Climate Science
All Stories
-
![]()
![]()
Why we need to relocate animals threatened by climate change
The solution to this human-created problem can only come from us: We've got to move animals in advance of the warming climate.
-
Critical List: Cruise ship could leak oil; Chevron rig catches fire
That capsized cruise ship in Italy could leak thousands of tons of fuel into a national maritime park. A four-lane bicycle superhighway could go up between the Swedish cities of […]
-
![]()
![]()
Watch an orca chase a shark out of the water
Orcas might be charismatic movie stars, but they are also killer whales. A family of beachgoers in New Zealand caught on film an orca fighting with a few sharks. One shark was so eager to get away from the whale that it beached itself in the shallow water. (That's the most interesting part of the footage, so if you've already seen Free Willy ten gazillion times, just fast-forward to 0:56.)
-
![]()
![]()
Cap-and-trade scheme for whaling to be almost as popular as the other kind
Scientists proposed in the journal Nature that one way to save whales is to allow people to hunt them.
-
![]()
![]()
The age-old battle of goats versus tortoises
Before reading further in this post, ask yourself a question (and answer honestly): Which do you care about more, guiltless (if hungry) goats or the Galápagos Islands' giant tortoises?
If you answered goats, this post will make you sad.
Here was the situation on the Galápagos Islands of Española: a population of hundreds of thousands of tortoises had dwindled to a few thousand. As the tortoises' population decreased, the population of goats, introduced to the islands by humans, grew to tens of thousands. The goats were eating all of the islands' vegetation. It was not a good situation for the tortoises.
And so conservationists decided the goats had to go. -
![]()
![]()
Climate primer: Global warming made scintillating
Catch some of Grist's most riveting recent coverage of climate change -- perfect fodder for cocktail chatter, guaranteed to make you the life of the party.
-
![]()
![]()
Will Obama address climate threat in State of the Union speech?
Obama didn't mention climate change in last year's State of the Union speech. This time, will he seize the opportunity to stir the country to action?
-
Don’t believe the hype about the ‘molecule that could solve climate change’
Some chemists came up with a really clever way to observe the intermediate stage of an atmospheric chemical reaction, and then some PR flack got a hold of it and suddenly science has invented a brand-new molecule that will solve all our climate change woes! As usual, things that seem too good to be true probably are.
-
Scientists discover color of galaxy, can only describe it in poetry
We went back and forth on whether this would be relevant to your interests, but it's about the universe and the Earth is in the universe, right? I think that's a non-controversial scientific statement even Rick Santorum would agree with. (Maybe. Does Rick Santorum believe in the galaxy?) Anyway, astronomers have found the exact color the Milky Way galaxy would appear if you were standing outside it, and it turns out it is a color that can only be expressed in poetry.
-
Teeniest frog ever
Scientists thought they had found the world's smallest frog just a month ago, when a researcher announced he'd found coin-sized amphibians in New Guinea. But psych! Those weren't the smallest frogs. This is the smallest frog. In fact it's the smallest vertebrate known to man.
