Ice — Nick Cobbing features stunning photographs of the Greenland Ice Melt and a stormy voyage to Greenland on an old sailing ship. [more inside]
posted by netbros on Jun 7, 2009 - 10 comments

potholer54 is a youtuber who in his own words; I've been a journalist for 20 years, 14 years as a science correspondent. My degree is in geology, but while working for a science magazine and several science programs I had to tackle a number of different fields, from quantum physics to microbiology. He has a series called Climate Change that you might find interesting. [more inside]
posted by nola on Jun 3, 2009 - 5 comments

Global Warming. [more inside]
posted by iamkimiam on Sep 19, 2008 - 64 comments

Canadian expatriate (and Metafilter member) stavrosthewonderchicken has a detailed and depressing look at the impact of the mountain pine beetle in Northern British Columbia, where a perfect storm of "forest fire suppression, clearcutting (and subsequent replanting), [and] global warming" has led to the destruction of over 130,000 square kilometers of forest.
posted by gen on Jul 9, 2008 - 51 comments

"We badly underestimated the degree of damages and the risks of climate change," said Lord Stern in a speech in London yesterday. "All of the links in the chain are on average worse than we thought (pdf) a couple of years ago." [more inside]
posted by [expletive deleted] on Apr 18, 2008 - 56 comments

Global Warming Video, From Still Images Twenty days. Twenty thousand still images. A single message. Toronto Star photographer Lucas Oleniuk captures the issue of global warming in a video created entirely by using still images.
posted by doug3505 on Apr 2, 2008 - 18 comments

New Jersey is drowning , or rather it would if the the future as predicted by David Spratty & Philip Sutton in climate code red comes true. Philip Sutton said in an interview that "within five years the Arctic ice in the summertime will be all gone.". With all the ice melting, the waterlevels rise - will your house be under water?
posted by dabitch on Feb 22, 2008 - 66 comments

Iceland, Norway, New Zealand and Costa Rica and four cities in other countries have made the pledge to aim for being carbon neutral. New Zealand and Costa Rica had earlier decleared this ambitious goal, but now Iceland and Norway have joined in. Way to go! Of the 192 nations on this planet, there are now only 188 to go.
posted by nucleus on Feb 21, 2008 - 20 comments

Video (8MB, MPEG) of arctic sea ice extent, recorded from January to September 2007. [other formats] This summer a dramatic decrease compared to previous years in the extent of the north pole ice cap was observed. Scientists are freaked out [bugmenot]. This summer, the Northwest Passage was open for a few weeks, allowing three ships to traverse it. [more inside]
posted by sergeant sandwich on Oct 12, 2007 - 32 comments

Earth, 2100 AD. Atmospheric CO₂ has doubled to 1000 ppm. From shore to the horizon, there is but an unending purple color -- a vast, flat, oily purple. No fish break its surface, no birds. We are under a pale green sky, and it has the smell of death and poison. Paleontologist Peter Ward's new book links past mass extinctions to global warming and shows, absent major changes, "Our world is hurtling toward carbon dioxide levels not seen since 60 million years ago, right after a greenhouse extinction." Maybe it's time for a heresy: nuclear energy's green, and renewables aren't.
posted by Bletch on Oct 9, 2007 - 168 comments

Global warming got you down? Bake some car cookies!
posted by ericbop on Oct 3, 2007 - 29 comments

Remember all that talk about the Gulf stream turning south and England entering an new Ice Age?
Well, better take a look at this one: (at the bottom)... Ok, this is the Jet stream, not the Gulf stream, but turbulence is turbulence and chaotic systems have a way of quickly migrating to new attractors, often first displaying a kind of turbulence during the transition phase. Here's a link to a .pdf that may be helpful (or not...)
I tell you - Winnipeg (Canada's Global Warming Success Story) just keeps lookin' better and better! But, hopefully, never this good...
posted by sporb on Jul 24, 2007 - 11 comments

Introducing the world’s first aircraft eco-labelling. While there are certainly several instances of other airlines doing something to off-set the carbon footprint of commercial flying, it is interesting to note that (according to the ATA) flying is the greenest form of mass transportation and ground transportation generates seven times the amount of greenhouse gases as air travel.
posted by analogue on Jun 4, 2007 - 20 comments

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

Sunspot activity is closely linked to climate. Although it observes an 11 and 22 year cycle, the overall trend of activity shows much longer term variations. The so-called Maunder Minimum (1645-1715) coincided with the Little Ice Age, while the Medieval Maximum coincided with the Medieval Warm Period. Analysis of beryllium isotopes from ice cores in Greenland shows that sunspot activity is currently at a 1000 year high. Could this account, at least in part, for global warming? Recent data from Mars suggests this may be so, while others remain sceptical. Bonus pix, more here.
posted by unSane on Apr 10, 2007 - 60 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

Is Cate Blanchett a global warming star or stinker? How about Angelina Jolie? Um, George Bush? They got the money and the fame, but are they doing anything good with it, like maybe saving the planet.
posted by jacob hauser on Mar 2, 2007 - 22 comments

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

IPCC's 4th Assesment Report Summary for Policymakers [PDF] is now avaiable online, offering a necessarily simplified view of the scientific finding supporting the idea that global warming isn't just the theory of some lone scientist. Certain think-thanks are now allegedly attempting to finance disconfirming opinion. Previously on Meta.
posted by elpapacito on Feb 2, 2007 - 41 comments

The Independent has some anticipations on the soon to be released first volume of IPCC's 4Th Assesment Report , concerning matters such as climate change and global warming. Quoting the article : It is virtually certain (there is more than a 99 per cent probability) that carbon dioxide levels and global warming is far above the range of natural variability over the past 650,000 years. It is virtually certain that human activity has played the dominant role in causing the increase of greenhouse gases over the past 250 years.
posted by elpapacito on Jan 29, 2007 - 74 comments

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

Can you save the world? This engaging flash game from the BBC lets you try. And it's based on Science! too.
posted by mr. strange on Jan 19, 2007 - 26 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

Al Gore trains 1,000 people from around the world to share the message he presented in "An Inconvenient Truth". "The goal had been to train 1,000 "presenters" to show slides of melting glaciers and charts of climbing temperatures, but many more have wanted in. Those selected to gather at the Hilton Nashville Downtown last week included teachers, doctors, a meteorologist, ministers, Wal-Mart employees, actress Cameron Diaz, architects, retirees, veterans and financiers."
posted by PreteFunkEra on Jan 8, 2007 - 63 comments

Global warming is to blame for the disapearing act of Polar Bears in the arctic. After years of so called "Scientific proof" the Bush administration finally admits they were wrong.
posted by PreteFunkEra on Dec 28, 2006 - 52 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

Penguins offer evidence of global warming another indicator of climate change.
posted by hard rain on Dec 16, 2006 - 20 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

A Concrete Solution to Pollution With concerns over global warming and pollution control reaching an all-time high, an Italian company has developed an interesting solution. It is called TX Active: a concrete that literally breaks down pollutants in the air. The effects are significant: 'In large cities with persistent pollution problems caused by car emissions, smoke from heating systems, and industrial activities, both the company and outside experts estimate that covering 15% of all visible urban surfaces (painting the walls, repaving the roads) with products containing TX Active could abate pollution by up to 50%.' Even more significant is that the cost is only 30% over that of normal concrete. Remarkable.
posted by PreacherTom on Nov 10, 2006 - 22 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

Hadley Centre: Climate Projections Two computer models showing how the North Pole is melting and what the surface temperature of the earth will be like at the end of this century. A spinning globe visualises the changes. This is not hyperbole just lots of data.
posted by hard rain on Oct 4, 2006 - 21 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

Pat Robertson believes in global climate change. *brain explodes* Far from heat-induced delirium, Pat may simply be following his flock: evangelicals have embraced the issue of global warming in recent months. Significantly, the environment and immigration are two issues that are gradually opening a scism between the corporatist and religious wings of the Republican Party, one that Democrats can exploit.
posted by Saucy Intruder on Aug 3, 2006 - 47 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 new urban jungle . . . is a growing movement led by cities like San Francisco, New York, and Leiden to restore active and vibrant natural systems in urban areas. Far from the eden-like depictions of nature of yesteryear, i.e. the garden of earthly delights (nonetheless, still attracting some dynamic new christian converts), the movement has morphed into today's backyard and grassroots environmental movement which is more and more a picture of hybridity, compromise, mixed-use, and ultimately, taking nature out of the walled islands of zoos, aquaria, national parks and other thick-walled institutions and offering a different kind of everyday "unmediated" community experience with the new urban wilderness. VIDEO LINK
posted by huckhound on Jul 6, 2006 - 1 comment

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

Mefi-attention-span summary: Arctic ocean was subtropically warm (23C, 73F) and covered with floating vegetation. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels above 2000 parts per million (today = 381 ppm.) Life on Earth did not end, went right on about its business. [For longer attention spans, The Cenozoic palaeoenvironment of the Arctic Ocean (Moran et al.); Climate Change: The Arctic tells its story (Heather Stoll); Subtropical Arctic Ocean temperatures during the Palaeocene/Eocene thermal maximum (Sluijs et al.); Episodic fresh surface waters in the Eocene Arctic Ocean (Brinkhuis et. al);. All from Nature v.441, (01 Jun 2006). Free abstract of Moran et. al; wants money for full texts. Also available for the asking nearest university or public library.
posted by jfuller on Jun 1, 2006 - 56 comments

Global warming underestimated by up to 78%. Scientists analyzing historical climate data for Europe have established the existence of a greater-than-anticipated positive feedback mechanism between high temperatures and global carbon dioxide levels. This provides more scientific evidence to support previously-expressed concerns that as global warming intensifies, a chain-reaction of considerably higher temperatures may occur. This corresponds with a new report released by the Australian government, claiming that "there is now perceived to be a greater risk that the upper end of the well known IPCC TAR estimate of a 1.4 to 5.8°C temperature rise will be reached or exceeded by 2100." "Estimates of future warming . . . may have to be raised by about 50 percent."
posted by insomnia_lj on May 24, 2006 - 40 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

Grasses and other green growth may produce 10 to 30 percent of Earth's annual methane output. German researcher Frank Keppler reports in Nature [reg req] that living plants give off between 60 and 240 million tonnes of methane per year, which may mean that the use of carbon sinks to offset CO2 emissions may need to be rethought. [Also: audio on NPR ]
posted by F Mackenzie on Jan 13, 2006 - 25 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