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Decaying wood releases around 10.9 gigatons of carbon worldwide every year, according to a new study by an international team of scientists. This is roughly equivalent to 115 percent of fossil fuel emissions. Co-author of the study Professor David Lindenmayer from The Australian National University (ANU) says it’s the first time researchers have been able to quantify the contribution of deadwood to the global carbon cycle. “Until now, little has been known about the role of dead trees,” Professor Lindenmayer said. “We know living trees play a vital role in absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But up until now,...

The study, led by scientists at the University of Bath and including collaborators from Bristol, Cambridge and Germany, used fossils and analysed genetic differences between modern snakes to reconstruct snake evolution. The analyses helped to pinpoint the time that modern snakes evolved.Their results show that all living snakes trace back to just a handful of species that survived the asteroid impact 66 million years ago, the same extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs.The authors argue that the ability of snakes to shelter underground and go for long periods without food helped them survive the destructive effects of the impact. In...

“We are safer when it comes to the threat of a large-scale 9/11-type attacker by a foreign terrorist organization,” former DHS Sec. Jeh Johnson told Fox News host Neil Cavuto on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attack. On this solemn day of remembrance, the Obama DHS secretary warned about “domestic-based” threats and acknowledged that there are threats from terror organizations planning attacks in places like Yemen, the Horn of Africa, and Afghanistan. “ISIS-K is on the rise now because of the profile of the attack” in Afghanistan,” he said. “You’ve also gotta be concerned about those here who radicalize...

Is US$200 a barrel oil likely if policies to reduce climate change take hold? Yes, says a Middle East oil minister and industry analysts. But not until the mid-century deadline for net-zero emissions. It would require cancelling short-term investments in the industry, plus a 75 per cent plummet in global oil demand, according to an International Energy Agency (IEA) outline of how to achieve the environmental goal. “Recommending that we should no longer invest in new oil… I think that’s extremely dangerous,” Mohammed bin Hamad Al-Rumhi, Oman’s energy minister, told a conference on clean energy transitions on Thursday. “My biggest...

....Pointing accusingly at climate change, President Joe Biden toured deadly flood damage in New Jersey and New York City Tuesday and said he was thinking about the all families who suffered “profound” losses.... Biden, like many, is arguing with increasing forcefulness that the threats from wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding and other extreme weather must be dealt with in ways that will mitigate the ever-worsening impacts of climate change. “We can’t turn it back very much, but we can prevent it from getting worse," he said, adding that scientists have been warning for decades this day would come and merits urgent...

The liberal media has to find a new way to keep its COVID-19 scare strategy going: Have “health journals” sound the alarm on the “climate crisis.” The Guardian is leading the charge. It screeched in its story’s headline: “More than 200 health journals call for urgent action on climate crisis.” The journals are reportedly “publishing an editorial calling on leaders to take emergency action on climate change and to protect health.” The editorial demanded action to keep global temperature increases below “1.5C” and “halt the destruction of nature.” Too bad for The Guardian that Hoover Institution Visiting Fellow Bjorn Lomborg...

Her adventure will end in Glasgow too, when she attends the forthcoming COP 26, presenting a collection of stories gathered on her flight. She hopes she has inspired people along the way – such as all those involved locally with Forth Valley for Net Zero Campaign, who have been following Sacha’s journey with great interest. It inspired them to come up with their own challenges in the run up to COP26. Falkirk Council leader Cecil Meiklejohn said: “We are honoured that Sacha visited our world famous Kelpies. “Falkirk Council is a key partner in the recently launched Forth Valley for...

The typical rocket launch dumps the same amount of CO2 into the atmosphere as one airliner does in the course of a trans-Atlantic crossing If you’re worried about your ‘carbon footprint’ - a concept foisted on the world in 2004 by British Petroleum to persuade people that their own behaviour, and not giant oil companies like BP, is causing the climate problem -- then you definitely should not sign up for a sub-orbital space flight. Besides, you probably can’t afford it ($250,000 pp). Millions of people can afford it, however, and since the Branson/Bezos ‘space race’ last month tickets for...

Obey or suffer the consequences. According to America’s “most closely watched forecast model,” the United States is projected to experience almost 100,000 additional COVID-19 deaths between now and December 1st. However, “experts” say that figure could be halved if everyone wore a mask in public spaces. (I say we’d all be better off if the number of “experts” was halved.) The experts whine that we’d all be safer and better off if Americans change their ways. Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle, opined that “We can save 50,000 lives simply by...

The Chinese Communists don’t like having their oppressive regime called out for human rights abuses and they let U.S. climate envoy John Kerry know that in no uncertain terms. ... The reason their solar panels are being sanctioned is that the Communists are engaging in unfair trading practices by deliberately selling the products at a loss to undercut the viability of the U.S. solar panel industry. The Chinese were also using slave labor to produce the panels. It’s harder to sell those solar panels because the Chinese are cheating and got caught. Should we lift the restrictions because of human...

Warming of the Arctic caused by climate change has increased the number of polar vortex outbreaks, when frigid air from the far north bathes the central and eastern United States in killer cold, a study finds. The study in the journal Science Thursday is the first to show the connections between changes in the polar region and February’s Valentine’s Week freeze that triggered widespread power outages in Texas, killing more than 170 people and causing at least $20 billion in damage. The polar vortex normally keeps icy air trapped in the Arctic. But warmer air weakens the vortex, allowing it...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., bashed Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., on Thursday in an apparent attempt to assign blame for the 12 flooding deaths in New York City caused by Tropical Storm Ida. "Manchin has weekly huddles w/ Exxon & is one of many senators who gives lobbyists their pen to write so-called 'bipartisan' fossil fuel bills," she said. "It’s killing people. Our people. At least 12 last night. Sick of this ‘bipartisan’ corruption that masquerades as clear-eyed moderation."

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) blamed climate change after Hurricane Ida’s remnants caused historic flooding in New York City, leaving multiple people dead. “Woe is us if we don’t recognize these changes are due to climate change. Woe is us if we don’t do something about it quickly,” Schumer said in a press conference.

Valerio Ciriello SJ highlights the importance of involving young people in efforts geared toward ecological transition, and stresses that they can influence a better way of development and lifestyle for future generations.In light of increasing calls for communal efforts to be directed toward the protection of our common home amid widening ecological degradation, hurricanes, flooding and other natural disasters, the “Eco Summer Camp for Young Adults” is doing something to urge young people to take a stand for themselves and for generations to come. Organized by the Lassalle-Institut in collaboration with Swiss Catholic Lenten Fund, Fastenopfer and the Center for...

White House Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci said Sunday that he would support a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for school students due to the highly contagious delta variant that has resulted in a surge of coronavirus cases across the country. "I believe that mandating vaccines for children to appear in school is a good idea. We’ve done this for decades and decades, requiring polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis. So this would not be something new requiring vaccinations for children to come to school," Fauci said Sunday in on CNN’s "State of the Union." Fauci’s comments come a week after the Food...

When did indoor air become cold and clean? Air conditioning is one of those inventions that have become so ubiquitous, that many in the developed world don’t even realize that less than a century ago, it didn’t exist. Indeed, it wasn’t so long ago that the air inside our buildings and the air outside of them were one and the same, with occupants powerless against their environment. Eric Dean Wilson, in his just published book, “After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort,” dives deep into the history of this field. It took more than just...

Dr. Anthony Fauci quickly walked back his prediction Monday that in one year, by the fall of 2022, the United States can get control of COVID-19. During an appearance on CNN, President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser offered an apology, claiming he misspoke and meant to say that ideal is within reach by the spring of 2022, but only if people holding out on getting vaccines decide to get the jab. "No, Anderson, I have to apologize," he told anchor Anderson Cooper. "When I listened to the tape, I meant to say the spring of 2022, so I did misspeak....

Rural Afghanistan has been rocked by climate change. The past three decades have brought floods and drought that have destroyed crops and left people hungry. And the Taliban — likely without knowing climate change was the cause — has taken advantage of that pain. While agriculture is a source of income for more than 60% of Afghans, more than 80% of conflicts in the country are linked to natural resources, according to a joint study by the World Food Programme, the United Nations Environment Program and Afghanistan's National Environmental Protection Agency. In 2019, Afghanistan ranked sixth in the world for...

Devastating heat. Debilitating droughts. Crippling frost. Extreme weather is creating nightmares for farmers around the world — and making food more expensive for Americans. Arabica coffee futures have almost doubled over the past year to seven-year highs as Brazil grapples with frost conditions that have wiped out crops. Retail coffee prices will likely follow suit. Sugar prices are also on the rise, driven up by the frost in Brazil as well as dry weather in the Dakotas and Red River Valley. Wheat, one of the most common food sources for the average diet, has surged to the highest level in...

Climate change is back in the news probably because a new report declared that this is a make-or-break decade to curb global warming. This is what—the seventh time we were told this was a critical decade for climate change. In 2007, these experts said that the Arctic Ice Cap would be gone by 2013. It ended up growing by over 533,000 square miles. And then, they said in the 1970s that global cooling was an existential issue as we undergo periods of glaciation. They were wrong again. As the environmental Left goes haywire over carbon emissions, everything has been slated...