From Slate’s Future Tense blog: A study published in the journal Nature Geoscience indicates that human activity triggered a deadly earthquake in southern Spain last year. Meanwhile, the next day in Italy, six scientists and a government official were sentenced to six years in prison for a deadly earthquake last year that they played no…
Geoengineering has been a hot topic of late and now comes a new study looking at the possibility of using solar geoengineering to counter the loss of Arctic sea ice by tailoring geoengineering by region and by need. A team of leading researchers developed a new computer model that promises to maximise the effectiveness of…
Extinctions during the early Triassic period left Earth a virtual wasteland, largely because life literally couldn’t take the heat, a new study suggests. Between 247 to 252 million years ago, Earth was reeling from a mass extinction called the end-Permian event. The die-off had wiped out most life on Earth, including most land plants. The…
A recent article, in the London tabloid Daily Mail, reports: “The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week. The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures ……
The globe last month matched a record for the hottest September, set in 2005. It was the third time since 2000 that the world set or tied a heat record for September. In addition to 2012 and 2005, previous hot September records were set in 2003. And these records go back to 1880. Last month’s…
Jim Yong Kim, the new president of the World Bank, said that dealing with climate change will be one of his priorities. “Since becoming president of the World Bank, I have looked deeply into the data on climate change, and I have to say I was surprised that even in last 6 months to a…
Reducing the risk of extinction for threatened species and establishing protected areas for nature will cost the world over $76 billion annually. Researchers say it is needed to meet globally agreed conservation targets by 2020. The scientists say the daunting number is just a fifth of what the world spends on soft drinks annually. And…
The world’s largest reinsurer has examined the recent rise in the number and severity of natural disasters worldwide, and finds the trend bears the unmistakable fingerprints of climate change. What’s more, America is bearing the brunt of that change. The drumbeat of a warming climate, worsening weather, and the resulting human toll continues, and keeps…
He’s been called “America’s fiercest climate blogger.” And as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a former Clinton administration official on clean energy, and an MIT trained physicist, the subjects he covers are vast—ranging from energy policy to the role of rhetoric in communications. But there’s been a recurrent theme over the…
Typically, when we talk about pollution, including carbon emissions, the numbers are talking about entire areas rather than specific locations. Researchers in the US have developed a new software system that is able to accurately map carbon emissions at the street level. The new system allows you to see each individual building, and the carbon…