Climate Change Series

Can a battery factory ever be fully green?

Jul 26, 2016 06:11 am UTC| Technology Nature

Like Henry Ford before him, Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk is taking a new approach to car making. Where Ford focused on manufacturing a car that the mass market could afford, Musk is keen to build a vehicle that the...

The global impact of air conditioning: big and getting bigger

Jul 25, 2016 06:31 am UTC| Nature

With a heat wave pushing the heat index well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) through much of the U.S., most of us are happy to stay indoors and crank the air conditioning. And if you think its hot here, try 124F...

Climate Change Series

How a single word sparked a four-year saga of climate fact-checking and blog backlash

Jul 10, 2016 21:06 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

In May 2012, my colleagues and I had a paper accepted for publication in the Journal of Climate, showing that temperatures recorded in Australasia since 1950 were warmer than at any time in the past 1,000...

Climate Change Series

Learning to live with wildfires: how communities can become 'fire-adapted'

Jul 10, 2016 20:47 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

In recent years wildfire seasons in the western United States have become so intense that many of us who make our home in dry, fire-prone areas are grappling with how to live with fire. When I moved to a small town in...

Climate Change Series

A marine heatwave has wiped out a swathe of WA's undersea kelp forest

Jul 10, 2016 19:59 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

Kelp forests along some 100km of Western Australias coast have been wiped out, and many more areas damaged, by a marine heatwave that struck the area in 2011. The heatwave, which featured ocean temperatures more than 2℃...

Too many males spell trouble for UK migratory birds

Jul 08, 2016 23:48 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

If you hear a bird singing in the spring, you might assume its calling to a potential mate in the hope of producing offspring. But in parts of the UK, birdsong could be helping to mask the fact that the populations of...

Climate Change Series

How the UK can still lead on climate change – even after Brexit

Jul 04, 2016 19:25 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

In the wake of the Brexit earthquake, experts are sifting through the rubble, assessing the damage, and checking the stability of remaining structures. Advocates of ambitious climate policy have been particularly active....