Word: heating
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...fire die in other, slower ways. Connie Millar, a paleoecologist for the U.S. Forest Service, studies the history of vegetation in the Sierra Nevada. Over the past 100 years, she has found, the forests have shifted their tree lines as much as 100 ft. upslope, trying to escape the heat and drought of the lowlands. Such slow-motion evacuation may seem like a sensible strategy, but when you're on a mountain, you can go only so far before you run out of room. "Sometimes we say the trees are going to heaven because they're walking off the mountaintops...
...since 1970, and warmer water is like rocket fuel for typhoons and hurricanes. Two studies last year found that in the past 35 years the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide has doubled while the wind speed and duration of all hurricanes has jumped 50%. Since atmospheric heat is not choosy about the water it warms, tropical storms could start turning up in some decidedly nontropical places. "There's a school of thought that sea surface temperatures are warming up toward Canada," says Greg Holland, senior scientist for NCAR in Boulder. "If so, you're likely...
MISTLETOE The limber pine dwarf mistletoe is proliferating throughout western forests in North America, thanks to heat and drought-weakened trees that act as perfect hosts for this botanical parasite. It's not unlike what happens in your body, says researcher Connie Millar of the U.S. Forest Service: "When your system is stressed, you're more vulnerable to all kinds of things that want...
...under way across the country. In the northern town of Aapua, a wind farm opened just last month, thanks to local residents who began lobbying town officials five years ago; it should supply 40% of Aapua's electricity. The old university city of Lund gets 30% of its heat from a geothermal plant. And Fjaras, in the southwest, just opened a solar-powered health center. Some of these are small efforts, to be sure, but when an entire nation embraces a pledge to wean itself from oil, there's no reason it can't be done. --By Michael D. Lemonick...
Other cities are crafting their own solutions. St. Paul, Minn., which has had to forgo Winter Carnival ice sculptures and on-ice softball tournaments in recent years because of rising temperatures, is using a biomass-fired power plant for both heat and electricity. Keene, N.H., is harnessing methane and other gases at its landfill to run a generator that powers its recycling center. Salt Lake City, Utah, has converted 1,630 traffic stops to energy-efficient light-emitting diode signals--which alone will save more than 500 tons of CO2 pollution each year and cost the city $53,000 less...