Blogging the End of the World™
By Ken Caldeira25 January 2016 (Technology Review) – Many years ago, I protested at the gates of a nuclear power plant. For a long time, I believed it would be easy to get energy from biomass, wind, and solar. Small is beautiful. Distributed power, not centralized. I wish I could still believe that. My thinking […]
By Chelsea Harvey 19 January 2016 (Washington Post) – The state of the world’s fish stocks may be in worse shape than official reports indicate, according to new data — a possibility with worrying consequences for both international food security and marine ecosystems. A study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications suggests that the […]
Johannesburg, South Africa, 21 January 2016 (Traffic.org) – South Africa today announced the official number of rhinos illegally killed in the country during 2015. The figure of 1,175 represents a slight drop on the 1,215 record total in 2014, but overall rhino poaching figures for Africa total a record high for the continent. “While a […]
By Sam Jones1 December 2015 Tonlé Sap lake (Guardian) – Out past the floating villages, the daytrippers and the mangrove arcades, the brown waters of the Tahas river open into a vast, dull green lake fringed by forest and a seemingly endless horizon. Silhouetted by a sinking afternoon sun, distant figures fish from small boats […]
By Ari Daniel24 January 2016 (PRI) – The breakfast on the edge of Greenland’s massive ice sheet is ordinary — granola, yogurt, bread and jam. Everything else here is anything but. “You’d pay a million bucks for a view like this,” says Gordon Hamilton, from the University of Maine by way of Scotland. “Pretty nice […]
By Judith Magyar22 January 2016 (SAP Community Network) – Emerging technologies such as 3D printing and genetic engineering offer a lot of promise, but can also be double-edged swords. They can help make our lives easier, safer and healthier, but there is also potential to build weapons or dangerously modify organisms. Developments like these raise […]
By Eric Roston22 January 2016 (Bloomberg) – As chairman of investments at Guggenheim Partners, Scott Minerd thought he had a realistic view on how big an economic challenge climate change poses. Then, at a Hoover Institution conference almost three years ago, he met former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz. Minerd recalled him saying: “Scott, […]
By Andrew Freedman and Megan Specia23 January 2016 (Mashable) – This blizzard has another hazard besides the snow, sleet and strong winds its bringing to the East Coast: flooding. The storm is pounding the New Jersey and Delaware shorelines with 22-foot waves and a 3 to 5-foot storm surge that sent water levels to all-time […]
5 January 2016 (The Siberian Times) – Average temperatures in the north of the Kara and Barents seas were 4C to 5C higher than previous years. This startling increase comes as meteorologists say the negative consequences of this warning can be measured directly, with a rapid rise in deadly and destructive wild fires, for example. […]
19 January 2016 By David Williams (PhysOrg) – Plastic rubbish will outweigh fish in the oceans by 2050 unless the world takes drastic action to recycle the material, a report warned Tuesday on the opening day of the annual gathering of the rich and powerful in the snow-clad Swiss ski resort of Davos. An overwhelming […]