Luzhkov's plan is to spray clouds with a chemical mist — made of cement powder, dry ice, or silver iodide — before they reach the city, causing the clouds to dump their snow loads on the surrounding suburbs. The advantages, he claims, are numerous: Moscow residents won't have to contend with congested streets, the agricultural regions will receive more precipitation, and the whole project is considerably less expensive than the current cost of clearing Moscow's streets.

The plan is only to keep blizzards out and allow smaller snowfalls to occur inside the city, but environmentalists aren't pleased with the project's rapid approval by the City Council. Also less than thrilled are the residents of Moscow's suburbs, who will now be enjoying all the snow that Moscow turns away.

This is hardly Moscow's first foray into climate hacking. Each year on Victory Day and City Day, Moscow pays the air force to prevent rain falling on the city's celebrations. And several years ago, Luzhkov spearheaded a project to reverse the flow of the River Ob through Siberia to help irrigate other Central Asian regions, a plan that met with limited success.

[Yahoo! News]

With no written record to describe the rise of the largest pre-Columbian empire, paleoecologists have investigated the climate that existed in the centuries proceeding the Incas' apex. Pollen and seeds found in the sediment in the Cuzco region of the Peruvian Andes reveal a period of climate warming that began around 1100 CE and continued past the Spanish conquest of the Incas in 1533 CE. Alex Chepstow-Lusty of the French Institute for Andean Studies in Lima, Peru, noted such climate change can have a positive effect on civilizations:

"Climate warming does not always have to be a negative issue. Our research shows that it can favor societal development."

In the case of the Incas, four centuries of warm weather melted the glaciers, pumping water into the formerly arid region. Trees were moved up mountains to combat soil erosion, allowing for agriculture in the newly cleared lands. The result was a lengthy period of plenty, with maize and potato crops feeding a growing population and allowing the Incas to turn their attention to assembling a military, building roads and buildings, and creating an infrastructure.

But climate experts warn that future climate change could have disastrous effects:

"Peru is considered the third most threatened country in the world by climate change, with most of its glaciers predicted to disappear by 2050. The country should be focusing on restoring and protecting its ecosystems," Chepstow-Lusty said.

Incan Empire Aided by Global Warming [Discovery News]

One big reason why the Earth isn't much warmer already is the fact that the planet has the ability to shed carbon dioxide, say scientists Joseph Kirschvink, Yuk Yung, King-Fai Li and Kaveh Pahlevan. But the bad news is, the planet has nearly exhausted its ability to shed carbon dioxide, hence the risk of cataclysmic overheating. So we need another way to cool the planet, and scientists say the best way is to reduce the atmospheric pressure by eliminating nitrogen from the amosphere.

Yung and Li tell Scientific Blogging:

In the "blanket" analogy for greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide would be represented by the cotton fibers making up the blanket. "The cotton weave may have holes, which allow heat to leak out," explains Li, the lead author of the paper.

"The size of the holes is controlled by pressure," Yung says. "Squeeze the blanket," by increasing the atmospheric pressure, "and the holes become smaller, so less heat can escape. With less pressure, the holes become larger, and more heat can escape," he says, helping the planet to shed the extra heat generated by a more luminous sun.

Nitrogen, after all, makes up the vast proportion of the Earth's atmosphere, so the elimination of nitrogen would help the Earth regulate its surface temperature.

And the best part is that we're already doing it!

Strikingly, no external influence would be necessary to take nitrogen out of the air, the scientists say. Instead, the biosphere itself would accomplish this, because nitrogen is incorporated into the cells of organisms as they grow, and is buried with them when they die.

Since nitrogen is bonded to other elements in the body, when organisms (like humans) die, it isn't released back into the atmosphere. Thus, the more humans are born and then die, the better off it is for global warming, supposedly.

The scientists speculate that by continuing to overpopulate the Earth and then killing one another off, we could extend the life of the Earth by up to 1.3 billion years, which might allow us to make contact with other life forms who could teach us how not to overpopulate the Earth and keep killing each other.

Human Presence May Be Increasing The Lifespan Of Earth [Scientific Blogging]

[Image via "An Inconvenient Truth"]

The WWF, in conjunction with the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network, released The Living Planet Report 2008, which projects humanity’s ecological footprint relative to the Earth’s biocapacity. And, after looking at factors such as deforestation, water consumption, pollution, climate change, and overexploitation of wildlife, the findings are dire:

Our global footprint now exceeds the world’s capacity to regenerate by about 30 per cent. If our demands on the planet continue at the same rate, by the mid-2030s we will need the equivalent of two planets to maintain our lifestyles. And this year’s report captures, for the first time, the impact of our consumption on the Earth’s water resources and our vulnerability to water scarcity in many areas.

But the report isn’t entirely pessimistic. The WWF believes that humanity can alter the path of overconsumption and, by turning toward sustainable practices, close the gap between mankind’s ecological footprint and the Earth’s biocapacity:

The good news is that we have the means to reverse the ecological credit crunch – it is not too late to prevent an irreversible ecological recession setting in. This report identifies the key areas where we need to transform our lifestyles and economies to put us on a more sustainable trajectory.

It’s either that or get on that space colonization thing ASAP.

[World Wildlife Fund via Phenomenica]

And yes, you can mostly blame developing nations for the increase, scientists told the Washington Post:

The new statistics also underscore the growing contribution to the world's "carbon budget" from rapidly industrializing countries such as China, India and Brazil. Developing nations have roughly doubled their carbon output in less than two decades and now account for slightly more than half of total emissions, according to the new figures, up from about a third in 1990. By contrast, total carbon emissions from industrialized nations are only slightly higher than in 1990.

But the article also points out that the federal government still predicts U.S. carbon output will increase, not decrease, in the years to come. Worse yet, we may already have screwed the pooch — even if we stop generating any greenhouse gases tomorrow, we're still looking at a 4.3 degree (Fahrenheit) temperature rise this century. That's partly due to the fact that air-quality measures have reduced our output of aerosols, which actually cool the atmosphere slightly.

Scientists say an increase of anywhere from 3.2 to 9.7 degrees would trigger changes that include major melting of some of the world's greatest ice sheets. Just in case you were too wrapped up in obsessing about the horrendous state of the economy and the failed bailout bill, here's something to get your mind off them.

Image by NORBERTO DUARTE/AFP/Getty Images. [Washington Post]

The Tara isn't gigantic or imposing, it's just made to keep its small science crew alive in subzero weather for a very long time. Here's another view, where you can see the climate experts setting off : BBC News says:

Last year, Tara measurements revealed the dramatic springtime collapse of surface ozone in the Arctic for the first time. Over the last 15 months, the boat has covered 5,200km (3,200 miles), including crossing the Noth Pole, drifting at an average speed of 10km per day (6 miles per day).

Boat Sails free from Icy Shackles [BBC News]