[ No good deed goes unpunished—and that includes trying to slow climate change. By cutting greenhouse gas emissions, humanity will spew out fewer planet-cooling aerosols—small particles of pollution that act like tiny umbrellas to bounce some of the sun’s energy back into space. “Even more important than this direct reflection effect, they alter the properties … Read more
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[ Last week, the Biden administration made it official: American cars are really going electric. The US Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule, long in the works, that will require automakers selling in the United States to dramatically boost the number of battery-powered vehicles sold this decade, putting a serious dent in the country’s carbon … Read more
[ “The answer ended up being, yes, in all US states, on average heat pumps will reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” says Eric Wilson, a senior research engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the lead author of the new paper. “Even if it’s a relatively low-efficiency heat pump that relies on electric resistance heating … Read more
[ The attorney for a college student who has tracked singer Taylor Swift’s jet pushed back at the superstar’s threat of legal action, arguing there is “nothing unlawful” about his client’s actions. The letter, on behalf of University of Central Florida student Jack Sweeney, comes in response to multiple requests by Swift’s attorneys that demanded … Read more
[ So whatâs going on here? For one, the oceans have been steadily warming over the decades, absorbing something like 90 percent of the extra heat that humans have added to the atmosphere. âThe oceans are our saviors, in a way,â says biological oceanographer Francisco Chavez of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California. … Read more
[ While everyone’s been focused on accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles to cut carbon emissions, a technological hero has been rapidly ascending under the radar: the heat pump. Instead of burning natural gas or coal to produce heat, this fully electric device extracts warmth from outdoor air—even when it’s freezing outside—and pumps it inside … Read more
[ Nine states signed a memorandum of understanding Wednesday calling for heat pumps to comprise 65 percent of heating and air conditioning in residential buildings by the end of the decade. In the memo, the air quality agencies of California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Rhode Island, also called for … Read more
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[ In this graph, the orange line shows the global sea surface temperature throughout 2023. The other squiggles are previous years, with the uppermost dashed black line being the average between 1982 and 2011. The dark black line at upper left is where we’re starting out 2024. Notice it’s already at a sky-high level several … Read more
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[ In addition to burying solid carbon or sprinkling it on fields, researchers are also turning waste biomass into liquid carbon—oil, essentially, that they pump back into the ground instead of pumping the fossil variety up. “What we do at the highest level is we make barbecue sauce—or liquid smoke for barbecue sauce—and then we … Read more
[ Rick Fox has spent a lot of time in Hollywood, so naturally he has more than one origin story. Canadian-born, Bahamian-raised Fox played professional basketball in the NBA in the 1990s and 2000s, starring for the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers. After retiring from the sport in 2004, he became a full-time actor, … Read more
