Posts under ‘Environment’

In January thousands of trigger happy Swedes went into the woods to shoot 10% of the Swedish wolf population. The result:Sweden is now going to import wolves!

Even though the animals never posed any threat to humans, the wolves suffer from a bad reputation amongst the Saami, an indigenous people living in the Northern regions of [...]

The South Pole is a popular tourist destination with 40.000 visitors each year. It’s an important boost for the economy, but these so called “eco-tourists” cause pollution from ship fuel and rubbish, as well as disturbe wildlife.

Dutch researcher Machiel Lamers, said it could even be making global warming worse. [...]

While in the future we may be blessed with all kinds of green energy, the quick and easy way forward is insulating our homes and offices like our lives depended on it. Come to think of it, that may already be the case.

A large proportion of the world’s fossil energy is spent on heating. In [...]

Climate has been a major driver of armed conflict in Africa, research shows - and future warming is likely to increase the number of deaths from war.

American scientists found that all over the African continent, conflict was about 50% more likely in unusually warm years. In the magazine Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [...]

Sewage can be used as a source of energy and raw materials. That’s the firm belief of Professor Jules van Lier, who’se recently been appointed lecturer at Delft Technical University in the Netherlands.

Professor van Lier regrets the fact that sewage is usually considered to be an environmental hazard. At best harmfull contaminants are filtered out, [...]

Found on BBC news.

Average global temperatures are on course to rise by up to 6C without urgent action to curb CO2 emissions, the lead author of a new analysis says.
Emissions rose by 29% between 2000 and 2008, according to the Global Carbon Project.  All of that growth happened in developing countries, but a quarter of [...]

Two prehistoric periods during which the Sahel and the Sahara were lush and green made human migration across the Globe possible. It shows how climate change has in the past been benificial to mankind.

Prehistoric man in green Sahara
Prehistoric man originates from Eastern Africa. It has long been a mystery how these proto-humans could cross the [...]

British Engineers say a forest of 100,000 “artificial trees” could be used within 10 to 20 years to help soak up the world’s carbon emissions. The trees -looking somewhat like giant fly swatters- are among three geo-engineering ideas highlighted as practical in a new report. The authors from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers say that [...]

GM has announced the Chevrolet Volt, their electric car with ‘range extender’, will average 230 MPG in city driving. But is this figure realistic or even relevant?

One thing is clear and undebated: the car, which will be on sale in November next year,  will get up to 40 miles of driving from a fully charged [...]

Recently, the ‘Potential Gas Commitee’ of the US revised its estimates of America’s reserves of natural gas. The result: The United States gas reserve is 39% higher than the estimates of 2006. This is not the result of the discovery of new gas fields, but of new technologies which make it commercially viable to extract [...]