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Climate change linked to rising infertility [APRIL FOOLS]

UPDATE: This is an April Fools' Day post, entirely made up. To the best of our knowledge, your ovaries are blissfully unaware of climate chaos.

Mmm, nothing like some hot scrambled huevos: A new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention details rising infertility rates in America -- and, for the first time, cites global warming as one potential culprit. The report, released earlier this week, says that 17 percent of couples in the U.S. are experiencing difficulty bearing fruit -- a 5 percent jump from 2005. Airborne toxins and even Old Spice body wash have previously been linked to lower fertility, but climate change is a new one. The report says that rising global temperatures, and extreme temperatures in particular, seem to be affecting women's body chemistry in poorly understood ways, thus hampering their ability to conceive and carry a baby to term. It's a controversial theory sure to inspire lots more research and provoke plenty of criticism.

Watch a Robot swap out batteries from this electric vehicle [VIDEO]

Electric cars are the only kind that anyone will be able to afford after we run the eff out of oil, but charging them is a pain. Better Place has a Better Idea™ — when your batteries run low, pull into one of their stations and wait a mere three minutes while a robot swaps […]

White House scuttles rumors it will torpedo EPA regulations

Yesterday, we repeated an Associated Press report which said that President Obama was banding with the GOP to force the EPA to walk the plank — or, well, looking to compromise with the GOP by curtailing EPA's regulatory powers as part of budget negotiations. Shows what we get for trusting the AP. The White House […]

California goes balls to the wall on renewables

As of 2020, California will be getting fully one third of its energy from renewable sources. So says a bill passed yesterday by the state assembly. It's a "renewable portfolio standard" so aggro that it makes a WWE elbow drop to the throat look like a tiddlywinks match played by pink cloud-people in a straight-to-DVD […]

Getting to 100 percent renewables in 20 years

Boffins at the Institute for Policy Research and Development in London have calculated just how much fossil fuel we have to burn to get to the point that we never have to burn them again. Their paper, "A Solar Transition is Possible," argues that in a best-case scenario, "a renewable energy infrastructure could double present […]

Protect the Clean Air Act, Protect Americans

Lance Weyeneth really dislikes leaving northern Michigan and he rarely heads south of the Au Sable River. The avid angler works at one of the most popular fly fishing lodges in the U.S. – and when he’s not doing that, he’s selling real estate in the same area.  “I’m selling dreams up here. People want […]

Drinking game for big Obama energy speech today

President Obama is delivering today what is being billed as a very big speech on “energy security.”  You can watch it live around 11:20 am here. I propose the following drinking game: The first time the President uses the phrase “climate change” or “global warming,” down the drink of your choice. The second time, empty […]

Nuclear Reactor May Kill 192,000 Annually

Oh, wait a minute. I got that wrong. I meant ethanol reactor, not nuclear reactor. From a paper published in the spring 2011 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons–the official journal of the AAPS (Association of American Physicians and Surgeons):   Research by the World Bank indicates that the increase in biofuels […]

WattsUpWithThat attack on Berkeley temperature findings was pure fabrication

UPDATE:  Watts has posted two comments below that contain a disingenuous admission of error and several more outrageous falsehoods.  While Watts asserts below, “I was not aware of the issue until Dr. Muller communicated with me,” the truth is that Watts has known for six days that his post was in grave error — but […]

NASA’s James Hansen: ‘This decade will be the warmest’ on record

The country’s leading climatologist has a fascinating analysis on “Perceptions of Climate Change:  Can people recognize changing climate?”  Hansen had predicted as part of his famous 1988 testimony “that the perceptive person would notice that climate was changing by the early 21st century.”  He revisits that subject in this paper with his coauthor, Makiko Sato. […]