Taxonomy term

voices

Three Cheers for Peak Oil!

After decades of back-and-forth, the debate about peak oil boils down to two points of contention: Is peak oil real, and is it cause for concern? But instead of arguing tired positions that don’t seem to be converging on consensus, maybe it’s time we shift our tack and instead see what we can do to bring about the peak as soon as possible.

08 Jun 2009

Redefining Quaternary

Blogging on EARTH

The Quaternary Period — the geologic time period that includes human evolution up to the present — is now a bit longer than it used to be.

04 Jun 2009

DOE promises $2.4 billion for clean coal

Blogging on EARTH

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced today at a meeting of the National Coal Council that $2.4 billion in stimulus money will go to developing carbon capture and storage technologies.

15 May 2009

FY 2010 budget cuts Yucca, oil and gas programs

Blogging on EARTH

The White House Office of Management and Budget released today its FY 2010 budget reductions and savings — what programs it plans to cut or reduce.

07 May 2009

Oil barrel politics

As a new president and Congress entered office in January, current events continue to keep energy in the forefront of national concern. Volatile prices, resource depletion, climate change and national security impacts of energy trade have become a part of daily news and policy discussion. Americans will be watching the new policymakers to see how they respond to energy concerns. How they treat energy research and development — particularly the amount of funds dedicated to R&D, and the portion of that R&D that is allocated through earmarks — will be telling.

08 Apr 2009

Texas Board of Education votes to strike amendment questioning evolution

Blogging on EARTH

Evolution will still be taught in Texas. After months of proposed amendments, statements by special interest groups and lengthy debate, the Texas Board of Education voted 8-7 today to strike language from its curriculum that required students to “analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency” of common ancestry, a major tenant of the theory of evolution.

27 Mar 2009

Bats and white-nose syndrome = VA cavers, please stay out

Blogging on EARTH

The name sounds pretty innocuous, but white-nose syndrome (WNS) is rapidly becoming very bad news for bats; in just a couple of years, hundreds of thousands of hibernating bats in the northeastern United States with this fungus have died. Among the most affected are the little brown bat and the endangered Indiana bat.

26 Mar 2009

Alaska's Mt. Redoubt erupts at last

Blogging on EARTH

After months of threatening and rumbling, Mount Redoubt finally erupted late Sunday night.

Redoubt began to exhibit increasing unrest last fall, with seismic activity becoming markedly increased in January, and expectations of an imminent eruption were growing. On March 15, researchers detected four hours of continuous volcanic tremor and observed of a brief plume of gas and ash, according to the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Volcano Observatory.

23 Mar 2009

Undersea volcano erupts near Tonga

Blogging on EARTH

One of Tonga's submarine volcanoes is awake again, sending spectacular plumes of smoke, ash and steam high into the sky. MSNBC has video here.

19 Mar 2009

Criminals steal London dino's dung

Blogging on EARTH

A series of robberies over the past five years at London’s Natural History Museum has curators frustrated — and puzzled. From stuffed squirrels to scarab beetles, it seems that anything that can be carried is vulnerable. But most oddly, some thieves made off with a piece of fossilized dinosaur dung.

04 Feb 2009

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