Climate

Climate change brought on by human activities lead to acute and chronic hazards that threaten the planet; to reduce the chances of the most dangerous and irreversible damage, the global community must reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide. While more than 70 countries (~80% of global CO2 emissions and ~90% of global GDP) and over 5,000 influential companies have adopted net-zero commitments, coordination of an effort to this scale, given the complex economic, societal, governance and infrastructure considerations, is no easy feat.

Community input matters in long-term decisions related to climate change, including the development of public infrastructure. In order to assess the effect of different ways of informing the public about infrastructure projects, a sample of people in the United States (n = 630) was provided with a case study concerning the redevelopment of the San Diego Airport. Participants received the same written information about the projected future condition of the airport.

Investing in the next generation of nuclear reactors could give the world an important tool for reducing carbon emissions.

Climate change is a complex phenomenon that the public learns about both abstractly through media and education, and concretely through personal experiences. While public beliefs about global warming may be controversial in some circles, an emerging body of research on the ‘local warming’ effect suggests that people’s judgments of climate change or global warming are impacted by recent, local temperatures.

The social cost of nitrous oxide does not account for stratospheric ozone depletion. Doing so could increase its value by 20%. Links between nitrous oxide and other nitrogen pollution impacts could make mitigation even more compelling.

As the prospect of average global warming exceeding 1.5°C becomes increasingly likely, interest in supplementing mitigation and adaptation with solar geoengineering (SG) responses will almost certainly rise. For example stratospheric aerosol injection to cool the planet could offset some of the warming for a given accumulation of atmospheric greenhouse gases (1). However, the physical and social science literature on SG remains modest compared with mitigation and adaptation.

It is tempting to dismiss personal responsibility for lowering one’s carbon footprint. After all, it was bp that popularised the concept in the mid-aughts, telling everyone that it was “time to go on a low-carbon diet”.

Stabilizing the world’s climates means cutting carbon dioxide pollution. There’s no way around it. But what if that’s not enough? What if it’s so late in the game that even cutting carbon emissions to zero, tomorrow, wouldn’t do?

Enter solar geoengineering.

The principle is simple: attempt to cool Earth by reflecting more sunlight back into space. The primary mechanism, shooting particles into the upper atmosphere, implies more pollution, not less. If that doesn’t sound scary, it should. There are lots of risks, unknowns, and unknowables.

Hotter temperature can reduce labor productivity, work hours, and labor income. The effects of heat are likely to be a joint consequence of both exposure and vulnerability. Here we explore the impacts of heat on labor income in the US, using regional wealth as a proxy for vulnerability. We find that one additional day >32 °C (90 °F) lowers annual payroll by 0.04%, equal to 2.1% of average weekly earnings. Accounting for humidity results in slightly more precise estimates.