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Report maps perils of warming

Degree-by-degree breakdown of climate effects published. As the US Senate gears up to debate the latest incarnation of proposed climate legislation next week, a blue-ribbon panel has released what it hopes will be a definitive guide to the consequences of climate change for lawmakers and the public. In offering a degree-by-degree breakdown of the potential impacts of temperature change, the report aims to highlight the effects of stabilizing greenhouse gases at a chosen target level. Yet few are optimistic that the report will influence the fate of the scaled-back climate bill, which would cap emissions from electricity utility companies. The … Read more…

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Few bats for Quebec’s belfries. White-nose syndrome killing North American bats.

Photograph by: Nancy Heaslip, New York Department of Environmental Conservation MONTREAL – In March, Frédérick Lelièvre found himself crawling through a narrow passage into the final chamber of the Laflèche Cave in Val des Monts. Raising his eyes to the hibernating bats on the rock above him, his heart dropped. The tiny lime-size animals were dusted with a white powdery substance. Most of them had it on their muzzles, and it was on the wings and the feet of others. It wasn’t a good sign. Wildlife biologists in the United States have come across similar sights over the last four … Read more…

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Living Machines

Verdant Art-Tech Contraption Descends Upon France This spring, a War of the Worlds-scale tripod carrying verdant laboratories on suspended platforms showed up in Nantes in western France. It was just the latest massive art-tech project from street theater company La Machine, which has been startling Europeans with giant robots for more than a decade. Before the “flying greenhouse,” there was the 50-foot-tall spider on the side of a building in Liverpool. All of these creatures are members of the Order of Intelligent Machines, a growing mechanical menagerie that La Machine has been assembling since 1999. “We want to fill people … Read more…