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Aviation history has just been made. Earlier this summer I told you about the record breaking solar plane flight, and now the solar eagle has landed again—this time at an airport in India that just became the first airport in the world to completely operate on solar power.

Go India!

It’s Paris or bust. Climate diplomats are preparing for a United Nations climate conference in the French capital in December that scientists say is probably the last realistic chance for the world to prevent global warming going beyond 2 degrees Celsius. Some kind of a deal will probably be done. But will it be one more diplomatic fudge or a real triumph for the climate? 

In the run-up to Paris, governments have been asked to deliver pledges to cut emissions of the greenhouse gases known to cause climate change. The pledges, covering the period between 2020, when the agreement should enter into force, and 2030, are known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, or INDCs in the U.N. jargon. 

Every major car manufacturer is selling diesel cars that fail to meet EU air pollution limits on the road in Europe, according to data obtained by sustainable transport group Transport & Environment (T&E). 

All new diesel cars should have met the Euro 6 autoemissions standard from 1 September – but just one in 10 tested complied with the legal limit. 

On average new EU diesel cars produce emissions about five times higher than the allowed limit. The results are compiled in a new report, Don’t Breathe Here, in which T&E analyses the reasons for and solutions to air pollution caused by diesel machines and cars – the worst of which, an Audi, emitted 22 times the allowed EU limit.

Con el calentamiento global y el derretimiento del hielo, ya no es fácil ser un oso polar. Algunos estudios han pronosticado que los osos polares podrían muy bien estar extintos para finales de siglo. La buena noticia es que no todos los investigadores piensan que los osos están absolutamente condenados. Los científicos del Museo Americano de Historia Natural (AMNH por sus siglas en inglés) han publicado un nuevo documento que indica que las cosas podrían no ser tan sombrías para los osos polares como se cree.

Los investigadores del Programa de Investigación del Ártico, gestionado por British Antarctic Survey, han demostrado por primera vez que el fitoplancton (vegetales) en las regiones oceánicas remotas puede contribuir a la formación de raras partículas en el aire que desencadenan la formación de hielo en las nubes.

Los resultados publicados hoy en la revista Nature muestran que los residuos orgánicos de la vida en los océanos, que se expulsa a la atmósfera junto con...