Janet Allon – The Polluted Air You’re Breathing Could Be Making You Gain Weight

Researchers are studying whether air pollution could be contributing to the obesity epidemic, and the news is not good for city dwellers and second-hand smokers. Increasingly, it looks like two people can have exactly the same diet, and perform the same amount of exercise, but one may put on more weight depending on the air quality around their home. The …

Alex Kirby – Warming lakes speed up methane emissions

US scientists report that lakes worldwide are warming by an average of more than 1°C every 30 years, faster than the warming rate of either the ocean or the atmosphere. The warming is expected to increase algal blooms and to mean global emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a century, will increase …

Lorraine Chow – Elon Musk: We Can Power America by Covering Small Corner of Utah With Solar

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has once again championed the incredible potential of renewable energy. During an interview Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in San Francisco, the 44-year-old CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX said that the U.S. could meet its electricity needs just by covering a small corner of Utah or Nevada with solar panels. His remark was captured in …

Anti-Science GOP ‘Eviscerates’ NASA Spending on Climate Change Research – Deirdre Fulton

Reinforcing the GOP’s reputation as anti-science, Republicans in the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology on Thursday voted to slash NASA spending on the branch that studies climate change issues. According to news reports, the NASA authorization proposal, passed along party lines, would cut between $300-500 million in funding to NASA’s Earth Sciences division, which researches the planet’s natural …

Staggering Rise in Fracking Earthquakes Triggers Kansas to Take Action

It seems unlikely that Kansas, known as one of the most conservative states in the U.S. and home to fossil fuel barons the Koch Brothers, would take action against the oil and gas industries. But in the face of a new wave of earthquakes attributed to the underground injection of fracking wastewater, its industry regulating body, the Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC), ordered a reduction …