While the talk on global warming is all the rage these days, one scientist says the phenomenon isn't to blame for everything. Tom Knutsen put together a study that leads him to believe that the rise in hurricane frequency is due to multi-decade weather patterns, not warmer seawater. More in the full article.

Who needs rain dances in this day and age? Scientists have come up with a way to induce electrical activity in thunderclouds by using lasers. Needless to say, it's an electrifying discovery. More details in the full article.

China is quite literally pulling out the heavy artillery to ensure that this year's Beijing Olympics go off without a hitch.

The event's official had unveiled their plans to seed any incoming clouds in the city with a combination of rockets, cannons, and even aircraft. More details on Beijing's war on clouds are available in the full article.

Have you been feeling a bit warm lately? You may eventually get some relief - UN meteorologists have said that temperatures this year will decrease slightly. This change in climate is attributed to the La Nina phenomenon, which will likely make itself felt well into the summer.  More "cool" news follows after the jump.

Meteorologists and scientists cannot keep tabs on our weather with 100% certainty, because they could only base their predictions off a "model" agreed upon by the world's meteorological experts and processed by the world's most powerful computers. Now we might have to review our current climate change model, because the new study  conducted by the University of Buffalo researchers believe that the new data gathered from ice sheets in Greenland might warrant it. Check out the full article for more details.

Global warming has been a hot topic for a few years now and while efforts by numerous organizations have made headway in global awareness, one question is yet to be answered: are we too late? In a new research, scientists have calculated that we may see long-term consequences on the Earth's climate due to human activity as early as the next decade. Details in the full article.

Felt a little hot under the collar this year? Well, it wasn't just you - this year really was hot; marked by droughts, heat waves and floods. It's warm enough to be included in one of the US' top 10 warmest years since 1895. The records are still waiting for the last few weeks of 2007 to pass before they actually include this year in the top 10. On the bright side, it was a great year to get a tan.

  

The latest Global Environment Outlook report from the United Nations, to be quite frank, is looking grim for the human race. While it is true that economy and trade is increasing and the living standards for many people are getting better, the UN maintains that there are a lot of problems we need to face sooner rather than later.

Some of these problems include climate change, pollution, access to clean water, and the threat of mass extinctions. The part of UN that came up with the report even remarked that these problems are being met with a "remarkable lack of urgency". Here are other points raised by UN:

• Over the last 20 years, the human population has increased by a third, global trade has tripled, and per capita income has gone up by 40%. Annual emissions of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, have also increased by one third.
• As the human population grows, it has reached the point where the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available.
• Sixteen thousand species are threatened with extinction. Habitat loss is a major factor as many forests are cleared for agriculture. The UN estimates the global annual loss of primary forest is 50,000 km2.
• The availability of fresh water will decline. By 2025 1.8bn people will be affected by water scarcity.
  
• Sanitation is also a major issue, as contaminated water is the greatest single cause of human disease and death.
  
• Many fish stocks are over-exploited, while the demand for fish is expected to rise alongside growing populations.
• By the end of 2007 it is estimated that more people will live in cities than rural areas for the first time in history. his rapid growth can put pressure on water resources and infrastructure.

  

Politics can be a very touchy business, but it's also a way to make some drastic changes in a country's way of thinking, especially if it involves trying to save what's left of our environment. It's the case with the Liberal Democrats' backing of the Zero Carbon Britain plan, which, if approved and put into motion, could make one of the world's premier superpowers carbon neutral by 2050, and petrol cars banned by 2040.

Not one moment too soon, as some of today's natural disasters have been firmly linked to global warming, which in turn is caused by too much pollution in the air. Petrol cars, or vehicles that use petrol as fuel, is one of the biggest sources of carbon being pumped into the atmosphere. A ban on these vehicles would certainly reduce the amount considerably.

Of course, there could also be the fact that we may be a bit too late, with the damage already being done. But environment spokesman and plan Zero Carbon Britain author Chris Huhne believes we still have a chance, but to succeed we have to take action now, or else it will be a bit too late to change the way people live.

Some of the Zero Carbon Plan's key proposals:

• Introduce green mortgages to encourage more environmentally friendly homes
• Charging lorries to use the UK's roads in order to double rail investment, possibly creating a high speed line running north to south
• Boosting spending on flood defences to respond to climate change
• Encouraging microgeneration by paying a higher rate to producers who export energy to the National Grid
• Creating a climate change levy of £10 on domestic flights

Wouldn't it be really difficult to change the way people look at transportation, or even the way we live, for that matter? Everyone's concerned for the environment, of course, it's the only planet we have left. But it's a bit of a stretch to see people immediately switching from petrol to non-petrol vehicles. Huhne doesn't think so. His statement, unedited and presented as is:

It's an enormous economic change but it's an economic change in line with changes which we've seen in the past, for example between the end of the 19th Century and beginning of the 20th Century moving from steam power to the petrol engine, moving from gas light to electric light.

Makes sense. Maybe it is time for a change, before it's too late. And what say you, readers? Do you think it's time we switched from fossil fuels to a different sort of renewable energy source? Let us know by your comments.

While most of us are worried about the planet getting warmer and the polar caps melting, some are apparently looking at the bright side. Their battle cry? Climate change is natural and worse things have happened before.

According to an article published in Canada.com, the only thing constant with climate, as the case is with all things in the world, is change. The planet runs from hot to cold throughout the eons, and a lot of it depends on solar climate. The bottom line? Everything's fine and can't be helped, so just chill out.

The Canadian website reports that it was warmer by 3 degrees celsius 6,000 years ago and all ended up well leading to today. 10,000 years ago, the planet's temperature rose 100 times faster than it does today, and everything's all dandy when we came around.

It was also explained that even if resources are spent on reducing carbon dioxide emissions, the sun and cosmic rays ultimately determine how hot or cold it gets. The sun, according to the site, does not glow in constant fashion and there are such days when our home star is dimmer or brighter. When it's brighter, there is less rain, while when it dims down, cosmic rays penetrate the atmosphere and cause more cloud formation for more rain.

The article even suggested that as big of a concern as global warming is now, it might only be a matter of time before global cooling becomes an issue. That, of course, may be some millennia away as climate change takes its sweet time when it comes to showing us its different flavors. Will the woolly mammoths make a comeback? Who knows?