Archive: Energy and Environment

Features

10-31-08 | The Human Toll of Climate Change

By Reece Rushing
Science projects dangers to people and their well-being, including severe natural disasters, the spread of disease, loss of coastal communities, and declining crop and fish yields.

10-23-08 | The Future’s So Bright, You Need a Green Roof

By Mark Meier
In the general absence of defined heat island policies, more environmental construction enables heat island mitigation, but often as a byproduct. A look at how urban areas bake and how green building technologies can cool them.

10-21-08 | Ecosystem Overload

By Jeremy Jacquot
Because plants and soils act as major carbon sinks, any reduction in their ability to draw down and store CO2 could have dramatic consequences for the climate. As things stand, ecosystems are already struggling to keep up with the meteoric growth in emissions over the past few decades.

10-07-08 | Predicting the Unpredictable

By Jeremy Jacquot
Climate modelers work with the data they have and play a role in understanding the complexities of the Earth’s environments. But to adapt to future climate changes, we have to invest in their predictive tools.

10-02-08 | Out of the Park

By Tom Kenworthy
A U.S. district court reminds the Park Service that the agency ignored its own scientific assessment of snowmobiling’s threats to wildlife, air quality, and natural quiet in Yellowstone National Park.

10-02-08 | Earth Raises Its Beach Umbrella

By Jeremy Jacquot
Some scientists are suggesting that marine algae are responding to manmade temperature increases by generating dimethylsulfide, a gas that forms reflective clouds. The cycle is important to understand, but a geoengineering solution that exploits it will not solve our problems.

09-16-08 | Overfishing, Climate Change, and the Rise of Slime

By Jeremy Jacquot
We risk losing what makes the world’s oceans a valuable natural resource: their rich biodiversity. It’s time to get the concept on the cultural radar.

09-10-08 | Should We Talk About the Weather?

By Chris Mooney
We should use hurricanes to discuss global warming, but we have to do it with rigorous fidelity to the current state of scientific understanding.

09-03-08 | The Hurricane Election?

By Chris Mooney
If we’re focusing attention on storms in 2008, then let’s also pay serious attention to oft-neglected matters of hurricane preparedness policy.

09-03-08 | Western Forests Face a Flammable Future

By Steve Woodruff
Climate change is driving average temperatures upward, and the unmistakable long-term trend is toward a warmer, drier West. Firefighting alone can’t contend with growing fire danger; investment in strategic fuel reduction is the key.

08-14-08 | Nor Any Drop to Drink?

By Sarah Bates
Federal legislation that would enhance the Environmental Protection Agency’s role in protecting our most valuable resource advances to the Senate.

08-11-08 | Another Intelligence Fiasco

By Henry Kelly, Ph.D.
The President and Congress can’t craft sound energy policy when the EIA mis-predicts oil prices by a factor of two.

08-06-08 | A New Mission for American Science

By Chris Mooney
While everybody is talking about energy these days, they’re not necessarily talking about the scientific opportunity so much as the business one. The moment is right for researchers to take up—with a sense of unshaking mission and purpose—the grand cause of a generation.

08-01-08 | The Tipping Points

By Jeremy Jacquot
Like an unstable canoe that tips without warning, sudden climate changes can bring dramatic and unpredictable ecosystem transformations. If an abrupt change hit, would it doom our best efforts to save the planet?

08-01-08 | Here Comes the Sun

By Rick Weiss
With a concerted push by policymakers on research, development and deployment of solar technologies, solar renewable energy could dot our landscape.

07-30-08 | Last Shenanigans

By Chris Mooney
How many more sordid tales concerning the Environmental Protection Agency can actually come out before November?

07-29-08 | Low Flows, Hot Trout

By Sarah Bates
Two new reports highlight impacts on western trout streams and propose constructive steps to take in response.

07-23-08 | The Perfect Storm?

By Chris Mooney
Don’t look now, but we’re peering down yet another possible threat to Americans’ ability to drive their cars in a way that they can remotely afford—an active Atlantic hurricane season.

07-23-08 | Fishing for Answers

By Darlene Cavalier
The old Office of Technology Assessment had answers to Pennsylvania’s shad problem today. That’s only one reason why efforts to revive the congressional office are gaining traction.

07-16-08 | A Little Less Talk, A Lot More Action

By Sarah Bates
Support grows in Congress for a reprise of the 1973 National Water Commission. Studies are useful, but must lead to real change.

07-15-08 | Hot Stuff

By Chris Mooney
Randy Olson’s new global warming mockumentary, Sizzle, burns into your mind a lesson about how to reach broader audiences with science.

07-14-08 | The Cure That Could Be Worse Than The Disease

By Jeremy Jacquot
Could a mad scientist-like approach to reversing climate change provide our only remaining hope? A close look at geoengineering schemes.

07-09-08 | The Coming Global Warming “Scopes” Trial

By Chris Mooney
Suing companies that pump greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere for damage to cities and states proved difficult a few years ago. But the latest court rulings could set the stage for a climactic battle over who pays for overheating the planet.

07-08-08 | We Are Living In a Carbon World

By Andrew Plemmons Pratt, interviewer
Carbon fuels evolutionary systems and climate change—and the story of this element cuts across a wide swath of scientific fields, underscoring much of the research that’s changing the way we think about everyday life.

06-30-08 | Gasping for Air

By Jeremy Jacquot
Human activity, from farming to energy generation, is upsetting ocean ecosystems and creating massive “dead zones” off our coasts. Unchecked, the number of such zones around the world will continue to grow.

06-17-08 | Watering the West

By Sarah Bates
Fast-growing western states are making the link between land use and water management by taking a hard look at the reliability of water sources for new development.

06-12-08 | Our Dying Oceans

By Jeremy Jacquot
A growing body of research demonstrates that global waters are absorbing massive amounts of carbon dioxide, threatening species at the bottom of the food chain. So why are we still paying so little attention to climate change’s elephant in the room?

06-11-08 | A Peace Over Climate Science?

By Chris Mooney
Now even the Bush administration basically admits that it misused and suppressed global warming information and the scientists who purvey it. Is the battle finally over?

06-03-08 | Looking Beyond Carbon

By Jeremy Jacquot
Though well understood, the challenges presented by the changing nitrogen cycle remain under-appreciated. A global integrated approach will be needed to mitigate its future impacts on the climate, ecosystem biodiversity, and human health.

05-28-08 | The Price of Planetary Gambling

By Chris Mooney
Why the economic side of the global warming debate needs a more balanced ledger.

05-22-08 | Manufacturing Uncertainty

By Andrew Plemmons Pratt, interviewer
In his new book, Doubt Is Their Product, Michaels chronicles the “tricks of the trade” that mercenary scientists and product defense firms employ to delay or prevent regulation of chemicals that kill. Their tactics put them in the good company of cigarette companies and global warming deniers.

05-19-08 | Water in a Warming West

By Sarah Bates
The Environmental Protection Agency identifies key steps to cope with the shrinking Rocky Mountain snow mass and subsequently depleted sources of water in the West.

04-30-08 | Enormously Pathetic Agency

By Chris Mooney
There has been a near-complete breakdown at our central environmental regulatory agency under the Bush administration.

04-08-08 | Restoring the Waters

By Sarah Bates
Progressive thinking takes a new turn in western water management, as states across the region, in cooperation with federal agencies, act to fix damaged rivers, lakes, and wetlands.

03-06-08 | Biofuel Warfare

By Chris Mooney
The latest scientific research suggests that current biofuel production might not reduce carbon emissions significantly, or at all. It’s clear now that the issue is “wickedly complicated.” Are we wise enough to handle it?

03-03-08 | Offsets We Can Trust

By Andrew Plemmons Pratt, interviewer
Provisions in the Lieberman-Warner bill would allow companies to meet some of their emissions targets by purchasing “offset” credits from reductions in emissions not covered under cap-and-trade. But current offsets markets are unregulated and unreliable. Hayes explains how to regulate offsets that will enable verifiable emissions cuts.

02-13-08 | The Path to Better Biofuels

By Andrew Plemmons Pratt
The latest research on biofuel production suggests that previous studies failed to fully account for the role uncultivated lands play in keeping carbon out of the atmosphere. But with this new guidance, says Alex Farrell in an interview with Science Progress, we see that while not all biofuels are created equal, growing them the right way can help stop global warming, keep food prices down, and preserve our forests.

02-08-08 | Develop Good Biofuels

By Kit Batten and Jake Caldwell
Two new studies highlight the need for tight environmental standards for biofuels to help us solve global warming.

11-28-07 | Capturing the Energy Opportunity

By John Podesta, Todd Stern, Kit Batten
The Center for American Progress today releases the first pieces of Progressive Growth, its Economic Plan for the Next Administration, which includes a chapter on new energy solutions.