What the World Will Look Like 4°C Warmer.

Polynesia is gone – sunk beneath the waves. Pakistan and South India have been abandoned. And Europe is slowly turning into a desert. This is the world, 4°C warmer than it is now. 

But there is also good news: Western Antarctica is no longer icy and uninhabitable. Smart cities thrive in newly green and pleasant lands. And Northern Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia produce bountiful harvests to feed the hundreds of millions of climate refugees who now call those regions home.

This map, which shows some of the effects a 4°C rise in average temperature could have on the planet, is eight years old, but it seems to get more contemporary as it ages (and the planet warms).11 Antarctica is white with snow and ice, on the ground and, traditionally, on most maps. 

This map has turned the continent's western end incongruously green. And only last week did reports confirm that Antarctica is indeed turning green.

Read the Big Think story - “What the World Will Look Like 4°C Warmer.”

First, it was hybrid cars, now it is hybrid bears

An unusual bear shot by a hunter days ago in Nunavut, a territory in northern Canada, is thought by experts to be a "grolar" or "pizzly" bear.

The grizzly-polar bear hybrid has only been found a few times.

But some scientists say the two bear species are breeding more often because climate change is causing them to cross paths.

Chris Servheen, a bear biologist and Adjunct Associate Research Professor at the University of Montana, said sightings of this hybrid bear species have been very rare in the past.

"But they seem to be more common now," he said.

Read the ABC story - “Grolar bears: Climate change could be behind grizzly-polar bear hybrid, scientists say.”