The United States can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, using existing or near-commercial technologies, according to researchers with the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project. The study analyzed scenarios with four types of decarbonized electricity: renewable energy, nuclear Read more…
In conversations I had many years ago with people who followed U.S. energy politics closely, I received several suggestions that I not criticize Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) too harshly. “He’s a laughing stock,” I was told repeatedly. “The incredible ignorance Read more…
People often evaluate scientific evidence not on the basis of its perceived merits, but on whether they agree with the policy implications of the research, according to a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Using issues Read more…
We all know that greenhouse gases contribute to global warming, but new research identifies a new mechanism that could turn out to be a major contributor to melting sea ice, specifically in the Arctic region. Scientists from the US Department Read more…
Only 1.2 trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide can be emitted in the future if nations are to avoid causing the global mean surface temperature to rise more than 2 degrees C beyond the pre-industrial average, according to researchers with Read more…
Thirteen climate scientists and meteorologists have published a sharp criticism of a paper in Nature by University of Hawaii biogeographer Camilo Mora, who calculated dates when earth’s climate will move into a new state caused by human-driven global warming. Mora Read more…
The texture of the soil that microbes live in determines how much carbon they release after deforestation, with sandy soils sending the most carbon into the atmosphere, according to research led by Yale scientists. Subterranean microbes regulate carbon emissions from Read more…
Could another climate change deal be in the works? World leaders are meeting in Brussels this month to discuss climate change. While environmentalists are calling for urgent action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, diplomatic language presented in the introductory document Read more…
Environmental Defense Fund was the first environmental group to hire a full-time economist, way back in the 1970s. At the time, many wondered what economics had to do with protecting the environment. We saw an opportunity and seized it because Read more…
The steady disappearance of Arctic sea ice, which is causing the exposed and darker surface of the Arctic Ocean to absorb more sunlight, is having a more profound impact on global warming than previously
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Sea ice extent in 2012
est…
A large majority of Americans — 83 percent — say the U.S. should make an effort to reduce global warming, even if those efforts have economic costs, according to a new report from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. As many as 56 perc…
The history of mankind’s technological use of solar power is thoroughly chronicled in a new book penned by John Perlin. With Let it Shine: The 6000-Year Story of Solar Energy, solar and forest conservation expert Perlin takes the reader on Read more…
United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres said that coal power can be part of the solution to curbing global warming, but it would require shuttering older coal power plants, advancing carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, and resolving t…
The 1987 Montreal Protocol, an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by banning chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), has also slowed global warming since the mid-1990s, a new analysis has found. The ban has lowered global temperatures by abou…