Climate Science
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Tar-sands emissions could negate all other Canadian carbon cuts
A report from Canada's environmental agency predicts that the rise in greenhouse-gas emissions associated with mining tar-sands oils will be more than double the decrease in the country's emissions from other sources.
Environment Canada said in its emissions trends report that the country could avoid 31 megatons in emissions by 2020. Most of those savings come from switching out natural gas for coal in electricity generation. But in that same period, emissions from tar-sands oil could rise by 62 megatons, the report said. -
Most of the country had record heat in July
This July has seen so many record daytime and nighttime temperatures that if you plot them on a map, they show a nearly complete image of the lower 48 states. Almost 9,000 daily records were broken or tied last month, including 2,755 highest maximum temperatures and 6,171 highest minimum temperatures (i.e., nighttime records). It should […]
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Texans drinking urine, consulting Bibles in face of ongoing climate apocalypse
Texas is now in the midst of its worst-ever one-year drought. Austin, Texas' capital, has received less than two inches of rain since October, a period that would normally see 18 inches. Here are just a few of the impacts of the state's ongoing drought, which is entirely consonant with the northward march of the world's subtropical deserts that will continue, unabated, as climate change intensifies:
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How do you solve a problem like conservative white men?
Conservative white men are loathe to accept the threat of climate change. What should we do about it? Kick their asses.
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New tool maps how badly climate change affects you
A new web tool from the Natural Resources Defense Council lets you map climate change threats — excessive heat, disease risk, pollution, drought, and flooding — anywhere in the United States. Above is the full U.S. map showing the average number of extreme heat days in 2000-2009, but you can also zoom in on your […]
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Western Pacific nations create the world's largest shark sanctuary
If you never quite believed your parents when they told you big, scary animals have more to fear from us than we do from them, consider this, via The New York Times' Joanna Foster: Sharks kill two or three people every year. People kill 73 million sharks in the same time period.
To protect these sharp-toothed scapegoats, Micronesian chief executives have decided to create a shark preserve of 2 million square miles in the western Pacific -- the largest shark sanctuary in the world.
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Murdoch's sins go way beyond the hacking scandal
News of the World's phone hacking has been offensive, but News Corp has done something worse: It damaged the public's understanding of climate science
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Duck hunters vs. 'Big Wind' [VIDEO]
A rep from the United Waterfowlers of Florida spoke out against a proposed wind-energy project on the Daily Show last night .
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Born after 1976? You've never experienced normal global temperatures
If you're under 35 and you think you've lived through a cold year, you're wrong. Think Progress notes that the last year mean global temperatures were below normal was 1976.
That means more than a quarter of the population (and statistically more people reading this, since it’s on the internet) really has no idea what the global climate would feel like if humanity hadn't been messing with it for more than a century. -
The new normal: billion-dollar disasters
The U.S. has racked up more mega-expensive natural disasters in 2011 than ever before.