Science: Earth & the Environment

Science: Earth & the Environment Archive

172 records found. Displaying 1 to 30 Page 1 2 3 4 5 6
Iceberg Forensics: Predicting the Planet's Future With Antarctic Ice Onboard in Antarctica, Trevor Williams reports on the role that ice has played throughout geologic history and what a new iceberg in the Southern Ocean can tell us about the future for the planet.
On Thick Ice: Live From An Antarctic Drilling Trip The Wilkes Land expedition has been drilling deep into the ocean floor around Antarctica to learn how the ice sheet reacted in warmer climates of the past, which will help scientists predict how it will respond to future warming.
The High-Tech Weather Forecasting in the 2010 Winter Olympics Weather forecasting during the Olympics is always critical, but it will be even harder than usual this time around. Not only is Vancouver the warmest city to host the winter games yet but the Vancouver-Whistler region's weather is incredibly complex because of the region's varied terrain.
What Does 'Smart Growth' Really Mean? Questions for Andres Duany With 2000's Suburban Nation, Andres Duany established himself a leader in the movement to encourage U.S. cities to abandon suburban sprawl. PM discussed the guidelines with the author and founder of the Congress for New Urbanism.
Top 5 Most Damaging Invasive Species in the U.S. Animal invaders have bridged oceanic gaps for centuries—some stowed away in ships while others were intentionally lugged over by the overzealous. Here are the most damaging animals ever to enter U.S. soil.
7 Gadgets That Gather Energy While They Work Countless gadgets are now on the market to make life just a little more sustainable without the pain and inconvenience of constructing a hydroelectric dam in your backyard. Here are 7 products that gather energy as they serve their purpose.
How 4 Climate Control Plans Could Crash and Burn Faster than geo-engineers come up with radical ideas, researchers and skeptics are exposing the risks that come with these global cures for climate change. Here is how four geo-engineering ideas could back-fire and hurt as much as they help. (Published in the February 2010 issue)
Could Haiti's Earthquake Tragedy Have Been Prevented? The 7.0-magnitude earthquake that devastated Haiti was long predicted by one group of geophysicists. Could the tragedy have been prevented?
Basalt Vaults Could Store CO2—And Turn it to Rock A new analysis suggests basalt formations off the east coast of the United States could store billions of tons of the greenhouse gas—and then transform it into rock.
Anti-Whaling Captain Reflects on True Cost of Collision As demonstrated this week, a high-tech speedboat is no match for a Japanese whaling vessel. After being sliced in half by a Japanese whaler, anti-whaling ship Ady Gil sank to an inglorious death at the bottom of the Antarctic ocean.
10 Badass Beetles and the Technology They Inspire In honor of the International Year of Biodiversity, PM takes a look at the 10 most badass beetles on the planet. They not only look cool, their nifty adaptations are inspiring products that range from autonomous vehicles to next-gen fire extinguishers.
How the Manufacturing Sector Can Curtail Its Greenhouse Gas Emissions Politicians, scientists and engineers are tackling a bewildering array of issues, each laden with a full complement of buzzwords. Here, PM sorts through the biggest topics in climate change to provide analysis of the smartest real-world solutions.
Cutting Water Use to Curb Carbon Dioxide Coming up to the Copenhagen summit, PM sorts through the six biggest topics in climate change policy with up-to-date numbers and analysis, and the smartest real-world solutions.
Are Green Jobs For Real?: Special Report From pure optimism to extreme skepticism, few contemporary buzzwords elicit such polarizing emotions as “green jobs.” By some counts, we can look forward to 5 million green jobs; by others, any surplus will be outweighed by a net loss of jobs in other fields. (Published in the December 2009 issue)
The Myth of Clean Coal: Analysis Will coal become the clean, green fuel of the future? Not so fast.
What East Anglia's E-mails Really Tell Us About Climate Change PM guest analyst Peter Kelemen, a professor of geochemistry at Columbia University's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, explains what stolen e-mails from East Anglia University tell us about global warming—and what they don't.
How to Stop a Hurricane With Cold Water Intellectual Ventures is in the business of chasing wild scientific ideas and finding out how feasible they are. Their latest project: How to stop hurricanes with cold water. Here is more on this idea and some from the company. (Published in the December 2009 issue)
The Top 8 Dinosaur Discoveries of 2009 Paleontologists have had a good year, bringing a slew of new dinosaurs to the books. We pored through the many finds to bring you the best horned, bird-footed, feathered and, of course, ferocious new dinosaurs unveiled this year.
Methane Maps Step One for Energy Prospectors A team of geologists recently found hundreds of plumes of methane gas—a potent greenhouse gas and potential energy source—in the Arctic Ocean, indicating there may be more methane being released from deep in the ocean than expected. (Published in the November 2009 issue)
How California's New Water Laws Inform the Coming National Crisis California is also in the midst of one of the biggest water crises this nation has ever seen. Here are six of the most prescient fixes proposed by a water task force—problems and solutions that may be coming to a local assembly (or a courthouse) near you.
Wave Power Desalination Plant Coming Soon to Texas This month, the state of Texas granted its first-ever offshore lease for a wave-powered energy system to Renew Blue's Seadog Pump. PM sat down with Mark Thomas, founder and CEO of Renew Blue, to talk about how this technology works.
5 Technologies Missing From the Clean Energy Bill Sens. John Kerry and Barbara Boxer recently unveiled the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, a bill that aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020. The following weren't mentioned in the new bill, but they deserve attention.
Earthquake Research Digs Deep to Find Timely Warning System With no promising methods for short-term earthquake prediction, researchers are studying fault zones in several ways to develop a clearer picture of tectonic plate behavior.
GE Dredges Hudson River PCBs, Ships Them to Texas Before PCBs were phased out in the '70s, companies like General Electric dumped tons into New York’s Hudson River. In 2009, GE marshaled 12 excavators, 18 tugboats and 37 barges to begin digging up the toxic sludge and then ship it to West Texas. (Published in the October 2009 issue)
5 Realistic Lessons in Radical Consumption From No Impact Man In the film No Impact Man, Colin Beavan and his family abandon their city lives, devising radical ways to reduce consumption and waste. They follow a premise: If it's easy, it must be wasteful. Here's how to balance the radical with the realistic.
Weird Stories of Objects Falling From the Sky—Explained The annals of history are full of tales of strange objects falling from the sky. In honor of the release of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs we present a list of the 10 craziest things to rain down on humanity from the heavens.
The New Homesteaders: Off-the-Grid and Self-Reliant You may have heard about them: Off-the-gridders living in radical opposition to modern amenities by cutting themselves off from the rest of society. Not so. The new homesteaders are simply DIYers who revel in self-reliance. This is their story. (Published in the October 2009 issue)
A History of Self-Reliance Though rooftop solar power, 500-mile diets and home-brewed biodiesel may seem like a new trend, humans have been going back to the land for centuries. Here is an timeline of the high points in self-reliance, from Thoreau to the Energy Policy Act of 05. (Published in the October 2009 issue)
Top 10 Most Dangerous Plants in the World Following the recent discovery of Nepenthes attenboroughii, a giant pitcher plant large enough to digest rodents, PM tracked down poison-plant aficionado Amy Stewart to discuss some of the world's deadliest plants.
8 of the Most Dangerous Places (To Live) on the Planet There are other places in the world where the dangers are so great, it's hard to believe that anyone would be willing to stay put and fight it out with Mother Nature. Here are 8 places that require fortitude and preparation to make it through the year alive.
172 records found. Displaying 1 to 30 Page 1 2 3 4 5 6

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