This latest season of heat and drought is driving home to many of us, that in order to protect our families from needless impacts, we need to take steps to avoid looming climate bankruptcy.

In the News is a Planet Change selection of the latest news on climate change, nature, our environment and the impacts of a changing planet. Continue reading to delve into all that we find interesting this week and to watch a fun and informative video on coral reefs.

In the News is a Planet Change selection of the latest news on climate change, nature, our environment and the impacts of a changing planet. Continue reading to delve into all that we find interesting this week.

The Cincinnati City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to pass a resolution urging the EPA to reduce carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act.

A Nature Conservancy marine scientist has co-authored a new study that isolates the effects of human-generated carbon pollution from seasonal and regional variations in ocean chemistry. The findings indicate that the oceans are rapidly becoming more acidic, and in some regions, the man-made rate of change since the Industrial Revolution is 100 times greater than the natural variations since the last ice age.

Heading into the Christmas holiday weekend, Planet Change is celebrating the season with a trio of videos all about Christmas trees.

In this video, Frank Lowenstein, director of climate adaptation for The Nature Conservancy shares the top five reasons why you should consider a real, live green tree for your holiday decorations.

As someone who’s worked at The Nature Conservancy for over 15 years, I suppose you could say I’m a professional tree-hugger. In fact, a large portion of my professional life has been spent protecting forest health. So what I’m going to say next may sound a bit out of character: This holiday season, go cut down a tree. And ask your friends and family to do the same.

Climate change is helping to make extreme and wacky weather events part of a new “normal” that we need to be prepared for as best we can.

Last Saturday evening while walking to the variety show at my son’s college, snow began to fall, mixing with the puddles from the day’s rain and clinging to boots and the hems of jeans. Two hours later the world had changed. The streets of Waltham, Massachusetts were nearly impassable—not due to the few inches of snow that had accumulated, but to the branches and even whole trees that had bent and fallen into the roads.

Professionals ranging from scientists to military leaders have all concluded that our world’s climate is changing, and they are asking policy makers to start getting America ready for the impending changes.

A couple of weeks ago, King5.com (Seattle local news) posted a story about an Oklahoma man who fried an egg in his car. The inside of the car reached 181 degrees. Yeah, for much of the U.S. recently, it’s been really, REALLY hot. So, last Friday, with the backdrop of an oppressive heat wave over [...]

The other day I was trying to decide whether or not I should go sledding. While this may not sound like a momentous or difficult decision, please remember that it’s July and I live in the Amazon.

It’s time to get in the car with Forest Carbon, put the roof down, turn on the ignition, throw on some Chris De Burgh and ease on out onto the open road.

Relationships take work, and this one takes the cake. But it’s worth it because this is really monumental. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Forest Carbon is the first big chance to measure one of nature’s benefits with a single elegant unit of measurement (carbon) that circulates around the world, just like the dollar.

Our pilot program in the municipality of São Félix do Xingu will provide an example to the state of Pará and to Brazil for how to count the carbon that is stored in the trees, generate revenue through payments for reducing carbon pollution, and create participatory processes to direct that revenue to places where it will have the most impact. If we are successful, perhaps future generations will have a parade, like the bumba-meu-boi parade, that celebrates the story of a rancher’s prized tree — standing tall in the Amazon — that was once cut down but later restored.

Climate change is upon us. There’s a risk that the populace will jump from disbelief to despondency, with no space for the critical emotion of outrage and the determination to do what we can to prevent runaway climate change and to start planning for how we will adapt to the slower changes. The headlines are not the whole story. Let’s not give up before we start.

The lives of humans and forests are interlinked, and preserving our forests is crucial to preserving our quality of life.

Yesterday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie indicated that he would like to suspend New Jersey’s participation in of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the successful Northeastern regional program to reduce carbon pollution. This would be an unfortunate course of action, and we hope that New Jersey’s leaders find a way to keep RGGI alive in the Garden State.