The Nature Conservancy’s Frank Lowenstein is headed to Peru on an official visit as part of his fellowship with the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas.

Environmental leaders gather in Aspen, Colorado to explore how warmer-than-usual temperatures are becoming more common and affecting almost everything, from water supplies to gardening seasons. The Nature Conservancy’s Frank Lowenstein shares his perspective on the meetings.

In 1975, most hurricanes topped out at a Category one or two, with about 20% building to a Category four or five. But today, the proportion of devastating Category four or five hurricanes has roughly doubled.

Among the signs of a spring come early in 2012, are the arrival of ramps – a garlicky wild leek favored by chefs buying local ingredients.

An east wind whips Gasparilla Sound into foam. Literally. Chunks of wind-whipped water blow ashore as I unload my kayak from my car onto the sand.

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.

Where does your water come from? For many cities often the source is a distant natural area. In Bogotá, – the capital of Colombia and its largest city – the water comes from a mysterious and unique habitat threatened by climate change. Last year I got to see it first-hand.

Frank Lowenstein of The Nature Conservancy talks about how we can respond to and prepare for climate change.

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.

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.

Last week’s Northeast snowstorm and extended power outages have focused renewed attention on extreme weather. But was this event related to climate change? Most press coverage says no, and as a result the press are well on their way to getting the story wrong.

Scientists are increasingly recognizing that climate change plays a central role in the extreme weather events that are slamming people and communities around the world. This week press coverage began of an IPCC report on extreme weather due out in two weeks, which will identify a better than 90 percent chance that climate change will bring more severe weather in our future.

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.

The Nature Conservancy’s Frank Lowenstein – who leads the Conservancy’s program for utilizing nature to help people prepare for and adapt to climate change – has been selected by the U.S. Department of State to serve as a senior fellow for the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA).

Reminders of a changing climate not far away even on vacation.

Fire, lightening, hail and flood make for an exciting summer trek, and a close call, in the back country of Utah.

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.

The “weirding of winter” will continue to impact all who ski, snowboard, snowmobile, or ice fish. Ski areas are taking the threat seriously. At the Snowbird meeting, a new “Climate Challenge” was issued to reduce the resort’s own carbon footprint. The challenge for us all is to keep the weirdness limited by lowering our global carbon footprint.