economist
stoat | August 12, 2013 Can China clean up fast enough? asks The Economist. In more detail:
If China were simply following the path of rich countries from poverty through pollution to fresh air, there would be little to worry about (unless you lived in one of those hellish cities). But... When Britain’s industrial engine was gaining speed, levels of CO2 in the atmosphere were the same as they had been for millennia. Now they are half as high again, and not far off 450 parts per million, which most scientists think is the danger level... If China cannot cut its CO2 emissions substantially, then either other…
stoat | June 27, 2012The Economist has a Special Report on "The melting north" (hopefully that works for you, I have a subscription so I'm not sure if its behind their paywall or not).
And what it says -
A heat map of the world, colour-coded for temperature change, shows the Arctic in sizzling maroon. Since 1951 it has warmed roughly twice as much as the global average. In that period the temperature in Greenland has gone up by 1.5°C, compared with around 0.7°C globally. This disparity is expected to continue. A 2°C increase in global temperatures—which appears inevitable as greenhouse-gas emissions soar—would…
stoat | January 15, 2011Sez the Economist:
For, according to Dr Pyykko's calculations, relativity explains why tin batteries do not work, but lead ones do.
His chain of reasoning goes like this. Lead, being heavier than tin, has more protons in its nucleus (82, against tin's 50). That means its nucleus has a stronger positive charge and that, in turn, means the electrons orbiting the nucleus are more attracted to it and travel faster, at roughly 60% of the speed of light, compared with 35% for the electrons orbiting a tin atom...
If the problem isn't immeadiately obvious to you, pause a moment before proceeding…
stoat | July 11, 2010Since the last of the CRU-email inquiries came in, a whole string of rubbish journo's have been queuing up to try to explain why, given that the inquires enhonerated the scientists, there was so much kerfuffle over the whole issue. Naturally, given that the journo's can't have been wrong, the scientists must have done something wrong, so a whole string of tedious "yes they were exhonerated but still, they could have done better" posts have come and gone.
Pearce was trash. Monbiot was rubbish during the fuss and was rubbish afterwards though JA took the piss out of him better than I did. mt…