climate change

It may come as a shock to many of you, but one European country has already banned the sales of new petrol/diesel cars this year: Austria. Wikipedia keeps a list of countries that plan to phase-out of fossil fuel vehicles. After Austria, it is Norway who is going to follow suit in 2025. The...

This is great news. To put this in perspective, the EU, Canada, South Korea and many other countries aim to become climate-neutral by 2050, but the USA hasn't set any deadline yet. Within the EU some countries plan to reach carbon neutrality earlier, such as Finland (in 2035), Austria (in 2040)...

Check this on BBC News. Wilfires have been ravaging California for over a month. There is currently 1000 acres (= 1000 football fields) being burned every 30 minutes. That 48,000 acres per day, about the size of Washington DC. In total 2.3 million acres (9300 km², 4x the size of Luxembourg) have...

Greenland’s ice cap has melted past ‘tipping point’ "The melting of the ice cap in Greenland is irremediable, scientists conclude in a new study published in the Communications Earth and Environment journal. The ice cap would continue to shrink “even if global warming stopped today” because...

I have switched my main search engine to Ecosia, the only climate-friendly search engine. Founded in 2009, it was the first certified B-corporation in Germany. Ecosia uses clean, solar energy to power the searches and donates most of the money generated to plant trees. This makes Ecosia a...

No less than 90% of American homes have air conditioning. In Europe it's under 1% (except in Italy and Spain where its a bit over 10%). It's not because the United States has a hotter climate. It's really a cultural thing, and that partly explains why the average American produces nearly twice...

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM—BBC reports that a team of scientists from University College London have determined that European colonization of the New World caused the death of so many indigenous people that the event, known as the “Great Dying,” may have impacted the world's climate. Led by...

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH—According to a Cosmos Magazine report, environmental changes are more likely to have wiped out Africa’s megafauna than is hunting by Homo erectus, which emerged some 1.9 million years ago and has previously been blamed for causing the extinctions. Paleoecologist Tyler Faith...

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/08/animal-fat-ancient-pottery-shards-reveals-nearly-catastrophic-period-human-prehistory These clay pots were used to store meat, and researchers found relatively well preserved animal fat residue soaked into the porous, unglazed sherds. Extreme drought...

Would you be hunter-gatherer of the steppe, riding horses and eating horse meat, or further in time being steppe mammoth hunter, living in mammoth tusk tents? Would you be rather hunter gatherer of North Europe hunting deer in moderate climate forest, with your friend domesticated wolf "first...

I recently watched a lively debate between author Clive Hamilton and Harvard Professor David Keith on C-Span (national television channel here in the U.S.) concerning the pros/cons of geo-engineering to fight "climate change". Professor Keith proposes that we should release 20,000 tons of...

Here is a map of temperature in Europe for last 2,000 years. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2171973/Tree-ring-study-proves-climate-WARMER-Roman-Medieval-times-modern-industrial-age.html This map shows that height of Roman Empire happened in a very warm period. The decline...

Three and a half years ago, I was writing about the possibility that the Gulf Stream was weakening because of the melting of the icebergs and ice caps in Greenland and Canada. The ice caps are made of fresh water and their melting into the North Atlantic Ocean disturbs the existing sea currents...

In his new book Waking the Giant Bill McGuire explains how global warming can trigger earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions by changing the pressure on the oceanic floor. There is now evidence that the end of the last ice age was followed by a 50-fold increase in volcanic eruptions...

Earth Hour has passed. The point is to make people aware of environmental issues and energy. Reading Swedish forums and posts there are a lot of angry climate change deniers posting that they are going to turn on extra lamps just for spite. These guys are often kind of upset but this event seem...