Performance by comedian Marcus Brigstocke. Climate change is no laughing matter, but when all else fails, perhaps it's time to take humour a bit more seriously? Humour has long been a powerful tool in the social-change arsenal, but is it powerful enough to help us break through the static on this colossal issue? Is 'laughing-it-off' just about evasion, or is it the key to transforming public perspective at scale, in time?

With the climate clock ticking we witness a seemingly endless cycle of public talks, journalistic comment pieces and debates on old turf, mostly reinforcing what we already know and fear. 

In a bid to generate a new dialogue that sparks enduring change, the RSA is embarking on a series of climate events with a difference, starting with a comedy night.

Judith Rodin advises:  preparing for the future means building better cities. New York; Athens; Wenzhou; Boston; Oslo; Dhaka; New Orleans; Nairobi. In recent years, dozens of cities across the globe have beenhit by large-scale catastrophes of every kind: natural disaster, geopolitical conflict, food shortages, disease and contagion, terrorist attacks. If you haven't been directly touched by one of these cataclysms yourself, in our interconnected world you are sure to have been affected in some way. They harm vulnerable individuals, destabilise communities and threaten organisations and even whole societies.

We are at greater risk than ever from city-wide catastrophe, and as the severity and frequency of these disasters increase, we must become better at preparing for, responding to and recovering from them. Why did more girls than boys drown in Japan's 2011 tsunami, and what does the case of Haiti's humanitarian aid tell us about the future?

Dr Judith Rodin, President, Rockefeller Foundation, author of The Resilience Dividend, and one of the world's leading public thinkers, brings together ground-breaking research to help build a radical future in which individuals, companies and entire societies avert disaster by creating more dynamic, more resilient cities. To order her book from Amazon, just click on the image or visit your local book store. Streamed live on Jan 20, 2015

Learn how Superstorm Sandy impacted the Long Island Regional Sustainability Plan. Fran Reid, Chief Sustainability Officer Town of Hempstead and John Kaiman talk about their experiences after Superstorm Sandy hit the many communities on Long Island. Part 1 and Part 3. Published on Apr 28, 2014

This is an overview of the solution for reducing the pollution, water wasting, unattractive properties of surface parking lots in Portland, Oregon

It builds on a January 22, 2015 story on NPR's Morning Edition entitled, Building Sponge City: Redesigning LA for Long Term Drought. Published on Jan 23, 2015. Curated and annotated by Ruth Ann Barrett of EarthSayers.tv. Updated June, 2015.

Websites of team members: Mary Vogel of PlanGreen:Regenerating Communities

Kelli A. Grover, Firwood Design Group (FDG): Surveying, Engineering, Planning

Maria Cahill, Green Girl Land Development Solutions: Cost Effective Storm Water Infrastructure

Suenn Ho, Resolve Architecture: Architectural and Urban Design

Marianne Zarkin: Landscape Architects

Ruth Ann Barrett, EarthSayers.tv: Voices of Sustainability 

Last year was Earth's warmest on record, separate reports by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released on Friday showed.

With the exception of 1998, the 10 warmest years on record have now occurred since the year 2000, according to analysis of surface temperature measurements by NASA and NOAA.
NASA said since 1880, when record-keeping began, Earth’s average surface temperature has warmed by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius), a trend that is largely driven by the increase in carbon dioxide and other human emissions into the planet’s atmosphere. Published on Jan 16, 2015