Electric vehicle demand in the past five years has soared in this country. The same is true worldwide. By the end of 2014, more than 700,000 total plug-in vehicles had been sold worldwide (plug-in hybrids and pure battery electrics), up from about 400,000 at the end of 2013. As of 2015, dozens of models of electric cars and vans are available for purchase, mostly in Europe, the United States, Japan, and China.

A major reason for the rapid jump in EV sales is the rapid drop in the cost of their key component -– batteries. The energy stored in a battery is measured by kilowatt-hour (kWh). The more kWh stored, the further the car can go on one charge, so a key metric for battery economics is the cost per kWh. The lower the cost, the cheaper it is to build an electric car with a significant range.

Record-breaking heat waves, long-term drought, “100-year floods” in consecutive years, and increasingly extreme superstorms are becoming the new normal. The planet is now facing an unprecedented era of accelerating and intensifying global climate change, with negative impacts already being widely felt. While global climate change will impact nearly everyone and everything, the greatest impact is already being felt by farmers and anyone who eats food.

When we think of climate change and global warming, visions of coal-fired power plants and solar panels come to mind. Policy discussions and personal action usually revolve around hybrid cars, energy-efficient homes and debates about the latest technological solutions. However, the global agriculture system is at the heart of both the problem and the solution.

Debates on climate change can break down fairly fast. There are those who believe that mankind's activities are changing the planet's climate, and those who don't.

But a new way to talk about climate change is emerging, which shifts focus from impersonal discussions about greenhouse gas emissions and power plants to a very personal one: your health.

In a joint statement issued by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French president Francois Hollande, the two leaders have vowed to cooperate closer in the fight against climate change and to work jointly to reach an effective global climate agreement in Paris at the end of the year. The key paragraph of the joint statement, published during last week's visit of Prime Minister Modi to France:

“Tackling the issue of climate change is of vital importance for the sake of today's world and future generations. Prime Minister extended his full support to France for a successful outcome of CoP 21 to UNFCCC to be held in Paris later this year.

Dan Misleh, director of the Catholic Climate Covenant, found himself facing a skeptic recently after he outlined the coalition's preparations for Pope Francis' upcoming encyclical on global warming.

The woman didn't doubt the science. She just wasn't sure of the bishops.

"Attenzione, the wine!"

That is an old punchline in the Weir home, thanks to plastic cups of Chianti, a low bridge and a gondolier named Marco.

When it comes to energy, we live in transformative times. From shale oil helping to upend global markets, to explosive growth in rooftop solar, the changes we’re seeing in the energy industry have not only been rapid, but often unexpected.

Not every part of the energy industry has fared well during these tumultuous years. In particular, coal has struggled, amid mounting concerns about its contributions to greenhouse gas pollution and increased regulatory initiatives by the Obama administration. It doesn’t help that electricity demand has flattened, and activists have worked to retire a large number of coal plants.

On April 3, 1980, Cronkite tossed to a news piece from CBS veteran Nelson Benton. Thirty-five years ago, for two and half minutes – an eternity even then by TV news standards and a near-impossibility today – a broadcast anchored by The Most Trusted Man in America tried to warn us about climate change.

Actually, "climate change" wasn’t mentioned in Benton's piece, but CO2, "global warming" and the "Greenhouse Effect" were. "Scientists," intoned Benton, "and a few politicians are beginning to worry."

Frozen Arctic and sub-Arctic soil that thaws from global warming will add substantial amounts of carbon to the atmosphere in the form of greenhouse gases, accelerating climate change the rest of the century, but it won't come in a sudden burst, researchers say in a new paper.

A review by government and academic experts concludes that harmful carbon dioxide and methane generated by microbes digesting thawed plant and animal material will instead enter the atmosphere gradually. But it's a carbon source that shouldn't be ignored, said Dave McGuire, a senior researcher at the U.S. Geological Survey and a professor of ecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Major economies would boost their prosperity, employment levels and health prospects if they took actions that limited global warming to 2C, according to the first analysis of emissions pledges made before the UN climate summit in Paris later this year.

Europe has promised a 40% emissions cut by 2030, compared to 1990 levels – and the report says this will bring real benefits, including 70,000 full-time jobs, the prevention of around 6,000 pollution-related deaths, and a €33bn cut in fossil fuel imports.