Tech

Natural gas customers in Texas get stuck with $3.4 billion cold-snap surcharge

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Texans will be paying for the effects of last February’s cold snap for decades to come, as the state’s oil and gas regulator approved a plan for natural gas utilities to recover $3.4 billion in debt they incurred during the storm. The regulator, the Railroad Commission, is allowing utilities to issue […]

Tech

New observations suggest our Arctic buildings might be in trouble

Enlarge / A mining operation inside the Arctic Circle. (credit: BeyondImages / Getty Images ) As the world warms, countries with holdings in the Arctic are increasingly eyeing the region for development and use. As Ars reported last July, the frigid polar zone might be open to increased shipping, as it remains free of ice […]

Tech

Scientists extend and straighten iconic climate “hockey stick”

Enlarge / The ice age weather (left) gave way to one that slowly warmed until industrial times. (credit: Matthew Osman) The climate “hockey stick” refers to a reconstruction of temperatures over the past 1, 000 years. The data shows flattish temperatures over the last millennium , like the handle of a Hockey stick, ending in […]

Tech

How to reduce our carbon footprint

Enlarge / Man’s hand holding a cardboard sign that says SAVE THE PLANET (credit: Getty Images) After the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) last month, it’s easy to feel demoralized. With everything else in the news, it’s also easy to focus on threats that are arguably more imminent, like […]

Tech

It’s time to delete carbon from the atmosphere. But how?

Enlarge / We need less of this. (credit: Getty Images) This week and next, government representatives are gathering in Glasgow for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, the latest of an increasingly frantic string of meetings as humanity runs out of time to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Everyone agrees that carbon […]

Tech

The blame game: How much are we responsible for recent wildfires?

Enlarge (credit: Kevin Key / Getty Images ) This summer, the Western United States saw a truly devastating wildfire season. Across the country , more than 48, 000 wildfires raged, damaging more than six million hectares of land. It would be nice to think that humans weren’t the primary cause of these events and that […]