Science & Technology

Article Link: https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-environment/dimming-sun-s-rays-could-ease-climate-impacts-in-africa-1.5202671

Dialling down the Sun’s heat a notch by injecting billions of shiny sulphur dioxide particles into the stratosphere could curtail devastating drought across parts of Africa, new peer-reviewed research has reported. This form of solar radiation management would slash the risk of another “Day Zero” drought in Cape Town, South Africa — a city of 3.7 million which ran out of water in 2017 — by as much as 90 per cent, according to a study published last week in Environmental Research Letters. Global warming to date — just over one degree Celsius since the mid-19th century — enhances the likelihood of such droughts by a factor of three, earlier research has shown.

Article Link: https://nypost.com/2020/11/23/hybrid-cars-emitting-much-more-co2-than-advertised/

Top auto brands are getting smoked by environmental analysts who have found that their carbon emissions are much higher than what carmakers had reported. The European group Transport and Environment (T&E), which campaigns for renewable energy in transportation, found three top-selling plug-in hybrid SUVs — BMW’s X5, Volvo’s XC60 and Mitsubishi’s Outlander — are emitting 28% to 89% more carbon dioxide than advertised, even under ideal road conditions. “Plug-in hybrids are fake electric cars, built for lab tests and tax breaks, not real driving,” Julia Poliscanova, T&E’s senior director of clean vehicles, said in a press statement. “Governments should stop subsidizing these cars with billions in taxpayers’ money.”