By Paul Brown A sustainable food policy which ends red meat meals has improved student diets and boosted a university catering service’s profits. The University of Cambridge in England, one of the richest and most famous universities in the world, has ended red meat meals in its outlets. Beef and lamb are off the menu […]
By Tim Radford China’s cities now have a better idea of what global warming is going to cost. New research warns that for every rise of one degree Celsius in global average temperatures, average electricity demand will rise by 9 percent. And that’s the average demand. For the same shift in the thermometer reading, peak […]
By Tim Radford Only a small percentage of the wild plant ancestors vital to human life can be considered safe from extinction. Botanists who have monitored the conservation status of almost 7,000 species—the wild forerunners of plants that humans use for food, medicine, shelter, fuel and livestock feed—found that most could be counted as not […]
By Paul Brown Oil and gas companies have underestimated probable electric vehicle sales and the effect they will have on their own businesses and profits, a new report says. If the car manufacturers’ projections of future sales of electric cars are correct, then demand for oil will have peaked by 2027 or even earlier, sending […]
By Tim Radford If average global temperatures rise by just 3°C, then Europe’s drought risk could increase to double the area faced with drying out. Right now, just 13 percent of the continent can be counted as a drought-prone region. As the thermometer soars, this proportion could rise to 26 percent. And 400 million people […]
By Tim Radford The world’s unregarded forests are at risk. Intact forest is now being destroyed at an annual rate that threatens to cancel out any attempts to contain global warming by controlling greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new study. A second study finds that trees in the tropical regions are dying twice as […]
By Kieran Cooke The U.S. solar industry is losing its shine. Although solar power is seen as a key way to avoid the use of climate-changing fossil fuels, U.S. solar companies are cutting investments and laying off workers. An industry employing more than 230,000 people and with an estimated worth of $28 billion is now […]
By Tim Radford Europe’s cities are about to bake. The worst-case scenario for ever-hotter temperatures now suggests that later this century the Austrian city of Innsbruck—for example—could be subjected to heatwaves 14°C hotter than any in the past. Altogether more than 400 cities could under such circumstances expect heatwaves at least 10°C hotter than any […]
By Tim Radford Think of it as the day a comet set the earth on fire. Researchers have evidence of widespread and devastating forest fires around half the world—a blaze to blot out the light of the sun—and all of it at a geological boundary called the Younger Dryas, 13,500 years ago. The evidence, they […]
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