Swans on Tea

Methane Releases From Arctic Shelf May Be Much Larger and Faster Than Anticipated
[T]he permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, long thought to be an impermeable barrier sealing in methane, is perforated and is starting to leak large amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the [...]

The Attack on Climate-Change Science
Why It’s the O.J. Moment of the Twenty-First Century
Awesome post by Bill McKibben, embedded in another post, comparing the climate denialist tactics with those of OJ’s defense team, and why so many people are buying the argument.
If anything, they [the defense team] were actually helped by the mountain of evidence. [...]

Solder is a nice woody word, even though it contains tin. And for even more irony (and silvery), there is a new solder that contains iron and silver, and eliminates lead.
Magnetic solders are a leap towards green alternatives
By subjecting the solder to an alternating magnetic field, the solder can be selectively heated. This keeps [...]

Hamiltonian Function: The Nissan Leaf
Energy efficiency analysis of the new electric car that’s been advertised recently.

Several more global warming pieces have popped up on my radar recently.
Al Gore’s NYT op-ed We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change
While I have pointed out before that you should not hold out much hope for science on the op-ed page, Mr. Gore’s piece has links to actual scientific work, which is generally more than [...]

Last week I took George Will to task for his scientific illiteracy and misrepresentation of the “no statistically significant warming” statement that has given every global warming denier a naughty tingly feeling during the past few weeks.
I missed something.
I was going to include a graphical example, and I should have, because I would [...]

Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Foiling E.P.A.
The Clean Water Act was intended to end dangerous water pollution by regulating every major polluter. But today, regulators may be unable to prosecute as many as half of the nation’s largest known polluters because officials lack jurisdiction or because proving jurisdiction would be overwhelmingly difficult or time consuming, [...]

NASA’s Prophet Will Give You Nightmares
Professor Hansen has been driven into a strange situation, and produced a strange book. For one-third of a century now, this cantankerous scientist has been more accurate in his predictions about global warming than anyone else alive. He saw these disastrous changes coming long before others did, and the U.S. [...]

Old diving tank air extends CSIRO Air Archive
“Our record from Cape Grim in Tasmania presently extends back to 1978, but this finding has taken it back to at least 1970 for some greenhouse gases,” says Dr Paul Fraser, who leads the greenhouse gas research team for CSIRO.

Lightweight “triple-zero” house produces more energy than it uses
Built in 2000, it was the first in a series of buildings that are “triple-zero,” a concept developed by German architect and engineer Werner Sobek, which signifies that the building is energy self-sufficient (zero energy consumed), produces zero emissions, and is made entirely of recyclable materials (zero [...]

Just not the one you might think.
Climate change cover-up? You better believe it
There is, in fact, a climate conspiracy. It just happens to be one launched by the fossil fuel industry to obscure the truth about climate change and delay any action. And this release of emails right before the Copenhagen conference is just another [...]

Meet the Man Who Could End Global Warming
By deploying sodium-cooled fast reactors. It overstates the case, completely ignores wind and solar as contributors to green energy replacements for coal and oil, and I think it glosses over and muddles the physics a bit, but it’s interesting nonetheless. One big hurdle, of course, is [...]