Alternative Energies
2015 was record-busting hot, scientists say

This story was originally published by Newsweek and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. It’s official: No year on record has ever been as hot as 2015. And it broke the temperature record, just set in 2014, by an unusually large margin. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced the news on Wednesday morning, after both agencies separately analyzed global temperature data and came to the same conclusion. 2015 broke temperature records by a wide margin, amid a wave of other more localized climate anomalies around the world.NOAA / NASA The record was set by a full tenth of a degree Celsius (or nearly a fifth of a degree Fahrenheit), a much larger margin than usual, as temperature records are commonly broken by…

Koch brother resigns from museum board after calls from scientists

For 23 years, David Koch, the billionaire industrialist who made a fortune off fossil fuels, ranching, fertilizers, and other environmental nightmares, has served on the board at the American Museum of Natural History. Koch’s position on the board is controversial, not least because of his position on climate change: The Koch family has spent millions funding climate change denier groups and disinformation campaigns, and scientists around the country have called for Koch to be removed from the museum board. Well, they finally got what they wanted — the American Museum of Natural History announced Koch’s resignation this week. A museum spokeswoman said Koch’s departure is unrelated to the calls for his dismissal, but, as The New York Times reports, a letter sent to museums of…

Sarah Palin endorses Donald Trump, resurrects “drill, baby, drill” theme

In the immortal words of Charlie Brown: Good grief. Two of America’s biggest egos came together Tuesday when former vice presidential hopeful and current reality TV star Sarah Palin endorsed former reality TV star and current presidential hopeful Donald Trump at a campaign stop in Iowa. “Are you ready to make America great again?” Palin shouted to the rabidly white audience, sucking whatever little meaning was left from the word “great.” “Are you ready to stump for Trump?” she continued. “I’m here to support the next president of the United States: Donald Trump.” Hopefully Palin’s political predictions are as on point as her knowledge of geography, but one must wonder if this is only the beginning of…