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Global Climate Change

Study on Fungi Evolution Answers Questions About Ancient Coal Formation and May Help Advance Future Biofuels Production

 

Study Reveals the Potentially Large Influences of Fungi, One of the Most Biologically Diverse Classes of Organisms, On Our Energy Supplies

A new study which includes the first large-scale comparison of fungi that cause rot decay suggests that the evolution of a type of fungi known as white rot may have brought an end to a 60-million-year-long period of coal deposition known as the Carboniferous period. Coal deposits that accumulated during the Carboniferous, which ended about 300 million years ago, have historically fueled about 50 percent of U.S. electric power generation.

 


New Countries Phase-In Efficient Lighting to Yield Major Economic and Climate Benefits

A total of five percent of global electricity consumption could be saved every year through a transition to efficient lighting, resulting in annual worldwide savings of over US$ 110 billion. These are among the main findings of 150 country lighting assessments and a new global policy map on efficient lighting.  An en.lighten press conference at Rio +20 highlighted the planned phase-out of inefficient lighting which is designed to deliver major economic and climate benefits by 2016.

 

 


Cook+Fox Architects Create Buildings Designed to Restore, Regenerate, and Contribute To The Urban Environment

 

Cook+Fox Architects are finding ways to achieve their vision of integrated, environmentally responsive design inspired by concepts such as Biophilia. They not only incorporate Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) criteria, but seek to go beyond those standards as they design to restore, regenerate, and contribute to the urban environment.  

 


Learning from Earth’s History about Changing the Chemistry of the Atmosphere and Oceans

The oceans may be acidifying faster today than they did in the last 300 million years, according to scientists who published a paper in the March 2, 2012 issue of the journal Science. "These scientists have synthesized and evaluated evidence far back in Earth's history," said Candace Major, program officer in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research. "The ocean acidification we're seeing today is unprecedented…a result of the very fast rates at which we're changing the chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans."

 


National Renewable Energy Laboratory Aims to Slash Cost of Solar Cells

Solar-powered electricity prices could soon approach those of power from coal or natural gas thanks to collaborative research with solar start-up Ampulse Corporation at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) ) National Renewable Energy Laboratory  (NREL).

 


Food Force: The First Humanitarian Video Game Updated and Free to Download

The World Food Program’s (WPG’s) video game Food Force invites children, and people of all ages, to complete six virtual missions that reflect real-life obstacles faced by WFP in its emergency responses both to the tsunami and other hunger crises around the world.

 


Denmark Success With Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Commended by The International Energy Agency (IEA)

Denmark is a leader in implementing well-designed policies for renewable energy, energy efficiency and global climate change, according to a review of Danish energy policies published on 21 February 2012 by the International Energy Agency (IEA). 


Denmark Announces Energy Consumption Down By 2.4% in Third Quarter 2011

Lower energy consumption for the first nine months of 2011 was reported on 16 February 2012 by the Danish Energy Agency.

 


Time of Year Important in Projections of Climate Change Effects on Ecosystems

 

Results of study on prairie grasslands show differences across the months. Does it matter whether long periods of hot weather, such as last year's heat wave that gripped the U.S. Midwest, happen in June or July, August or September?  Scientists studying the subtle effects of heat waves and droughts say that when such weather events happen makes a big difference.

 


Badwater Basin: Death Valley Microbe Thrives There: Discovery may lead to novel biotech and nanotech uses

Scientists Dennis Bazylinski and colleagues at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) sluice through every water body they can find in Nevada looking for new forms of microbial magnetism.


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