Dangerous Discovery: Methane Gas Bubbling To Surface Of Arctic Ocean
Dec 18
Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane -- a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide -- have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region. The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years...
Must Watch & Read: Paul Stamets: How Mushrooms Can Save The World (& Cure Cancer)
Nov 24
Mycologist Paul Stamets describes several paradigm-changing breakthroughs in his work with mushrooms, including mathematically perfect engineering, oil and nuclear waste cleanup, controlling insects which spread numerous global diseases, fighting viral infections, and boosting the human immune system. He also describes how mushrooms were used to cure his mother of breast cancer and why our old forests should be saved as a matter of national defense...
Is The End Of The World Nigh?
Nov 20
Judging by the run of successful natural disaster films in the past few years, people are fascinated by the idea of the end of the world. In Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, a virus ravaged the UK and beyond; an asteroid was the world-ending threat in Deep Impact and Armageddon; and climate change got a starring role in The Day After Tomorrow. But made-up doomsday tales pale into nothing, creatively speaking, when contrasted with what is actually possible. Look through the lens of science and "the end" becomes much more interesting...
Michael Pawlyn: Using Nature’s Genius In Architecture
Nov 10
How can architects build a new world of sustainable beauty? By learning from nature. At TEDSalon in London, Michael Pawlyn describes three habits of nature that could transform architecture and society: radical resource efficiency, closed loops, and drawing energy from the sun...
Cartoon: A Reassuring Lie
Sep 26
An inconvenient truth or a reassuring lie; a red pill or blue pill...
Climate Change: The Science Has Never Been More Compelling, The Public Never So Misled
Sep 13
This is a critical time. The science has never been more clear and compelling. Yet the public has never been so confused and misled. There is much to tell, and there are many scientists who are talented at and committed to telling it. People need to know the facts, and there are labs and universities ready to offer them. People also need to hear the stories of climate change, from scientists and other messengers whom they trust. The need is urgent, as the time for effective action is short. In this context, Climate Communication was born...
Al Gore: Climate Change: ’24 Hours Of Reality’
Sep 12
24 Hours of Reality will focus the world’s attention on the full truth, scope, scale and impact of the climate crisis. To remove the doubt. Reveal the deniers. And catalyze urgency around an issue that affects every one of us...
Vast Ice Island To Break Off Greenland Glacier
Sep 01
New photographs taken of a vast glacier in northern Greenland have revealed the astonishing rate of its breakup, with one scientist saying he was rendered "speechless." Twice as many glaciers are retreating as the number that are advancing, and the area of ice lost was nine times the amount gained. The Greenland ice sheet is "but one harbinger of the many changes to come", including extreme weather events, such as a record-breaking heatwave and drought in Russia, extreme floods in Asia, record-breaking temperatures on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States and "mega storms and floods" in many parts of the country...
Scientists Ponder What Could Happen When Humans Encounter ETs
Aug 22
Shawn Domagal-Goldman of Nasa's Planetary Science Division and his colleagues compiled a list of plausible outcomes that could unfold in the aftermath of a close encounter, to help humanity "prepare for actual contact". In their report, Would Contact with Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis, the researchers divide alien contacts into three broad categories: beneficial, neutral or harmful...
Can Algae Save The Planet?
Aug 12
Winter sunlight streams through the glass roof onto rows of long, white troughs filled with algae and seawater. A little water wheel in each trough turns to keep the liquid circulating and the growing cells evenly exposed to light and to carbon dioxide-enriched air. Computers maintain a constant temperature. Giant transparent bags of algae varieties waiting to be tested hang from metal beams. Someday algae could replace oil wells, free the planet from its dependency on fossil fuels and create a near-endless supply of energy...
Our Biggest Security Threat Is Global Warming-Induced Extreme Weather
Aug 06
Scientists have been predicting for years that global warming would produce record-breaking extremes on either side of the thermometer. This past winter, America survived its so-called snowpocalypse, and now that summer has arrived, we've got a heat dome... It conforms easily to the ravages of Kevin Borden and Susan Cutter's so-called Death Map which in 2008 peered into climate change's crystal ball and found intensifying natural disasters capable of regionally reshaping the nation with every catastrophe. These global warming nightmares, not domestic or international terrorists, are the most dangerous threat to global security in existence...
She’s Alive… Beautiful… Finite… Hurting… Worth Dying for.
Aug 02
This is a non-commercial attempt to highlight the fact that world leaders, irresponsible corporates and mindless "consumers" are combining to destroy life on earth. It is dedicated to all who died fighting for the planet and those whose lives are on the line today. The cut was put together by Vivek Chauhan, a young film maker, together with naturalists working with the Sanctuary Asia network...
Dubai Weather Wizards Create Rain In Desert
Jul 20
A Swiss company called Meteo Systems has developed a technology called Weathertec that uses giant ionizers to make rain. If the ambient humidity in the area reaches the required minimum of 30%, then you turn the ionizers on and start pumping electrons into the atmosphere. Assuming that you have high temperatures, the electrons will rise with the heat and water molecules will start condensing around them. At this point, you have clouds that will produce rain once they are dense enough...
Sea-Level Rise Fastest In 2,000 Years
Jun 22
In a new study, researchers provided the first continuous sea-level reconstruction for the past 2,000 years and compared variations in global temperature to changes in sea level during this time period. An international research team including University of Pennsylvania scientists has cocluded that there is a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level...
World’s Oceans In ‘Shocking’ Decline
Jun 20
The oceans are in a worse state than previously suspected, according to an expert panel of scientists. In a new report, they warn that ocean life is "at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history".
TED: A Next-Generation Digital Book
May 05
Software developer Mike Matas demos the first full-length interactive book for the iPad -- with clever, swipeable video and graphics and some very cool data visualizations to play with. The book is "Our Choice," Al Gore's sequel to "An Inconvenient Truth."
UN Document Would Give ‘Mother Earth’ Same Rights As Humans
Apr 12
Bolivia will present a draft United Nations treaty giving "Mother Earth" the same rights as humans -- having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country. The bid aims to have the UN recognize the Earth as a living entity that humans have sought to "dominate and exploit" -- to the point that the "well-being and existence of many beings" is now threatened. The wording may yet evolve, but the general structure is meant to mirror Bolivia's Law of the Rights of Mother Earth, which Bolivian President Evo Morales enacted in January. That document speaks of the country's natural resources as "blessings," and grants the Earth a series of specific rights that include rights to life, water and clean air; the right to repair livelihoods affected by human activities; and the right to be free from pollution...
Vivos Doomsday Shelters
Apr 01
Vivos is a privately funded venture, with no religious affiliations, building a global network of underground shelters, to accommodate thousands of people. Vivos will provide a life assurance solution for those that wish to be prepared to survive these potential events, whether they occur now, in 2012, or in decades to come...
U.S. Navy Warned To Prepare For Climate Change
Mar 10
America urgently needs to build up its military readiness in the Arctic where melting summer sea ice is setting up a global struggle for resources, a study prepared for the US navy has warned. "The US military as a whole has lost most of its competence in cold-weather operations for Arctic weather," the report, National Security Implications of Climate Change for US Naval Forces, warned...
U.S. Farmers Fear The Return Of The Dust Bowl
Mar 08
Happy's problem is that it has run out of water for its farms. Now Happy is the harbinger of a potential Dust Bowl unseen in America since the Great Depression. 'In the 1950s a lot of wells were drilled, and the water went down.' Those wells were drilled into a geological phenomenon called the Ogallala Aquifer. It is an underground lake of pristine water formed between two and six million years ago, in the Pliocene age, when the tectonic shifts that pushed the Rocky Mountains skywards were still active. It stretches all the way down the eastern slope of the Rockies from the badlands of South Dakota to the Texas Panhandle. It does not replenish. After the Dust Bowl (the result of a severe drought and excessive farming in the early 1930s), that the US Geological Survey worked out that the watering holes were clues to the Ogallala, now believed to be the world's largest body of fresh water. With new technology the wells could reach the deepest water, and from the early 1950s the boom was on. Some of the descendants of Dust Bowl survivors became millionaire landowners. 'Since then,' says David Brauer of the US Agriculture Department agency, the Ogallala Research Service, 'we have drained enough water to half-fill Lake Erie of the Great Lakes.' Billions upon billions of gallons -- or, as they prefer to measure it, acre-feet of water, each one equivalent to a football field flooded a foot deep -- have been pumped. 'The problem,' he goes on, 'is that in a brief half-century we have drawn the Ogallala level down from an average of 240ft to about 80.'...
World’s Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
Mar 04
Mankind may have unleashed the sixth known mass extinction in Earth's history, according to a paper released by the science journal Nature. Over the past 540 million years, five mega-wipeouts of species have occurred through naturally-induced events. But the new threat is man-made, inflicted by habitation loss, over-hunting, over-fishing, the spread of germs and viruses and introduced species, and by climate change caused by fossil-fuel greenhouse gases, says the study...
Alaska Melting
Feb 13
Thawing permafrost is triggering mudslides onto a key road traveled by busloads of sightseers. Tall bushes newly sprouted on the tundra are blocking panoramic views. And glaciers are receding from convenient viewing areas, while their rapid summer melt poses new flood risks. These are just a few of the ways that a rapidly warming climate is reshaping Denali, Kenai Fjords and other national parks comprising the crown jewels of Alaska's heritage as America's last frontier...
King Crabs Invade Antarctic Waters
Feb 08
Warming waters along the Antarctic peninsula have opened the door to shell-crushing king crabs that threaten a unique ecosystem on the seafloor, according to new research by a U.S.-Sweden team of marine researchers. On a two-month voyage of the Swedish icebreaker Oden and U.S. research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer, marine biologists collected digital images of hundreds of crabs moving closer to the shallow coastal waters that have been protected from predators with pincers for more than 40 million years....
Amazon Droughts Could Tip Carbon Scale
Feb 08
Two major droughts have scientists concerned that the Amazon rainforest will shift from being a carbon sponge to being a major greenhouse gas producer. A drought in 2010 is now expected to be even more devastating to the region in the long run than one that occurred in 2005, previously called a one-in-100-year event...
Less Snow Leads To Hotter Planet
Jan 23
Decreases in the Earth’s snow and ice cover have exacerbated global warming more than previously thought, according to a new study. Researchers analyzed satellite data showing snow and ice during the past three decades in the Northern Hemisphere, which holds the majority of the planet’s frozen surface area. “Our analysis of snow and sea ice changes over the last 30 years indicates that this cryospheric feedback is almost twice as strong as what models have simulated. The implication is that Earth’s climate may be more sensitive to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, and other perturbations than models predict.”
Climate Changes Linked To Fall Of Roman Empire
Jan 13
A prolonged period of wet weather spurred the spread of the Bubonic plague in medieval times, according to a new study. And a 300-year spell of unpredictable weather coincided with the decline of the Roman Empire. Climate change wasn't necessarily the cause of these and other major historical events, researchers say. But the study, which pieced together a year-by-year history of temperature and precipitation in Western Europe, dating back 2,500 years, offers the most detailed picture yet of how climate and society have been intertwined for millennia...
The Great Food Crisis of 2011
Jan 13
The current surge in world grain and soybean prices, and in food prices more broadly, is not a temporary phenomenon. We can no longer expect that things will soon return to normal, because in a world with a rapidly changing climate system there is no norm to return to. The unrest of these past few weeks is just the beginning. It is no longer conflict between heavily armed superpowers, but rather spreading food shortages and rising food prices -- and the political turmoil this would lead to -- that threatens our global future. Unless governments quickly redefine security and shift expenditures from military uses to investing in climate change mitigation, water efficiency, soil conservation, and population stabilization, the world will in all likelihood be facing a future with both more climate instability and food price volatility. If business as usual continues, food prices will only trend upward...
NASA: 2010 Tied For Warmest Year On Record
Jan 12
Global surface temperatures in 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest on record, according to an analysis released Wednesday by researchers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York...
Great Ideas: Solar Roadways
Dec 14
Suppose we made a section of road out of [indestructible] material and housed solar cells to collect energy, which could pay for the cost of the panel, thereby creating a road that would pay for itself over time. What if we added LEDs to "paint" the road lines from beneath, lighting up the road for safer night time driving? What if we added a heating element in the surface (like the defrosting wire in the rear window of our cars) to prevent snow/ice accumulation in northern climates? The ideas and possibilities just continued to roll in and the Solar Roadway project was born...
News: Scientists Concerned As Oceans Continue To Rise
Nov 14
Scientists long believed that the collapse of the gigantic ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica would take thousands of years, with sea level possibly rising as little as seven inches in this century, about the same amount as in the 20th century. But researchers have recently been startled to see big changes unfold in both Greenland and Antarctica. As a result of recent calculations that take the changes into account, many scientists now say that sea level is likely to rise perhaps three feet by 2100 -- an increase that, should it come to pass, would pose a threat to coastal regions the world over...
Climate Scientists Plan Campaign Against Global Warming Skeptics
Nov 07
Faced with rising political attacks, hundreds of climate scientists are joining a broad campaign to push back against congressional conservatives who have threatened prominent researchers with investigations and vowed to kill regulations to rein in man-made greenhouse gas emissions...
News: Narwhals Reveal Arctic Ocean Warmer Than Expected
Nov 01
Narwhals diving nearly 2 kilometres below polar ice have revealed that climatology models used for the Baffin bay region -- which links the Atlantic and Arctic oceans -- underestimate winter ocean temperatures there by as much as 1 °C... "Their findings indicate that the transfer of atmospheric heat into the oceans may be higher than we thought," says climatologist Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder...
News: Bill Gates Seeks Inexhaustible Supply Of Carbon-Free Energy
Oct 31
Bill Gates is investing millions to halt global warming by creating an inexhaustible supply of carbon-free energy...
News: Global Extinction Crisis Looms
Oct 27
A growing number of creatures could disappear from the earth, with one-fifth of all vertebrates and as many as a third of all sharks and rays now facing the threat of extinction, according to a new survey assessing nearly 26,000 species across the globe. In addition, forces such as habitat destruction, over-exploitation and invasive competitors move 52 species a category closer to extinction each year, according to the research, published online Tuesday by the journal Science. At the same time, the findings demonstrate that these losses would be at least 20 percent higher without conservation efforts now underway...
News: More Than 1,200 New Species Found In Amazon In Past Decade
Oct 27
Brightly coloured tarantulas that propel excrement at enemies one metre away, translucent "glass frogs" with skin so thin you can watch their hearts beat, blind ants that date back 120m years, and tiny predatory flowers that lure insects to their death with a murderous fragrance are among more than 1,200 species that have been discovered in the Amazon over the past 10 years...
News: UN Conference: We Are Destroying The Earth
Oct 19
A recent U.N. biodiversity study said global environmental damage caused by human activity in 2008 totaled $6.6 trillion. A U.N. biodiversity conference aims to address a simple problem: "We are destroying life on Earth," said the head of the U.N. Environment Program. The world cannot afford to allow nature's riches to disappear, the United Nations said on Monday at the start of a major meeting to combat losses in animal and plant species that underpin livelihoods and economies. The U.N. cited the worst extinction rate since the dinosaurs vanished 65 million years ago, saying it's a crisis that needs to be addressed by governments, businesses and communities...
News: Water Evaporating Off Land In Decline
Oct 14
Earth's water cycle has been pushed to its limit. The amount of water evaporating off the land and into the atmosphere hit a maximum 12 years ago and is now in decline, new calculations show...
News: Bill Clinton: Save America’s Economy With Clean Energy (And Save The Planet)
Sep 24
President Bill Clinton believes the “number one thing” to restore the American economy is clean, efficient energy. In a blogger roundtable at the beginning of his Clinton Global Initiative in New York City, Clinton told us his “favorite ideas” for making the green economy a political and economic reality...
Video: This Is What Global Warming Looks Like
Sep 23
This is what Global Warming looks like from NRDC Broadcast Videos on Vimeo...
News: Bill Clinton: Economy, Disasters Imperil Millions
Sep 23
Former President Bill Clinton on Tuesday warned of the growing devastation of the global economic downturn and said the dangers posed by natural disasters around the world had been increased by the effects of climate change...
News: Arctic Ice In Death Spiral
Sep 22
The carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have melted the Arctic sea ice to its lowest volume since before the rise of human civilisation, dangerously upsetting the energy balance of the entire planet, climate scientists are reporting...
News: 2010 Tied With 1998 As Warmest Global Temperature On Record
Sep 17
The first eight months of 2010 tied the same period in 1998 for the warmest combined land and ocean surface temperature on record worldwide. Meanwhile, the June-August summer was the second warmest on record globally after 1998, and last month was the third warmest August on record. Separately, last month’s global average land surface temperature was the second warmest on record for August, while the global ocean surface temperature tied with 1997 as the sixth warmest for August...
Video: Nic Marks: The Happy Planet Index
Sep 03Statistician Nic Marks asks why we measure a nation’s success by its productivity — instead of by the happiness and well-being of its people. He introduces the Happy Planet Index, which tracks national well-being against resource use (because a happy life doesn’t have to cost the earth). Which countries rank highest in the HPI? You might be...
News: Famed Climate Change Skeptic Changes His Mind
Sep 02
FAMED CLIMATE CHANGE SKEPTIC CHANGES HIS MIND By Nancy Roberts Care2 September 1, 2010 Original Link [Visit the link above to see supporting links. --DS] Danish political scientist and statistician Bjorn Lomborg, alternately hailed and cursed for claiming that efforts to reduce carbon emissions were not worth the money, now suggests that combatting climate change should be the top global...
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