Archive for January 2009

Climate Change: Irreversible

Jan 28th, 2009 | By | Category: Environmental, Featured Articles, Lead Article

The optimistic among us assume that, eventually, new technology or new political movements will stop carbon release into the atmosphere. One of the comforting assumptions about climate change is that the effects of humans putting carbon into the atmosphere can be reversed. Plants remove carbon from the atmosphere, right? So, if we just stop adding more, eventually carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere should drop, and the adverse climate changes should reverse.

Nope.



Farts (Maybe) Detected on Mars. LIFE! (Maybe)

Jan 15th, 2009 | By | Category: Lit Round-up

New research reveals there is hope for Mars yet. The first definitive detection of methane in the atmosphere of Mars indicates the planet is still alive, in either a biologic or geologic sense, according to a team of NASA and university scientists. “Methane is quickly destroyed in the Martian atmosphere in a variety of ways, […]



How Civilization is Going to End

Jan 8th, 2009 | By | Category: Environmental

Wonder no more. University of Washington climate scientist David Battisti looked at 23 of the best computational models of the climate available to predict the effect of climate change on global crop yields by the end of this century. The results? Our results show that it is highly likely (greater than 90% chance) that growing […]