

With any charitable organization that serves an important mission, please take advantage of the US tax deductible charitable giving deduction before midnight this December 31st.

It may not be around much longer because of current US political power holders...

Grist / Justin Sullivan / Staff / Getty Images

Editor's Pick

Vive la résistance: 10 ways people stood up for the planet in 2017...

The figure is from paper #62.

A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below...

A recent search for information on global warming returned a prominent ad for a site that rejects established climate science.

Groups that reject established climate science can use the search engine’s advertising business to their advantage, gaming the system to find a mass platform for false or misleading claims...

Flooding south of Houston in September in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. Credit: Barbara Davidson for The New York Times

STANFORD, Calif. — This was a year of devastating weather, including historic hurricanes and wildfires here in the United States. Did climate change play a role? Increasingly, scientists are able to answer that question — and increasingly, the answer is yes...

The Mexican side of the McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge, a border bridge that crosses the Rio Grande River linking Hidalgo, Texas, with Reynosa, Mexico, seen on August 18, 201)4.(Photo: MICHAEL REYNOLDS, EPA

"It's never any one thing that causes people to move," said Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton University climate scientist who's researched climate-driven migration. "But we have a lot of evidence from many different countries that relatively modest variations in the climate, that could be short-term or long-term, do cause people to move."

A man watches his house burn down during the Thomas Fire in the hills above Carpinteria, California, December 11, 2017. AFP/Getty Images

Storms, fires, floods, and heat caused unprecedented destruction in 2017. Why?