Forty years after a multi-year bi-partisan government commission recommended slowing U.S. population growth and eventually stabilizing, Americans still would like to see it happen, according to poll results to be released this weekend at the 2012 Earth Day Dallas festival.
Two years ago this week, oil began streaming from the seafloor into the Gulf of Mexico following the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon platform. All told, the disaster cost 11 lives, released 4.9 million barrels of crude oil, and caused still unspecified impacts to marine life and the Gulf economy.
Meat consumption in the developed world needs to be cut by 50 percent per person by 2050 if we are to meet the most aggressive strategy, set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to reduce one of the most important greenhouse gases, nitrous oxide (N2O).
As Asia's monsoon season begins, leading climate specialists and agricultural scientists warned today that rapid climate change and its potential to intensify droughts and floods could threaten Asia's rice production and pose a significant threat to millions of people across the region.
Researchers, including plant researchers from the University of Copenhagen, have developed a new type of the corn-like crop sorghum, which may become very significant for food supplies in drought-prone areas.
Climate change is leading to higher temperatures around the world, forcing plants, trees and animals to adapt to new conditions or relocate, often to higher elevations. But the process is gradual, and the effects of climate warming can usually only be observed over the course of years and decades.
A new study by researchers at MIT shows that there is enough capacity in deep saline aquifers in the United States to store at least a century's worth of carbon dioxide emissions from the nation's coal-fired powerplants. Though questions remain about the economics of systems to capture and store such gases, this study addresses a major issue that has overshadowed such proposals.
Worldwide increases in the incidences of asthma, allergies, infectious and cardiovascular diseases will result from a variety of impacts of global climate change, including rising temperatures, worsening ozone levels in urban areas, the spread of desertification, and expansions of the ranges of communicable diseases as the planet heats up, the professional organization representing respiratory and airway physicians stated in a new position paper.
Chagas disease, a parasite-borne illness carried by kissing bugs afflicts millions of people in Central and South America today.
As Asian countries develop, they are emitting more ozone precursors that pollute surface level air. Many studies have documented this pollution being carried by air currents to the western United States.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing not to change the greenhouse gas (GHG) permitting thresholds for the Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) and Title V Operating Permit programs.
In 2009, when the United States fell into economic recession, greenhouse gas emissions also fell, by 6.59 percent relative to 2008.
A new study led by the Georgia Institute of Technology provides further evidence of a relationship between melting ice in the Arctic regions and widespread cold outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere. The study’s findings could be used to improve seasonal forecasting of snow and temperature anomalies across northern continents.
National results indicate that tree cover in urban areas of the United States is declining at a rate of about four million trees per year, according to a U.S. Forest Service study published recently in Urban Forestry & Urban Greening.
It’s not a take on climate change we often hear about. However, one man believes the two are connected.
Indigenous people around the world are among the most vulnerable to climate change and are increasingly susceptible to the pathogen loads found in potable water after heavy rainfall or rapid snow melt.
Extreme summer temperatures are already occurring more frequently in the United States, and will become normal by mid-century if the world continues on a business as usual schedule of emitting greenhouse gases.
Does it matter whether long periods of hot weather happen in June or July, August or September? Scientists studying the subtle effects of heat waves and droughts say that when such events happen makes a big difference.
Anthropogenic climate warming is leading to consideration of options for geoengineering to offset rising carbon dioxide levels. One potential technique involves injecting artificial sea spray into the atmosphere. The sea salt particles would affect Earth's radiation budget directly, by scattering incoming solar radiation, and indirectly, by acting as cloud condensation nuclei, which could lead to whiter clouds that reflect more radiation.