climate change

Over the weekend President Obama and other world leaders broke the news: No legally binding international climate-change treaty this year.

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It’s no secret that the world is warming, but a new report published by the World Wildlife Fund suggests we may not have as much time to mull solutions as we think. If the world doesn’t commit to green technologies by 2014, the report says, runaway global warming and economic meltdown are all but unstoppable.

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Even before a single ounce of natural gas gets burned in a home or power plant, massive amounts of CO2 have already been released. The process of extracting natural gas releases carbon dioxide pent up in the same wells as the gas, thus adding to the climate-changing impact of the fuel.

To help lower the global warming impact of one of the world's largest natural gas fields, General Electric has supplied Chevron, Exxon Mobile and Shell with enough compression "trains"--the pumps and turbines that do the sequestering--to create the world's largest carbon sequestration project. The trains will pump 3.3 million tons of CO2 released from natural gas mining back into the ground every year. That's the equivalent of taking 630,000 cars off the road.

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Publishing in the journal Nature, a group of 29 scientists have established a comparative scale for rating the immediate threat posed by nine environmental hazards--everything from climate change to ocean acidification. And while our warming climate gets most of the attention, more immediate problems may be brewing in our intensifying lack of biodiversity and out-of-whack nitrogen cycle.

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Today, heads of state from around the globe met at the United Nations to face a problem that affects all of their constituencies: climate change. In a day-long conference on global warming, President Obama lamented that the United States was slow to recognize and respond to the problem of global warming, and vowed to move swiftly to counter it. President Hu Jintao of China echoed those statements, listing a four-point plan to combat carbon emissions.

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Geoengineering is a popular idea, for Bill Gates and just about everyone else these days. Now the Institute of Mechanical Engineers proposes that the UK adopt technologies such as carbon-capturing artificial trees, biofuel algae tanks on rooftops, and coating surfaces in reflective materials to cut down on heating from the sun's rays.

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In an attempt to head off new emissions standards, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is threatening to sue the Environmental Protection Agency. The Chamber is calling it the Scopes Monkey Trial of the 21st Century, and wants to put the evidence supporting global warming on trial in a court of law.

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Human activity has widely affected our planet, reshaping surfaces, moving or extinguishing species, and warming the air and water. Now scientists say our reach has been extended even further -- warming oceans may even start to shift the Earth's axis of rotation.

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Polar bears starving, corals dying, ice shelves melting--climate change is wrecking the world around us. But there’s an upside if you’re a fan of the Australian cricket team. Global warming may increase your odds of beating arch rival England.

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