Articles by: Eric Holthaus

A home burns as the Camp fire tears through Paradise, California on November 8, 2018. - More than 18,000 acres have been scorched in a matter of hours burning with it a hospital, a gas station and dozens of homes. (Photo by Josh Edelson / AFP)        (Photo credit should read JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images)

How to Process Climate Grief Over the California Wildfires

I follow the weather obsessively, but I can’t remember any other time in modern American history when a town of more than 25,000 people was demolished in just six hours, like Paradise, California, was. Maybe Homestead, Florida, during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 — but Homestead at least had a few days warning. Maybe Moore, Oklahoma, which suffered four devastating tornadoes between 1999 and[Read More…]

by 15/11/2018 2 comments Climate Change
Humans Didn’t Exist the Last Time there was this Much CO2 in the Air

Humans Didn’t Exist the Last Time there was this Much CO2 in the Air

The last time atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were this high, millions of years ago, the planet was very different. For one, humans didn’t exist. On Wednesday, scientists at the University of California in San Diego confirmed that April’s monthly average atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration breached 410 parts per million for the first time in our history. We know a lot about how to[Read More…]

by 09/05/2018 1 comment Climate Change
Let it Go: The Arctic will Never be Frozen Again

Let it Go: The Arctic will Never be Frozen Again

Last week, at a New Orleans conference center that once doubled as a storm shelter for thousands during Hurricane Katrina, a group of polar scientists made a startling declaration: The Arctic as we once knew it is no more. The region is now definitively trending toward an ice-free state, the scientists said, with wide-ranging ramifications for ecosystems, national security, and[Read More…]

by 21/12/2017 1 comment Climate Change