There has been a measurable "surge" of carbon in the atmosphere for the past 4 or 5 years, nearly doubling the annual rate of the 1970-2000 period, which has mystified scientists because it does not match human trends or known natural causes. A new paper (abstract) suggests we may have reached a tipping point with more greenhouse gases escaping from trees, plants and soils than in the past - hotter and dryer weather caused by high levels of CO2 is creating a feedback loop of unusually strong out-gassings of CO2 from vegetation more inside
posted by stbalbach on May 13, 2007 - 41 comments

Impacts of Climate Change, the Potential Impacts to 2050 of a Mid-Upper Greenhouse Gas Emissions Scenario. From Global Business Network.
posted by stbalbach on Mar 6, 2007 - 8 comments

Children losing sleep over global warming, with comments from The Scotsman readers.
posted by stbalbach on Feb 25, 2007 - 51 comments

How Iraq and climate change threw the right into disarray.
posted by stbalbach on Jan 23, 2007 - 42 comments

CitizenRe is a solar power rental company for the home. Free to install (!), a monthly rental fee is equal to what would normally be paid to the power company. Video.
posted by stbalbach on Jan 11, 2007 - 67 comments

Unhappy Feet. Penguin populations around the world are crashing. Biologists are mystified but suspect warmer oceans caused by global warming is reducing available food.
posted by stbalbach on Dec 23, 2006 - 36 comments

Livestock's Long Shadow, a new UN FAO report (full report) says livestock (cows, pig, sheep, etc.) generate more CO2 than all forms of transportation (cars, planes, etc) combined, with the worlds live stock expected to double by 2050.
posted by stbalbach on Dec 11, 2006 - 34 comments

The Denial Machine. A 40-min Canadian (CBC) documentary about the "denial industry" - think tanks, scientists, PR firms, focus groups, lawyers, etc.. the issue? Tobacco. Global Warming. It doesn't matter - different issues but the same people. How to be a professional denier and profit.
posted by stbalbach on Dec 9, 2006 - 46 comments

The End of Ingenuity (NYT OpEd by Thomas Homer-Dixon)"..cheap energy is tightening, and humankind’s enormous output of greenhouse gases is disrupting the earth’s climate. Together, these two constraints could eventually hobble global economic growth and cap the size of the global economy." See also The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization. (2006).
posted by stbalbach on Nov 30, 2006 - 61 comments

Sir Nicholas Stern, British economist, issues a "Stern Review", warning of global warming (link contains 15-min video presentation, PDF executive summary, PDF slideshow, and news summary). Ends on an optimistic note for England to lead the world with solutions.
posted by stbalbach on Oct 30, 2006 - 20 comments

The Weather Channel launches One Degree, a broadband channel dedicated to global warming - for the "weather obsessed", sexy-voiced climatologists Heidi Cullen brings global warming mainstream. Are you a "climatechanger"?
posted by stbalbach on Oct 8, 2006 - 9 comments

President Bush is preparing an astonishing U-turn on global warming, senior Washington sources say.
posted by stbalbach on Sep 17, 2006 - 78 comments

Fair Price Energy. One persons idea for a free market solution to the fossil fuel problem.
posted by stbalbach on Sep 2, 2006 - 46 comments

The Amazon rainforest becomes "a desert" after three consecutive years without rain - the trees die. Next year would be the third year of an ongoing drought. The forest contains 90 billion tons of carbon (or about 45 years of stored human emmisions at current rates) - 3/4's of the carbon is released within a year of dieing. The Amazon is "headed in a terrible direction".
posted by stbalbach on Jul 25, 2006 - 80 comments

Who'll be living where. Researchers at the Earth Institute at Columbia University have developed map that projects where people will be living in the year 2025.
posted by stbalbach on Jul 21, 2006 - 36 comments

Much of the United States currently in a heat wave. First half of 2006 warmest on record in US - Global Warming fuels U.S. forest fires. Global Warming is not going away.
posted by stbalbach on Jul 15, 2006 - 104 comments

The average American uses 20 pounds of coal a day. "our shiny white iPod economy is propped up by dirty black rocks.. I see more people dying of particle air pollution than are dying of AIDS." Coal accounts for nearly 40 percent of America's carbon dioxide emissions. Big Coal by Jeff Goodell.
posted by stbalbach on Jun 24, 2006 - 79 comments

The oil in your oatmeal is just a bit of The Oil We Eat.
posted by stbalbach on Mar 27, 2006 - 28 comments

Sea levels are on the rise. Flood Maps mashes up NASA elevation data and Google Maps, and offers a zoomable localized visualization of the effects.
posted by stbalbach on Mar 24, 2006 - 35 comments

The Coming Meltdown. The incredible story of Lonnie Thompson - West Virginia conservative, world-class mountaineer, glaciologist, and leading climatologist who first told Congress the world is heating up in 1988, "the moment at which the greenhouse era really began".
posted by stbalbach on Mar 5, 2006 - 16 comments

Last winter, Sweden was blasted by the first storm in recorded history to ever deliver hurricane force winds, devastating the country's forests. Logging crews came from all over the world. This massive collection of wood is now stored at a former air strip. via Inhabitat
posted by stbalbach on Jan 31, 2006 - 42 comments

Alibaba regularly ranks as one of the top destination web sites in the world, currently higher than Wikipedia or CNN, it is a mind boggling Bazaar of bulk items available for import and export, mainly from China. A popular site rarely heard about, it is for those who buy by the shipping container or become lost in the bewildering variety and possibilities of generic bulk commodities.
posted by stbalbach on Jan 13, 2006 - 28 comments

ASPO-USA Denver Conference Report. Views on Peak Oil from a wide range of panelists in Colorado this week, including the mayor of Denver "who has joined that brave but small band of honest and courageous politicians willing to go anywhere near the issue of peak oil".
posted by stbalbach on Nov 12, 2005 - 16 comments

No surprise: Warmest September (globally) since record keeping began, according to NOAA, 1.13 degrees above the 1880-2004 long term mean, with land temperatures more than 5 degrees F above normal across large parts of Asia and North America. Ocean temperatures were third highest on record.
posted by stbalbach on Oct 25, 2005 - 46 comments

Scientists find errors in global warming data. Heating from tropical sunlight was skewing temperatures reported by satelite sensors, making nights look as warm as days. The George C. Marshall Institute declined to comment. The group, financed by the petroleum industry, has used the data disparities to dispute the views of global-warming activists. Researchers say it removes a last bastion of scientific doubt about global warming
posted by stbalbach on Aug 12, 2005 - 39 comments