Japan draws curtain on nuclear energy – Critics call policy a ‘climate disaster’

By Tsuyoshi Inajima, Takashi Hirokawa, and Yuji Okada14 September 2012 Japan plans to scrap atomic power by the end of the 2030s, bowing to public pressure after the Fukushima nuclear disaster caused mass evacuations and left areas north of Tokyo uninhabitable for decades. The country’s first post-Fukushima energy policy approved today by Prime Minister Yoshihiko […]

Image of the Day: Satellite view of Siberia wildfires, 11 September 2012

[This afternoon, Desdemona wondered why the Seattle sunlight again has that orange, hazy cast. Apparently, reports that Typhoon Bolaven extinguished the Siberia wildfires were premature.] Caption by Adam Voiland, with information from Christine Wiedinmyer, Jon Ranson, and Vyacheslav Kharuk. 13 September 2012 The summer of 2012 has proven to be the most severe wildfire season […]

Arctic has lost enough sea ice to cover Canada and Alaska

By Michael D. Lemonick 11 September 2012 The official end of the Arctic Ocean melt season could come any time now, but the sea ice that covers the North Polar region has already smashed the previous record low for end-of-summer ice area set in 2007. Back then, a combination of warm temperatures and ice-dispersing winds […]

‘Sunshade’ to fight climate change costed at $5 billion a year

[cf. So the leaders of men conceived of their most desperate strategy yet] By Alister Doyle and David Fogarty; editing by Andrew Roche30 August 2012 OSLO/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Planes or airships could carry sun-dimming materials high into the atmosphere for an affordable price tag of below $5 billion a year as a way to slow […]

Western North America drought is worst in 800 years, study says

Media ContactsNAU Office of Public Affairs: opaffairs@nau.edu or +1 928.523.2282 Christopher Schwalm: +1 928.523.8413NSIDC Press Office: natasha.vizcarra@nsidc.org or +1 303.492.149730 July 2012 A new scientific study indicates the turn-of-the-century drought in the North American West was the worst of the last millennium—with major impacts to the carbon cycle and hints of even drier times ahead. […]

Oceans face ‘increased extinctions and extinction risks caused by human factors’

Contact: Jenny Lappin, CoECRS, +61 417 741 638 Jan King, UQ Communications Manager, +61 (0)7 3365 1120 Professor John Pandolfi, CoECRS and UQ, +61 7 3365 3050 or (m) +61 400 982 301 Life in the world’s oceans faces far greater change and risk of large-scale extinctions than at any previous time in human history, […]

Merkel’s green shift forces Germany to burn more coal

By Stefan Nicola and Tino Andresen20 August 2012 Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government says RWE AG’s new power plant that can supply 3.4 million homes aids her plan to exit nuclear energy and switch to cleaner forms of generation. It’s fired with coal. The startup of the 2,200-megawatt station near Cologne last week shows how Europe’s […]

New study helps predict impact of ocean acidification on shellfish

5 August 2012 (BAS) – An international study to understand and predict the likely impact of ocean acidification on shellfish and other marine organisms living in seas from the tropics to the poles is published this week (date) in the journal Global Change Biology. Ocean acidification is occurring because some of the increased carbon dioxide […]

British and Australia scientists discover how carbon is stored in the Southern Ocean

    30 July 2012 (CSIRO) – The Southern Ocean is an important carbon sink in the world – around 40 per cent of the annual global CO2 emissions absorbed by the world’s oceans enter through this region. Reporting this week in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and Australia’s national […]

Real carbon emission cuts tough until technology catches up, says report

By ORA MORISON, The Globe and Mail25 July 2012 The severe drought hitting U.S. farms may be just the latest sign of climate change and the impact it will have on the economy. Climate change and economics have been intersecting long before a drought descended upon the Midwest this year. Over the past 20 years, […]

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