Along Norway’s southern coast, I have watched the winters change. Periods that once held frost now arrive as rain. What should be cold arrives mild. Not every year, but often enough. In Grimstad, people still talk about the winters we used to have. Snow that stayed. Ice that held. Now cold spells come and break quickly. Rain replaces snow. The pattern no longer holds.
The Norwegian Meteorological Institute has documented this shift. Coastal winters in Southern Norway are warmer now than in the 1960s. The change is gradual but steady. River flows shift. Insurance warnings multiply. Municipal flood plans expand.
Something is changing. Not suddenly, but unmistakably. And it is not only here. Across the Atlantic, America’s coastlines tell similar stories. Miami watches tides creep higher. California counts longer droughts. Two nations. Different politics. Same physics. Both built their modern wealth the same way—on oil.
Continue reading Two Nations, One Climate – by Tor Arne Jørgensen
After a full work week, I am volunteering with my daughter to help people and villages impacted by the devastating floods in Spain’s city of Valencia, representing 
I’ve always included articles on the environment in the 15 years of the American Diversity Report. When I considered doing an article on the iconic Greenpeace movement which started much of our environmental activism, I thought it would be an intellectual and historical project. But, my 93-year old Aunt Polly informed that Green-ness runs in the family,. Greenpeace is just a cousin away, including one of the movement’s matriarchs.