Climate Science
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Is climate change causing the Mississippi flood?
Mother Jones has posted everything you might want to know about the record flooding along the Mississippi, including the big question: Is this destruction just the ravages of an angry Nature, or is it the ravages of an angry Nature that's pissed about climate change in particular? The answer to "did climate change cause this?" […]
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Oyster sex to the rescue
Centuries ago, the Chesapeake Bay was filled with oyster reefs so large they sank ships. Today, in search of a cleaner bay, Maryland is looking to revitalize its once-booming oyster population. But to do that, the state needs oysters — lots of 'em — and to get oysters, the state needs scientists at the University […]
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Climate change could ruin the internet
Sure, climate change threatens animals and people and cities and all that life-as-we-know-it stuff, but apparently it can also make Bejeweled Blitz run super-slow. OUTRAGE! Something must be done! Seriously, I half suspect this of being a hoax by old people who think young people are only motivated by the Facebook anymore, but a government […]
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The big question: What story about America’s future can unite the U.S. left?
Liberty and _____ for all.Photo: Ludovic BertronU.S. politics is at an interesting inflection point. On one side, the American right grows ever more homogeneous: ethnically, socioculturally, and ideologically. On the other, the American left is an unwieldy coalition of minorities, unions, single working mothers, Blue Dogs, feminists, young people, knowledge workers, culture and entertainment elites, […]
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Climate change isn’t visible in North America — yet — say scientists
While the rest of the world is seeing its agricultural productivity decimated by climate change, the U.S. and Canada are continuing to experience weather that's within the range of "natural variability." So says a new study in Science from researchers at Stanford and Columbia. If true, this has a couple of kind of crazy-making implications: […]
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Critical List: House Republicans demand offshore drilling; climate change eating away at food supply
The House voted yesterday to fast-track new offshore drilling lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Virginia. Look for $0.99 gas within a few weeks. As a group, the drilling bill's primary sponsors raked in more than $8.8 million in donations from the oil and gas industry. Climate change is […]
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Nisbet is wrong: the forces of climate progress are not as strong as their foes
Who’s the giant in this scenario?In his Climate Shift report, Matt Nisbet purports to compare the lobbying efforts of climate-bill supporters and opponents. He finds that, in 2009, the former spent $394 million and the latter $259 million. In other words, greens and their allies outspent their opponents. “The narrative [that] this is David versus […]
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How humans are forcing other species to evolve
Presumably everybody knows the basic depressing mechanisms of natural selection: In response to a cruel and unforgiving environment, those creatures that can adapt best or are already best-suited survive to reproduce, and everyone else dies horribly. It's all red-in-tooth-and-claw-y, and humans are well out of it, right? Yeah, well, about that: Turns out that now […]
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It’s almost summer, we can start believing in climate change again
It's common knowledge that global warming deniers are prone to confusing climate with weather, as in this video that we posted last year but which I am embedding anyway because it's awesome. But a study in this month's Psychological Science confirms that your average schmo is more likely to believe in global climate change on […]
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Cute guy hand-rears baby hummingbird, what’s not to love?
How's this for a hands-on approach to saving the natural world: When this baby hummingbird was attacked, this guy rescued it and nursed it to a healthy adulthood in a stirring montage set to a Jack Johnson tune. The dude says: when she thought she was ready to leave (and she was) she flew off […]
