Saturday, Nov 23rd
Last update12:05:53 AM GMT
Environmental Glance
So what would the world's temperatures, and the planet, look like in 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions continued as is? And if they were cut by 70 percent?
Researchers at a well-known climate center asked those questions and used a computer model to conclude that it'd be catastrophic if unchecked, but manageable if the world could reduce gases by that much.
As human beings continue their destructive rampage around the planet, they find themselves facing accelerating dilemmas on every continent. No one can deny quickening traumas facing humanity in the 21st century. Humans spew billions of tons of toxic air into the atmosphere while they plasticize the oceans, cut down the forests and tamper with nature's environmental balancing systems.
It has taken a quarter of a century, but US researchers say their work has finally enabled them to determine to what extent city air pollution impacts on average life expectancy.
The Tennessee Valley Authority manipulated science methods to downplay water contamination caused by a massive coal ash disaster, according to independent technical experts and critics of the federally funded electrical company.
The TVA is the largest public provider of electricity in the nation, providing power to 670,000 homes and burning through some 14,000 tons of coal per day. On December 22 the authority made headlines when one of its retention ponds collapsed, letting loose an avalanche of coal ash -- the toxic residue left over when coal is burned. More than 5 million cubic yards of ashy mud pushed its way through a neighborhood and into Tennessee's Emory River, knocked houses off foundations and blanketed river water with plumes of gray scum that flowed downstream.
One of the world's most famous skyscrapers - the Empire State building in New York - is going green.
A project is underway to reduce the amount of energy used in the building by more than a third, saving millions of dollars a year.
An ice bridge linking a shelf of ice the size of Jamaica to two islands in Antarctica has snapped.
Scientists say the collapse could mean the Wilkins Ice Shelf is on the brink of breaking away, and provides further evidence or rapid change in the region.
Arctic sea ice is melting so fast most of it could be gone in 30 years. A new analysis of changing conditions in the region, using complex computer models of weather and climate, says conditions that had been forecast by the end of the century could occur much sooner.
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