For the rural poor of Chiapas, increasing production of milk and meat means less risk of hunger, more opportunity to keep children in school, and a shot at economic advancement. Planting trees, to create shade and allow soil to absorb rains, are helping ranchers cope with the climate.

At a time when 80 percent of Americans believe Congress is doing a poor job, there is an opportunity for lawmakers to take action on an issue that would impact many millions of citizens: flood insurance reform. And, here’s the amazing part — it’s got major bipartisan support. Like football.

Angie Cook lives in Keene Valley, NY, and her house was damaged by Hurricane Irene in August, 2011. This is the third in a three-part series in which Angie will share her story of the storm and its aftermath.

Angie Cook lives in Keene Valley, NY, and her house was damaged by Hurricane Irene in August, 2011. This is the second in a three-part series in which Angie will share her story of the storm and its aftermath.

Angie Cook lives in Keene Valley, NY, and her house was damaged by Hurricane Irene in August, 2011. This is the first of a three-part series in which Angie will share her story of the storm and its aftermath.

The roads of South Florida stretch in across a seemingly endless flat and watery landscape. There are no hills, but countless drainage ditches and culverts, trying mightily to carry the abundant rain to the sea.

It’s the perfect place to read Juliet Eilperin’s Washington Post story today on how sea level rise and climate change-driven increases in storm intensity threaten the roads to the oil port of Port Fourchon. It could have been written about Cape Coral, Miami Beach, Key West, or any of a dozen other Florida cities.

As 2011 comes to a close, no year-in-review retrospective would be complete without noting the many wild and memorable weather events of the past 12 months. A dozen disasters totaled more than $1 billion in damages each this year, setting a record. You can watch the CBS News interview with Conservancy Lead Scientist M. Sanjayan about the year’s remarkable weather in this post.

When it comes to thinking about preparedness and response to our changing planet, we’re urging the world to follow our lead.

Today, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its new report looking at the relationship of climate change to extreme weather and outlining strategies for addressing these impacts.

The report confirms the fact that climate change is like steroids for many extreme weather-related events like drought, floods, wildfire, heat waves and rain. Think of many of the events we’ve seen in this intense and wacky year of weather as a trailer for the climate change feature film. This is not a movie we want to see.

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.

Irene – worse than at first thought – could have been bigger.

The Nature Conservancy is stepping up efforts to help make it easier for agencies like the Army Corps and FEMA to provide more incentives for finding natural solutions to protect us all from floods and make our insurance affordable. Do you have any stories of disasters with insurance after extreme weather damaged your property?

This article was originally published in the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union and was written by Curt Stager, a professor at Paul Smith’s College in the Adirondacks and author of “Deep Future: The Next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth.” Two or three feet above normal lake level may not sound like much, but it has wrought havoc at [...]

The extreme floods across the U.S. this spring have been historic. The effects on local communities and individual lives are devastating. The core message is clear: the risk for the future is great; and we must find more solutions to reduce this risk and help us cope with its impacts.

It is an odd contrast: the U.S. and Colombia are both coping with record floods, but only the developing country is readily accepting science-based risk analysis in its planning for future flood events.

As the recent analysis of England’s floods in 2000 shows, climate-science findings will come too late for the news cycle, and too late for the people now losing their livelihoods and homes.

Record flooding at Lake Champlain adds to the debate over potential climate change links to extreme weather.

Very early yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee released the detailed spending bill, H.R. 1473, that implements the three-way agreement among President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. But what does this mean for U.S. commitments to international climate finance?