From unprecedented heat waves that shattered "Dust Bowl" era records from the 1930s, to Hurricane Sandy, which devastated coastal New Jersey and New York, 2012 was the year Mother Nature had it out for the U.S. No country on Earth rivaled the U.S. in 2012 in terms of extreme weather and climate events, as one rare episode after another rocked the c… Read More
Coal is likely to rival oil as the world's biggest source of energy in the next five years, with potentially disastrous consequences for the climate, according to the world's leading authority on energy economics. One of the biggest factors behind the rise in coal use has been the massive increase in the use of shale gas in the U.S. … Read More
Even after causing more than a dozen spills in 2011 from its newest tar sands pipeline — including a six story “geyser” of crude — Canadian energy developer TransCanada claimed its planned Keystone XL pipeline would “exceed” safety standards.… Read More
from a Harlequin Romance: Dellarobia Turnbow, a restless young housewife in rural Feathertown, Tenn., is walking into the woods to meet a man who is not her husband. Things take a turn, as they always do in fiction. But this turn is not the usual one. … Read More
A study published in Geophysical Research Letters looks at no fewer than 19,625 Arctic storms and concludes that in terms of size, duration and several other of what the authors call “key cyclone properties,” the Great Cyclone was the most extreme summer storm, and the 13th most powerful storm -- summer or winter -- since modern satellite observati… Read More
A far-reaching storm system tore across the South on Tuesday, causing what is likely to go into the record books as the worst Christmas Day tornado outbreak on record. The storm responsible for the severe weather also spread a swath of snow and ice from Texas to Indiana, and the whole mess of extreme weather is sliding east on Wednesday, with a str… Read More
Hollywood's discovery of fracking has caused some unease in the oil and gas industry — even in the midst of America's energy boom. A leading lobby group, Energy in Depth, has put out a "cheat sheet" of pro-fracking talking points to counter any bad publicity that may arise following the release of the new Matt Damon film, Promised Land. The film, … Read More
It’s a cause for serious concern, say the study’s authors: West Antarctica holds enough fresh water to raise sea level by 11 feet if all the ice melted, and even a fraction of that amount could prove catastrophic to coastal areas where hundreds of millions of people live.… Read More