“One of the reasons we’re studying Thwaites Glacier is because of its shape,” says Dustin Schroeder, adding that like the Antarctic ice sheets themselves, the massive glacier could have been a big contributor to sea level rise in the past.
Rob Jackson speaks about the Global Carbon Project, which projects that global carbon dioxide emissions from coal, oil and natural gas are set to hit another record high this year.
"I am, I have to confess, not very optimistic that in a five-to-year timescale, we'll see a peak in emissions," says Rob Jackson about the continued rise in carbon emissions. "I hope I'm wrong. I really hope I'm wrong."
Natural gas use is surging across the world and fossil fuel emissions are hitting records that are unsustainable for the planet. "Any growth is more than we can afford right now,” says Rob Jackson. “What we need is for emissions to stabilize and drop.”
Mathieu Lapôtre's research helps quantify how vegetation influences river mobility and proposes a new theory on how river movement may have influenced ancient Earth’s climate.
America’s biggest rail companies—which move the majority of the country’s coal—have spent millions to deny climate science and block climate policy. Rob Jackson comments on emissions embedded in coal.
Although natural gas burns more cleanly than coal, it’s still one of the biggest sources of climate pollution. Globally, planet-warming carbon emissions from natural gas are rising more quickly than emissions from coal are falling, according to research led by Rob Jackson.
“Cows are pretty disgusting eaters, with methane coming from both ends,” says Chris Field about a claim made by Jack Black about the merits of veganism. “But most of it comes from burping.”
“Humans are really good at dealing with a variety of different conditions,” Noah Diffenbaugh said. “What climate change is doing is changing which conditions occur where.”
"Unless natural gas is replacing coal, it isn't a bridge fuel. Unless it is coupled with carbon capture and sequestration, it isn't a bridge fuel," says Rob Jackson.
"I don’t know of any other oil company that has pledged to be carbon-neutral, including the burning of their products,” says Rob Jackson about Spanish oil giant Repsol SA announcing their ambitious reduction efforts. “That is quite remarkable.”
"It's hard to view slower growth as good news. But nonetheless, compared to last year and 2017 the growth rate was down substantially. What we need is for emissions to decline, not to rise slowly," says Rob Jackson.
"The two places where renewables and natural gas are both displacing coal are here in the United States and in Europe," Rob Jackson says. But elsewhere around the world, "most of the new gas being burned isn't replacing coal – it's providing new energy for people."
“Even without knowing what the current level of greenhouse gas concentrations would be, the climate models predicted the evolution of global temperature quite well,” says Noah Diffenbaugh. “We have one planet Earth, so we can’t conduct controlled experiments on the actual climate system."
