Climate Science

Critical List: Canadian minister hates tar-sands opposition; airlines charge for free carbon permits

Canada's natural resources minister is not happy that all of you with your "radical ideological agenda" think Canada's turning into a creepy petrostate.

Japan is releasing those three whaling activists who boarded a Japanese whaling vessel.

Carbon emissions are delaying the next ice age.

Caving on Keystone: Still a dumb idea

Will Obama stick to his guns and reject the Keystone XL pipeline? If he's smart he will.

Critical List: No Grand Canyon uranium mining; Supreme Court case on wetlands

The Obama administration will announce today that it's limiting uranium mining near the Grand Canyon.

And the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a major environmental case in which the Sacketts, a couple backed by the conservative property rights group Pacific Legal Foundation, claim the EPA unfairly restricted their use of the property by determining that it was a wetland.

A Japanese whaling ship is holding three activists who boarded it to protest its activities.

Is there a bubble in shale gas stakes?

An act of dog: Why climate change is like walking Fido [VIDEO]

Climate deniers in your family? They can't resist a video illustrating the relationship between climate change and weather with a man walking his dog.

St. Louis Zoo builds love hotel for salamanders

Ozark hellbenders, aka "snot otters" and "lasagna sides," are among the world's largest and least cute salamanders. Looking at them, it’s probably not a big surprise that they’re having a hard time breeding -- although inexplicably, scientists think it’s NOT because of their pancake heads or beady little eyes, but some problem in the natural environment. Now that there are fewer than 600 hellbenders left in Ozark rivers, scientists at the Saint Louis Zoo decided to step in and create a place for the salamanders to get it on.

The salamanders' love nest is a simulated river built to bring out amorous feelings in hideous beasties:

The zoo has built a kind of honeymoon resort for salamanders, assembling a mini water treatment plant and carefully tweaking water chemistry to recreate their cold, fast-flowing Ozark streams — minus any distracting predators or pollution. ...

Thanks to climate change, maple syrup faces a sticky future [VIDEO]

This farmer and amateur scientist has taken on the plight of the sugar maple, a valuable species that is changing rapidly and in danger of disappearance within the next century.

Not all Republicans are climate deniers [VIDEO]

In the run-up to the New Hampshire primary, former Rep. Bob Inglis, climate scientist Kerry Emanuel, and other Republicans talk about why climate action is a conservative value.

Zombie bees!

We've been concerned for a while about colony collapse disorder, which has been decimating honeybee populations. The disorder is of uncertain origin, though there's some evidence linking it to pesticides; there's also evidence for viruses, fungi, and mites, or maybe it's all of them. And now scientists are investigating the possibility that it's caused by parasitic flies turning bees into zombies.

Climate change bumps prices at Starbucks

Crap weather means that the wholesale price of arabica beans is at a 14-year high of $3.09 per pound, and coffee distributors are blaming climate change, reports the nifty new you-should-be-reading-it Bloomberg sustainability channel. “Climate changes and market fundamentals will maintain prices in 2012, but we will continue to be tied to the developments of […]

Wildfires too hot? Jump in the Senate office pool

Each year, congressional staffers participate in a macabre annual office pool in which they try to predict how many acres of U.S. land will burn in wildfires. And thanks to climate change, it starts earlier every year.