By Maria Dolan18 February 2013 (Slate) – Behind the counter at Seattle’s Taylor Shellfish Market, a brawny guy with a goatee pries open kumamoto, virginica, and shigoku oysters as easily as other men pop beer cans. David Leck is a national oyster shucking champion who opened and plated a dozen of them in just over […]
By Monte Morin12 February 2013 (Los Angeles Times) – Ancient plant and animal matter trapped within Arctic permafrost can be converted rapidly into climate-warming carbon dioxide when melted and exposed to sunlight, according to a new study. In a report published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of environmental […]
By Philip Bump8 February 2013 (Grist) – “We live in a world in which the climate is changing.” This statement from the EPA, the first line in its draft “Climate Change Adaptation Plan” [PDF] released today, is basic. But that the EPA is saying it is important. For two reasons. The first is that the […]
By dana198130 January 2013 A paper recently published in Global Environmental Change by Brysse, et al., (2012) examined a number of past predictions made by climate scientists, and found that that they have tended to be too conservative in their projections of the impacts of climate change. The authors thus suggest that climate scientists […]
By Heather Stewart and Larry Elliott26 January 2013 (The Observer) – Lord Stern, author of the government-commissioned review on climate change that became the reference work for politicians and green campaigners, now says he underestimated the risks, and should have been more “blunt” about the threat posed to the economy by rising temperatures. In an […]
By Valerie Volcovici and Patrick Rucker 18 January 2013 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Reeling from an historic drought, the hottest year on record and more frequent wild weather, mayors from a number of U.S. cities urged the White House this week to take the lead on setting an agenda to address climate change. City leaders said […]
[As usual, apologies for the ad.] By Jaime A. FlorCruz, CNN19 January 2013 Beijing, China (CNN) – “Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in …” my wife Ana blurted into a song this week, as she gazed eastwards through the window of our apartment in downtown Beijing. The old tune from the Broadway show Hair […]
By JOHN M. BRODER17 January 2013 (The New York Times) – Opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline and the heavy Canadian crude oil that it would carry released two reports on Thursday asserting that the environmental impacts of the project are worse than previously estimated, and urged the Obama administration to veto it. One report, […]
By Nick Molho and Keith Allott 11 December 2012 (guardian.co.uk) – The prime minister promised to lead the “greenest government ever” when he won the 2010 election. Since then he has been silent on the climate and energy agenda, allowing other voices in his government to dominate. Today he will face tough questions from MPs […]
Doha, 27 November 2012 (UNEP) – Permafrost covering almost a quarter of the northern hemisphere contains 1,700 gigatonnes of carbon, twice that currently in the atmosphere, and could significantly amplify global warming should thawing accelerate as expected, according to a new report released today by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). Warming permafrost can also radically […]
