With the election of a 'climate hoaxer' to the US presidency James Dyke's normal optimism that we will deal with climate change in time to avoid the most catastrophic impacts has run out. Now his fears are compounded by the likely appointment of the US's leading climate change denier to run the EPA.
Ecosystems don't collapse a little at a time, writes JAMES DYKE, but all of a sudden. So how can we see the danger signs and act in time to save them? A new study of eutrophic lakes shows that the answer lies, not in easily-measured nutrient levels, but from a more subtle understanding of the lakes' shifting ecology and types of species: keystones, weeds and canaries.
Large areas of the Great Barrier Reef are dying in what may be its greatest ever 'bleaching' event, writes James Dyke. The mass loss of the photosynthetic algae that sustain the coral is the result of this year's massive 'El Niño' perturbation to Pacific weather patterns, and global warming. Australia's response? The government has just approved leases for the world's biggest coal mine.
Last month must go down as one of the worst ever in the annals of climate change, writes James Dyke, with parts of the Arctic 16C hotter than usual and the 'safe' warming level of 2C breached across the Northern hemisphere. But even worse is the near-total lack of reaction from business, politicians and media.
Climate change is perhaps our generation's greatest challenge, and few people are better placed to know it than academics in our top universities, writes James Dyke. But they are still accepting huge sums of fossil fuel money, in the process helping donors in their quest to extract and burn ever more coal, oil and gas. This must stop.
Isn't three trillion trees enough to keep our planet healthy? It sounds like a lot, writes James Dyke, but they are under threat as never before, from deliberate deforestation and climate change. Many of the 1.5 billion trees we are losing a year are in the last great rainforests - key ecosystems under threat of drying out forever under our escalating double onslaught.
The Earth is now undergoing the biggest mass extinction since the end of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, writes James Dyke - the result of our collective desire to convert our planet into goods, services and trash. If we go on the biosphere itself will survive, but it will be impoverished. As will we.
The Apollo Programme proposed this week to make renewable energy cheaper than coal through technological advances is welcome, writes James Dyke. But the real problems are political, not technological. Unless we back the Apollo vision by challenging the power of fossil fuel companies, it can never succeed.
Nobel's choice of prizes addressed the key disciplines of his time that conferred greatest benefit on mankind, writes James Dyke. To his initial selection an economics prize was later added - so what's to stop us adding a new one for sustainability - how mankind can live in harmony with planet Earth and all who sail on her?
UKIP's election success is a victory for the climate change 'skeptics', writes James Dyke. But head-in-the-sand climate politics will only provoke more mass migration to northern countries in the future - as coastal cities flood, and tropical temperatures rise.
