Dark clouds hover over Bangkok. Isoprene emissions can lead to cloud formation, but the results of a study on the subject were clouded by biased and inaccurate reports in the conservative media.
Credit: Diego Azubel/EPA
Isoprene: it’s a gas that helps aerosols form in the atmosphere. It’s relevant to climate change because aerosols help clouds form, which can have cooling (by reflecting sunlight) or warming (by trapping heat) effects, depending on the type of cloud. Aerosols also cause cooling by directly scattering sunlight.
Past field measurements indicated that the oceans were releasing less isoprene than climate model simulations suggested they should. A new study found that previously unidentified reactions in the sea surface microlayer might represent a significant source of isoprene that could reconcile […]
General view of the Petrolchemie und Kraftstoffe (PCK) oil refinary in Schwedt/Oder, October 20, 2014.
Credit: Reuters /Axel Schmidt
NYTimes put together a piece on a recording of Richard Berman soliciting millions from energy industry execs, back in June.
The company executives, Mr. Berman said in his speech, must be willing to exploit emotions like fear, greed and anger and turn them against the environmental groups. And major corporations secretly financing such a campaign should not worry about offending the general public because “you can either win ugly or lose pretty,” he said.“Think of this as an endless war,” Mr. Berman told the crowd at the June event in Colorado Springs, sponsored by the Western Energy Alliance, a group whose members include Devon Energy, Halliburton and Anadarko Petroleum, which specialize in extracting oil and gas through hydraulic fracturing, also […]
Conservative media are defending the “right” of fossil fuel companies to knowingly deceive the public about climate change, after a group of climate scientists and members of Congress called for an investigation of such companies under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). Contrary to claims by conservative media that these advocates are seeking to “shut down free speech,” RICO would only apply to those who purposefully misled the public about climate change, with some Congressmen pointing to recent reports that ExxonMobil funded climate science denial for decades after discovering that fossil fuels drive climate change.
Scientists, Members Of Congress Urge DOJ To Investigate Whether Fossil Fuel Companies Knowingly Deceived Public On Climate Change
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, 20 Climate Scientists, House Members Call For Investigation Of Fossil Fuel Companies Under RICO Act. In a May Washington Post op-ed, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) raised the possibility of the Department of Justice (DOJ) investigating whether fossil fuel companies and their allies violated the RICO statute by knowingly misleading the public about climate change. DOJ previously filed a civil RICO lawsuit against big tobacco companies, and a federal judge ruled that the companies had violated RICO by lying about the health risks […]
Pediocactus despainii, a highly endangered cactus limited to a small strip overlooking Utah’s San Rafael Swell, spends most of its life underground, emerging for only a few days to flower before retracting into the desert sand.
Credit Paul Alan Cox
TUCSON — Ours is one of the most colorful relationships of history: We need flowers for our very survival, and in turn flowers — the plants that exist as crop cultivars or horticultural cut flowers or potted beauties — rely on us to reproduce and spread. But all is not well in this storied partnership: We who behold or nurture flowers are condemning their wild relatives to extinction at an alarming rate, and the world is quickly becoming a lesser place without them.
Credit: Wikimedia
1,500.
Think about that. CENTCOM, one of six U.S. military commands that divide the planet up like a pie, has at least 1,500 intelligence analysts (military, civilian, and private contractors) all to itself. Let me repeat that: 1,500 of them. CENTCOM is essentially the country’s war command, responsible for most of the Greater Middle East, that expanse of now-chaotic territory filled with strife-torn and failing states that runs from Pakistan’s border to Egypt. That’s no small task and about it there is […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
