While some members of Congress debate the scientific validity of climate change, some U.S. cities are going beyond efforts to mitigate it with lower greenhouse gas emissions. They're at the forefront of an emerging trend: adaptation. "It's a new field," says the director of climate programs at ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA. His association launched a Climate Resilient Communities program last year to help cities study effects of climate change and finance ways to adapt. Nearly 600 local governments, representing one-fourth of the U.S. population, have signed on. An increasing number of cities have begun vulnerability assessments, and some are already taking steps to counter adverse effects (USA Today, 8/16/11).

The scale of Hurricane Irene revived an old question: are hurricanes getting worse because of human-induced climate change? The short answer from scientists is that they are still trying to figure it out. But many of them do believe that hurricanes will get more intense as the planet warms, and they see large hurricanes like Irene as a harbinger. While the number of the most intense storms has clearly been rising since the 1970s, researchers have come to differing conclusions about whether that increase can be attributed to human activities. "On a longer time scale, I think - but not all of my colleagues agree - that the evidence for a connection between Atlantic hurricanes and global climate change is fairly compelling," said one scientist (New York Times,  8/27/11).

Are "climate change" and "global warming" now dirty words? It's a question that would have been implausible just a few years ago when climate-action advocates were at their most bullish point. Now it looms over the public conversation about climate change and energy policy. The 'hot' terms of a then-hot public policy issue have cooled substantially in the past three years as advocates for action on climate change are shifting to more energy- and public health-related rhetoric to try to score their points (Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media, 8/10/11).

The first scientific study to declare an unmistakeable link between climate fluctuations and violence has been published. It says tropical countries affected by the notorious El Nino weather event are twice as likely to be hit by internal unrest compared to the phenomenon's cooler, wetter counterpart, La Nina. The inquiry focuses on a naturally occurring pattern of climate change, but its authors say there is a disturbing lesson about violence driven by man-made warming. "What it does show and show beyond any doubt is that even in this modern world, climate variations have an impact on the propensity of people to fight," said one climate scientist. "It's difficult to see why that won't carry over to a world that's disrupted by global warming" (Agence France-Presse, 8/24/11).

Cutting emissions of short-lived greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as methane and nitrous oxide could provide a buffer to develop long-term strategies to mitigate emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), a new study found. Although CO2 is a main contributor to climate change, other GHGs also contribute to the problem. "We know that recent climate change is primarily driven by CO2 emitted during fossil-fuel combustion, and we know that this problem is going to be with us a long time because CO2 is so persistent in the atmosphere," said one scientist. "But lowering emissions of GHGs other than CO2 could lead to some rapid changes for the better" (Science Daily, 8/4/11).

Sometime next month, on the steaming fringes of an Icelandic volcano, an international team of scientists will begin pumping "seltzer water" into a deep hole, producing a brew that will lock away carbon dioxide forever. The designers of the "CarbFix" experiment will be capitalizing on a feature of the basalt rock underpinning 90 percent of Iceland: It is a highly reactive material that will combine its calcium with a carbon dioxide solution to form limestone - permanent, harmless limestone. "Whether we do it in the next 50 years, or the 50 years after that, we're going to have to store carbon dioxide," said a scientific overseer of the project (AP, 8/28/11).

The Earth's forests absorb a staggering amount of carbon from the atmosphere each year, an amount equivalent to one-third of annual fossil fuel emissions, according to a new study. The study is the first to clearly identify volumes of greenhouse gases (GHGs) taken up by tropical, temperate, and boreal forests. "What this research tells us is that forests play a much larger role as carbon sinks as a result of tree growth and forest expansion," said the study co-author. The study also allows scientists to quantify the impact of deforestation, and it's much bigger than previously thought. Authors say the study shows why re-growing forests and conserving forests are necessary to mitigating GHG emissions (Science Daily, 8/9/11).

Climate change represents a threat not only to the existence of individual species, but also to the genetic diversity hidden within them, researchers say. New finding promises to complicate assessments of how climate change will affect biodiversity, as well as conservationists' task in preserving it. DNA studies have revealed that traditional species, as defined by taxonomists, contain a vast amount of 'cryptic' diversity - such as different lineages, or even species within species. The study shows how global climate change may lead to the loss of significant amounts of this cryptic diversity, even if some of the traditionally defined species will persist (Nature, 8/21/11).

This newsletter is produced by Alaska Conservation Solutions, a program of the Alaska Center for the Environment, Alaska's largest home-grown citizen's group working to enhance Alaskans' quality of life by protecting wild places, fostering sustainable communities, and promoting recreational opportunities. Alaska Conservation Solutions was founded in 2005 to draw attention to the pervasive consequences of climate change in Alaska and to pursue solutions and responses to the problems. Please join ACE to support our work.