Chicago Is So Ridiculously Cold That the Railroad Tracks Need to Be on Fire to Keep the Trains Moving

There are over 140,000 miles of privately-owned standard-gauge rail in the United States, vital to the transportation of billions of tons of freight and people. Occasionally, it gets really cold where some of those train tracks sit. Like right now, in Chicago, where Wednesday’s high temperature is expected to be thirteen degrees below zero. Those temperatures are potentially deadly for humans, and deforming for the long pieces of metal that trains ride on.

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US government scientists debunk Trump’s ‘global waming’ tweets with cartoon

US government climate scientists take unprecedented step of tweeting a rebuttal to PDonald Trump’s recent tweets implying that winter storms and cold weather in US somehow disprove global warming.…

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Fish Poop Could Help Us Sustainably Grow The Food Of Our Future

Today, surrounded by freezing temperatures, thousands of heads of lettuce grow, nestled in a cozy greenhouse fed by nutrient-rich nitrates. Or you could call it what it is: fish poop. The process, called aquaponics, allows farmers to grow local, organic produce anywhere at any time of year. Aquaponics is a sustainable method of farming that combines aquaculture (raising fish) and hydroponics (cultivating plants in water).

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Tragic reason for whale suicides revealed in major study

Scientists have long known that some beaked whales beach themselves and die in agony after exposure to naval sonar, and now they know why: the giant sea mammals suffer decompression sickness, just like scuba divers. At first blush, the explanation laid out today by 21 experts in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B seems implausible. Millions of years of evolution have turned whales into perfectly calibrated diving machines that plunge kilometres below the surface for hours at a stretch, foraging for food in the inky depths.

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NM to join 18 states in climate change coalition

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has ordered New Mexico to join a national coalition of states seeking to combat the effects of climate change, as part of a far-reaching plan to shift the state toward a renewable energy economy. At a news conference in the state Capitol, the Democratic governor described the order as a “game-changer” that outlines broad, state-level initiatives to make up for a lack of federal action on climate change.

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Dark Hedges tree falls in high winds

A tree made famous by the TV fantasy drama Game of Thrones has fallen in strong winds. Gale force winds of up to 60 mph hit Northern Ireland overnight on Saturday. The Dark Hedges are a tunnel of beech trees on the Bregagh Road near Armoy that have become an an international tourist attraction since featuring in the hit series.

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EU proposes ban on 90% of microplastic pollutants

European Chemicals Agency draft law aims to cut 400,000 tonnes of plastic pollution

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Can AI help crack the code of fusion power?

With the click of a mouse and a loud bang, I blasted jets of super-hot, ionized gas called plasma into one another at hundreds of miles per second. I was sitting in the control room of a fusion energy startup called TAE Technologies, and I’d just fired its $150 million plasma collider. That shot was a tiny part of the company’s long pursuit of a notoriously elusive power source. I was at the company’s headquarters to talk to them about the latest phase of their hunt that involves an algorithm called the Optometrist.

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Extreme cold torturing much of the US, Minnesota may see wind chills of minus 70 degrees

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds," the saying goes. But whoever said that didn't face weather of the kind predicted for Wednesday. So postal workers won't be out delivering anything in six entire states, and parts of four others. The US Postal Service said Tuesday night on Facebook that because of the predicted deteriorating weather conditions in the Midwest, delivery will be suspended in some areas.

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Electronics Are 'the Fastest-Growing Waste Stream in the World’

Electronic waste is a growing threat to the environment. Thanks to the low cost of manufacturing, it’s easier than ever for corporations to pump out millions of laptops, smart phones, internet of things devices, and other electronics. Electronics companies want consumers to keep buying new products, and believe repair and reuse hurts their bottom line. Old CRT monitors and televisions fill warehouses across the country, and companies like Apple and Microsoft pay lip service to the problem, but often pursue business practices that make the problem worse.

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‘Welcome to my high-fashion, trash shopping mall’

Anna Bergstrom had a dilemma. She loved the glitzy world of high fashion, but had also come to feel that it was unsustainable and bad for the planet. She's now found peace of mind by running a stylish shopping mall in Sweden, where everything is second-hand. "Do you notice the smell?" Anna Bergstrom says, as she surveys her mall from the mezzanine level. "It smells nice here, doesn't it?" It's very important to Anna that this place is enticing, because she feels it is making a statement. Everything for sale here, in 14 specialist shops covering everything from clothes to DIY tools, is recycled.

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Toshiba unveils robot to probe melted Fukushima nuclear fuel

Toshiba Corp. unveiled a remote-controlled robot with tongs on Monday that it hopes will be able to probe the inside of one of the three damaged reactors at Japan's tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant and grip chunks of highly radioactive melted fuel.

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‘World’s Loneliest Duck’ Dies on Tiny Pacific Island That Loved Him

His nickname was a little off, since Trevor, the only duck on the island of Niue, was beloved by its 1,600 residents. They mourned after he was killed by a stray dog.

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How to Build a Greenhouse

You can grow plants and vegetables year-round by making your own greenhouse.

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Lawmakers Propose Bill That Would Make Animal Cruelty A Felony In The U.S.

A pair of Florida congressmen reintroduced a bill last week that would make animal cruelty a felony nationwide. According to the Orlando Sentinel, the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act from Rep. Ted Deutch, D-West Boca, and Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota, would target “crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating and impaling animals.” The measure would also address bestiality and other efforts to sexually exploit animals.

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'Upset' farmer saves abattoir-bound lambs

A farmer who became too upset when taking his lambs to the abattoir gave his flock to an animal sanctuary. Sivalingam Vasanthakumar, from Totnes, Devon, took the 20 male lambs nearly 200 miles (321km) to Goodheart Animal Sanctuaries, near Kidderminster. Mr Vasanthakumar, a farmer for 47 years, said: "I just couldn't cope any more and I had to say no." The sanctuary said the "lucky" lambs would have fetched about £9,000 if they had been sold.

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Want to fix obesity and climate change at the same time? Make Big Food companies pay.

A new report says food companies are pursuing profit at the expense of public and environmental health. That has to change. Obesity, climate change, and malnutrition are among the greatest global crises facing our world today. Wouldn’t it be great if there were solutions to tackle all three problems at once? That might sound far-fetched. But a new report, published Sunday in the Lancet, implores us to think about the possibility of big, systemic fixes for these interrelated scourges.

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Renewables Could Surpass Fossil Fuels in Britain by 2020

Britain will get more of its electricity from renewable energy sources than fossil fuels as early as next year, according to a new report from the energy analysts group EnAppSys. The transformation is being driven by a surge in offshore wind farms currently under construction or about to begin operating, CleanTechnica reported.

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Scientists bring new insight into how animals see

Scientists from The University of Manchester have found a way to trick the eye into thinking the world is brighter than it actually is.

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Germany Lays Out a Path to Quit Coal by 2038

A committee of disparate interests envisages sending billions of euros and thousands of government jobs to coal country as mines and power plants shut down.

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Bees are facing yet another existential threat

While soybean farmers watched the drift-prone weed killer dicamba ravage millions of acres of crops over the last two years, Arkansas beekeeper Richard Coy noticed a parallel disaster unfolding among the weeds near those fields. When Coy spotted the withering weeds, he realized why hives that produced 100 pounds of honey three summers ago now were managing barely half that: Dicamba probably had destroyed his bees’ food.

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U.N. warns climate change impacts security, U.S. ignores link

The U.N. system's chief scientist on weather and climate warned Friday that climate change has "a multitude of security impacts" and is increasingly regarded as a national security threat — with global warming records broken in 20 of the last 22 years. The Maldives' foreign minister, Abdulla Shahid, told a U.N. Security Council meeting on "the impacts of climate-related disasters on international peace and security" that there is no bigger security threat than climate change, which endangers the Indian Ocean island nation's very existence.

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Report: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress helps with his nuclear power push

Bill Gates said in his year-end letter last month that he planned to work to persuade U.S. leaders to embrace advanced nuclear technologies as a solution to curbing climate change. That work appears to have begun as The Washington Post reported Friday that Gates is making the rounds on Capitol Hill looking for support — and billions of dollars. Gates founded the Bellevue, Wash.-based TerraPower in 2006, and the venture had been working toward building a pilot project for its traveling-wave nuclear technology in China.

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Alec Baldwin: The path to a better planet goes across your plate

What does your diet have to do with saving the planet? Everything, says a new report by the world's leading scientists and health experts. Over the last few years, I have become a student of certain global environmental issues. Preparing for the Paris Climate Conference, and since then, I have worked with the United Nations advocating for protecting tropical forests and the rights of indigenous peoples.

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Researchers find that e-scooters are a fun, easy way to go to the ER

"This is a very important technological innovation that has a significant public health impact."

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Volvo creates the living seawall in Sydney to help with plastic pollution

Volvo has teamed up with the Sydney Institute of Marine Science and Reef Design Lab to create the Living Seawall. The Living Seawall is designed to recreate the structure of native mangrove trees and provide a habitat for marine life, according to the company’s website. The automaker also claims that Living Seawall will aid biodiversity and keep the water clean by attracting filter-feeding organisms that can absorb and filter out pollutants such as heavy metals.

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Earth's Wildlife Populations Have Dropped By 60 Percent Since 1970

And humans are mostly to blame, according to the World Wildlife Fund's 2018 Living Planet Report.

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New Jersey Looks to Ban Slaughter of Pregnant Animals

A couple of weeks ago, a brave cow jumped for her life from the second level of a transport truck headed for the slaughterhouse. The story made headlines, and the cow, now named Brianna, was rescued by Skylands Animal Sanctuary & Rescue in New Jersey. What nobody knew at the time was that Brianna was pregnant. A few days later she gave birth to her calf, Winter, at Skylands.

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Chinese Scientists Have Cloned a Genetically Altered Primate For The First Time

This time last year, the first primates cloned through a nucleus transfer technique made headlines around the world. Now, Chinese researchers have pushed the envelope even further – by breaking a regulatory gene in macaques before cloning them.

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Ocasio-Cortez Hits Back, Throwing Bible Reference in Face of Sarah Huckabee Sanders

It’s been said that you can use quotes from the Bible to justify pretty much any position on an issue. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did just that on Wednesday in a response to Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ comments about climate change. And it really wasn’t that hard. But it burned.

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What happened when Oslo decided to make its downtown basically car-free?

It was a huge success: Parking spots are now bike lanes, transit is fast and easy, and the streets (and local businesses) are full of people.

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Viewpoint: Why we still underestimate the Neanderthals

Prof Clive Finlayson, director of the Gibraltar Museum, explains why some old assumptions about the intellectual capabilities of our evolutionary relatives, the Neanderthals persist today. But a body of evidence is increasingly forcing us to re-visit these old ideas. A paper out this week in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution reports the early arrival of modern humans to south-western Iberia around 44,000 years ago.

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This Ancient Dead Bug Could Change What We Know About Opal Formation

The markets of Southeast Asia are common places to find the fossils of insects, embedded in amber millions of years old. But last year, gemologist Brian Berger found something much more rare and astonishing.

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Solar and wind are booming, while coal keeps shrinking

The boom in solar and wind power in the United States will deal a fresh blow to coal country in the next few years. Renewable energy, led by solar and wind, is projected to be the fastest-growing source of US electricity generation for at least the next two years, according to a report published Friday by the US Energy Department. Boosted by swiftly falling prices, utility-scale solar power is expected to increase by 10% in 2019 and 17% in 2020, the Energy Information Administration said. Wind power should grow 12% and 14% in those years, vaulting it ahead of hydropower for the first time.

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Court Rules ‘Ag-Gag’ Law Criminalizing Undercover Reporting Violates the First Amendment

In a win for freedom of the press, a federal court this month struck down an Iowa law making it a crime to lie about your intentions when accessing an agricultural production facility. The “ag-gag” law, which was aimed at undercover journalists and activists, essentially prevented undercover investigations of the agricultural industry. In a lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Iowa, the court rightly found that the law violates the First Amendment.

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I've Always Wondered: is rain better than tap water for plants?

Plants can find it tough to get all the nitrogen they need, especially from Australian soils. But summer storms can provide an added boost.

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Coca-Cola fears that climate change will cause water shortages

Climate change could cause water shortages, more natural disasters, and more outbreaks of tropical diseases, some of the world’s biggest corporations predict. Water shortages “could limit water availability for the Coca-Cola system’s bottling operations,” the beverage giant worries. Intel also has concerns. Manufacturing computers without access to water may “lead to increased operational costs” the computer company wrote in filings. And Disney predicts that hotter summers and colder winters will deter people from visiting its theme parks.

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A Single Heat Wave Killed One Third of Spectacled Fruit Bats in Australia

Before a heat wave in Australia last November, the country was home to an estimated 75,000 spectacled fruit bats (also known as the spectacled flying fox). The bats reside mostly in the northeast state of Queensland. A heat wave hit the region between November 24 to 30, 2018. On the hottest days, November 26 and 27, temperatures were above 42 degrees C (about 107 degrees F), and the effect on the fruit bats was dramatic: At the time, locals reported seeing bats fall out of trees en masse.

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‘No alternative to 100% renewables’

A research team from the University of Technology Sydney, the German Aerospace Center and the University of Melbourne has developed a new climate model to solve the global climate crisis. The researchers claim their construct is the “most detailed energy model to date”, as it provides data on 72 regional energy grids operating in hourly increments until 2050, along with a comprehensive assessment of renewable resources. The result, they claim, provides a roadmap for hitting the targets set by the 2016 Paris climate agreement.

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Climate Disaster Is Upon Us

The question is no longer whether or not we are going to fail, but how are we going to comport ourselves in the era of failure? By Dahr Jamail.

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A spot of good news in Ebola crisis: Vaccine supplies are expected to last

There’s some good news related to an Ebola crisis that has offered very little up until now. The World Health Organization now predicts there are adequate supplies of an experimental Ebola vaccine to control the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “I believe we will have enough vaccine to stop this outbreak unless something very dramatic changes,” Dr. Peter Salama, WHO’s deputy director-general of emergency preparedness and response, told STAT.

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Record Numbers of Americans Say They Care About Global Warming, Poll Finds

A record number of Americans understand that climate change is real, according to a new survey, and they are increasingly worried about its effects in their lives today. Some 73 percent of Americans polled late last year said that global warming was happening, the report found, a jump of 10 percentage points from 2015 and three points since last March. The rise in the number of Americans who say global warming is personally important to them was even sharper, jumping nine percentage points since March to 72 percent, another record over the past decade.

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Nuclear fusion, a disruptive power source for crowded cities: Don Pittis

Holy grail of power generation, commercial nuclear fusion could be "a decade away" creating a new disruption not just for fossil fuels but for traditional carbon free energy systems.

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If it's melted, it's ruined - Brands embrace sustainability as purchasing trends diversify

The past few months have seen a noticeable increase in individuals who are are becoming more environmentally aware regarding necessary changes they must make to reduce their impact on the planet. The results of which have seen more sustainable purchasing trends becoming prevalent, and companies are making alterations to suit those needs.

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Turtle meat - the ultimate survival diet?

How one family stayed alive while shipwrecked and adrift on the Pacific Ocean.

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Mega-storms the size of England on the rise in North Africa

Mega-storms the size of England are increasingly savaging countries across the Sahel, a five-year project backed by the UK government has found. Already a troubled region, the Sahel – which hugs the Saharan desert from Senegal to Eritrea – has seen a threefold increase in mega-storms over the last 35 years. The ferocious storms – which produce roughly the same amount of energy in 12 hours that the entire UK consumes in a year – can devastate everything in their path with powerful winds and torrential rain. They can grow as high as 16km, satellite images show.

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Oceans Are Getting Louder, Posing Potential Threats to Marine Life

Increasing ship traffic, sonar and seismic air gun blasts now planned for offshore drilling may be disrupting migration, reproduction and even the chatter of the seas’ creatures.

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Climate change is making us sicker and shortening our lives, doctors say

In the welter of daily demands upon physicians, it might be easy to imagine that weaning the world off its reliance on fossil fuels is asking a bit too much. But preventing sickness and averting premature death are squarely in a physician’s wheelhouse. And dramatic increases in both are projected for the foreseeable future as the world’s continued...

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An Open Letter to People Who Boil Animals Alive

The following is an open letter to people who boil animals alive. Dear Reader, Being boiled alive is easily one of the worst ways to die. Imagine this: As boiling water touches your body, your extremities are the first to burn. These extremities include your fingertips, which have more nerve endings than many other areas of your body.

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Vancouver City Council votes to declare ‘climate emergency’

Vancouver City Council voted unanimously Wednesday night to declare a climate emergency. The motion was introduced by OneCity Coun. Christine Boyle. Now that the motion has passed, city staff will come up with new ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and set new climate change targets. Boyle says her motion passing unanimously proves how important it is to be a greener city.

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