Arctic
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The Arctic’s beautiful frost flowers are home to millions of microbes
University of Washington graduate student Jeff Bowman and professor Jody Demind traveled to the central Arctic ocean to study these beautiful structures, called frost flowers.
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What can our protected places teach us about saving the Arctic?
Protecting the Arctic is one of the great environmental challenges of our age. What lessons can we learn from earlier generations who won protection for the national parks we enjoy today?
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Radiohead, Jude Law, and Greenpeace make a sad, sad polar bear video
Here are so many things that we like, all in one place.
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Look at this picture of the Arctic now, because it’s probably your last chance
This image (click to embiggen, click here to embiggen A LOT) was stitched together from photos taken by NASA’s Suomi NPP satellite. It shows the Arctic in all its glory — or anyway, all its remaining glory. The ice cover there has been decreasing fast enough that within 20 years, a photo of the Arctic […]
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A report from inside the Shell ‘oil spill’ party prank
It took Grist a hot second to figure out that this too-ironic-to-be-true video of a Shell party gone wrong was a prank. The concept, though, is brilliant — an “oil derrick” on a cake started “spilling” liquid all over the assembled guests. Pulling it off wasn’t easy, or cheap. Salon has dishy details from a […]
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Climate change causes monster patch of microscopic plants in the Arctic
There aren’t supposed to be microscopic plants called phytoplankton blooming in the Arctic right now — usually that doesn’t happen until after the ice melts in the summer, i.e. months from now. But a research team has just discovered a huge, 60-mile-long, three-foot-thick slick of phytoplankton where no phytoplankton should be. It was “like finding […]
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Critical List: Carbon dioxide hits 400 ppm in the Arctic; bedbugs don’t like boozy blood
Carbon dioxide levels in the Arctic have reached 400 parts per million (ppm). Once upon a time, they were 275 ppm. 350 ppm is considered a decent level to aim for these days. Peanut butter and deli meats have traces of flame retardant in them. Fishing fleets don’t care what regulators say — they’ll fish […]
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Russian rivers are clogged with frozen oil
Whatever terrors the U.S. oil industry might come up with, the Russian oil industry is worse. Greenpeace’s Jon Burgwald recently visited Usinsk, a frigid city that’s a major Russian oil outpost. The oil pollution is so bad in this area that thawing rivers run black with oil. There’s even oil ice, which you can see […]
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Critical List: The return of the loan-guarantee program; Texas least prepared for climate change
The Energy Department is reviving its loan program. (AAAH! SOLYNDRA! AAAAAAAH!…say Republicans. We’re pretty sure this will all work out fine.) Environmental groups want final rules governing coal ash and are suing the EPA to get them. Texas: not very prepared for climate change. California: doing better than everyone else, at least. In China, drought […]