With  winter temperatures across Europe dipping to long time lows, climate sceptics are on a roll. Just where is global warming? Fritz Vahrenholt is an example. A former top manager at one of Germany’s largest utilities companies, he is reported as  feeling “duped on climate change”. Granted – hundreds of people frozen to death, temperatures below minus 20 degrees Celsius and snow on Mediterranean islands don’t intuitively go well together with the idea that the planet is warming.

Yet, scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) near Berlin are saying just that. And that’s not all. Their findings suggest that temperatures have dropped so low precisely because of global warming. What? Well, in simple terms, here’s what’s happening:

Oh, for a funny take on the same story – cold winters, hot doubts – check out this report by Comedy Central’s John Stewart:

We already told you about how the world’s chocolate supply is suffering from the effects of climate change, but coffee is also under threat. At the end of last year, the coffee giant Starbucks called attention to the fact that coffee bean farmers are struggling to cope with severe weather, changing rain patterns and new pests that affect the coffee plants. And those problems are a ”significant risk” to Starbucks’ coffee supply, according to the company’s CEO. Researchers estimate that coffee sellers increased the price of the beloved bean by about 25 percent in 2010 alone.

So what can be done? There’ve been many suggestions, but there’s an interesting project called ”Coffee & Climate” that caught our attention. It’s trying to find constructive and effective way to deal with climate change and its effects on coffee supplies. The organization does that by going right to the people who are faced with those issues: the coffee farmers themselves. Coffee & Climate provides training and support for farmers, sharing their expertise and practical tools so the farmers are well-equipped for whatever challenges climate change might present!

We wanted to take a little break from our usual climate chatter here on the blog for a shameless plug: our main website, ideasforacoolerworld.org, has relaunched and has a brand-new look. Not only is the new site snazzier and even more user-friendly, you’ll find it easier to locate reports on the topics that interest you – from climate & society to biodiversity, renewable energy and last but not least climate adaptation. If we’ve peaked your interest (and we hope we have), go ahead and scroll through the new site and let us know what you think. We’d love to get your feedback!

Several studies have proven that biodiversity is crucial to keeping our climate healthy and strong, but that’s especially true in drylands. A new study from Ben-Gurion University takes a closer look at the relationship between biodiversity and the ability of an eco-system to do multiple things at a time – like store carbon and create nutrient pools (called multifunctionality).

How exactly does the relationship work? Eco-systems in drylands have a better chance of being multifunctional, which is very important for our climate, if there is rich plant biodiversity. And when increasingly warm temperatures make it impossible for those plants to survive, multifunctionality, too, suffers.

That’s no small discovery because 41% of the earth’s surface is made up of drylands. The study, which appeared in the journal Science, also reports that 38% of the global human population live on those drylands and depend on healthy eco-systems for their survival.