Global Warming Scenarios

Refusing to act on climate change will cost future generations $530 trillion (at least) - Techly By continuing to delay significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we risk handing young people alive today a bill of up to US$535 trillion. This would be the cost of the “negative emissions” technologies required to remove CO₂ from the air in order to avoid dangerous climate change. These are the main findings of new research published in Earth System Dynamics, conducted by an international team led by US climate scientist James Hansen, previously the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

This Map Shows the Hourly Wage You Need to Afford an Apartment in Your State A new report shows that skyrocketing rent prices have put basic living arrangements out of reach in nearly every state for most low-income workers. In order to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment in the U.S., workers on average need to earn at least $20.30 an hour, according to 2016 data from the National Low-Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC). That’s roughly $13 more per hour than the federal minimum wage, and roughly $5 per hour more than the average national $15.42 hourly wage earned by renters last year. Even a one-bedroom apartment is out of reach for minimum wage earners today at Fair Market Rent (FMR) levels. FMR is the metric that the Department of Housing and Urban Development uses to determine standard payments for housing choice vouchers, rent ceilings for the HOME rental assistance program, and rents at Section 8 housing developments when contracts are up for renewal.

Winning Images from the Underwater Photographer of the Year Contest ‘Dancing Octopus’ by Gabriel Barathieu (France). Winner, Underwater Photographer of the Year.“In the lagoon of Mayotte, during spring low tides, there is very little water on the flats. InfluVennZa – Which Flu Virus? — Information is Beautiful — Infographics H1N1? H2N5? H7N9? Bird flu? Swine flu? Climate change will displace millions Wildfires tearing across Southern California have forced thousands of residents to evacuate from their homes. Even more people fled ahead of the hurricanes that slammed into Texas and Florida earlier this year, jamming highways and filling hotels. A viral social media post showed a flight-radar picture of people trying to escape Florida and posed a provocative question: What if the adjoining states were countries and didn’t grant escaping migrants refuge? By the middle of this century, experts estimate that climate change is likely to displace between 150 and 300 million people. If this group formed a country, it would be the fourth-largest in the world, with a population nearly as large as that of the United States. Yet neither individual countries nor the global community are completely prepared to support a whole new class of “climate migrants.”

This Flow Chart That Destroys Religion’s Case Against Gay Marriage Is So Easy, Any Zealot Can Use It / Queerty Plenty of religious folk understand the Bible as what it really is — an allegorical product of a different era used to contextualize this wacky world of ours and implement some reason into the chaos. And then there are the people who think of it as the infallible and eternal word from high above. They like to pick out specific phrases as cultural weaponry to prove society’s wrongdoings. You know the type.

There's No Scientific Basis for Race—It's a Made-Up Label This story is part of The Race Issue, a special issue of National Geographic that explores how race defines, separates, and unites us. In the first half of the 19th century, one of America’s most prominent scientists was a doctor named Samuel Morton. Morton lived in Philadelphia, and he collected skulls. He wasn’t choosy about his suppliers. This Graphic Puts Global Warming in Full Perspective To say the world is having a streak like no other is an understatement. Global warming has made cold scarce on a planetary scale. This March clocked in as the second warmest March on record when compared to the 20th century average, according to newly released data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Your Favorite Housewares Are Spewing Poison Dust Inside Your Home People buy the nicest homes they can afford. They spend years—sometimes decades—pouring money into nest-feathering by stocking up on creature comforts. It’s no wonder we spend 90 percent of our lives indoors. Like George Carlin said, it’s where all our stuff is. Furniture. A new infographic shows that six key factors are driving the change we’re seeing right right now: extreme longevity, the rise of smart machines and systems, our computational world, new media ecology, superstructures organizations and the globally connected world. With these massive issues in play, what will the working landscape look like in five years? What skills will employees need to succeed?

Climate change: 'Hothouse Earth' risks even if CO2 emissions slashed Image copyright Getty Images It may sound like the title of a low budget sci-fi movie, but for planetary scientists, "Hothouse Earth" is a deadly serious concept. Researchers believe we could soon cross a threshold leading to boiling hot temperatures and towering seas in the centuries to come. Even if countries succeed in meeting their CO2 targets, we could still lurch on to this "irreversible pathway". Their study shows it could happen if global temperatures rise by 2C. Islamic Sects, Schools, Branches & Movements Sunni? Shia? Hanbali? Ismali? Deobandi? Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, leading the world’s foremost experts to warn that the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens civilisation. The new estimate of the massacre of wildlife is made in a major report produced by WWF and involving 59 scientists from across the globe. It finds that the vast and growing consumption of food and resources by the global population is destroying the web of life, billions of years in the making, upon which human society ultimately depends for clean air, water and everything else. “We are sleepwalking towards the edge of a cliff” said Mike Barrett, executive director of science and conservation at WWF. “If there was a 60% decline in the human population, that would be equivalent to emptying North America, South America, Africa, Europe, China and Oceania. That is the scale of what we have done.”

Exponential Technologies Impact What Needs to be Learned In a 2013 white paper titled Dancing with Robots: Human Skills for Computerized Work, Richard Murnane and Frank Levy argue that in the computer age, the skills which are valuable in the new labor market are significantly different than what they were several decades ago. Computers are much better than humans at tasks that can be organized into a set of rules-based routines.