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  • London Flog

    Meanwhile, a very different report from the old country: Flooding caused by global warming could threaten $340 billion worth of homes and businesses in the U.K., according to the government’s Energy Saving Trust. The report says that one out of every 13 homes in the country would be hit hard by rising seas and increased […]

  • I’d Like My C, Under the Sea

    A six-year experiment in burying carbon dioxide under the ocean has been highly successful, according to the scientists behind the project. Since 1996, CO2 emitted during methane gas exploration in the North Sea has been pumped back into the ground, where it has been trapped in a giant bubble almost a third of a mile […]

  • Sweet!

    Along with emissions from power plants, pollution from vehicles is the major air-pollution culprit. But that could change if cars ran on sugar, as a team of scientists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison has proposed. In a paper published in yesterday’s edition of the journal Nature, the scientists detailed a technique for breaking […]

  • Sprawl Together Now

    A new culprit has been named in the drought that has plagued more than a third of the U.S. this summer: urban sprawl. A report released yesterday by American Rivers, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Smart Growth America found that the rapid expansion of pavement and developed land in metropolitan areas amounts to a […]

  • Think of New England

    While tens of thousands of people from all over the world gather in South Africa to wrangle over global environmental issues, a far smaller coalition is meeting quietly this week to ensure that New England governors and eastern Canadian premiers follow through on their promise to combat climate change. The Connecticut Climate Action Group, a […]

  • Is biodiesel the fuel of the future?

    The Granola Ayatollah of Canola, aka Charris Ford, slides behind the wheel of his 1980 International Scout truck and turns the key. The truck burbles to life and off we go, cruising down the gravel roads that divide the aspen groves of southwestern Colorado’s Horsefly Mesa. It would be just a standard evening joyride, except […]

  • Tempura’s Rising

    Global warming has come to Tokyo with a vengeance: While the average global temperature has increased by 1 degree Fahrenheit in the last century, the average temperature in the Japanese capital has risen by more than five times that. Like most large cities, Tokyo is an island of heat. Concrete, cars, and rooftops absorb sunlight […]

  • Canada Drier

    Global warming could spell big trouble for Canada’s freshwater supply, according to a report from the government agency Natural Resources Canada. The predicted global surface-air temperature increase of between 2.5 and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century would sap some of the country’s hydroelectric power potential, lower lake levels, and pave the way for […]

  • The Big Uneasy

    In Louisiana, the sea-level rises caused by global warming aren’t the stuff of dry scientific reports; they’re already a local reality. Up to 35 square miles of the state’s wetlands get a little too wet every year — they disappear into the Gulf of Mexico. To date, Louisiana has lost an area the size of […]

  • Coal Shoulder

    Interior Secretary Gale Norton was snubbed today by seven West Virginia environmental groups, which declined an invitation to meet with her to discuss statewide mining issues. Norton initially offered to set aside a half-hour with the groups, coinciding with her visit to the state on the 25th anniversary of the Federal Surface Mining Control and […]