Earth is Warming...
It's election 2000 redux: with Al Gore's new global warming film, An Inconvenient Truth, opening in US theaters this week, the former "next president of the United States," as he likes to call himself, and the real president are again clanging their swords. Asked if he would watch Gore's film, Bush said, "Doubt it." Gore responded with an offer to show up at the White House any time, bearing his slide show or his documentary, to discuss the issue in person.
NOAA announced its predictions for the 2006 hurricane season, saying it expects an "above normal" year with 13-16 named storms. Of these storms, the agency says it expects four to be hurricanes of category 3 or above, double the yearly average of prior seasons in recorded history. The official start of the hurricane season along the East Coast is June 1, and it lasts until the end of November.
With experts calling the coming hurricane season potentially worse than last year's, oil prices have jumped 70 cents per barrel in New York and made similar leaps elsewhere. Economists anticipate that demand for oil will rise sharply over the summer, when as many as four major hurricanes could hit the United States. Oil prices had been slowly lowering in the US, following a meteoric rise after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita ravaged the Gulf Coast, with its many oil facilities, almost a year ago.
Inspiration for Finding New Ways to Reduce Carbon Emissions
Advertisement
The Sierra Club sued the federal government over its new, tougher gas mileage requirements for SUVs and pickups, charging that the new regulations don't go far enough. US law mandates that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration set fuel standards at the "maximum feasible level," something the Sierra Club claims the government has failed to do. The group joins 10 states and other environmental organizations in challenging the new standards.
Seven nations, including the US, Russia and China, signed an agreement in Brussels to fund the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, to be built in southern France. Participants in the project hope that the undertaking will result in the first usable fission reactor, providing a cheaper, safer and cleaner energy source for the future. The 10 billion euro ($12.8 billion) project will be the second most expensive joint scientific project ever, after the International Space Station.
Following an American nuclear power initiative announced in February, Canada and Australia, two major producers of uranium, have agreed to combine forces to protect their interests in commercial dealings with America. Together, Canada and Australia own almost half of the world's uranium reserves. The two governments also discussed joining international treaties to limit the production of greenhouse gases, such as the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate.
Researchers Bring Back the Dead, Get Sued
When researchers in South Africa gave the drug Zolpidem to people thought to be in permanent vegetative states, the patients revived and in some cases were able to carry on conversations with relatives until they returned to unresponsiveness after a few hours. The scientists are still trying to figure out just how the pill had such startling results, but they believe it works by temporarily retriggering dormant nerve cells around damaged portions of the brain.
A germ research lab slated for construction in a residential neighborhood of Boston is meeting legal resistance from local groups, who claim in a lawsuit that the National Institutes of Health failed to properly assess the environmental and bioterrorism risks surrounding the project. Boston University, which plans to use the lab to study infectious diseases like Ebola, claims that the public health risks are minimal.