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Carbon President: Why does Obama keep OK’ing big fossil-fuel projects?
The future’s looking hot.Photo: The White HouseThis essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. In our globalized world, old-fashioned geography is not supposed to count for much: mountain ranges, deep-water ports, railroad grades — those seem so 19th century. The Earth is flat, or so I remember somebody […]
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MyConservationPark is a Facebook game that’s actually good for something
MyConservationPark is a Farmville-style Facebook game that lets you administer a nature preserve, juggling animals, plants, structures, and people to protect the habitat of endangered wildlife. But this isn't just a whole new way to annoy your Facebook friends with environmentalism; it also makes a difference in the real world. Fifteen percent of any in-game […]
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The frogfish is the world’s most efficient invasivore
It's still hot to be an invasivore, chowing down on invasive species to help balance the ecosystem. Cleveland even had a food festival showcasing ways to prepare the delicious-sounding invasive plant garlic mustard. (This is going out on a limb, but … maybe use it as a condiment?) But the lionfish is a particularly pesky […]
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Climate change will cause Finding Nemo to lose hearing, die
Would Finding Nemo's Nemo have found his dad if he couldn't hear? Probably not! Which is why it's so sad that all of the Nemos out in the ocean (technically, they're called "adorable baby clownfish") are going to lose their hearing, and therefore their sense of when it's time to swim as fast as they […]
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Megacity mayors leading the fight for sustainable survival at the C40 summit
The megacity of Sao Paulo, Brazil.Photo: Luiz Henrique Varga AssuncaoCross-posted from ThinkProgress. Leaders of the world’s megacities are meeting in Sao Paulo this week for a major climate summit, the fourth meeting of the C40 Climate Leadership Group. From Michael Bloomberg of New York City to Kuma Demeksa of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the mayors and […]
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Only 15 U.S. states even have a plan to deal with ‘new normal’ extreme weather
Climate change has arrived, says Newsweek science correspondent Sharon Begley, and the good ol' U.S. of A. has more or less been caught with its pants down, preparations-wise. Only 15 states have completed or even started a plan to cope with climate change, which will bring profound changes over the next 20 to 30 years, […]
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New data show how warming leads to wider variation in global weather
Right on the heels of America's spring of extreme weather, scientists at the Columbia Earth Institute have unveiled a package of historical data that shows greater variation in weather when the Earth is warmer. The 1,100 years of data, derived from tree rings, show that the difference between El Nino and La Nina — large, […]
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Record carbon emissions show world has not been listening to a thing we’ve said
Despite a global recession, high oil prices, a growing awareness of the seriousness of carbon emissions, those reusable grocery bags you bought, and constant scolding from Grist et al., the world managed to put out a record amount of greenhouse gases last year. The International Energy Agency estimates that burning fossil fuels added 30 billion […]
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Climate change could give you brain fungus [VIDEO]
When Trudy Rosler first got sick after a visit to Vancouver Island in British Columbia, doctors were stumped. Eventually, they discovered that she had a fungus growing in her brain stem — one that was previously only known to exist in the tropics. Researchers say that subtle changes in climate over the last 40 years […]
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GOP congressman: Stop climate change by destroying the rainforest
Republican representative Dana Rohrabacher has a novel solution for reducing greenhouse gases: Destroy the rainforest! While we’re at it, we should probably get rid of the ozone layer and those pesky whales, as well. Rohrabacher argues that since 80 percent of carbon emissions come from decaying plant matter, we should clear-cut rainforests in order to […]
