https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/business/energy-environment/orlando-carbon-climate.html Source:   By Ivan Penn, The New York Times. Excerpt: ORLANDO, Fla. ...is vying for another distinction: to be a pioneer in weaning itself from carbon-based energy. You can see its aspirations in the thousands of ponds all over the city that collect the runoff from Central Florida’s frequent downpours. Floating solar panels rise and fall in the water, sending power to the grid. There is also evidence along city streets, where solar panels sit atop streetlights to power them instead of using the electric grid. About 18,000 of the 25,000 in the city already have been converted to high-efficiency light-emitting diodes. Even algae pools may play a role. That’s where officials are testing a system to trap the carbon that the city emits from power plants or transportation, rather than release it into the atmosphere.... 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/science/lake-superior-algae-toxic.html Source:    By Christine Hauser, The New York Times. Excerpt: In 19 years of piloting his boat around Lake Superior, Jody Estain had never observed the water change as it has this summer. The lake has been unusually balmy and cloudy, with thick mats of algae blanketing the shoreline. “I have never seen it that warm,” said Mr. Estain, a former Coast Guard member who guides fishing, cave and kayak tours year-round. “Everybody was talking about it.” ...Scientists generally agree that algae blooms are getting worse and more widespread, and are exacerbated by the warmer water, heat waves and extreme weather associated with climate change. They are also intensified by human activity, such as from farm and phosphorus runoff, leakage from sewer systems, and other pollution. The problems that algae blooms pose to fresh and marine waters have been propelled to the forefront in recent years by high-profile event...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/29/climate/puffins-dwindling-iceland.html Source:    By John Schwartz, The New York Times.  Excerpt: Overfishing, hunting and pollution are putting pressure on the birds, but climate change may  prove to be the biggest challenge. ... The birds have been in precipitous decline, especially since the 2000s, both in Iceland and across many of their Atlantic habitats. The potential culprits are many: fickle prey, overfishing, pollution. Scientists say that climate change is another underlying factor that is diminishing food supplies and is likely to become more important over time. And the fact that puffins are tasty, and thus hunted as game here, hardly helps. ... Around Iceland, the puffins have suffered because of the decline of their favorite food, silvery sand eels, which dangle from the parents’ beaks as they bring them to their young. That collapse correlates to a rise in sea surface temperatures that Dr. Hansen has...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/business/energy-environment/russia-floating-nuclear-power.html Source:   By Andrew E. Kramer, The New York Times. xcerpt: Offshore reactors could be cheaper, safer and more flexible, proponents say, making them a useful weapon against climate change. Critics are incredulous. ...Along the shore of Kola Bay in the far northwest of Russia lie bases for the country’s nuclear submarines and icebreakers. ...Here, Russia is conducting an experiment with nuclear power, one that backers say is a leading-edge feat of engineering but that critics call reckless. ...Tied to a wharf in the city of Murmansk, the Akademik Lomonosov ...facility, made of two miniature reactors of a type used previously on submarines, is for now the only one of its kind. ...Moscow, while leading the trend, is far from alone in seeing potential in floating nuclear plants. ...Proponents say they are cheaper, greener and, perhaps counterintuitively, safer. They envision a future wh...

https://www.thelocal.se/20180824/meet-the-15-year-old-swedish-girl-on-strike-from-school-for-the-climate Source:   By Catherine Edwards, The Local. Excerpt: Fifteen-year-old Greta Thunberg describes herself as a "climate radical" and is protesting outside Sweden's parliament every day until the September election, refusing to attend school and calling on politicians to take climate issues seriously. ...Greta said she learned about the effects of climate change mostly at home, and began to get engaged in environmental issues from the age of 11 or 12. ..."I have gone to climate demonstrations and things like that before, but this is the first time I've organized something myself," the 15-year-old adds. ...The strike has been taking place every schoolday since term began, roughly between the hours of 8.30 and 3.30pm. This means missing three weeks of school in total, so is Greta worried about missing out on the start of the year? "A little bit, but I ...

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/08/powerful-new-battery-could-help-usher-green-power-grid Source:   By Robert F. Service, Science Magazine. Excerpt: Lithium-ion batteries power everything from our smartphones to our cars. But one of their most promising replacements is lithium-oxygen batteries, which in theory could store 10 times more power. The only problem: They fall apart after just a handful of charging cycles. Now, researchers have found that running them at high temperatures—along with a couple of other fixes—can push them to at least 150 cycles. Although they would be too hot to handle in phones, lithium-oxygen batteries the size of rail cars could one day underpin a green energy grid, storing excess wind and solar power and delivering it on demand. ... 2 years ago, a team of U.S. researchers came up with the first hints of a breakthrough. They tested another alternative electrolyte, this one made from a combination of salts that turned into a liquid when heated. Th...

https://www.ucsusa.org/sm18-looming-coastal-real-estate-bust#.W4DatZNKiIY Source:   By Pamela Worth, Catalyst, Union of Concerned Scientists. Excerpt: A new UCS analysis calculates the threat rising seas pose to the US housing market. ...climate change is causing sea levels to rise at an accelerating rate, which means many coastal properties are at risk of chronic high-tide flooding in the near future. Flooded properties will lose value and, given how widespread the problem is, likely trigger significant deflation in real estate values in many coastal communities, creating problems not just for homeowners but also for mortgage lenders, insurers, real estate developers and investors, and even for communities’ tax bases. Furthermore, while past crashes in the housing market have tended to be temporary, sea level rise is only getting worse under current conditions. For a better sense of what to expect, the UCS team examined information on coastal homes and commercial properties pr...