Until recently, the East African country of Mozambique was better known for its long civil war, and had few energy resources compared with regional heavy-hitters like Nigeria and Angola. But in the last 10 years, companies like Exxon Mobil, the BG Group of Britain and Eni of Italy have used the latest technologies, including advances…
It is very much worth checking out an item on Real Climate, from two Dutch scientists. They have found a paper by James Hansen and others from 1981, before climate change was even an occasion for political disagreement.Hansen is now famous in the world of climate studies, and infamous to the right wing, but back then he was a 40-year-old…
A trio of recent studies faults a common family of corn pesticides for disorienting honeybees, potentially leading to colony collapse disorder. The German chemical company Bayer, which manufactures the pesticides, disagrees.
Fossil fuel derived carbon dioxide has a serious impact on global climate but also a disturbing effect on the oceans, know as the other CO2 problem. When CO2 dissolves in seawater it forms carbonic acid and results in a drop in pH, the oceans acidify. A wealth of short-term experiments has shown that calcifying organisms,…
Averting the worst consequences of human-induced climate change is a “great moral issue” on a par with slavery, according to the leading NASA climate scientist Jim Hansen. Hansen, will be awarded the prestigious Edinburgh Medal for his contribution to science, and in his acceptance speech will call for a worldwide tax on all carbon emissions….
Particles in polluted air seed clouds and influence the temperatures of oceans, which could stir up severe weather phenomena.
The circumstances that ended the last ice age, somewhere between 19,000 and 10,000 years ago, have been unclear. In particular, scientists aren’t sure how carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, played into the giant melt. New research indicates it did in fact help drive this prehistoric episode of global warming, even though it did not kick…
The Environmental Protection Agency and the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which reviews all proposed federal regulations, have never used job figures as part of the calculus of the costs and benefits of rule-making, largely because there is no accepted methodology for assessing them. But the Institute for Policy Integrity at New…
The dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico are in the midst of a massive die-off. The reasons why remain a complicated and mysterious mix of oil, bacteria, and the unknown. Normally an average of 74 dolphins are stranded on the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico each year, especially during the spring birthing season….
It’s widely believed that global warming began in the 1970s, but new ocean temperature readings show that the Earth has in fact been warming for far longer. A study by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego traced ocean warming to the late 19th century, which implies, say researchers, that the Earth’s climate as…