Climate change has continued to dominate environmental science in the past year. There are plenty of other issues out there, though, whether it鈥檚 a surprise cause of diabetes, or the precious metals we leave behind in waste dumps.
New快猫短视频.com is now making free all in-depth articles from the past 12 months. In case you missed them, here are the top 10 best features on environmental science.
Climate change: The next ten years
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Weather forecasts let us know to expect rain, wind, sunshine or snow in the next few days. Climate predictions tell us what鈥檚 going to happen in the distant future. But what about between these extremes: will global warming affect our lives in the next few years?
Is the diabetes epidemic down to pollution?
Diabetes is on the rise, but exactly why remains a mystery. In recent years, researchers have identified a surprising link. The diseases turns up more frequently, it seems, in people who have been exposed to substances including dioxins, PCBs and DDT 鈥� a class of compounds known as persistent organic pollutants.
What is your dinner doing to the climate?
The food we eat generates twice as much greenhouse gas as the cars we drive. If we want to be good to the environment, it鈥檚 not just cars we should be thinking about鈥�
Save the climate by saving the forests
The cheapest way to reduce global carbon emissions is to stop deforestation, so why not pay developing countries to protect their rainforests? It鈥檚 a great idea in theory, but in practice there鈥檚 an unpalatable twist: the people who will benefit are not those who want to save trees, but the 鈥渂ad guys鈥� who want to destroy them.
The greening of Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley has had an epiphany. Buzzwords such as 鈥淲eb 2.0鈥� have been dropped in favour of phrases such as 鈥渃lean tech鈥�. Could the world鈥檚 most resilient, inventive culture deliver us from the worst of global warming? A group of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists is betting on it.
Is climate change causing an upsurge in US tornadoes?
Tornadoes struck early in 2008. Wisconsin and Washington were hit by rare January twisters. In early February, a storm system across the southern states spawned 84 tornadoes, the worst for 23 years. Is global warming to blame?
There鈥檚 gold in them there landfills
If you want proof of the maxim 鈥渙ne man鈥檚 trash is another man鈥檚 treasure鈥�, look no further than your local waste dump. It turns out that 1 tonne of scrap from discarded PCs contains more gold than 16 tonnes of ore. Welcome to the strange world of landfill mining鈥�
Ice ages take place on Earth with a regular rhythm, and a characteristic pattern is seen in methane and carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. But starting 7000 years ago, CO2 and methane diverged from that pattern. Had they not done so, we would be heading for another ice age. So what happened? Were early humans to blame?
When crocodiles roamed the Arctic
The last great warming of Earth took place 250 million years ago. Then, the Antarctic was a land of almost subtropical forests, while the Arctic Ocean was a giant freshwater lake inhabited by crocodile-like reptiles. This 鈥渉othouse鈥� period offers us new insights into our past and perhaps a glimpse of the future.
Bog barons: Indonesia鈥檚 carbon catastrophe
Indonesian companies are draining and clear-felling peat bogs to build palm-oil plantations and provide Europe with biofuels. Yet ironically draining the peat will release 30 times as much CO2 as will be saved by replacing fossil fuels with biofuels.
