A MarketWatch story says that there is a surprisingly effective motivation for people to conserve energy: keeping up with the Joneses. Research indicates that setting an example is more effective than one might think. So whether it’s owning a Prius, using florescent bulbs, or eating more plant proteins (fish and meat are higher up the […]
Read more...Today, the BBC and the Telegraph, among others, discussed the proposal of James Lovelock of Oxford and Chris Rapley, former head of the British Antarctic Survey, to reduce CO2 levels by pumping it into the deep ocean. Note that this is a type of carbon sequestration. Lovelock and Rapley believe this action is necessary because […]
Read more...The Financial Times, in “Wal-Mart seeks emissions data,” reports that the Bentonville behemoth is out to make it suppliers greener: Wal-Mart is to ask its suppliers to measure and report their greenhouse gas emissions, in the biggest move to disclose emissions from businesses. Few companies disclose their emissions, making it difficult to judge which are […]
Read more...The BBC, citing a study in Nature, informs us that climate change models have underestimated the risk of flooding. High atmospheric carbon dioxide levels mean plants suck less water out of the soil. Wetter soil means faster soil saturation in heavy rains, hence more serious flooding. From the BBC: Researchers say efforts to calculate flooding […]
Read more...An Associated Press story, courtesy the Houston Chronicle’s website, tells us that an Alabama nuclear reactor had to be shut down because the river whose water was used as coolant was too hot: The Tennessee Valley Authority shut down one of three units at the Browns Ferry nuclear plant Thursday because water drawn from a […]
Read more...A good piece from the Associated Press via Yahoo on the potential of geothermal energy as a fossil fuel replacement. Geothermal energy has the advantage of being clean and abundant. In fact, it’s already used in some homes in northern Europe, where a geothermal well beneath a house contains water that has been heated by […]
Read more...It turns out that those who blame the recent increase in the number of Atlantic hurricanes on global warming aren’t nuts. A study just published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society analyzed storms over the last century. It found that the increase since 1980 was due to climate change, and attributed 50% to […]
Read more...An article in Nature magazine, as reported by the BBC, has found that ozone is a more significant greenhouse gas than previously recognized. Ozone interferes with plant photosynthesis, which reduces their effectiveness as a carbon sink. The study estimated that it reduced plant productivity by 14% to 22%, which is a large enough level to […]
Read more...The Journal has a not-too-bad page one story on Australia’s drought and the government efforts to address it, but it’s wrong enough so as to merit comment. I lived in Australia for a couple of years not too long ago and have met Malcolm Turnbull, who is now the environmental minister for Australia. The story […]
Read more...A good post by Joseph Romm at Gristmill explains why planting trees isn’t as good a CO2 reduction measure as it is commonly believed. However, I take issue with his title: “The first rule of carbon offsets: No trees.” Actually, the first rule of carbon offsets is do something else, anything else, first. While in […]
Read more...The BBC website has this grim story on how climate change and unsustainable farming practices is projected to produce an increase in deserts, leading to mass migration. Sub-Saharan Africa and central Asia are worse affected, but parts of Australia and the American West are also drying out. From the BBC: Tens of millions of people […]
Read more...Six highly respected climate scientists have published a paper, “Climate change and trade gasses,” in The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (hat tip Gristmill) that says things are worse than is being reported. The paper takes issue with some of the assumptions of the IPCC report, arguing that it ignores that ice sheets melt […]
Read more...Researchers have found that spring is arriving in the polar regions considerably earlier, and they anticipate that the long-term effect will be that species from warmer climates will establish themselves further north, competing with and in some cases crowding out now-native flora and fauna. From the BBC: Spring in the Arctic is arriving “weeks earlier” […]
Read more...Gristmill pointed us to this news item, “Warming behind kitty boom, pets group says.” The theory is global warming = more warm weather = more randy cats = more cat fornicating = more kittens (which it tantamount to “more cats”): Droves of cats and kittens are swarming into animal shelters nationwide, and global warming is […]
Read more...As we have said before, the Wall Street Journal’s news reporting isn’t all its cracked up to be. One pattern we’ve noticed is a tendency to put a positive spin on economic news. Now we’ve detected a second: failing to report when powerful foreign interests jerk America’s chain. When the US said that it would […]
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