Tag - climate

 
 

CLIMATE

COMMENTARY / World
Mar 3, 2014
Limiting emissions could hurt more than help
Arguments over global warming often have a moralistic or even religious cast. But a cold assessment of risks and how to ensure against them would doom the anti-carbon campaign.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 28, 2014
Warming or not, this is the best climate for liberals
Bleak judgments about stimulus spending in the U.S. miss the main point of it, which was to funnel a substantial share of the money to unionized, dues-paying, Democratic-voting government employees. In this way, the stimulus succeeded.
Japan Times
WORLD
Feb 9, 2014
Water shortages leaving world high and dry
On Jan. 17, scientists downloaded fresh data from a pair of NASA satellites and distributed the findings among the small group of researchers who track the world's water reserves. At the University of California, Irvine, hydrologist James Famiglietti looked over the data from the gravity-sensing Grace...
WORLD
Feb 9, 2014
A glance at the world's major drought hot spots
1. California: The state's water resources are at critically low levels and a drought emergency has been declared. The health department says 17 rural areas are dangerously parched.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 4, 2014
Climate-change skeptics have free-speech rights
One could find himself tugged in two directions by the latest ruling in the defamation suit filed by climatologist Michael Mann, who has long been an object of ire among climate-change skeptics. Now it seems the skeptics have let their ire get out of hand.
Japan Times
WORLD
Feb 2, 2014
Melting Arctic ice brings hope to Russian city
The city of Nadym, in the extreme north of Siberia, is one of the Earth's least hospitable places, shrouded in darkness for half of the year, with temperatures plunging below minus 30 Celsius and the nearby Kara Sea semipermanently frozen.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 1, 2014
Climate change looks too big to ignore or fix
There are no global institutions even remotely capable of getting the world to reduce its energy consumption. So, unless we get a cheap, clean renewable, we're probably all going to be getting hotter.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2014
Warring dogmas block climate-change progress
National debates over environmental issues are sometimes derailed by two kinds of extremists: eco-doomsayers and techno-optimists. Noisy, headline-grabbing dogmas are an impediment to progress.
LIFE / Language / THE BUZZ
Jan 11, 2014
What the heck is that word I keep hearing?
A polar vortex (kyokūzu/極渦) is a persistent, large-scale cyclone located near either of a planet's geographical poles. The extreme arctic blasts that wreaked havoc across the United States last week were caused by a counterclockwise-rotating pool of cold, dense air. The frigid air, piled up at the...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 9, 2014
Russian road to mediocrity
Only a few economists in Russia seem to stress the importance of understanding the impact of the current mass outflow of capital and the sharp deterioration of the situation in world commodity markets.
ENVIRONMENT
Dec 15, 2013
Could felling trees help cool the planet?
It is an article of faith that preserving trees is critical to cooling our warming planet.
WORLD
Dec 2, 2013
Weak hurricane season puzzles researchers
It was a hurricane season almost without hurricanes. There were just two, Humberto and Ingrid, and both were relatively wimpy, Category 1 storms. That made the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season, which ended Saturday, the least active in more than 30 years — for reasons that remain puzzling.
EDITORIALS
Nov 29, 2013
Reducing Japan's emissions
The upshot for Japan from the just-ended Warsaw conference on climate changes is that it must come up with a new longer-term emissions reduction plan within 16 months.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Nov 24, 2013
UNEP chief urges Japan to stay in fight
The chief of the U.N. Environment Program urged Japan to keep playing a leadership role in the fight against global warming, although it faces a challenge caused by Fukushima nuclear disaster, which left most of its atomic plants offline.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 22, 2013
Climate change as a form of terrorism
The typhoon in the Philippines is a useful reminder that we need to think more about what can be done, both on climate mitigation and on disaster preparation.
COMMENTARY
Nov 19, 2013
View Typhoon Haiyan as an early warning system
"We've been telling the rest of the world we don't want what's happening to us to happen to everyone else," said Lucille L. Sering, the vice chair of the Philippines' Climate Commission,, as the country struggled to cope with the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. "This is your early warning system ... we...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 19, 2013
A pragmatic way to reduce emissions
A carbon tax could not only cut emissions but also reduce budget deficits and enhance energy security.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Nov 18, 2013
New climate goal opaque, product of ministry clash
The process of setting a new goal on reducing greenhouse gas emissions was marred by a standoff between the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Environment Ministry.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Nov 5, 2013
In Britain, era of 'green Tory' withers
Prime Minister David Cameron once dog-sledded across a shrinking Norwegian glacier to showcase his concern for global warming. Now, environmentalists say, his pledge to lead a new era of the "green Conservative" is in danger of melting away.
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 27, 2013
'Smart' window can generate and save energy
Paris AFP-JIJI

Longform

Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.
The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'