Scientific American: This week, the U.S. government slapped tariffs (pdf) of more than 31 percent on the price of solar cells made by Chinese companies that cooperated with a recent probe. Those companies that stayed mum face even higher tariffs?as much as 250 percent. Why? The feds suggest that Chinese solar companies are selling their modules at less than fair value. (pdf) In 2011 alone, we imported more than 93 million photovoltaic modules from China, thanks to prices that fell below $1 per watt. Raising...

Burlington County Times: New Jersey has long been known as the Garden State, but during the last five years, it could have easily been known as the Solar State from all the sunlight-absorbing panels that have cropped up nearly everywhere. They?re on the roofs of schools, churches, municipal buildings and sewage treatment plants. They?re in farm fields and attached to utility poles. Even one of New Jersey?s trademark diners recently went green and installed panels. But all is not well with New Jersey?s once-thriving...

Economist: FOR the past few years, a European collaboration called IMPLICC (Implications and Risks of Novel Options to Limit Climate Change) has been looking at what it might mean to engineer the climate, by reducing the amount of sunshine that reaches the Earth?s surface. A lot of IMPLICC?s work, like much else in climate science, has taken the form of computer modelling. In its case the models try to mimic the effects of things like putting veils of reflective particles into the stratosphere, or brightening...

Sunday Tribune: DAY by day, months after months, the desert continues to encroach on vast lands in Nigeria, threatening the existence and surviving strengths of families, becoming deep gullies that consume the wealth of states and turning many away from their homes and comfort zones. From Yobe to Jigawa, from Borno to Katsina, thousands of lives are changed by the devastating effects of desertification, as governments and people continue to lose the battle to save nature to self-inflicted causes and nature itself,...

Summit Voice: Global warming alone doesn`t account for a startlingly rapid northward expansion expansion of the tropics in the northern hemisphere, according to a new study from the University of California, Riverside. It appears that black carbon aerosols and tropospheric ozone, both manmade pollutants emitted predominantly in the Northern Hemisphere`s low- to mid-latitudes, are also significant factors, and perhaps the primary drivers in the changes. Observations show that the tropics have widened by 0.7...

Bluefield Daily Telegraph: Surprise, surprise. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced its plan to appeal a federal court ruling that overturned its earlier veto of a key water pollution permit for one of West Virginia`s largest mountaintop removal mines. Given the unrelenting war on coal President Barack Obama and his hand-picked EPA has waged against the coalfields of West Virginia and Virginia over the past four years, the news shouldn`t come as a surprise to anyone. The EPA has given U.S. District Judge...

Maine Sunday Telegram: In recent years, carbon dioxide gas has received a lot of attention. The biggest source of CO2 comes from fossil fuel combustion, which contributes more than 13 trillion pounds to the atmosphere annually. CO2 traps heat, and so this increase in atmospheric CO2 is the reason that Earth's average temperature is warming. If this warming trend continues, average temperatures will continue to rise at least an additional 2 to 8 degrees in the next 90 years, and Maine's climate will be similar to...

Independent: The Government has rejected shale gas technology as a solution to Britain's energy crisis, conceding it will do little to cut bills or keep the lights on. Supporters of the fracking technology ? which blasts water, sand and chemicals at extreme pressures to release gas trapped deep in rock ? argue it could be the single greatest factor in transforming Britain's energy market, reducing our reliance on foreign imports and dramatically reducing costs. But The Independent on Sunday has learned...