Climate Ark

New York Times: The crazy weather continues. People in Europe are freezing to death in one of the coldest winters on record. It snowed on Monday in Libya. Libya! That is a country better known, weather-wise, for suffering the highest temperature recorded on earth in modern times (136 degrees Fahrenheit, in 1922). Meanwhile, the United States is enjoying a bizarrely mild winter, in stark contrast to last year`s. At Tuesday`s parade for the New York Giants, some people walked around Manhattan in short sleeves....

Business Green: Google has today taken top spot in Greenpeace's annual Cool IT Leaderboard ranking technology firms' environmental efforts, seizing the crown from networking giant Cisco. The influential campaign group said Google had climbed to the top of the table on the back of its high profile investment in renewable energy projects and its vocal support for US clean energy policy and EU efforts to increase the ambition of its climate change targets. However, the group again turned its fire on Apple, refusing...

ABC News: Are we "doping" our atmosphere? What's going on with these record warm temperatures"¦ extreme snowfall"¦ even January tornadoes? Is climate change the cause? Or more appropriately, what impact is climate change having on our weather? To help answer those questions, a group of researchers has just released a new online guide for understanding the links between more extreme weather and a warming planet. Is global warming throwing our weather out of whack? Scientists tell us there's no easy,...

Inter Press Service: European leaders have mapped out a bold agenda ahead of the Rio summit, vowing to transform development aid, help provide renewable electricity to the world’s neediest people, and bulk up the United Nations environment body. The European Union’s ‘Agenda for Change’ proposal calls for pumping foreign aid into sustainable growth and energy access, while European Union officials have also floated the idea of transforming the U.N. Environmental Programme into an agency with expanded influence and...

Independent: There was a significant increase in UK greenhouse gases in 2010 for the first time in several years, Government figures confirmed yesterday. Emissions of the basket of carbon dioxide (CO2) and five other greenhouse gases covered by the Kyoto protocol, the international climate-change treaty, were more than 3 per cent higher that year than in 2009, according to final data released by the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Emissions of CO2 itself, the principal greenhouse gas, were almost...

Guardian: Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant say they are regaining control of a reactor after its temperature rose dramatically this week, casting doubt on government claims that the facility has been stabilised. The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco] was forced to increase the amount of cooling water being injected into the No. 2 reactor after its temperature soared to 73.3 C earlier this week. By Tuesday night, the temperature had dropped to 68.5 C at the bottom of the...

East Bay Express: Poor, urban, and minority residents are most at risk for health problems linked to climate change, according to a new California Department of Public Health analysis of Los Angeles and Fresno counties. The department examined social and environmental factors ranging from the rising sea level to public transportation access and found that African Americans and Latinos living in these counties are more likely to be exposed to health and safety risks related to poor air quality, heat waves, flooding,...

Inter Press Service: More than a decade ago, solar electricity changed the lives of several mountain communities in Cuba. Now this and other renewable power sources are emerging as the best options available to develop sustainable energy across the island. "If the world's clean energy potential exceeds our consumption needs, why do we insist on using the polluting kind?" asked Luis Bérriz, head of the Cuban Society for the Promotion of Renewable Energy Sources and Respect for the Environment (CUBASOLAR), a non- governmental...

Vermont Public Radio: (Host) Environmental activist Bill McKibben told a panel of Vermont lawmakers that catastrophic weather events like Tropical Storm Irene will become more frequent as the climate continues to warm. (McKibben) "What's interesting about that storm is that it fits precisely with what the climatologists have been telling us to expect. It was not an unbelievably powerful wind storm as it swept up the East Coast but over the waters of New York and New Jersey it encountered record surface temperatures....

Reuters: Trace amounts of a radioactive element found in fish near the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant have now been found in bass in an opposite corner of the state, apparently clearing the plant of any tie to the contamination, a state health official said. Initial testing took place after Entergy Corp.'s Vermont Yankee, located in the southeastern town of Vernon, reported in 2010 that radioactive material had leaked into nearby groundwater. Low levels of Strontium-90, an isotope produced by nuclear...

LiveScience: It seems the general public just can't make up its mind about the existence of man-made climate change. Rather than steadily increasing or decreasing over the last decade, the U.S. public's concern over our warming planet has jumped up and down, according to Gallup polls. But what exactly is driving this seesawing of opinions on climate change? The level of public concern about this global issue is mostly influenced by the mobilization efforts of political leaders and advocacy groups, new research...

Climate Central: As it does every month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has released U.S. weather stats for the month just ended, and the results will come as a huge shock -- if you've been hiding in a subterranean cave, at least. For the rest of us, it's not even a bit surprising that January, 2012 is the fourth warmest January since modern recordkeeping began in the late 1800's. Here in Princeton, where Climate Central has its headquarters, daffodils are poking up out of the ground...

Politco: Rick Santorum told Colorado Springs supporters Tuesday that Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich would be ineffective challengers to President Barack Obama in the general election because of their views on cap and trade. "Let's go to cap and trade. Governor Romney proudly announced that they were the first state, Massachusetts, to put a cap on CO2 emissions in the state of Massachusetts," Santorum told more than 100 supporters here. Santorum also dinged Gingrich for filming a climate change ad with...

Reuters: A plan to fast-track the stalled the Keystone XL pipeline was passed by a key committee in the House of Representatives, as Republicans made yet another attempt to spur approval of the project that has become a major issue in the 2012 elections. The bill would wrest decision-making on the pipeline from the Obama administration and hand it to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which would be compelled to quickly issue approval permits on the Canada-to-Texas project. But the plan would...

Times of India: Is the chemical reaction involving radical-molecule complexes responsible for climate changes? If experts are to be believed, the better understanding of structure and reactivity of radical-molecule complexes can provide deep insight into various atmospheric phenomenons, including ozone depletion (global warming), acid rain and climate changes. "The recent studies focusing on understanding of chemical processes at molecular level in the atmosphere are promising to come up with development of accurate...

Inter Press Service: Spain's new conservative government has announced changes in environmental policy that are a significant step backwards for environmental protection in the country, provoking an immediate, harsh reaction from the opposition and civil society. Mario Rodríguez, head of the Spanish chapter of the environmental NGO Greenpeace, told IPS that the only fit response to the government's announcement is "citizens' protests to demand that the achievements for the defence of the environment over the past...

Inter Press Service: As half of Mexico endures one of the most severe droughts in its history, cloud seeding appears to be a promising way to bring desperately needed rain, although it remains a source of controversy. While some promote the benefits of cloud seeding, others insist that there is no solid evidence of its effectiveness, in addition to the fact that the potential effects on the air, water and soil of the chemicals used have not been sufficiently studied. "The methodology is not proven; the investment...

Mongabay: On February 4th, the Peruvian government and a small indigenous group created a new Amazon reserve, dubbed the Maijuna Reserve. Located in northeastern Peru, the 390,000 hectare (970,000 acres) reserve is larger than California's Yosemite National Park and over three times the size of Hong Kong. Connected to the watersheds of Napo and Putumayo rivers, Maijuna reserve will not only protect primary rainforest in the Loreto Region, but also the culture of the Maijuna people who live in the area with...

SciDev.Net: The current trend of increasing ocean acidification, which threatens fisheries around the world, is driven mainly by man-made changes and is higher even than that seen at the end of the last ice age, some 11,000 year ago, a study has said. Much of the carbon released by human activity ends up in the oceans, increasing their acidity and reducing the growth of corals and molluscs, which in turn may affect fisheries and aquaculture. Fisheries in the Pacific and the Caribbean may suffer the most...

Salon: If we could see the world with a particularly illuminating set of spectacles, one of its most prominent features at the moment would be a giant carbon bubble, whose bursting someday will make the housing bubble of 2007 look like a lark. As yet - as we shall see - it’s unfortunately largely invisible to us. In compensation, though, we have some truly beautiful images made possible by new technology. Last month, for instance, NASA updated the most iconic photograph in our civilization’s gallery:...