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climate change

SCIENCE: Climate Change May Ruin Beer

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beer - pixabay

If the results of last week’s chilling U.N. climate report drove you to drink this weekend, first of all — we’re sorry. We don’t like it, either. Here’s a photo of a majestic elk sneezing to make you feel better. Secondly, we hate to say it, but we’ve got even more bad news for anyone hoping to drown their sorrows during that apocalyptic future. According to a new study in the journal Nature Plants, it looks like rising global temperatures are going to ruin beer for us too — and your next pity pint could soon cost you more than … Read more

SCIENCE: Could Salt Stop Climate Change?

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salt - pixabay

Sprinkling large amounts of salt into the atmosphere could stave off climate change, a group of researchers has proposed. They’ve suggested that, because salt is highly reflective, it could potentially reflect sunlight back into outer space, helping to cool the Earth, they wrote in a report presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas on March 21. But other climate scientists aren’t so sure. This idea falls into the category of geoengineering — a deliberate, large-scale attempt to change the environment as a means to counteract climate change. By Laura Geggel – Full Story at Live Science

SCIENCE: Great Barrier Reef Sea Turtles Almost All Female

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sea turtle - pixabay

A population of green sea turtles is turning almost entirely female due to changes in the environment, scientists have found. Temperature change in the Great Barrier Reef is causing the turtles to turn from male to female. The transformation has led scientists to be concerned about the species’ future – with just 0.2 per cent of the turtles being male in some areas. Environment temperatures play a key role in determining the sex of green sea turtles. The proportion of female hatchlings increases when nests are in warmer sands, while cooler temperatures is known to produce more male turtles. For more than … Read more

SCIENCE: Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events

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Jet-Stream-NASA

The Polar jet stream carries weather systems around the northern hemisphere. New research finds that warming in the atmosphere due to carbon pollution is disrupting its flow and contributing to dangerous extreme weather events. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio President Donald Trump may be trying to scrub his predecessor’s initiatives to fight climate change from just about every corner of the federal government — Exhibit A being this week’s executive order aimed at undoing Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan — but the reality of the climate crisis is not going away. And the dangers we’re facing may … Read more

News: Seas Rising Faster Than In 2800 Years

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A group of scientists says it has now reconstructed the history of the planet’s sea levels arcing back over some 3,000 years — leading it to conclude that the rate of increase experienced in the 20th century was “extremely likely” to have been faster than during nearly the entire period. “We can say with 95 percent probability that the 20th-century rise was faster than any of the previous 27 centuries,” said Bob Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University who led the research with nine colleagues from several U.S. and global universities. Kopp said it’s not that seas rose faster … Read more

Power and Energy

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Future Energy

Today’s topic comes via QSFer Belinda McBride: “Power and energy. How are your communities powered? Is it clean power? Fossil fuel? What runs your transportation?” Going forward as the world warms up, the type of energy we use will become more and more inportant. But beyond that, we’ll need different forms of energy and engines if we’re going to cross the solar system more efficiently, or even cross the gulfs between the stars. So get out your crystal ball today and share your predictions for the future of energy. And share, also, some of your favorite books that have dealt … Read more