Fuel subsidies are, on the surface, a good thing. They can boost the economy and help economically deprived Malaysians save up on fuel costs. Yet they also come with environmental costs. Cheaper gasoline prices would mean Malaysians would think less of using public transport and opt instead to drive around…
When it comes to tackling climate change, it seems to be a classic case of “one step forward, two steps back.” Just last year, for instance, scientists reported that at long last global CO2 emissions had flatlined, meaning that we’d stopped pumping more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than before….
Vehicles powered by alternatives to fossil fuel are on the roll. Literally. The Japanese automaker Toyota is rolling out a new line of vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells. A concept version of a long-haul truck with the car manufacturer’s new hydrogen-based engine in it will set out with a…
Three years. That’s how much time we have left to save the planet. Unless we permanently lower our greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, we may well reach a threshold on climate change beyond which we will be able to do little to save ourselves and the planet from irreversible harm….
We’re continuing to break records as a species. Unfortunately, they are the wrong sorts of records. A case in point: our relentless pumping of CO2 into the atmosphere at breakneck speed. Only last September we reached an environmental milestone by having levels of carbon surpass 400 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere….
Fans of dinosaurs are familiar with the Triassic period. It ran for around 50 million years from a mass extinction of species at the end of the Permian until the dawn of the Jurassic some 200 million years ago. The Triassic featured some pretty cool dinosaurs and giant crocs, and it was a seminal period…
What with levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere having reached a tipping point, the planet’s climate is in for some rough times ahead. The scramble is now on to try and mitigate the effects of greenhouse gases with scientific means. And those efforts have now got a welcome shot…