Taming the Butterfly

"You hear that it's good to recycle everything," Mr. Herscher said, "and then you hear it takes more energy to recycle paper than it does to cut it down. It's really hard to know what the right thing to do is. This is a way to express my own frustrations."

No less than one third of a car's fuel consumption is spent in overcoming friction, and this friction loss has a direct impact on both fuel consumption and emissions. However, new technology can reduce friction by anything from 10% to 80% in various components of a car, according to a joint study by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) in USA. It should thus be possible to reduce car's fuel consumption and emissions by 18% within the next 5 to 10 years and up to 61% within 15 to 25 years.

Wandering albatrosses have altered their foraging due to changes in wind fields in the southern hemisphere during the last decades. Since winds have increased in intensity and moved to the south, the flight speed of albatrosses increased and they spend less time foraging. As a consequence, breeding success has improved and birds have gained 1 kilogram. These are the results of the study of an international research team published in the latest issue of the Science journal. However, these positive consequences of climate change may last short if future wind fields follow predictions of climate change scenarios, researchers warn.

Preserving diverse plant life will be crucial to buffer the negative effects of climate change and desertification in in the world's drylands, according to a new landmark study.

Scientists have offered up a convincing explanation for the harsh winters recently experienced in the Northern Hemisphere; increasing temperatures and melting ice in the Arctic regions creating more snowfall in the autumn months at lower latitudes.

New research has found that individuals and the private sector have an important role to play in the provision of public policies to help society adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Indonesia has the potential to realize major reductions in national greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation, and simultaneously earn significant new income for national and regional governments, if policies to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) are developed with strong and specific economic incentives, said scientists in a new paper published in the leading scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Researchers at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) at the University of York have played a key role in a new study that shows that implementing 14 key air pollution control measures could slow the pace of global warming, save millions of lives and boost agricultural production.

A new study from Forrester proves that the majority of Americans are a bunch of lazy re-tweeters. Ninety-three percent of online consumers in emerging markets of China, India, Mexico and Brazil use social media tools at least once-a-month. U.S. and European consumers are far more likely to use social media as a spectator-like sport, joining it and then just watching it fly by. In the U.S., 68% of social media users are joiners, which means they maintain a profile on a social networking site and visit social networks. Only 73% are spectators, or users who mostly just read blogs, online forums, customer ratings/reviews and tweets, listen to podcasts and watch videos. This number is strikingly similar in Europe (EU-7 countries, to be specific), with 69% of users classified as spectators and 50% as joiners.

Predictions of the loss of animal and plant diversity around the world are common under models of future climate change. But a new study shows that because these climate models don't account for species competition and movement, they could grossly underestimate future extinctions.

Technology for making an "artificial leaf" holds the potential for opening an era of "fast-food energy," in which people generate their own electricity at home with low-cost equipment perfect for the 3 billion people living in developing countries and even home-owners in the United States. That's among the prospects emerging from research on a new genre of "electrofuels" described in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News, the American Chemical Society's weekly newsmagazine.

Plunge in CO2 put the freeze on AntarcticaAtmospheric carbon dioxide levels plunged by 40% before and during the formation of the Antarctic ice sheet 34 million years ago, according to a new study. The finding helps solve a long-standing scientific puzzle and confirms the power of CO2 to dramatically alter global climate.

Scientists studying populations of gray wolves in the USA's Yellowstone National Park have developed a way to predict how changes in the environment will impact on the animals' number, body size and genetics, amongst other biological traits.

Federal officials say the Arctic region has changed dramatically in the past five years - for the worse.

Declaring the eradication of polio will be far more difficult than it was for smallpox, according to a review published in the Journal of General Virology. Further research into the complex virus - host interactions and how the vaccine is used in the final stages of the eradication programme is crucial to its success.

Illac Diaz (R) and Siplicio Mondas inspect a solar light bottle installed by Philippine soldiers in a shanty town in Manila. With the help of some plastic bottles plus a social media campaign, Diaz is aiming to help a million poor people in a year.

Encouraging climate-smart agriculture can lead to climate change adaptation practices in a partnership where the farmer's needs are addressed.

As Bangkok dries out from epic floods that the IPCC says will only get worse as climate change accelerates, its leaders are contemplating moving the entire capital city to higher ground. But I know what you're thinking: How does this affect me? Answer: It'll hit you right in the hard drive. Now that supply chains stretch across the globe and electronics can contain components from dozens if not hundreds of countries, it means you won't be able to get an iMac with a 2TB drive, because Apple sources "many components from Thailand," says Apple CEO Tim Cook. Floods have knocked out factories critical to Apple's supply chain, and " "the recovery timeline is not known at this point," reports Ars Technica.

Glaciers in the Himalayas have shrunk by as much as a fifth in just 30 years, scientists have claimed in the first authoritative confirmation of the effects of climate change on the region.

A number of threatened species in the developing world are entirely dependent on human agriculture for their survival, according to new research by the University of East Anglia (UEA).