Maybe it happened the day after Hurricane Katrina or the night Al Gore won an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth, but the first phase of the global-warming debate has ended. Even Skeptic-in-Chief George W. Bush recently convened a global-warming summit, where Condoleezza Rice told foreign diplomats that "climate change is a real problem--and human beings are contributing to it."

The last eco-warrior to win the Nobel peace prize, Wangari Maathai (a tree-planting conservationist who won in 2004), was barely known outside her native Kenya. Al Gore is a flashier shade of green. His trophy cabinet is already bulging-the Nobel medal will have to jostle for space with an Oscar and an Emmy, all won this year.

so far climate change study models have ignored how carbon emissions contributed to the melting of glaciers. This was not part of climate study models since reliable data on soot emissions was

At the end of August, a wisp of flame suddenly appeared in the Arctic twilight over the Barents Sea, bathing the low clouds over the Norwegian port of Hammerfest in a spectral orange glow. With a tremendous roar, the flame bloomed over the windswept ocean and craggy gray rocks, competing for an instant with the Arctic summer's never-setting sun.

A P MITRA (1927-2007) In the early 1990s, the US Environmental Protection Agency had come out with a report incriminating Indian rice fields of emitting 38.6 million tonnes of methane per year and

The two-day meet of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (apec) countries ended on September 9, 2007, in Sydney, Australia, amidst much opposition and protests. The key outcome of the meet was a

Europe continues to reel under forest fires that has up till now caused considerable damage to life, the environment and the economy. Experts have blamed the recent spurt in forest fire on global

In 1937, Ivan Papanin led an expedition that planted the Soviet flag on the North Pole. He was feted by Stalin and lionised as a Soviet hero. In early August this year, the Kremlin honoured Artur

conventional scientific wisdom has it that irrigation works against global warming. But there is evidence now to shake us out of complacency. Scientists from the University of California, Merced,