Tag: climate change

Curbing the Chainsaws: Recycled Smartphones Hunt Down Illegal Loggers Environment New Technologies 

Recycled Smartphones Hunt Down Illegal Loggers

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By Neha Jain @lifesciexplore In the summer of 2011 Topher White, founder of Rainforest Connection, a nongovernmental organization (NGO), visited the rain forests of Borneo as a tourist. He was shocked to learn that among the buzzing of insects, chirping of birds, and howling of gibbons, illegal loggers were sawing down a tree, just a few hundred meters away from a ranger station. The guards could not hear the noise of the chainsaw amid the cacophony of sounds. Deforestation accounts for the second-highest emission of greenhouse gases—even higher than that…

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Hot Towns, Urban Heat Islands. Sunlight: Solar as Equitable Energy Source. Environment 

Hot Towns, Urban Heat Islands

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By Steven Spence It’s Hotter in the City Have you ever noticed on weather reports that cities seem to be hotter than the surrounding areas? That’s a result of the  Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, urban areas with 1 million or more residents have a mean annual temperature 1°C to 3°C warmer than their surroundings. At night, the effect is even more pronounced, with city temperatures reaching up to 12°C hotter. With more than half (54 percent) of the world’s population living in urban…

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Climate Change, GotScience.org Environment 

Climate Change: Why Don’t We Worry More?

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“If we could invent one risk that bypasses all of our psychological alarm systems, global climate change would be it,” a psychologist explains. You’ve seen the projections, read the articles about record annual temperatures, rolled your eyes at climate change deniers. You know the threat of global warming is real. At least intellectually. But are you really worried about it? Probably not as worried as you know you should be. We asked social psychologist Sander van der Linden of Princeton University why it’s so hard for our brains to perceive climate…

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Climate Change Refugees Environment 

Are We Prepared for Climate Change Refugees?

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The Syrian refugee crisis is dominating the agendas of many countries. But there’s another migration crisis on the horizon, and it’s likely to impact millions of people. Two experts in refugee studies – Frank Biermann, a Global Sustainability Governance Professor from Utrecht University, and Dawn Chatty, the former Director of the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford – tell us what governments have learned from the current refugee crisis, and why it’s so difficult to develop a global strategy for climate change refugees. ResearchGate: We are currently dealing…

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more heat waves to come Environment 

More Heat Waves Predicted in Next 20 Years

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By Kate Stone Scientists have developed a new method to more accurately measure and predict heat waves, and the results are frightening. More Heat Waves to Come The researchers have shown that heat waves are likely to increase both in severity and number during the next two decades. “Even if global mean temperatures don’t increase too much, we’ll see more extreme heat events. These will be hotter, longer, and more frequent,” explains Simone Russo from the European Commission Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy. The new metric is called the Heat…

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Shellfish threatened by climate change: A mussel farm in South India (Photo courtesy of Lucy Turner) Environment Oceanography 

Will Climate Change Take Shellfish Off Menus?

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Climate change may dramatically affect the availability of shellfish. As the oceans become warmer and less salty, bacteria could threaten the shellfish. Do you enjoy a tasty shrimp scampi, or perhaps some steamed mussels with lemon? How about a few oysters on the half shell? If so, you won’t be happy to hear that those and other shellfish dishes may soon be harder to come by. Climate change models are predicting rising sea temperatures around the world. In the tropics, rainfall is also predicted to increase, reducing the salt concentration…

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Clean Hydrogen: Stanford graduate student Haotian Wang and colleagues have developed a novel water splitter that produces clean-burning hydrogen from water 24 hours a day, seven days a week. (Photo Courtesy of L.A. Cicero/Stanford News Service) Engineering New Technologies 

Clean Hydrogen Production for 200 Hours

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By Kate S. Scientists at Stanford University have just built a low-cost water splitter that uses a single catalyst to produce both hydrogen and oxygen gas. This is an invention that could pave the way for a boom in production of clean-burning cars. The scientists say that their device, which can run nonstop for an unprecedented period of time, could provide a renewable source of clean-burning hydrogen fuel for transportation and industry. The team used lithium-ion battery technology to create one low-cost catalyst that is capable of driving the entire…

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The Amazon Rainforest (Photo courtesy of Ron Gold via Flikr) Environment 

Braving the Amazon to Study Climate Change

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By Jonathan Trinastic (@jptrinastic) Scientists may not be known as the most courageous folk. They deserve such recognition, given their history of challenging established doctrine, venturing into the Arctic to spy glacial melting, and even sticking a needle in their eyes to better understand optics (thanks Mr. Newton!). Now, a team of researchers, construction workers, and engineers join this cadre of brave scientific brethren, navigating the malaria-carrying mosquitoes, blood-sucking leeches, and poisonous frogs deep within the Amazon rainforest to gain a clearer picture of how climate change and deforestation are affecting…

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