A blog about altering the world we live in.
Updated on April 3rd, 2026
WELCOME TO GCC—the initialism meaning Global Climate Change, of course. This is a blog about the changing world we live in, and that world is changing a whole hell of a lot faster than most folks—and most computer models—thought just a few years ago! [Continue reading]
Updated on May 22nd, 2026
WAY WAY BACK IN 2004, when wildfires in Alaska burned an area the size of Massachusetts, Michelle Mack wondered just how much carbon had permanently moved from the landscape into the atmosphere. Mack, an ecologist at Northern Arizona University, knew that the carbon dioxide released by these burning trees could further accelerate global warming. [Continue reading]
Updated on May 22nd, 2026
LET’S PAINT THE SOUTHWEST WHITE! We’ll start with the roofs and then move on to driveways and parking lots and eventually the streets, the highways, and everything else. “Scientists look for the Holy Grail” addresses the search for creating a surface that’s cooler to the touch on a hot summer day than the air around it. [Continue reading]
Updated on October 12th, 2023
DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS is how Professor Rodolfo Dirzo sums up the situation of the plight of insects on the planet Earth in the 21st century. Dirzo is a Bing Professor in environmental science at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. [Continue reading]
Updated on December 2nd, 2024
NORMALLY, THE ICE IN THE ARCTIC grows in the cold of the winter months and shrinks in the warmth of the rest of the year. But that ain’t happening in the winter of 2020-2021. The article “This Year’s Arctic Sea Ice Is Failing to Form, Raising a Huge Red Flag” tells us that the ice still hasn’t refrozen since last winter. [Continue reading]
Updated on October 12th, 2023
THE INABILITY OF RUSSIAN FARMERS to provide enough food for the people was a problem under both the Czars and the Soviets and remains a problem today. But the big thaw that global climate change is causing may be “propelling enormous human migrations as it transforms global agriculture and remakes the world order and no country stands to gain more than Russia.” [Continue reading]
Updated on October 12th, 2023
MASSIVE WILDFIRE CLOUDS can be as dangerous as volcanic eruptions in some respects. As wildfires become more common, these clouds are becoming a greater hazard. This is addressed in the article “Towering fire-fueled thunderclouds can spew as many aerosols as volcanic eruptions,” which“As warming worsens wildfires, it may create conditions ripe for stronger pyrocumulonimbus clouds.” [Continue reading]
Updated on October 12th, 2023
KAYAK VOYAGES TO THE NORTH POLE will soon be on the list of things-to-do for the more adventurous among us. The dynamics of weather itself are changing because of the thawing of the Arctic ice masses and it should probably be the biggest “news story” of our time if we humans paid attention to things that move so slowly. [Continue reading]
Updated on October 12th, 2023
GLOBAL CONGLOMERATE SHELL OIL (aka Shell Global and Royal Dutch Shell PLC), one of the giants in the fossil-fuel industry, had what was intended as a publicity move turned on them from various sources. This included tweets from two prominent names in the green energy movement. [Continue reading]
