We Are Already Teetering on the Brink of Tipping Points for Abrupt Climate Change

A December 4, 2013 report indicates that the world is already beginning to pass tipping points for abrupt, catastrophic, and irreversible changes.

According to a new 200-page report released by the US National Academy of Sciences, abrupt climate change, unlike gradual changes such as steadily increasing global temperatures, can cause rapid changes to physical, biological, and human systems in a matter of years or decades, far too fast for humans to properly adapt.

Canada's Best and Worst Green Cities

According to a 2011 index sponsored by Siemens, Vancouver is the greenest city in Canada and Montreal is the least green. The index measured and rated the environmental performance of 27 cities in the US and Canada in nine categories: CO2, energy, land use, buildings, transport, water, waste, air and environmental governance. The index was a project run by the Economist Intelligence Unit, an in-house research unit of the British magazine The Economist. Cities were selected independently rather than through requests from city governments to be included. A panel of global experts in urban environmental sustainability advised the unit in developing methodology for the index.

Top 10 Global Sustainability Leaders (Report)

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) research firm EIRIS ranked the global leaders in sustainability in their annual ratings.  The report, titled 'On track for Rio+20? How are global companies responding to sustainability?', analyzes the sustainability performance of 50 of the world's largest companies (by market cap). Several very well known consumer brands did not fare well. Some will be surprised to see Japanese automaker Toyota as being one of the worst companies of the 50 rated in the report. Toyota produces greener cars, but there are concerns about its human-rights and supply chain labor standards. Companies like Apple and Google, both received "D" grades. Not surprisingly oil giants ExxonMobil Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Occidental Petroleum, were all given the lowest ranking. Only 2 percent of US companies got an "A". In the UK 20 percent of companies scored an "A" and 12 percent of mainland European companies received an "A". Only 1 percent of Asian ones made the top grade. Here are the world's sustainability leaders as determined by ESG research firm EIRIS: