Climate Climate & Energy
All Stories
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Umbra on jet streams
Dear Umbra, Why does the jet stream move from west to east? Joe Pittsburgh, Penn. Dearest Joe, To get a decent bagel? Image: NASA. There are actually two main global jet streams, the “polar” in the Northern Hemisphere and the “subtropical” in the Southern Hemisphere. The ridiculously simple answer to your question is that jet […]
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Salem Switch Trials
Massachusetts is sticking to its guns on clean air, Gov. Mitt Romney (R) announced this morning. The state refused to extend a deadline for heavily polluting power plants to reduce their emissions, meaning they’ll have to clean up their acts by 2004. In 2001, then-acting Gov. Jane Swift (R) imposed the deadline on the state’s […]
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And other words from readers
Re: Always a Big Turn-off Dear Editor: I just read Umbra’s responses to the lighting questions and must tell you that I have heard significantly different answers. I was informed that it does indeed take more energy to turn on a florescent light and that if you were going to be returning to a […]
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Raging Kabul
Twenty years of war in Afghanistan have not only taken an appalling human toll; they’ve laid waste to the nation’s environment, according to a survey just completed by the United Nations Environment Programme. The survey found that more than 50 percent of the forests in three Afghan provinces have been destroyed in the last quarter-century, […]
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Drinking Problems
As concerns grow about possible global water shortages, the United Nations Environment Programme has published a new report on the quantity, quality, and availability of worldwide water supplies. But unlike many scientific studies that are all-but-incomprehensible to the general public, this report uses simple visual images to convey its message. The graphs and photos illustrate […]
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Murky Outcome
Environmentalists did constant battle with Frank Murkowski when he was a U.S. senator — and, if last night’s “State of the State” address was any indication, they will have to redouble their efforts now that he is the new Republican governor of Alaska. During the speech, Murkowski said he would push for more road development, […]
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Mass. Devastation
Laws designed to protect the environment are only useful if they’re enforced — and in the state of Massachusetts, they often are not. Indeed, the Bay State has one of the nation’s worst enforcement records, according to a new federal website that allows the public to monitor enforcement of anti-pollution laws. Only 27 percent of […]
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Giving Us Tropopause
The tropopause has risen by an average of 650 feet globally in the last 22 years because of global warming and ozone depletion, according to a study published in the latest issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research. For those of you who’ve forgotten your junior high school science, the tropopause is the atmospheric layer […]
