Climate Change
War & Peace
In a small way, the plight of the British in 1940 resembles the state of the civilized world now. At that time we had had nearly a decade of the well-intentioned but quite wrong belief that peace was all that mattered. The followers of the peace lobbies of the 1930s resembled the environmentalist [...]
Biofuels Déjà Vu
Lured by dreams of “green” fuel, could we end up trampling biodiversity in the name of saving the planet?
Story by David Malakoff
Illustration by Randy Lyhus
April-June 2009
These days, Jason Clay walks around with an eerie sense of déjà vu. Over the past few years, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) anthropologist has become deeply entangled in the [...]
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
Rising sea levels are erasing familiar boundaries. In fact, conservationists may find themselves fighting for lands that will soon be under water. With little room to maneuver between encroaching development and rising waters, it may be time to consider proposals that run headlong into conventional environmental wisdom.
Story by Jim Robbins
Illustration [...]
Course Correction
Predictions of species movements in a warmer world could be off-target
Where the sidewalk ends
A new kind of cement soaks up CO2
Cement production is responsible for more CO2 output than the entire aviation industry, and with demand for concrete expected to grow 50 percent by 2020, the problem won’t go away anytime soon. But engineers at the London-based company Novacem have come up with a novel solution: a new [...]
Field of Gleams
Shiny crops could cool the Earth
Ridgwell, A. et al. 2009. Tackling regional climate change by leaf albedo bio-geoengineering. Current Biology. DOI:10.1016/j.cub.2008.12.025.
Farm fields with bling may be the next big thing in agriculture, if scientists from the University of Bristol have their say. In Current Biology, they propose that farmers fight climate change [...]
Biofuel Bust
The potential for farming fuels has been inflated
Johnston, M. et al. 2008. Resetting global expectations from agricultural biofuels. Environmental Research Letters DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/4/1/014004
From corn and castor to sorghum and sweet potato, it seems like almost any crop is capable of running our cars these days. But as biofuel boosters talk up production potential of these [...]
Artificial Upwelling
Self-powered pumps keep coral cool as oceans warm
Cold and Old
Permafrost keeps its cool—even in a warmed-over world
Burning Questions
Which came first: fire, climate change, or human influence?