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Articles by Liz Pleasant

Liz Pleasant is assistant web editor at YES! Magazine.

Featured Article

The Rhône Glacier.

The other night, I was sitting in bed scrolling through Twitter when I saw the headline: “Report: Global temperature hike already halfway to ‘2 degree warming’ limit.” I clicked it.

The writer, Brandon Miller, explained why many scientists agree that 2 degrees C of warming is the cutoff point for “controllable” climate change, and how new reports show we’re already halfway there. On top of that, we just experienced the warmest October since observations began in 1879, and October was the sixth consecutive month to break a global temperature record. Seven of the 10 warmest months ever recorded happened in 2015.

Talking about climate change isn’t new for me. I work at YES! Magazine, where we cover climate all the time. I read pitches on sea-level rise and sort through headlines on droughts, storms, and a fragile food system pretty much every day. But for some reason, this report really stuck with me. It scared me.

I was still thinking about it the next morning while discussing coverage of the Paris climate talks with other editors. My colleague, Christa, started telling me about an experience she had this summer: On a road trip through Switzerland with her hus... Read more