Climate Disruption

Nature is vividly showing us the unintended consequences of what spewing 82 million metric tons of greenhouse gases daily into our atmosphere: Climate disruption.

It's another warm, dry, sunny day here in San Francisco today. Highs might hit 70 degrees. Temperatures are in the 80s in Los Angeles, with a high of 90 in Fullerton. It's January 5. Has the weather been weird where you are, too?

In the last four years alone over a quarter trillion honeybees have died prematurely. Of the 100 crop species providing 90 percent of the world's food -- over 74 percent are pollinated by bees.

An overheating climate has enabled mountain pine beetles -- nature's emissary of massive ecological change to march north and east like never before in modern or prehistoric times.

History is rich with lessons, but will political hubris take heed of past civilizations annihilated by drought? The Akkadian, Moche, Tiwanaku, Mayan, and Anasazi to name but a few are well documented in our history books.

That's me, the lonely American, as I watch heads of state, environmental ministers, and political luminaries from nation after nation deal head on with the issue of rescuing the climate from impending disaster.

Man is not the only creature that will need the freedom to roam in a climate-disrupted world. But it is only homo sapiens that threaten that freedom -- and the resilience and security it can offer.

Where Proposition 23 is a blatant assault, Proposition 26 is more like a sneak attack. It's confusing, badly written, and pretending to be something it's not.

The world is not going to come together in a single grand bargain that will commit nations to the full range of needed emissions reductions in any one meeting. The problem will be solved piecemeal.

While the Gulf of Mexico continues to choke on oil from a man-made disaster, the Arctic is experiencing another form of man-made onslaught thanks to climate change.

Florida's state animal is in real danger of joining California's -- the California grizzly -- as an emblem of extinction.

Co-written by Bill Chameides and Prasad KasibhatlaThe climate deniers have a new argument: don't pass climate legislation because it doesn't cut emiss...

Dr. Bill Chameides is the dean of Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He blogs regularly at th...