Climate Climate & Energy
All Stories
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Foulbanks, Alaska
More than 100 workers are busily cleaning up a 285,600-gallon oil spill outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, that began Thursday when a man fired a .338 caliber rifle at the trans-Alaskan pipeline. About a third of the spilled oil has been recovered, but a representative of the company managing the cleanup said it would be years […]
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Fill Up Yer Camel, Sir?
A court in Pakistan ruled yesterday that Britain’s Premier Oil can go ahead with plans to test for natural gas in the country’s largest national park, which is home to rare urial sheep, ibex, and chinkara gazelle. Shehri-Citizens for a Better Environment and Friends of the Earth International say Premier’s exploratory surveys would threaten the […]
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The Bus Stops Here
India’s Supreme Court today postponed a Sunday deadline for all buses in Delhi to convert from diesel fuel to compressed natural gas, saying that commuters would be inconvenienced if diesel buses were taken off the road because the city has done little to comply with a court order to improve air quality. About 9,000 of […]
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Lots Toulouse
An explosion at one of France’s largest petrochemical plants last Friday has left 29 people dead, 10 missing, and 2,500 injured. The blast from the AZF plant in Toulouse sent acid clouds into the air and caused problems as far as three miles away. Philippe Douste-Blazy, the mayor of Toulouse, said some 20,000 homes, apartments, […]
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Ayatollah You So
Iran is in the midst of its worst drought in 30 years, heightening problems caused by poor water management, climate change, and rapid population growth. The country’s largest body of freshwater, Lake Hamoun, is now desert and 100 nearby villages are disappearing beneath sand. Drinking water is being rationed in more than 30 cities, including […]
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At the Head of the Class
Lawyers from top environmental groups in the U.S. are considering such new legal strategies as broad-based class-action lawsuits to force the U.S. and corporations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Whether in federal courts or international tribunals, the lawyers would sue on behalf of people or whole countries suffering from the effects of global warming. For […]
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Let It Blow, Let It Blow, Let It Blow
Wind power is now cheaper than coal in the U.S., according to a study published in the journal Science. The study’s researchers, two Stanford engineers, priced wind power at 3 to 4 cents per kilowatt hour, already competitive with the market price for coal power. After factoring in health and environmental costs, they put the […]
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Give a Honk, Don't Pollute
On top of warming up the earth, pollution from burning fossil fuels is killing thousands of people a year, according to a study published in the journal Science. For starters, Devra Lee Davis of Carnegie Mellon University and four coauthors found that if Mexico City, New York, Sao Paulo, and Santiago employed technologies that now […]
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Humpty Dumpty Sat on the Great Wall
Claims by China that it has significantly reduced its greenhouse gas emissions may be a bunch of hooey. A Japanese scientist funded by the World Bank found that coal production hasn’t gone down nearly as much as represented by China. Other researchers assert that oil consumption is increasing in the country at a faster clip […]
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Iceland Iceland Baby
Iceland is gunning to be the world’s first carbon-free economy. The country is in something of a bind, as it now has very low carbon-dioxide emissions and the Kyoto treaty on climate change gives it little room to expand its economy in a way that would increase its emissions. Already, 67 percent of Iceland’s energy […]
