Climate Climate & Energy

He Said, She Said — Except He’s Right

Study Shows Systematic Deficiency in Climate-Change Reporting An analysis of climate-change coverage in four major U.S. newspapers from 1988 to 2002 confirms what many enviros have long charged: Media coverage of global warming is woefully deficient. A growing chorus of media critics says that the journalistic convention of “balance,” which dictates that in order to […]

I Hope You Like Dammin’, Too

Bush Administration Won’t Remove Northwest Dams to Save Salmon The Bush administration announced yesterday that it will not remove dams from the Columbia and Snake rivers in the Northwest as part of its efforts to save endangered salmon runs. According to Bob Lohn of the National Marine Fisheries Service, “Our work shows that you can […]

Don’t Ask, Don’t Shell

Nigeria Hits Shell With $1.5 Billion Pollution Claim The Nigerian parliament has hit Shell with a $1.5 billion claim after the Ijaw tribe of the Niger Delta demanded compensation for health and economic hardship caused by the company’s polluting operations. The oil giant admits to 262 oil spill incidents in Nigeria in 2002, and that […]

Good-Bye, Cool World

Scientist Warns That Decreasing Air Pollution Means Increased Warming Jeez, we really can’t catch a break, can we? A German scientist now warns that air pollution is masking the true extent of global warming — and as air pollution is reduced, warming may accelerate. Addressing the 13th World Clean Air and Environmental Protection Congress in […]

Clime Against Humanity

Report Warns Europe Particularly Vulnerable to Climate Change Europe will suffer worse, and sooner, than other parts of the world from climate change, according to a new report from the European Environment Agency. The report “pulls together a wealth of evidence that climate change is already happening and having widespread impacts, many of them with […]

The Inuit Word for Bikini

The Price Isn’t Right

Gas Prices Not At Record High — and Proposed Solutions Wouldn’t Lower Them Gasoline prices have become a political hot potato in this election season, but most analysts agree there is very little substance behind the sound and fury. Current gas prices, hovering around $2 per gallon, do not constitute a “record high.” Adjusted for […]

Answers about thermal depolymerization

Dear Umbra, What is thermal depolymerization? AnnFreehold, N.J. Dearest Ann, A polymer is a large group of linked molecules. We’re made of polymers such as protein, eat polymers such as starch, and wear polymers such as leather and nylon. Thermal depolymerization is a heat-driven process that breaks down or transforms polymers into the shorter chains […]

A paddler travels one of India’s great rivers before a dam changes it for good

Except for the occasional palm or banana tree, the Himalayan canyon walls look like those carved by the Salmon River in Idaho: The hillsides are brown and dotted with pine groves, and the boulder-strewn banks of the river give way to stretches of white sand. But this is the Bhagirathi River, half a world away […]

Elizabeth Grossman reviews The Whale and the Supercomputer by Charles Wohlforth

Out on the ice that forms the shores of the Arctic Ocean, the Iñupiaq whalers of Barrow, Alaska, hauled in their catch, a bowhead whale that weighed more than 100,000 pounds. The entire village turned out to pull the enormous mammal ashore and butcher it. Sleds and snowmobiles were piled with maktak (energy-laden slabs of whale blubber and skin) and fresh bloody meat.