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Better climate models are key to understanding how best to protect the environment and food production, but they require massive computing resources. [More] Biofuel for Jumbo Jets: Kiwis Take to the Sky on Jatropha Fuel from the weed jatropha powered an Air New Zealand jet on a two-hour flight today--the world's second flight of a commercial jet on biofuel. One out of the four Rolls Royce engines on an Air New Zealand Boeing 747-400 burned a 50-50 blend of regular jet fuel and a bio-version made from jatropha. [More]

Tags: jet, jatropha, zealand, flight, biofuel

For all the magnificent diversity of on this planet, ranging from tiny bacteria to majestic blue whales, from sunshine-harv­­est­­ing plants to mineral-digesting endoliths miles underground, only one kind of “life as we know it” exists. All these organisms are based on nucleic acids--DNA and RNA--and proteins, working together more or less as described by the so-called central dogma of molecular biology: DNA stores information that is transcribed into RNA, which then serves as a template for producing a protein. The proteins, in turn, serve as important structural elements in tissues and, as enzymes, are the cell’s workhorses. Yet scientists dream of synthesizing life that is utterly alien to this world--both to better understand the minimum components required for life (as part of the quest to uncover the essence of life and how life originated on earth) and, frankly, to see if they can do it. That is, they hope to put together a novel combination of molecules that can self-organize, metabolize (make use of an energy source), grow, reproduce and evolve. [More] Galapagos Invaders Actually Native Species [The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.] Darwin's fabled isles, the Galapagos, are in need of a makeover. And removing invasive species of plants tops the to-do list for the islands’ restoration. But six species that were set to be exterminated have gotten a reprieve. Because a new study finds that they’re actually natives. [More]

Tags: life, protein, species, native, serve

Cities deep underwater, frozen continents, the collapse of global agriculture: so far, much of the discussion about climate change has focused on these distant, catastrophic effects of a superheated world. What's less talked about is how global warming is making itself felt already. Even the modest temperature rise we've already experienced has set in motion fundamental shifts--and the further warming we can expect in the next few decades has the potential to set off dramatic changes. View Slideshow: Top 10 Places Affected by Climate Change [More] Chicago's Plans to Go Green You might assume that Chicago dislikes environmentalists, judging by the response they get along Michigan Avenue. They loiter on its crowded sidewalks, trying to stop people with the brightness of their T-shirts, the authority of their clipboards and the innocence of their question: “Do you have a minute to save the earth?” Almost no passerby has that minute, let alone $20 to donate to the cause. What most people have is a scowl, a dismissive wave of the hand and the accelerating stride of a running back. In a city synonymous with Al Capone, do-gooder appeals are about as practical as a citizen’s arrest. But although 2.8 million residents of Chicago may scoff at the notion that noble intentions can stop climate change, that doesn’t mean they think the problem can’t be solved. The city’s leaders know that to get people to save the earth, you must appeal to their bank accounts, not just their consciences. And those leaders are putting their reputation on the line to prove it. [More]

Tags: change, climate, chicago, people, earth

Cities deep underwater, frozen continents, the collapse of global agriculture: so far, much of the discussion about climate change has focused on these distant, catastrophic effects of a superheated world. What's less talked about is how global warming is making itself felt already. Even the modest temperature rise we've already experienced has set in motion fundamental shifts--and the further warming we can expect in the next few decades has the potential to set off dramatic changes. View Slideshow: Top 10 Places Affected by Climate Change [More] Chicago's Plans to Go Green You might assume that Chicago dislikes environmentalists, judging by the response they get along Michigan Avenue. They loiter on its crowded sidewalks, trying to stop people with the brightness of their T-shirts, the authority of their clipboards and the innocence of their question: “Do you have a minute to save the earth?” Almost no passerby has that minute, let alone $20 to donate to the cause. What most people have is a scowl, a dismissive wave of the hand and the accelerating stride of a running back. In a city synonymous with Al Capone, do-gooder appeals are about as practical as a citizen’s arrest. But although 2.8 million residents of Chicago may scoff at the notion that noble intentions can stop climate change, that doesn’t mean they think the problem can’t be solved. The city’s leaders know that to get people to save the earth, you must appeal to their bank accounts, not just their consciences. And those leaders are putting their reputation on the line to prove it. [More]

Tags: change, climate, chicago, people, earth

Take Two Pills and Don’t Call Me in the MorningUp to 58 percent of physicians in the U.S. regularly prescribe placebos, according to a survey of 679 rheumatologists and general internists conducted by Jon C. Tilburt of the National Institutes of Health and his colleagues. Even though placebos may contain no active ingredients, many ailments still respond positively to them [see “The Placebo Effect,” by Walter A. Brown; Scientific American, January 1998]. [More] Top 10 Places Already Affected by Climate Change Cities deep underwater, frozen continents, the collapse of global agriculture: so far, much of the discussion about climate change has focused on these distant, catastrophic effects of a superheated world. What's less talked about is how global warming is making itself felt already. Even the modest temperature rise we've already experienced has set in motion fundamental shifts--and the further warming we can expect in the next few decades has the potential to set off dramatic changes. View Slideshow: Top 10 Places Affected by Climate Change [More]

Tags: placebo, change, climate, effect, set

Take Two Pills and Don’t Call Me in the MorningUp to 58 percent of physicians in the U.S. regularly prescribe placebos, according to a survey of 679 rheumatologists and general internists conducted by Jon C. Tilburt of the National Institutes of Health and his colleagues. Even though placebos may contain no active ingredients, many ailments still respond positively to them [see “The Placebo Effect,” by Walter A. Brown; Scientific American, January 1998]. [More] Top 10 Places Already Affected by Climate Change Cities deep underwater, frozen continents, the collapse of global agriculture: so far, much of the discussion about climate change has focused on these distant, catastrophic effects of a superheated world. What's less talked about is how global warming is making itself felt already. Even the modest temperature rise we've already experienced has set in motion fundamental shifts--and the further warming we can expect in the next few decades has the potential to set off dramatic changes. View Slideshow: Top 10 Places Affected by Climate Change [More]

Tags: placebo, change, climate, effect, set

Take Two Pills and Don’t Call Me in the MorningUp to 58 percent of physicians in the U.S. regularly prescribe placebos, according to a survey of 679 rheumatologists and general internists conducted by Jon C. Tilburt of the National Institutes of Health and his colleagues. Even though placebos may contain no active ingredients, many ailments still respond positively to them [see “The Placebo Effect,” by Walter A. Brown; Scientific American, January 1998]. [More] Top 10 Places Already Affected by Climate Change Cities deep underwater, frozen continents, the collapse of global agriculture: so far, much of the discussion about climate has focused on these distant, catastrophic effects of a superheated world. What's less talked about is how global warming is making itself felt already. Even the modest temperature rise we've already experienced has set in motion fundamental shifts--and the further warming we can expect in the next few decades has the potential to set off dramatic changes. View Slideshow: Top 10 Places Affected by Climate Change [More]

Tags: placebo, change, climate, effect, set

Take Two Pills and Don’t Call Me in the MorningUp to 58 percent of physicians in the U.S. regularly prescribe placebos, according to a survey of 679 rheumatologists and general internists conducted by Jon C. Tilburt of the National Institutes of Health and his colleagues. Even though placebos may contain no active ingredients, many ailments still respond positively to them [see “The Placebo Effect,” by Walter A. Brown; Scientific American, January 1998]. [More] Top 10 Places Already Affected by Climate Change Cities deep underwater, frozen continents, the collapse of global agriculture: so far, much of the discussion about climate has focused on these distant, catastrophic effects of a superheated world. What's less talked about is how global warming is making itself felt already. Even the modest temperature rise we've already experienced has set in motion fundamental shifts--and the further warming we can expect in the next few decades has the potential to set off dramatic changes. View Slideshow: Top 10 Places Affected by Climate Change [More]

Tags: placebo, change, climate, effect, set

The past year has been both tempestuous and exciting--from pet food, E. coli and toy poisoning scares to political fireworks over embryonic stem cell research to forest fires ravaging California. A controversial Nobel scientist (James Watson) went down in a blaze of infamy, tumbling from grace after putting his foot in his mouth one time too many, whereas a former vice president and defeated presidential candidate (Al Gore) rose from the ashes to become a Nobel Peace prize (and Oscar) winner for raising awareness on the urgency of global warming. The honor came on the heels of official worldwide recognition that climate change is not only a pressing problem, but one that was almost completely caused by humans--and one, too, that humans must fix. On a related note, we discovered that the North Pole is melting, beloved freshwater dolphins are practically extinct and nuclear power--feared since the 1979 near-meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuke plant in Middletown, Pa.--has become the clean-energy alternative du jour that even has the backing of some enviros. For the first time, too, we enjoyed (depending on how you look at it) an extra month of daylight saving time, thanks to Congress, which made the move to save energy and, lawmakers said, to cut down on traffic accidents--and, perhaps most important, to make Halloween more special and safe. [More]

Tags: time, nobel, energy, humans, nuclear

If you tried to dump harmful waste on the property next door, your neighbor would either stop you or require you to pay a fee. But if you dump carbon dioxide into the air, no one charges you a penny because no one, as yet, owns the air. This free ride results in what economists call a market failure. The actual costs of polluting the atmosphere are enormous, but polluters don’t pay them. Instead future generations are stuck with the tab. A carbon tax, or a carbon cap-and-trade system, can fix this market failure, but because American politicians are loath to impose taxes, a cap is far more likely. Under a cap, government sets a limit on total carbon emissions and issues tradable permits up to the limit. Each year the number of permits declines, reducing emissions over time. Permits can be issued to companies that emit carbon dioxide or to those that supply it for burning--oil, coal and natural gas firms. Issuing permits to suppliers is easier to administer because no smokestacks need to be monitored. [More] Clean Cities and Dirty Coal Power--China's Energy Paradox CHONGQING--This year china surpassed the U.S. as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. And coal is largely to blame. The dirty black rock is burned everywhere, from industrial boilers to home stoves, and generates 75 percent of the nation’s electricity. More than 4,000 miners die every year digging the fossil fuel out of China’s heartland. One consequence of the country’s reliance on coal is most visible in the air. Smog cloaks cities, reducing the sky to little more than a blue patch amid a blanket of haze. As the pollution builds, it forms a brown cloud, visible from space, that in a week’s time crosses the Pacific Ocean to the western U.S., where it accounts for as much as 15 percent of the air pollution. The haze means no true horizon can be seen when one is walking the streets of Chong­qing, an inland port city on the Yangtze River that produces most of China’s motorcycles as well as other industrial goods. It seems the entire Rust Belt of the U.S. has been crammed into this “furnace of China,” as it is known--a single community of more than 30 million people, twice the size of the New York City metropolitan region. [More]

Tags: carbon, china, coal, permits, air

If you tried to dump harmful waste on the property next door, your neighbor would either stop you or require you to pay a fee. But if you dump carbon dioxide into the air, no one charges you a penny because no one, as yet, owns the air. This free ride results in what economists call a market failure. The actual costs of polluting the atmosphere are enormous, but polluters don’t pay them. Instead future generations are stuck with the tab. A carbon tax, or a carbon cap-and-trade system, can fix this market failure, but because American politicians are loath to impose taxes, a cap is far more likely. Under a cap, government sets a limit on total carbon emissions and issues tradable permits up to the limit. Each year the number of permits declines, reducing emissions over time. Permits can be issued to companies that emit carbon dioxide or to those that supply it for burning--oil, coal and natural gas firms. Issuing permits to suppliers is easier to administer because no smokestacks need to be monitored. [More] Clean Cities and Dirty Coal Power--China's Energy Paradox CHONGQING--This year china surpassed the U.S. as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. And coal is largely to blame. The dirty black rock is burned everywhere, from industrial boilers to home stoves, and generates 75 percent of the nation’s electricity. More than 4,000 miners die every year digging the fossil fuel out of China’s heartland. One consequence of the country’s reliance on coal is most visible in the air. Smog cloaks cities, reducing the sky to little more than a blue patch amid a blanket of haze. As the pollution builds, it forms a brown cloud, visible from space, that in a week’s time crosses the Pacific Ocean to the western U.S., where it accounts for as much as 15 percent of the air pollution. The haze means no true horizon can be seen when one is walking the streets of Chong­qing, an inland port city on the Yangtze River that produces most of China’s motorcycles as well as other industrial goods. It seems the entire Rust Belt of the U.S. has been crammed into this “furnace of China,” as it is known--a single community of more than 30 million people, twice the size of the New York City metropolitan region. [More]

Tags: carbon, china, coal, permits, air

The U.S. government--and major U.S. banks--seem to have lost their appetite for coal. After spending five years and approximately $50 million on preliminary studies as well as selecting a proposed site in Mattoon, Ill., the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has scuttled plans to build the so-called FutureGen power plant. The facility would have captured the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) that is emitted when coal is burned for electricity generation. Instead, the DOE hopes to help industry add carbon-capture-and-storage capability to advanced coal plants already in the works. "This restructured FutureGen approach is an all-around better investment for Americans," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said in a statement announcing the change. The DOE is asking Congress for $407 million to research how to burn coal most efficiently, along with $241 million to demonstrate such carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies--at least $900 million less than DOE said it would have cost to complete FutureGen. [More] Smog Can Make People Sick, Even Indoors Smog caused by ground-level ozone isn't just an outdoor air problem. A new study shows that when the irritant's level rises outside, the number of people inside suffering from so-called "sick building syndrome" also increases. (Ozone, an air-polluting oxygen molecule (O3), forms when sunlight strikes motor vehicle tailpipe emissions.) "We found that outdoor air pollution, ozone, is associated with symptoms of lower-respiratory and upper-respiratory stress that occur in buildings to workers," says environmental health scientist Michael Apte of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, who analyzed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data gathered on office air quality across the country. "These symptoms are prevalent at fairly high levels throughout the U.S. and are similar in other parts of the world." [More]

Tags: coal, doe, air, million, futuregen

The U.S. government--and major U.S. banks--seem to have lost their appetite for coal. After spending five years and approximately $50 million on preliminary studies as well as selecting a proposed site in Mattoon, Ill., the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has scuttled plans to build the so-called FutureGen power plant. The facility would have captured the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) that is emitted when coal is burned for electricity generation. Instead, the DOE hopes to help industry add carbon-capture-and-storage capability to advanced coal plants already in the works. "This restructured FutureGen approach is an all-around better investment for Americans," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said in a statement announcing the change. The DOE is asking Congress for $407 million to research how to burn coal most efficiently, along with $241 million to demonstrate such carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies--at least $900 million less than DOE said it would have cost to complete FutureGen. [More] Smog Can Make People Sick, Even Indoors Smog caused by ground-level ozone isn't just an outdoor air problem. A new study shows that when the irritant's level rises outside, the number of people inside suffering from so-called "sick building syndrome" also increases. (Ozone, an air-polluting oxygen molecule (O3), forms when sunlight strikes motor vehicle tailpipe emissions.) "We found that outdoor air pollution, ozone, is associated with symptoms of lower-respiratory and upper-respiratory stress that occur in buildings to workers," says environmental health scientist Michael Apte of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, who analyzed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data gathered on office air quality across the country. "These symptoms are prevalent at fairly high levels throughout the U.S. and are similar in other parts of the world." [More]

Tags: coal, doe, air, million, futuregen

So you bought a compact fluorescent lightbulb in a bid to be green. Such bulbs are vastly more energy-efficient than traditional incandescents and screw into standard sockets. Should you treat them like their older cousins? [More] China's Three Gorges Dam: An Environmental Catastrophe? SHANGHAI--For over three decades the Chinese government dismissed warnings from scientists and environmentalists that its Three Gorges Dam--the world's largest--had the potential of becoming one of China's biggest environmental nightmares. But last fall, denial suddenly gave way to reluctant acceptance that the naysayers were right. Chinese officials staged a sudden about-face, acknowledging for the first time that the massive hydroelectric dam, sandwiched between breathtaking cliffs on the Yangtze River in central China, may be triggering landslides, altering entire ecosystems and causing other serious environmental problems--and, by extension, endangering the millions who live in its shadow. Government officials have long defended the $24-billion project as a major source of renewable power for an energy-hungry nation and as a way to prevent floods downstream. When complete, the dam will generate 18,000 megawatts of power--eight times that of the U.S.'s Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. But in September, the government official in charge of the project admitted that Three Gorges held "hidden dangers" that could breed disaster. "We can't lower our guard," Wang Xiaofeng, who oversees the project for China's State Council, said during a meeting of Chinese scientists and government reps in Chongqing, an independent municipality of around 31 million abutting the dam. "We simply cannot sacrifice the environment in exchange for temporary economic gain." [More]

Tags: dam, china, government, project, chinese

So you bought a compact fluorescent lightbulb in a bid to be green. Such bulbs are vastly more energy-efficient than traditional incandescents and screw into standard sockets. Should you treat them like their older cousins? [More] China's Three Gorges Dam: An Environmental Catastrophe? SHANGHAI--For over three decades the Chinese government dismissed warnings from scientists and environmentalists that its Three Gorges Dam--the world's largest--had the potential of becoming one of China's biggest environmental nightmares. But last fall, denial suddenly gave way to reluctant acceptance that the naysayers were right. Chinese officials staged a sudden about-face, acknowledging for the first time that the massive hydroelectric , sandwiched between breathtaking cliffs on the Yangtze River in central China, may be triggering landslides, altering entire ecosystems and causing other serious environmental problems--and, by extension, endangering the millions who live in its shadow. Government officials have long defended the $24-billion project as a major source of renewable power for an energy-hungry nation and as a way to prevent floods downstream. When complete, the dam will generate 18,000 megawatts of power--eight times that of the U.S.'s Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. But in September, the government official in charge of the project admitted that Three Gorges held "hidden dangers" that could breed disaster. "We can't lower our guard," Wang Xiaofeng, who oversees the project for China's State Council, said during a meeting of Chinese scientists and government reps in Chongqing, an independent municipality of around 31 million abutting the dam. "We simply cannot sacrifice the environment in exchange for temporary economic gain." [More]

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Bird flu, cholera, Ebola, plague and tuberculosis are just a few of the diseases likely to spread and get worse as a result of climate change, according to a report released yesterday by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). To prevent such ailments from becoming as destructive as the "black death" (which wiped out a third of Europe's population in the 14th century) or the flu pandemic of 1918 (which killed an estimated 20 million to 40 million people worldwide, including between 500,000 and 675,000 people in the U.S.), WCS suggests monitoring wildlife to detect signs of these pathogens before a major outbreak. [More] The Physical Science behind Climate Change Editor's note: This story was originally posted in the July 2007 issue, and has been reposted to highlight the long history of Nobelists publishing in Scientific American. For a scientist studying climate change, “eureka” moments are unusually rare. Instead progress is generally made by a painstaking piecing together of evidence from every new temperature measurement, satellite sounding or climate-model experiment. Data get checked and rechecked, ideas tested over and over again. Do the observations fit the predicted changes? Could there be some alternative explanation? Good climate scientists, like all good scientists, want to ensure that the highest standards of proof apply to everything they discover. [More]

Tags: climate, change, scientist, wildlife, good

CHONGQING--This year china surpassed the U.S. as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. And coal is largely to blame. The dirty black rock is burned everywhere, from industrial boilers to home stoves, and generates 75 percent of the nation’s electricity. More than 4,000 miners die every year digging the fossil fuel out of China’s heartland. One consequence of the country’s reliance on coal is most visible in the air. Smog cloaks cities, reducing the sky to little more than a blue patch amid a blanket of haze. As the pollution builds, it forms a brown cloud, visible from space, that in a week’s time crosses the Pacific Ocean to the western U.S., where it accounts for as much as 15 percent of the air pollution. The haze means no true horizon can be seen when one is walking the streets of Chong­qing, an inland port city on the Yangtze River that produces most of China’s motorcycles as well as other industrial goods. It seems the entire Rust Belt of the U.S. has been crammed into this “furnace of China,” as it is known--a single community of more than 30 million people, twice the size of the New York City metropolitan region. [More] Can Nuclear Power Compete? On an August afternoon in Washington, D.C., typically miserable for its heat, humidity and stillness, reporters gathered at a downtown hotel not known for its air-conditioning. Stuffed inside a windowless conference room that was being heated still further by the television people’s lights, we waited for Michael J. Wallace, who had been trying, in fits and starts, to unveil nuclear power’s second act. On arrival, Wallace, a meticulous manager not known for ad-libbing, looked out over the sweating reporters and smiled. “It’s days like today that highlight the real need for new, emissions-free, baseload power,” he said. Unless we get started soon, he added, rolling blackouts could become the norm. [More]

Tags: china, power, air, coal, wallace

CHONGQING--This year china surpassed the U.S. as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. And coal is largely to blame. The dirty black rock is burned everywhere, from industrial boilers to home stoves, and generates 75 percent of the nation’s electricity. More than 4,000 miners die every year digging the fossil fuel out of China’s heartland. One consequence of the country’s reliance on coal is most visible in the air. Smog cloaks cities, reducing the sky to little more than a blue patch amid a blanket of haze. As the pollution builds, it forms a brown cloud, visible from space, that in a week’s time crosses the Pacific Ocean to the western U.S., where it accounts for as much as 15 percent of the air pollution. The haze means no true horizon can be seen when one is walking the streets of Chong­qing, an inland port city on the Yangtze River that produces most of China’s motorcycles as well as other industrial goods. It seems the entire Rust Belt of the U.S. has been crammed into this “furnace of China,” as it is known--a single community of more than 30 million people, twice the size of the New York City metropolitan region. [More] Can Nuclear Power Compete? On an August afternoon in Washington, D.C., typically miserable for its heat, humidity and stillness, reporters gathered at a downtown hotel not known for its air-conditioning. Stuffed inside a windowless conference room that was being heated still further by the television people’s lights, we waited for Michael J. Wallace, who had been trying, in fits and starts, to unveil nuclear power’s second act. On arrival, Wallace, a meticulous manager not known for ad-libbing, looked out over the sweating reporters and smiled. “It’s days like today that highlight the real need for new, emissions-free, baseload power,” he said. Unless we get started soon, he added, rolling blackouts could become the norm. [More]

Tags: china, power, air, coal, wallace

[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.] Animals that live in cold climates tend to have stubby limbs--shorter arms and legs--even smaller ears and tails. Picture a penguin and you’ll see what I mean. Biologists have long assumed that these stumpy appendages are an evolutionary adaptation. Shorter extremities minimize heat loss, so animals that are more compact are better suited to the cold. [More] Carbon Dioxide and Climate Editor's Note: We are posting this article from our July 1959 issue to offer an historical perspective on some of the issues being discussed at the United Nations Framework Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland, which began December 1 and runs through December 12. The theories that explain worldwide climate change are almost as varied as the weather. The more familiar ones attribute changes of climate to Olympian forces that range from geological upheavals and dust-belching volcanoes to long-term variations in the radiation of the sun and eccentricities in the orbit of the earth. Only the so-called carbon dioxide theory takes account of the possibility that human activities may have some effect on climate. This theory suggests that in the present century man is unwittingly raising the temperature of the earth by his industrial and agricultural activities. [More]

Tags: climate, theory, activities, shorter, long

The ongoing disruption of the earth’s climate by man-made greenhouse gases is already well beyond dangerous and is careening toward completely unmanageable. Under midrange projections for economic growth and technological change, the planet’s average surface temperature in 2050 will be about two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than its preindustrial value. The last time the earth was that warm was 130,000 years ago, and sea level was four to six meters higher than today. No one knows how long it will take sea level to “catch up” with such an increase; it could be several centuries, or it could be less. Even with uncertainties, there is reason to believe that tipping points into unmanageable changes will become much more probable for increases larger than two degrees C. To achieve a better-than-even chance of not exceeding that figure, human emissions must start to decline soon, falling to about half of today’s level by 2050 and further thereafter. [More] Deadly by the Dozen: 12 Diseases Climate Change May Worsen Bird flu, cholera, Ebola, plague and tuberculosis are just a few of the diseases likely to spread and get worse as a result of climate change, according to a report released yesterday by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). To prevent such ailments from becoming as destructive as the "black death" (which wiped out a third of Europe's population in the 14th century) or the flu pandemic of 1918 (which killed an estimated 20 million to 40 million people worldwide, including between 500,000 and 675,000 people in the U.S.), WCS suggests monitoring wildlife to detect signs of these pathogens before a major outbreak. [More]

Tags: change, climate, degrees, level, million