Mysterious Arctic whale under threat from changing habitat
Polar bears may get more attention
Polar bears may get more attention
Senator John McCain sought to distance himself from President Bush on Monday as he called for a mandatory limit on greenhouse gas emissions in the United States to combat climate change. Senator John McCain, second from left, toured the Vestas Wind Energy Training Facility in Portland, Ore., on Monday. Mr. McCain called for more action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. More Photos
Republican John McCain, differing sharply with President George W. Bush, said on Monday he would pursue mandatory US curbs on greenhouse gas emissions if he wins the White House in November. The Arizona senator vowed to take the lead in combating global climate change, seek international accords to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and offer an incentive system to make businesses in the United States cleaner.
Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are talking more about "clean coal" and less about global warming as they woo voters in West Virginia and Kentucky -- two states that sit at the heart of the nation's coal economy. In a bid to draw voters ahead of Democratic primaries in West Virginia on Tuesday and Kentucky on May 20, both candidates are playing up the ascendant role of commercially untested and so far economically nonviable ways of converting America's plentiful coal supplies into electricity without spewing massive quantities of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
Ethanol is taking a tumble. Once hyped as a magic brew for reducing both oil addiction and global warming, alcohol made from corn kernels is now being accused both of triggering a global food crisis and doing more ecological harm than good.
McCain today will call for free-market principles and engagement with China and India to reduce global-warming emissions, signalling that environmental issues will play a part in the November general election, and indicating that whoever is elected, the next administration will confront global warming in a way George Bush has declined to.
Labor officials from the Group of Eight nations began on Sunday a three-day meeting to discuss ways to curb climate change coupled with measures to redress economic and regional inequalities. It is the first time discussions linking labor issues with environmental policies have been attempted within the G8 framework. According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, the participants in the Niigata meeting are aiming to provide momentum toward building a consensus on climate change at the G8 summit in July in Hokkaido.
A new study suggesting a possible lull in manmade global warming has raised fears of a reduced urgency to battle climate change. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of hundreds of scientists, last year said global warming was "unequivocal" and that manmade greenhouse gas emissions were "very likely" part of the problem. And while the study published in the journal Nature last week did not dispute manmade global warming, it did predict a cooling from recent average temperatures through 2015, as a result of a natural and temporary shift in ocean currents.
Size of carbon footprint depends on where you live
Japan, the world's fifth biggest polluter, will announce a target next month for cutting domestic greenhouse gas emissions by 60-80 percent from current levels by 2050, media reported on Sunday. The target, more ambitious than Japan's current proposal for the world to halve emissions by 2050, is aimed at boosting its leadership in climate talks as host of the Group of Eight summit in July, the Nikkei and Asahi Shimbun newspapers said.
Tropical insects, amphibians and reptiles will probably never enjoy the status of an environmental poster child, but global warming's impact on them can't be ignored. So say Josh Tewksbury of the University of Washington in Seattle and his colleagues.
Natural disasters have increased due to rise in earth's temperature and climate change. According to Centre for Science and Environment(CSE), cyclone Nargis is not only a natural disaster but because of climate change it has become a man-made disaster.
A growing number of comedians are trying to find some humour in global warming.
About 40 national societies under the Red Cross and Red Crescent umbrella had decided to engage themselves in capacity-building programmes aimed at understanding and addressing the impact of climate change on humanity.
It was Asia's answer to Hurricane Katrina. Packing winds upwards of 120 mph, Cyclone Nargis became one of Asia's deadliest storms by hitting land at one of the lowest points in Myanmar and setting off a storm surge that reached 25 miles inland. "When we saw the (storm) track, I said, 'Uh oh, this is not going to be good," said Mark Lander, a meteorology professor at the University of Guam. "It would create a big storm surge. It was like Katrina going into New Orleans."
It has been widely hypothesized that a warmer climate in Greenland would increase the volume of lubricating surface meltwater reaching the ice-bedrock interface, accelerating ice flow and increasing mass loss. We have assembled a data set that provides a synoptic-scale view, spanning ice-sheet to outlet-glacier flow, with which to evaluate this hypothesis.
Computer analyses of global climate have consistently overstated warming in Antarctica, concludes new research by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and Ohio State University. The study can help scientists improve computer models and determine if Earth's southernmost continent will warm significantly this century, a major research question because of Antarctica's potential impact on global sea-level rise.
Canada will be investigated on suspicion of violating rules for registering greenhouse gases that are the mainstay of a UN-led fight against global warming, official documents show. Canada played down the news, saying it was taking quick steps to ensure it complied by the rules. Ottawa could be suspended from rights to trade carbon dioxide if found to be in breach of the rules by the enforcement branch of the UN's Kyoto Protocol. Greece was suspended last month, the first state to face such a sanction.
Issues like conservation of nature and the impact of global warming are all set to take the centrestage in Guwahati during the celebration of Rabindra Jayanti, the birth anniversary of Nobel Laureate Rabindra Nath Tagore. For, Vivekananda Kalyan Kendra and Nature's Beckon, a biodiversity conservation NGO have joined hands to spread theme of nature conservations during the celebration on May 8. With Northeast too gearing up to mark the day, the two organizations have urged people to take a pledge on the day and work for the conservation of nature.
Environmentalists have warned that tropical cyclone Nargis, which has left more than 20,000 persons dead and 40,000 missing and thousands homeless, is not just a natural disaster but a man-made disaster because of climate change. Nargis, the green brigade says, happened because "the rich have failed to contain greenhouse gas emissions necessary for their growth'.