hubs 1-5 (updated every 30 minutes)sort by Hot Best Latest
90Earth's Temperature: A Brief History of Recent Changes
Changes in Earth's temperature used to be caused by changes in sunlight, which in turn were caused by irregularities in the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Now, however, temperature changes are caused by changes in atmospheric greenhouse gases released by human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels.
8 comments
82What's the Real Cost of Fossil Fuels?
Fossil fuel market prices don’t reflect the externality, or social cost, of pollutants, including carbon dioxide that causes global warming. Since the catastrophic effects of climate change will occur decades in the future, it is easier to measure the cost of preventing them than the the damage that will occur if we don’t. Internalizing the prevention cost by adding it to fossil fuel market prices makes these prices more closely reflect the real cost of fossil fuels.
4 comments
75World Population: How Did It Get So Big?
The world could have fed no more than half of today's population had it not been for two technological innovations: the Haber-Bosch process, invented in 1909, and high-yield varieties of corn, wheat and rice, developed in the 1930s, '40s and '50s.
11 comments
76ExxonMobil -- Friend or Foe?
Although climatologists are generally agreed that fossil fuel combustion is causing global warming and must be restricted to forestall a future climate crisis, it may be expected from its past conduct that ExxonMobil, the world’s richest corporation, will marshal its formidable assets to oppose any restrictions that would adversely affect the profitability of its oil and gas business.
0 comments
56Peak Oil: Are We Running Out of Gas?
We may not yet be running out of gas, but we are running short of cheap gas. The choices for the oil-based transportation sector are to develop new unconventional sources of oil or to develop transportation based on electricity generated from non-carbon sources of energy.
2 comments
