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http://features.csmonitor.com/environment - The Christian Science Monitor\'s environment section.
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For all its gee-whiz discoveries and its influence on public policy, science can be a messy, sometimes ugly enterprise.
When the science is paleontology, astronomy, or geophysics, internal politics, thinly or not-so-thinly veiled personal attacks, and water-cooler discussions among ...
Environment
Climate Change
Global Warming
On Wednesday, the California Energy Commission approved new energy-efficiency standards to regulate how much electricity television sets sold in the state can consume.
When do the standards take effect? Jan. 1, 2011, with more stringent rules kicking in two years later.
Do they apply to the ...
Environment
Energy Efficiency
California
George Will
Green Grid
In recent decades, coral reef ecosystems around the world have declined dramatically. One-fifth have died, according to a 2004 World Wildlife Fund assessment, and human activity directly threatens another 24 percent.
As atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide increase, scientists say ...
Environment
World Wildlife Fund
South Africa
Climate Change
A new report by the National Research Council seeks to put a dollar amount on the “hidden” costs of energy produced by burning fossil fuels.
These costs aren’t factored into the market prices of coal, oil, and gasoline, or the prices of electricity generated by fossil fuels, the report says. ...
Environment
Energy Efficiency
Oil Drilling
Methane Gas
When our heating contractor Tony Silverio told us we had a choice between a closed loop and an open loop geothermal system, our first inclination was simply to go with the least expensive.
That’s in part because we already knew we’d be spending significantly more upfront for a geothermal ...
Environment
Green Grid
Energy Efficiency
In her memoir, “Going Rogue,” Sarah Palin reveals that she has creationist leanings, explicitly rejecting the belief that humans and other species evolved from a common lineage.
There’s no precise definition of “creationism,” but the term generally encompasses ...
Environment
Sarah Palin
Alaska
A new report by the National Research Council seeks to put a dollar amount on the “hidden” costs of energy produced by burning fossil fuels.
These costs aren’t factored into the market prices of coal, oil, and gasoline, or the prices of electricity generated by fossil fuels, the report says. ...
Environment
Energy Efficiency
Oil Drilling
Methane Gas
Scientists have seen this one before: Fill a reservoir behind a new dam, and, oops, you trigger an earthquake nearby not long after the lake is topped off.
Now, a team of researchers led by the University of Colorado’s Shemin Ge suggest that this could well be what happened with the ...
Environment
China
Energy Efficiency
Q: Has anyone ever studied the environmental impact of discarded cigarettes? I’m constantly appalled at the number of drivers I see pitching their butts out their car windows.
– Ned Jordan, via e-mail
A: It’s true that littered cigarette butts are a public nuisance, and not just for ...
Environment
The wonder of a geothermal heating and cooling system is that it uses use the energy naturally stored in the ground to heat and cool your house.
Some extra juice is needed, of course, to run a heat pump to keep the system operating, but it amounts to a fraction – as little as 30 percent – of ...
Environment
Green Grid
Energy Efficiency
Whether it’s a polar bear clinging to a melting iceberg in the Arctic or a tiny, rabbitlike pika panting atop a warming mountain in western North America, scientists say that these species and others could be historical footnotes unless people help them survive.
Pushing animals to the brink – ...
Environment
Global Warming
Food Shortage
Climate Change
At least 18 strategies for adaptive wildlife management were put forward in a 2008 study by the Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment.
Among them:
– Add more protected areas.
– Conserve multiple examples of each ecosystem type.
– Manage and restore existing ...
Environment
Global Warming
Climate Change
Polar Bears
On Friday, the United Nations Environment Program released The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity report for Policymakers.
TEEB, as it’s known, stresses the importance of putting a dollar amount on ecosystem services. As such, it belongs to a broader, ongoing effort to correct ...
Environment
Futurists have been promising Jetson-style cars for America’s near future since some of us were kids back in the Dark Ages. They’re still doing it — and Americans are still buying into it, although possibly with less and less hope that these awesome vehicles might actually ...
Environment
Green Grid
Energy Efficiency
Q: How are populations of the world’s orca whales faring these days?
– J. Witham, Bangor, Maine
A: The largest member of the dolphin family and a major draw at marine parks, orcas (also known as “killer whales”) are highly intelligent and social marine mammals. Many of their habits ...
Environment
features.csmonitor.com - 3 days ago
—
features.csmonitor.com —
The decision to install energy efficient windows for
our green renovation of Sheepdog Hollow was a no-brainer:...
The better a house is insulated, the more efficiently its heating and cooling systems will work. And since we love natural light and ...
(more)
How to choose energy-efficient windows
Comments
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Green Building : Jetson Green
found this 3 days agofound this
features.csmonitor.com - 12 days ago
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features.csmonitor.com —
China awoke to climate change with a storm.
It was late January 2008, a time when people...
across the country were busily gathering recipes, stocking fireworks, and preparing to welcome relatives to celebrate the Lunar New Year. But suddenly, severe ...
(more)
China confronts global warming dilemma
I knew we wanted to put in high quality, energy-efficient windows for our renovation of Sheepdog Hollow simply because that appeared to be the right thing to do – especially since we opted to install geothermal heating .
For geothermal heating to work as efficiently as possible, your house ...
Environment
Energy Efficiency
Green Grid
A thousand years ago, the steep slopes of Vietnam’s southern highlands were cloaked by forests of towering pines and other trees. Tribesmen roamed the forests, hunting wild boar and deer under a lush canopy of laurels and oaks.
In their quest for sustenance, they moved slowly through an ...
Environment
Climate Change
Global Warming
Vietnam
Temperatures at the earth’s surface have increased by between 0.2 and 0.4 degrees C in the past 30 years. The vast majority of scientists attribute this warming trend to higher concentrations of greenhouse gases – CO2, methane, CFCs, and others – which warm both the earth’s surface ...
