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Polar bears are classified as marine mammals, like a seal or a walrus, which might come as a surprise given that they’re usually pictured on land. But polar bears spend a lot of their time in the waters of the Arctic, fishing or swimming among the sea ice. They may look awkward in the water, [...]
Bad news for whales out of the Russian Far East: over 100 belugas are reportedly trapped in water between ice floes in the Chukotka region, cut off from the sea. Fishermen in the area—one of the poorest in Russia, bordering the Bering Sea—report that the white whales have been essentially boxed in by approaching ice [...]
Oil companies are salivating at the prospect of prospecting for crude in the Arctic. Early tests have shown significant potential for oil in the cold waters of the far North, but there was always one slight problem: ice. The ice-choked seas of the Arctic presented serious technical challenges and dangers to offshore drilling, which is [...]
Last week I wrote about a study that said something unusual—climate change may not turn out to be as serious as our worst fears. Well, there was a reason why that study was such an outlier—most of the science on climate change is dire and getting direr. Case in point: a new article in this [...]
Is it just me, or is the past getting past faster than ever before? It wasn’t that long ago—a little more than a year and a half—that President Obama stood at Andrews Air Force Base and outlined an ambitious energy deal. Greens would get the carbon cap-and-trade legislation they had been working for since the [...]
On the basics, the science of climate change is pretty straightforward. Carbon dioxide released into the air—whether through the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation or other natural causes—adds to the greenhouse effect, which traps more solar energy in the atmosphere and warms the planet. But just how this will happen—how fast and exactly how the [...]
The 125-year-old Coca-Cola Company doesn’t like to mess with its brand image. That’s in part because it’s so valuable—according to Interbrand Coke has the best brand in the world—but also because previous efforts to tweak its image haven’t always worked out so well, and sometimes lead to things like this. So perhaps it’s a measure of [...]
If you want to see global warming in action, head to the Arctic. The seasonal shrinking of the sea ice over the North Pole is one of the most visible symptoms of the gradual warming of the planet. Every winter, Arctic ice builds up in the polar darkness, and then in the summer, it melts. [...]
Well, there’s one thing you should take away from the Interior Department’s decision yesterday to conditionally allow the oil company Shell to begin drilling exploratory wells in the Arctic Ocean: the Obama Administration is not anti-energy. Despite constant complaining from the energy industry and Republicans in Congress that the White House is seeking to destroy [...]
Sometimes I wonder how the polar bear became the poster animal for climate change. These are ferocious beasts—they’ve even be known to engage in a little cannibalism when food gets tight. They’re far from the only animals that may be suffering because of climate change—just ask the Panamanian golden frog—and few of us will ever meet [...]
