Climate Climate & Energy
All Stories
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Sunny Size Up
World’s largest solar power plant planned for Portugal The world’s largest solar power station, which would cover over 600 acres and could produce up to 116 megawatts of electricity, is planned for an economically depressed yet sun-drenched corner of Portugal. The almost $550 million project, if approved by the Portuguese government, would effectively reclaim an […]
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Oil Really Is a Lubricant
Diverse groups, unlikely allies join fight for energy independence Military officials, environmental activists, and others from across the political spectrum are speaking up about the need for radical change in American energy policy. Over the last year, a number of labor groups and think tanks have joined the chorus, releasing detailed plans for reducing oil […]
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An interview with longtime anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott
Helen Caldicott. Photo: Greg Barrett. In 1971, Helen Caldicott had an epiphany: all life on earth could end at any moment, simply because a few pig-headed people imagined they could “win” a nuclear war. A decade later, she had given up her promising medical career to devote her life to nothing short of saving the […]
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They Did It Norway
Norway’s high gas and auto taxes lead to lower gas consumption Americans, who view cheap oil as a divine birthright and throw a tantrum when gas prices exceed $2, would surely view Norway as a strange and alien land if they, ahem, knew anything about it. Despite the Scandinavian country’s huge oil reserves — it […]
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Overwhelming Scientific Consensus Grows Overwhelminger
Climate really changing, oceans reveal to researchers Hey, did you know that the globe is warming? Really and for true! A new study by researchers at NASA, the U.S. Department of Energy, and Columbia University, published in the journal Science this week, concludes that global warming is real. Really. Lead scientist James Hansen calls the […]
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Access of Evil
Gas drilling limited by equipment, workers — not access to federal land To hear the Bush administration tell it, domestic energy production is limited by lack of access to federal lands. Vice President Dick Cheney is galled that “large parts of the Rocky Mountain West are off-limits.” But according to government records, industry experts, and […]
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Little-known facts from a country on the edge of your consciousness
293,966 — population of Iceland3 4,117,827 — population of Kentucky2 10 — percentage of Icelanders who believe elves “definitely” exist4 0 — number of successful elf surveys conducted in Kentucky 11.5 — percentage of Iceland that is covered by glaciers1 3,240 — square miles covered by the largest glacier, Vatnajökull1 2 — tectonic plates visible […]
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Shock and Thaw
New Yorker launches three-part exploration of climate change Writer Elizabeth Kolbert must have single-handedly accelerated global warming with the jet fuel she burned visiting the Arctic, Iceland, Greenland, Alaska, and the Antarctic to research a big three-part series on climate change for The New Yorker. What did she find? Well, it’s all melting. The Alaskan […]
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Ice Hassles
Antarctic glaciers rapidly melting Wanna travel to Antarctica, but worried about all that ice? Worry no more. On the Antarctic Peninsula, a 1,200-mile-long mountain chain 600 miles south of Argentina, about 212 of the 244 glaciers are retreating, fast. Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey and the British Antarctic Survey studied photos and satellite data […]
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Stats on how far we’ve come (or haven’t) since the first Earth Day
3.7 billion — world population in 19701 6.4 billion — world population in 20051 1,535 billion — kilowatt-hours of electricity used in the U.S. in 19702 3,837 billion — kilowatt-hours of electricity expected to be used in the U.S. in 20053 6.0 — percentage of electricity in U.S. consumed in 1970 produced from renewable sources4 […]
