Young adults are more envious than their elders—and about more things

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall – who’s the fairest of them all?” New research doesn’t have an answer to that. But it does give clues as to who is the “enviest” and would have been more likely to pester (and fester) with the question in the first place: Snow White, not her stepmother. If only fairy tales lined up with …

Yelena Sukhoterina – Top 10 Toxic Fake Food Items Produced In China

Some Chinese websites have come out with instructional videos on how to make $70 a day by producing and selling fake eggs. The chemicals that are required are “Alginic Acid, Potassium Alum, Gelatin, Calcium Chloride, water and artificial color.” The eggshells are made from Calcium Carbonate. Eating these eggs may cause memory-loss and dementia. Source: InventorSpot.com 2. Walnuts stuffed with cement Read More

Neela Banerjee, Lisa Song and David Hasemyer – Exxon’s Own Research Confirmed Fossil Fuels’ Role in Global Warming Decades Ago

At a meeting in Exxon Corporation’s headquarters, a senior company scientist named James F. Black addressed an audience of powerful oilmen. Speaking without a text as he flipped through detailed slides, Black delivered a sobering message: carbon dioxide from the world’s use of fossil fuels would warm the planet and could eventually endanger humanity. “In the first place, there is …

Greenhouse gases caused glacial retreat during last Ice Age

A recalculation of the dates at which boulders were uncovered by melting glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age has conclusively shown that the glacial retreat was due to rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, as opposed to other types of forces. Carbon dioxide levels are now significantly higher than they were at that time, …

Nadia Prupis – Cutting Tropical Deforestation is Key to Curbing Climate Change, And It’s Cheap

Without drastic efforts to reduce deforestation, rising greenhouse gases, and unsustainable global agriculture, the planet is on track to lose a massive quantity of its tropical forests—a crucial element in the fight against irreversible climate change—in just 35 years. Absent aggressive conservation policies, the world will lose 2.9 million square kilometers of its tropical forests by 2050, according to a …

John Scales Avery – The Need For A New Economic System

Introduction One of the greatest threats to the survival of the human species and the biosphere is catastrophic climate change. Scientists warn that if the transition to renewable energy does not happen within very few decades, there is a danger that we will reach a tipping point beyond which feedback loops, such as the albedo effect and the methane hydrate …

Deirdre Fulton – Geoengineering Schemes Sound Too Good to be True? That’s Because They Are.

As a historic heat wave ravages the Middle East and glaciers continue rapidly melting into the sea, a “thought-experiment” devised by German researchers has demonstrated—yet again—that the best way to avoid the effects of catastrophic climate change is to keep fossil fuels in the ground. According to a paper (pdf) published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, geoengineering “technofixes” …

Boehner Blames California Drought On Obama BY JOE ROMM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) took to Facebook on Tuesday to recast California’s worst drought in 1200 years as a “man-made water shortage” — not worsened by climate change, but by President Obama himself. He also asserted that, in the midst of the historic Dust Bowl conditions, Americans still have a God-given right to green lawns. Boehner, of course, famously said in May that …

Climate change may knock seafood off the menu By Tim Radford

Pink salmon – the smallest and most abundant of the Pacific salmon species, and a supper table mainstay in many parts of the world – may be swimming towards trouble. And they are not the only dish likely to disappear from the menu. Mussels, oysters, clam and scallop could all become scarcer and more expensive as the seas become more …

“Care For Our Common Home” Mother Earth By Pope Francis

An extract from Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth. In many parts of the planet, the elderly lament that once beautiful landscapes are now covered with rubbish. Industrial waste and chemical products utilised in cities and agricultural areas can lead to bioaccumulation …