Climate Climate & Energy

Early warning system set up to detect global warming

This sounds cool:

MOUNT ALBION - University of Colorado biologists began installing an alarm system atop this craggy summit Friday, near the Continental Divide west of Boulder.

Like the alarm systems in your car or home, this one is designed to detect intruders.

But in this case, the invaders are tundra plants moving up from lower elevations in response to global warming. The alarm system is a cluster of mountaintop vegetation plots that will be monitored periodically for decades to come.

(Via Digg)

Cool’s Out for Summer

2006 is already setting heat records January to June 2006 was the warmest first half of the year in the continental U.S. since record-keeping began in 1895, and the sixth-warmest in the world as a whole, according to the National Climatic Data Center. Alaska, far eastern Europe, and parts of Russia posted cooler-than-average temperatures, but […]

An interview with Jeff Goodell, author of Big Coal

In 2001, around the time Dick Cheney’s secret-recipe energy plan made its debut, Jeff Goodell went to West Virginia to report on coal’s rising fortunes. He’d been sent to do a story for The New York Times Magazine, but the material spilled over into a book, Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future, […]

Mr. Gore goes to Hollywood

You know global warming's time has come when Al Gore and climate change are the cover story of Entertainment Weekly.

Breaking: There are skeptics

A fine piece of reporting from Gannett News Service, tipping off its readers to the fact that there's a small group of skeptics who don't believe global warming is a threat.

In case readers missed that info in every single other piece of vapid he-said she-said transcription that passes for journalism on this subject.

Beleaguered of Nations

Britain pledges to involve poor countries in fighting climate change Climate change ain’t gonna be pretty for any of us, but it will have an especially devastating impact on Africa: more extreme weather patterns will cause food insecurity, income loss, higher death rates, and more diseases. Calling the impacts of climate change on poor nations […]

Importing coal

Here's a story you don't hear about much:

Can We Get Back Into the Frying Pan?

Climate change making wildfires worse, study finds Wildfires in the Western U.S. are increasing in frequency and size, and our drier, hotter climate seems to be to blame, says a new study published in Science. Researchers analyzed 1,166 large fires in the West and found that wildfire frequency increased “suddenly and dramatically” in the mid-1980s. […]

Dinosaur Farts?

Alberta premier doesn’t like Al Gore talkin’ smack about oil sands Al Gore has pushed the buttons of Ralph Klein, premier of Canada’s conservative Alberta province (think North Dakota, but even norther). Interviewed in the latest Rolling Stone, Gore disparaged Alberta’s oil-sands industry: “For every barrel of oil they extract there, they have to use […]

Try This on for Seismic

Climate change may lead to more earthquakes and volcanic eruptions Geologists are concerned about the seismic repercussions of disappearing glaciers, noting that the sheer weight of the humongous blocks of ice helps to keep the earth in place. Glacial melting and the reduction of that weight may release pent-up pressure in the planet’s crust, leading […]