Wide Angle: Global Warming, On the Brink : Discovery News

"Climategate" and Other Nonsense

When discussing man-made climate change (or anthropogenic global warming), I often drift into unfamiliar (and sometimes disturbing) territory. That territory is what I call The Land of the Afraid, Ignorant and Lost.

glaciers are going and sea level is rising

Melting Away

As I organized this past summer's research expedition on board the Greenpeace icebreaker Arctic Sunrise, the pitch I made was that the worst-case scenarios weren't bad enough, and that models were being outstripped by the realities on the ground and on the ice.

Think about it. How could all that climate science be wrong?

Are You a Global Warming Sucker?

Two days and two completely unequal stories about climate change. Which story you believe defines you're view of the world today and could help determine the survival of civilization tomorrow.

pyramids of egypt under threat of global warming

Protecting Historic Sites From Climate Change

Among the things that could be wiped out as a result of climate change is our history, as preserved in special places around the world. There are those trying to save them, however.

Global Warming: A Primer

You only think you know what global warming is all about. Visit this Discovery Channel Web site to get the facts on what it is, how it works and what you can do about it.

Al Gore Proposes Going Crazy to Wake Up Pols

The overwhelming science isn't getting through to politicians. So what's left? Going crazy, says Al Gore in this SNL clip from TreeHugger.com

Top 5 Geoengineering Schemes

For a long time, geoengineering sounded like a bad Hollywood action movie plot. Now it's becoming almost inevitable as one of the strategies for trying to slow the Earth's feverish climate.

Carbon Dioxide: Sources Outpacing Sinks

Galloping increases in human fossil fuel emissions now appear to be outrunning the ability of the world's oceans to absorb them. The first yearly accounting of the oceans' role as a carbon sink shows that they are falling behind.

We're Feeling the Heat

The warming climate is now making itself felt in the daily weather across the United States, tilting the odds in favor of a daily record high temperature to two-to-one over a record low.

The science is clear, even if many journalists are not.

Climate Cools Over Wall Street

The Wall Street Journal has discovered a global cooling trend since 2006. Never mind the 150 years of other data that says it's warming. Never mind the many short cooling trends that have not reversed the steady rise over the decades. Never mind facts.

muck suggests we should be on a cooling trend

Arctic Lake Muck Sends Signal: We're Off Course

If Earth were behaving the way we all expect it to, its climate swaying to the timeless rhythms of its orbital path around the sun, the Arctic would not be warming. Its sea ice would not be thinning and there would be no talk of an Arctic of "ice-free summers" or a Northwest Passage.

global cooling is a farce, if you prefer the facts

Global Cooling: R.I.P.

The "global cooling" myth keeps rearing its head, despite ample of evidence that it is little more than shoddy science and propaganda. Kieran Mulvaney patiently walks us through it.

Maldives Government Goes Underwater: Big Pic

President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, held a cabinet meeting underwater.

Wide Angle: Solar Power

Government funding is shining on solar power projects. Utility companies are improving the grid, and the cost of manufacturing solar panels is falling. We look at what it takes to harness solar energy, where to do it, how folks use it and it can damage the environment.

Wide Angle: Green Energy Gone Wild

In the rush to fight global warming with "green" energy, one big problem is where to build big solar and wind generation plants. Should they be on remote, easy-to-lease federal lands? Or on unused agricultural lands closer to cities, or even on urban and suburban rooftops?

Nature as we know if is ending and may have never really existed.

Wide Angle: The End of Wilderness

In a time when every corner of the planet feels the effects of human activities, is there really any such thing as wilderness anymore? It's more than a question of pollution and global warming. Our Wide Angle also gets to the root of what wilderness is.

climate tipping points could tip the climate apple cart

Wide Angle: Climate Tipping Points

If Earth crosses some climate tipping points, it could tip the climate apple cart and rapidly dump us into a more hostile and angry version of planet Earth. Is there time to still time to avert catastrophe? Have we already tipped the cart?

Wide Angle: Wind Power

Energy from oil is so 1986. Green energy is all the rage now, and wind has a lot of potential to meet our planet's energy demand. But the world currently gets less than 2 percent of its electricity from wind. So what will it take to beef up wind power and reduce our reliance on oil?

Wide Angle: Global Warming, On the Brink