-
4 annoying ways climate change will make your life a bummer
Get ready for bumpy flights, horrible allergies, and watered-down beer. Climate change will definitely affect you. -
Since the 1980s, a hole in the ozone layer has loomed over Antarctica for three months of every year. During these months, the concentration of the ozone decreases, and harmful ultraviolet light, which causes sunburn and skin cancer, seeps through to the Earth’s surface. Environmentalists have long looked to the ozone hole as evidence of man’s negative impact on the atmosphere, but recent findings may ease their minds: Measurements indicate the hole in the ozone layer is the smallest it has been in 10 years, and could be completely gone within a few decades.
-
2012 was a record-melting sizzler, the hottest year on record in the continental United States:
55.3 — Average temperature, in degrees Fahrenheit, across the continental U.S. in 2012. That’s a full degree Fahrenheit higher than the previous record set in 1998, and is 3.3 degrees above the 20th century average.
34,008 — Daily high records set at weather stations across the country in 2012
100 — Percent of the 10 warmest years on record that have occurred over the last 15 years
7 — Percentage of the U.S. that experienced an all-time hottest day ever last year
61 — Percentage of the nation plagued by drought in 2012, which obliterated corn and soybean crops and sent prices sky high
(Source: theweek.com)
-
5 disturbing trends you should pay attention to in 2013
“Perhaps you’ve heard stories about how close many of our most well-known animals are to extinction: 97 percent of the world’s tigers have been wiped out in the last century and the World Wildlife Fund warns the remainder could be gone in a decade or two. Ditto for elephants, sharks, and even the tiny honeybee, which is essential for pollinating our food sources.
But these are just the high-profile examples. Escaping the broader public’s attention, warns the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) is the possibility of ‘30 to 50 percent of all species possibly heading toward extinction by mid-century.’ Not just animals, but plants that are critical for human life. Rain forests, coral reefs, grasslands, tundra, and the polar seas — these critical, life-enhancing ecosystems that humans take for granted are all at risk. It is, the CBD warns, the ‘worst spate of species die-offs since the loss of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.’ Granted, some of this is natural, but human behavior — habitat destruction, pollution and yes, global warming — is accelerating the process.
Although few Americans have knowledge in basic sciences, it hasn’t stopped us from challenging or dismissing the peer-review findings of those who do. We don’t want to invest in addressing a slow-moving catastrophe like this because it’s just too hard to focus or acknowledge something that isn’t top of mind. ‘If honey bees become extinct,’ Albert Einstein noted, ‘human society will follow in four years.’ If you’re smarter than Einstein, Mr. Armchair Expert, tell me why he’s wrong.”
The extinction crisis, and four other disturbing trends you should pay attention to in 2013
(Source: theweek.com)
-
Two young filmmakers camped out in the freezing cold for weeks to capture this thunderous, rare shot of a massive 4.6-cubic-mile glacier in Greenland crumbling apart. This brief clip of the largest glacier calving ever caught on camera is just a small segment in the recently debuted documentary Chasing Ice, which is dedicated to chronicling the perhaps-irreversible impact of climate change on glaciers (and sea levels) around the world. Filmmaker James Balog says watching the roaring landscape shift is like watching “Manhattan breaking apart in front of your eyes.” Seeing is believing, says Will Oremus at Slate. Here, “[Balog’s] team succeeded in capturing the awesome effects of climate change in a way that papers published in Science just can’t.” Terrifying? You bet. (Video via The Guardian)
(Source: theweek.com)
-
If you’ve never been to California to see its giant redwoods, you should probably go soon. It might be only a matter of time before they’re all gone. Research released Friday indicates that the world’s oldest trees are dying at an alarming rate. “It is a very, very disturbing trend,” says lead researcher William Laurance of James Cook University. “We are talking about the loss of the biggest living organisms on the planet, of the largest flowering plants on the planet, of organisms that play a key role in regulating and enriching our world.”
The rapid die-off of the world’s oldest trees
(Source: theweek.com)
-
Cartoon of the day — A swift transition
KEN CATALINO © 2012 Cagle Cartoons
More cartoons(Source: theweek.com)
-
The British government’s meteorological service recently released new figures on global temperatures that prompted the Daily Mail, a conservative British tabloid, to declare: “Global warming stopped 16 years ago.”
The bold headline rekindled the often bitter debate over climate change, and what world leaders should do about it. Have climate scientists changed their minds about what’s happening to Earth’s temperatures, and how pollution affects those temperatures? Did global warming really stop 16 years ago?
Photo: Uriel Sinai/Getty Images
(Source: theweek.com)
-
Scientists in Scotland have developed an unorthodox plan to help fight climate change: They want to trigger a far-off asteroid to spew a large dust cloud into space. This dust would function as a cosmic shade to block some of the sun’s harmful radiation from reaching Earth.
The nearest potential asteroid for the project, 1036 Ganymed, could potentially emit a cloud 1,600 miles wide with a mass of roughly 11 quadrillion-pounds, says Shane McGlaun at Slashgear. That’s more than enough to block a sizeable chunk of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation from hitting Earth.
-
New laundry detergent makes your clothes remove pollution from the air
In an unusual collaboration of form and function, scientists from the University of Sheffield and designers from the London College of Fashion have teamed up to create a liquid laundry additive, CatClo (Catalytic Clothing), that turns your clothes into pollution magnets using the magic of nanotechnology.
The laundry additive coats your clothes with minuscule particles of titanium dioxide, which, when exposed to daylight, attract nitrogen oxides — a major source of pollution — from the air. You only have to use CatClo once per clothing item, the developers say, as “nanoparticles of titanium dioxide grip onto fabrics very tightly.” The additive can remove 5 grams of nitrogen dioxide a day — the same amount as emitted daily by an average family car, says the University of Sheffield’s Tony Ryan — and the pollutants wash off your clothes the next time you do the laundry. “Not a bad haul for simply getting dressed in the morning,” says Clay Dillow at PopSci.
-
Cartoon of the day — The schizophrenic seasons
BOB ENGLEHART © 2012 Cagle Cartoons(Source: theweek.com)
-
Scorching heat got you down? Better get used to it. A new NASA study reveals a “stunning increase” in the frequency of extremely hot summers over the past six decades. And even more sweltering days are on the horizon.
Think of it this way: On any day you could roll a six-sided die with low, average, and above-normal temperatures each having equal odds, or two sides assigned to each. Researchers call this concept the “climate dice.”
Since the ’80s, that metaphorical die has become more heavily weighted toward hotter days. In fact, since the year 2000, the die has had 4.5 sides dedicated to above-normal temperatures.
Are extremely hot summers becoming the norm?
(Source: theweek.com)
-
About 78 percent of U.S. corn and 11 percent of soybean crops are being affected by the nation’s largest drought since 1956. The price of corn has risen 38 percent since June 1, while beans have risen 24 percent.
As a result dairy, grain, produce, and meat prices are all about to go way up, affecting the price of everything from chicken to ice cream to pizza. The ramifications will likely be felt globally as well. “The dramatic rise in grain prices in the past few weeks is shaping up to be a serious financial blow for wheat-importing countries,” a German trader tells the AFP.
