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Receding Himalayan glaciers Almost six years ago, I was the editor of a single-topic issue on energy for Scientific American that included an article by Princeton University’s Robert Socolow that set out a well-reasoned plan for how to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations below a planet-livable threshold of 560 ppm. The issue came replete with technical solutions that ranged from a hydrogen economy to space-based solar. [More]

In a new experiment, Iceland is looking to replace its smokestacks with well injectors to permanently sequester its carbon dioxide emissions. [More]

By Nicola Jones of Nature magazine This month, scientists will test a new way to extract methane from beneath the frozen soil of Alaska: they will use waste carbon dioxide from conventional wells to force out the desired natural gas. The pilot experiment will explore the possibility of `mining' from gas hydrates: cages of water ice that hold molecules of methane

For years researchers have been trying to figure out the best ways of making plants produce biofuels. But there is a funda

Humanity has done little to address climate change. Global emissions of carbon dioxide reached (another) all-time peak in 2010.

By Nina Chestney LONDON (Reuters) - High levels of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere mean the next ice age is unlikely to begin for at least 1,500 years, an article in the journal Nature Geoscience said on Monday. [More]

SAN FRANCISCO A mantra that has driven global negotiations on carbon dioxide emissions for years has been that policy-makers must prevent warming of more than two degrees Celsius to prevent apocalyptic climate outcomes. And, two degrees has been a point of no return, a limit directly or indirectly agreed to by negotiators at international climate talks. James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, whose data since the 1980s has been central to setting that benchmark, said today that two degrees is too much.

When the world talks climate change --as is currently under way in Durban, South Africa--the main issue is carbon dioxide emissions. CO2 is emanating from the negotiators' mouths and the power plants and cars of their home countries--and that simple molecule is responsible for the bulk of global warming to date. [More]

Despite a string of funding challenges in the past year, the picture is not bleak for the carbon capture and sequestration industry. That message is in a new report being released this morning from the Global CCS Institute, an Australia-based organization that studies the industry

Undersea vents are providing researchers with a possible view of the future as seawater becomes more acidic due to carbon dioxide emissions. [More]

The risk of death from carbon dioxide leaking from an underground storage site is far less than the risk of getting struck by lightning or killed in a car accident, according to a new study. The research, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focuses on naturally occurring CO2 seeping through the ground in Italy, but the study authors say their analysis holds broad implications for industrially captured carbon dioxide that would be injected thousands of feet underneath the earth

Microscopic algae and the nearly invisible animals that eat them do more than just drift along the ocean surface. Plankton , defined by their habitat, not their taxonomy, are the foundation of the marine food chain--without them, marine life would go hungry and food chains would collapse. They also remove carbon dioxide from the sea and provide Earth's atmosphere with oxygen

Burning fossil fuels releases significant quantities of carbon dioxide, aggravating climate change. Although it gets less attention these days, combustion also emits volumes of pollutants, which can cause a variety of illnesses. The most extensive consequences across the U.S

The Australia-based Galileo Movement touts a series of "basic facts" on carbon dioxide that attempt to explain why the greenhouse gas can't contribute to climate change. John Smeed, the movement's co-founder, says the case against carbon dioxide as a global warming culprit is simply a matter of "junior school physics." [More]

There is a new sponge that researchers hope could absorb greenhouse gases from power plants one day. In a recent study, scientists at Lehigh University created a new material that pulls carbon dioxide and methane selectively from a stream of other gases. In theory, the new spongy substance could sop up heat-trapping gases emitted from the burning of coal or natural gas