Posts tagged with ‘environment’

Global warming is making the Arctic greener, so there’s that

With global temps slowly rising, it means stranger weather patterns, slightly warmer summers in temperate climates, and in the Arctic, it means more greenery and less ice. That’s a bad things for animals that rely on sea ice, but it’s a good thing for animals that eat vegetation.

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World Bank envisions a 4°C over normal future. Waterworld, here we come

When scientists and diplomats talk about the next century of climate change, the hope is that we can hold things together enough to only see a temperature rise of 2 degrees from pre-Industrial levels. But the reality is that even with electric cars and carbon offsets, we still may hit the dreaded 4 degree mark, which would cause the kind of catastrophic flooding and climate change the hippies warned you about. And the World Bank is now involved, because if that happens, it’s going to change the entire global economic picture.

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American businessman decides to see what would happen if they dumped a shit ton of iron into the ocean, pisses off the UN

As part of a bioengineering scheme to try and trap excess carbon deep in the ocean, an American businessman from California decided to dump several metric shit tons of iron into the Pacific off the coast of Canada. Only that kind of shit tends to piss off people like the UN and the Canadian government, even if it’s with good intentions, with science to back it up.

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For some reason, the Greenland ice sheet is thawing at a staggering rate

Even though it’s summer in Greenland, it’s still fucking cold. The Greenland ice sheet has been in place for many, many summers, and usually there’s only a little bit of surface thawing. But in the span of four days, Greenland has gone from 40% surface thawing, which is about normal, to a staggering 97% .

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How long would the U.S. burn through 75 million cubic meters of wood? About 2.5 years.

So here’s the deal: You have 75 million cubic meters of wood and need to do something with it?  Why not power an entire country like the U.S.?  Well, not so much.  Assuming we could transport it and build power plants and upgrade our entire grid and cars and home heating systems FOR FREE, that much wood (about 20.7 million cord, enough wood to completely fill Manhattan almost 1 meter deep) would only last 2.25 to 2.75 years.

The photo above, from a stockpile in Sweden, is only 1 million cubic meters of lumber. 

Via

The good news is that human carbon emissions will defer the next Ice Age

The last ice age ended over 11,000 years ago and at some point, we’re due for another. But thanks to human carbon emissions and global warming, that next ice age will be deferred past the next 1500 years, when it should be starting.

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Chinese river flows as red as blood after dye illegally dumped in the river

The Jian River in northern China was flowing blood red after two dye factories dumped their entire stock into the river. Local authorities had raided the shops to shut them down and in a panic, all the dye was emptied into the Jian. 

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Today’s science class will be taught by Fox News. Today’s topic is: Global Warming. NSFB (not safe for brain)

Fox had an “expert” guest refute global warming via the first law of thermodynamics. Are they even trying anymore? Have they ever been trying?

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Eco friendly houses of the future could be made from bacteria-made bricks

First off, I wasn’t aware that brick making was bad for the environment, and compared to most things it’s really not. They’re made from dirt and local materials and they’re super cheap— but heating the bricks, usually with a coal-fired oven , puts extra CO2 in the atmosphere, and one scientist thinks we can do better. By making bricks out of mud and bacteria that don’t need heating at all.

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So the bad news is that the Deepwater oil well was in an undersea volcano and now we’re all screwed

If you’ve noticed, there’s been a near media blackout on the Deepwater oil rig catastrophe, after it consumed almost every minute of the 24 hour news cycle for weeks. The reason for this may be that BP has realized they’re in super deep shit considering that the Deepwater rig had to punch a hole in a massive undersea volcano to get to the oil and we may not actually have the technology to keep every drop of oil from this oil pocket from spewing into the Gulf.

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Video Of Wildlife Affected By The Gulf Oil Spill At Bon Secour Wildlife Refuge, Alabama

This is footage that was taken from a boat off of the shore of the Bon Secour Wildlife Refuge in Alabama. With BP and the federal government limiting footage from the gulf coast for whatever reason, this is a sad reminder that the gulf will be ruined for many years to come.

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