NEWS
May 14, 2013
Tim Wheeler 's report on the future of Smith Island and the state's idea to buy residents out so they may relocate tells a heartbreaking story of people whose attachment to the island goes back many years, 400 years in some cases ("Smith Islanders debating a state buyout proposal," May 13). If the buyout is taken by just some residents, it may make life untenable on the island for those who want to stay. They have organized a letter-writing campaign to fight the buyout idea. It is very important to fight climate change on the local level.
NEWS
May 3, 2013
To the age-old question of how many conservatives does it take to screw in a light bulb, we now have a definitive answer: Just one, but it will take him weeks to chase down a vintage incandescent bulb because he won't touch an energy-efficient one. At least that's the obvious conclusion to draw from a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study, put together by researchers from Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, asked hundreds of people to pass judgment on light bulb options.
NEWS
April 25, 2013
I was happy to see that National Aquarium CEO John Racanelli wrote about the important activities that we, as individuals and as a society, can do to protect the environment, without once mentioning the impossible goal of "stopping climate change" ("Take back the planet," April 22). Sadly, Earth Day Network, the organization behind Earth Day, is not so practical. Their website for 2013 Earth Day focused so intensely on climate change that one would think they were promoting "Climate Day. " This is a big problem for Earth Day's future.
FEATURES
Tim Wheeler | April 22, 2013
Today is Earth Day , a day when environmentalists and concerned citizens around the world demonstrate their caring for the health of their communities, the natural world and the planet. Forty-three years ago, the first Earth Day drew an estimated 20 million Americans into the streets, into parks and onto campuses for teach-ins and protests over environmental degradation. Organizers today claim the observance has gone global, with more than 1 billion participants. Earth Day helped launch the modern environmental movement, which provided public pressure for passage of many of the environmental laws we have today. Like the movement, its focus has shifted from fighting obvious air and water pollution to knottier issues around how and where we live, and what we consume, most notably climate change.
NEWS
April 2, 2013
Thanks for your article on climate change and rising sea levels ("Survey shows Americans wary of sea level rising," March 29.) Global warming is driving major change in sea levels. In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's leading authority on climate science, projected an annual sea level rise of less than 2 millimeters per year. But from 1993 through 2006, the oceans actually rose 3.3 millimeters per year, more than 50 percent above projections, according to Scientific American magazine.
NEWS
Dan Rodricks | March 25, 2013
Here's a question for a snowy day in spring: Will Marylanders, and Baltimoreans in particular, ever grow so accustomed to snow that they stop worrying so much about it? Could climate change do enough crazy things to the atmosphere to bring us more snow on a regular basis - and even in late March or April - therefore making Marylanders less snowanoid? Will we soon see the day when kids and their parents trudge on to school and work when just 2 or 3 inches of snow fall on the area?