So, this happened: Climate researchers now predict the planet will warm by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century even if the world’s leaders fulfill their most ambitious climate pledges, a much faster and broader scale of change than forecast just two years ago, according to a report released Thursday by the United [...]
For many decades, oil was available to meet all of our energy needs. It flowed from the earth; the challenge was to extract and refine it. The supply itself has only recently become a problem, and governments and businesses are scrambling to find a new source of energy that will once again allow us to [...]
I was very happy to see this: NASA will send a space shuttle and seven astronauts to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope as soon as May 2008, overturning an earlier decision that the complex mission posed too much of a risk. I firmly believe that one of the most important strengths of the [...]
I was delighted this morning when I read this piece by Sebastian Mallaby at the Washington Post website. I have criticized him in the past, but here he makes a very good point about the relationship between current Republican policies and the growing interest in Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth: Ordinarily this film would [...]
I have been looking forward to An Inconvenient Truth ever since I heard it was being made. Al Gore’s book, Earth in the Balance, had a huge impact on me when I first read it during the runup to the 2000 election, and I have always admired his tenacious advocacy for the environment whether it [...]
This Washington Post story details the new challenges Inuit people are facing as a result of the warming climate. Hunting methods that have worked for generations are suddenly failing. Animal species the Inuit have never seen are moving north into their territory. The article contains many vivid examples, like this: “These are things that all [...]
There is an excellent article in the New Yorker this week, but it is not available online. “Political Science,” by Michael Specter, investigates this administration’s unprecedentedly ideological approach to science. Happily, a Q & A session with the author is available online, and it gives a taste of the article itself: No Administration is eager [...]
This story from the Washington Post is full of terrible news about Canada’s (soon to be formerly) lush pine forests, which are the foundation for its logging industry. From the story: Millions of acres of Canada’s lush green forests are turning red in spasms of death. A voracious beetle, whose population has exploded with the [...]
I saw an interesting story in the New York Times, about a gasoline tax, and people’s feeling about said tax. There weren’t very many surprises in the facts of the article. For example: Eighty-five percent of the 1,018 adults polled opposed an increase in the federal gasoline tax, suggesting that politicians have good reason to [...]
This enjoyable Washington Post article chronicles the discovery of fossils of a previously unknown mammalian species, an aquatic little fellow who “is the oldest known aquatic mammal, predating the river otter by more than 100 million years.” Cool stuff! Go check out the article, and remember how science, while it does give us medicinal and [...]