http://discovermagazine.com/rss/topic-feeds/environmentAlternative Energy, Endangered Species, Environmental Policy, Global Warming, and more.http://backend.userland.com/rssThu, 23 May 2013 19:00:00 GMThttp://discovermagazine.com/2013/june/14-master-of-disasterEarthquakes and hurricanes will always wreak havoc, but risk management expert Robert Bea says the greatest tragedies result from hubris and greed.Thu, 23 May 2013 19:00:00 GMThttp://discovermagazine.com/2013/june/14-master-of-disasterhttp://discovermagazine.com/~/media/4B878798625C455BAD02C55942463DC9.jpg?mw=500http://discovermagazine.com/~/media/4B878798625C455BAD02C55942463DC9.jpg?mw=500http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/?p=21140 In the 1980s I was fascinated by the pictorially oriented books on the wildlife of the world which dated to the 1960s and 1970s. One of the great conservation success stories of that era were the Saiga antelope of Eurasia. In 1920 there were only 1,000-2,0000 Saia left in the world. By the 1960s their numbers were in the millions. And so it was until the 1980s. But the combination of the collapse of the Soviet Union, for which the Saiga was a notable conservation success, and the rise of Wed, 22 May 2013 12:26:57 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/?p=21140http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/files/2013/05/250px-Mongolia_Saiga_tatarica.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/files/2013/05/250px-Mongolia_Saiga_tatarica.jpghttp://discovermagazine.com/2013/june/09-how-to-prevent-glacial-lakes-from-flooding-mountain-communitiesMountain geographer Alton Byers is helping remote Himalayan villages prepare for climate change.Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 GMThttp://discovermagazine.com/2013/june/09-how-to-prevent-glacial-lakes-from-flooding-mountain-communitieshttp://discovermagazine.com/~/media/9C2E8DF024C147BAB96A39E7C6179AD3.jpg?mw=500http://discovermagazine.com/~/media/9C2E8DF024C147BAB96A39E7C6179AD3.jpg?mw=500http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/?p=11227In a recent report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) lamented: The picture is as clear as it is disturbing: the carbon intensity of the global energy supply has barely changed in 20 years, despite successful efforts in deploying renewable energy. Another fact, noted in the IEA's report, will disturb anyone concerned about climate change: The unremitting rise in global coal demand for power generation continued in 2012. Global coal-fired power generation is estimated to have increased by Mon, 20 May 2013 13:25:28 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/?p=11227http://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/iea1.jpg?w=1000&h=671http://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/iea1.jpg?w=1000&h=671http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=3031by Richard Schiffman The recent boom in fracking has turned America into the Saudi Arabia of natural gas, almost overnight. Proponents say that this burgeoning industry has ensured U.S. energy independence for years to come, and created a more climate-friendly alternative to dirtier-burning fuels like coal and gas. It has arguably also hastened the demise of the coal industry, as power plants switch in large numbers to the cheaper gas, resulting in U.S. CO2 emissions sinking to their lFri, 17 May 2013 16:01:58 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=3031http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2013/05/pipe-draining.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2013/05/pipe-draining.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/?p=11198Sometimes I think the climate debate remains stalled because those who are most concerned refuse to ask the pertinent questions. Instead, they keep refighting old battles that are no longer relevant to a constructive discourse. The latest example is this survey by John Cook et al that is getting a lot of undeserved attention in the mainstream media. I say that because, questionable methodology aside, the survey tells us nothing new and is, as science journalist David Appell noted, "a meaninglessThu, 16 May 2013 17:50:28 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/?p=11198http://images0.cpcache.com/product/546368920v0_480x480_Front_Color-White.jpghttp://images0.cpcache.com/product/546368920v0_480x480_Front_Color-White.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/?p=1257 Newly discovered water trapped more than a mile below ground in Canada could be billions of years old — and could hold clues both to Earth’s past climate and possible habitats for life on Mars. A research team reporting today in Nature has found pockets of subterranean water that could be as old as 2.64 billion years. The fluids are located 1.5 miles underground in a mine near Timmins, Ontario, in rock that is part of Canada’s Precambrian Shield, the oldest part of North America’s crust. Wed, 15 May 2013 17:39:27 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/?p=1257http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/files/2013/05/precambrian-rocky-outcrop.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/files/2013/05/precambrian-rocky-outcrop.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/?p=11187When the definitive history of the GMO debate is written, Jeffrey Smith is going to figure prominently in the section on pseudoscience. He is the equivalent of an anti-vaccine leader, someone who is quite successful in spreading fear and false information. (As David Gorski at the Science-based Medicine blog has noted, the anti-vaccine and anti-GMO movements are two birds of the same feather.) The Academics Review blog writes of Smith: His self-published books Seeds of Deception and Genetic RoulTue, 14 May 2013 16:48:21 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/?p=11187http://academicsreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/smith1.jpghttp://academicsreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/smith1.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/visualscience/?p=3566 One way to understand how the ecosystem of the Antarctic originated is to look at its very base: tiny organisms called dinoflagellates, the little creatures that attract bigger creatures, and thus in effect support all of life in the ocean. Dinoflagellates produce hard cysts that fossilize well, and researcher Sander Houben and his team recently published findings in Science indicating that, once Antarctic ice began to spread over what was formerly a lushly forested, warm sub-tropical continenMon, 13 May 2013 17:24:03 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/visualscience/?p=3566http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/visualscience/files/2013/05/Antarctic-Summer-1024x768.pnghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/visualscience/files/2013/05/Antarctic-Summer-1024x768.pnghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/?p=1199 To an arachnophobe they may seem universally creepy, but spiders can actually be nice. One strange species of spider, Anelosimus studiosus, consists of individuals of two distinct personalities: docile and aggressive. And new research finds that, in this species at least, nice guys finish last. A. studiosus is found in both North and South America, where it builds big communal webs housing approximately 40 female spiders. Other spider species are similarly social, but A. studiosus is the Mon, 13 May 2013 17:06:08 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/?p=1199http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/files/2013/05/spider-close-up.jpeghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/files/2013/05/spider-close-up.jpeghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/?p=11174Last year, in an interview with New York Times reporter Justin Gillis, CJR's Curtis Brainard asked: There's been a lot of debate about the extent to which media coverage does or does not influence public opinion about climate change and society's willingness to address the problem. Do journalists matter in this regard? Gillis answered exactly as I (and any journalist) would have: Well, if I didn’t think it mattered, I wouldn’t be doing it, but how that social dialectic works over the long runFri, 10 May 2013 19:48:08 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/?p=11174http://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_296w/WashingtonPost/Content/Blogs/capital-weather-gang/201211/images/bloomberg_cover_stupid.jpghttp://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_296w/WashingtonPost/Content/Blogs/capital-weather-gang/201211/images/bloomberg_cover_stupid.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=3019by Richard Schiffman Bees are dying all over the world, and nobody is sure why it is happening. Up to 40 percent of U.S. beekeeper hives failed to survive the past winter, making this the worst season so far on record. In part this was the result of a mysterious and growing phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in which bees fly off en masse and never return to their hive. Agricultural production is beginning to take a hit from the loss of bees. In California’s Central Valley at theTue, 07 May 2013 19:16:05 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=3019http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2013/05/bee-hive.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2013/05/bee-hive.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/imageo/?p=1997 With warmer weather, the bees are finally out and about here at the foot of the Rockies in Colorado. I recently encountered this guy in mid-hover as he was eyeing what must have been delectable pollen from a rare and endangered plant growing north of Boulder. He's a honeybee, and a rather handsome one at that. He and his compatriots are in the news once again with the release last week of a major report on what has been causing millions of honeybees to die since 2006 in a phenomenon knownTue, 07 May 2013 04:57:53 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/imageo/?p=1997http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/imageo/files/2013/05/Bee-and-Bells-twinpod.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/imageo/files/2013/05/Bee-and-Bells-twinpod.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/visualscience/?p=3473New evidence indicates that chemical gardens which form beneath the Antarctic ice could be the origin of coldwater life. Brinicles, first captured forming on film by the BBC in 2011, are hollow tubes of ice that descend from Antarctic sea ice. They look a lot like icicles, but aren’t. As sea water freezes into ice, it excludes salt and other ions, which get trapped in brine-rich compartments in sea ice. Brine has a lower freezing temperature than water, so if the sea ice cracks, the liquid is rMon, 06 May 2013 15:00:53 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/visualscience/?p=3473http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/visualscience/files/2013/05/Brinicle-Growing.pnghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/visualscience/files/2013/05/Brinicle-Growing.pnghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/?p=1059 The gender of a baby painted turtle is determined by the temperature of the soil in which its egg is incubated. Warmer temperatures produce female turtles and cooler temperatures make males. Scientists now say that as the climate warms, the species is not likely to survive. Scientists at Iowa State University studied the nesting behavior of the painted turtle (Chrysemys picta), the most abundant and widespread species of native turtle in North America. They wanted to see if a mother turtle Fri, 03 May 2013 19:04:32 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/?p=1059http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/files/2013/05/painted-turtle.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/files/2013/05/painted-turtle.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/?p=11107As it becomes increasingly evident that a switch from coal to natural gas is reducing energy-related carbon emissions in the United States--which is a net plus if you care about climate change-- opponents of fracking find themselves being asked to choose between the lesser of two evils. That is a debate in of itself worth having. But it's not helped by fantasy world statements such as this one by the anti-fracking filmmaker Josh Fox: Renewable energy can run the whole world. We know we have Fri, 03 May 2013 18:07:00 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/?p=11107http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/Fantasy_Land_February_2013_01.jpg/800px-Fantasy_Land_February_2013_01.jpghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/Fantasy_Land_February_2013_01.jpg/800px-Fantasy_Land_February_2013_01.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/?p=943Much of the food that fills your dinner plate can only be produced with the help of a highly managed insect species: the western honey bee. Many farmers actually rent commercial colonies to unleash on their fields when the crops are in bloom. Such pollination services rake in $14 billion a year in the United States. But honey bee populations have plummeted in the last half decade as worker bees have mysteriously flown off and never returned to the hives---a phenomenon now called Colony CollapTue, 30 Apr 2013 19:23:22 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/?p=943http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/files/2013/04/honey-comb-bees-289x300.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/files/2013/04/honey-comb-bees-289x300.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/?p=11076Guest post by Ramez Naam.   Keith Kloor has graciously given me the opportunity to guest post here again.  So let me cut to the chase: I support GMOs.  And we should label them. We should label them because that is the very best thing we can do for public acceptance of agricultural biotech. And we should label them because there’s absolutely nothing to hide. Let me explain.  First, so you don’t mistake me for a GMO-basher, let me introduce myself.  I’m a computer scientist by traTue, 30 Apr 2013 01:04:50 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/?p=11076http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/files/2013/04/GMOlabel-150x150.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/files/2013/04/GMOlabel-150x150.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/?p=11062Anti-biotech activists, like their fellow travelers in the anti-vaccine movement, are masters at pseudoscience. As I've previously discussed, the really clever GMO opponents put a veneer of science on their propaganda. One recent example that an anti-GMO website approvingly pointed to was so obviously absurd that I was sure it  would be ignored by media. It's a paper that suggests a chemical in Roundup, a widely used Monsanto herbicide, "can remarkably explain a great number of the diseases aFri, 26 Apr 2013 13:52:35 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/?p=11062http://sayginlab.ucsd.edu/files/2011/10/phd_in_pseudoscience_scientists_248695.jpghttp://sayginlab.ucsd.edu/files/2011/10/phd_in_pseudoscience_scientists_248695.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/?p=901 Scientists have a new window into the Earth’s core and how it behaves with research that shows the iron at the inner heart of the planet is heated to about 6,000 degrees Celsius---1,000 degrees hotter than previously estimated. For two decades, scientists have debated the details of the core’s temperature. Knowing its temperature is key to understanding the Earth’s internal processes, particularly its magnetic field and its geothermal activity. Now a research team, led by Simone AnzellThu, 25 Apr 2013 18:08:10 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/?p=901http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/files/2013/04/earthlayers-224x300.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/files/2013/04/earthlayers-224x300.jpg