Indonesia is one nation that is quickly destroying its forests. (Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images) We’re baking the world; on track to raise global temperatures by more than 7°F by burning fuels, raising livestock, bulldozing forests, and allowing cities to sprawl as they grow. Pulling the planet out of the costly slow-cooker of old-fashioned traditions in time to avoid the worst of global warming might not be easy. But doing so would make the world a richer place. That was the message...

Blended land and sea surface temperature percentiles from June 2014 to August 2014. (National Climatic Data Center) The summer of 2014 is officially the hottest since the modern instrumental record began more than 130 years ago, according to the latest state of the climate report from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. August 2014 also was the hottest August worldwide in records dating back to 1880, the report adds, as the combined average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was...

Marine losers abound in the hustling currents of warming and acidifying oceans. Trying to figure out which types of sea life, particularly those that form calcium carbonate-rich cells and exoskeletons, such as some plankton, corals, and shellfish, will thrive amid climate change can be like playing a high-stakes shell game. New research suggests that at least one type of plankton couldovercome what would seem to be long odds, and double down on its ecosystem dominance. The surprise finding is a...

Bizarre circles have been forming in the grasslands of southern Namibia for years and nobody seemed to know why. Known as "fairy circles," these are bare patches of land usually surrounded by tall grass that can be visible from thousands of feet above the ground. Locals believed these circles to be the creation of a dragon that lived underground and would breathe fire that bubbled up to the surface, singeing circles into the ground, according to an Amusing Planet report....

A juvenile lobster is returned to the water on Aug. 13 by scientist Diane Cowan during a survey of the lobster population on the shore of Friendship Long Island, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty) The words "Maine" and "lobster" go hand-in-hand, but the day is coming when the Pine Tree State's rocky coastline will no longer be home to its most famous crustacean. That's because the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99 percent of the world's oceans, scientists...

While on a spearfishing adventure this summer, a diver got way more than he bargained for. Chris Coates was filming his experience with another diver in the South Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Ascension Island, when all of a sudden a whale shark smashes right into him! As you can see in the video above, his friend tried to warn him before the incoming surprise. Coates says he took most of the impact on his lower torso and was...

A study published this week in the scientific journal Science says the world's population is likely to grow much higher this century than previous estimates have forecast, reaching nearly 11 billion people by century's end. That's about 2 billion higher than most commonly cited forecasts from recent years, according to the study published Sept. 18 and titled "World Population Stabilization Unlikely This Century," which uses the latest numbers and an updated prediction model from the United Nations Population Division to...

Ask yourself for a moment: What environmental problem causes more deaths than any other today? Deforestation, overfishing, industrial pollution or smog? The surprising answer is indoor air pollution, which kills between 3.5 and 4.3 million people worldwide every year –more than HIV/AIDS, malaria and suicide combined –according to a new study published this month in the medical journal The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. Nearly all of those deaths occur in poor countries where vast numbers of people have no access to...

Climate change has come to New York City, as leaders from all over the world will meet to discuss our future. Dozens of events are planned all over the city for Climate Week NYC, and The Weather Channel will be a part of this important coverage. (MORE: Hundreds of Thousands March in New York City) Live Monday on weather.com, you can watch coverage of Climate Week in the video at the top of this page. Our live-streaming coverage will begin...

The U.S., China and India led the world in pushing carbon pollution in the atmosphere to an all-time high last year, scientists announced in a series of articles published Sunday in the scientific journals Nature Geoscience and Nature Climate Change. The news comes as leaders from around the world gather in New York this week to discuss how to reduce heat-trapping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, and begin the push toward a final global climate agreement next year. The world...

Mega-droughts. Long-lasting heat waves. Flooded coastal cities. These are the weather scenarios for 2050 from a series of imaginary yet realistic reports from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that predict of future of warmer, wetter and wilder weather. As part of Climate Week, The Weather Channel is airing a special edition of "Weather Center Live: Weather 2050" on Monday, Sept. 22 at 7 p.m. ET.The hour-long special will explore how the changing climate will reshape the world's weather just a...

A day after hundreds of thousands of people jammed New York City's streets for the People's Climate March, the week-long series of awareness-raising events and discussions known as Climate Week NYC got underway Monday with a speech by Secretary of State John Kerry. In his speech, which kicked off the week's events, Kerry announced that the United States will contribute $15 million to a pilot auction that will be set up by the World Bank, and will pay construction project...