Environment

Apparently Trump's recent letter to the Energy Department, which included very pointed questions about climate change research, and/or his appointment of former Texas Governor Rick Perry to lead that department going forward (a department that Perry proposed shutting down back in 2012 for those who may have forgotten), "triggered" California's head snowflake, Governor Jerry Brown, into an epic climate change rant before a gathering of scientists at the American Geophysical Union's national conference in San Francisco. 

Scientists have confirmed that sea-ice levels across Antarctica have reached record highs since records began, bringing the man-made global warming theory into disrepute. Contrary to United Nations models predicting global temperatures increasing due to carbon dioxide levels increasing, temperates across the world have remained steady for over 18 years, leading some scientists to condemn established global warming theories as ‘false’.

A red alert for air pollution has been issued in the Chinese capital for the first time this year as choking smog is expected to cover the city and surrounding areas in north China during the next five days. The red alert, the highest in the color-coded warning system, will come into force at 08:00 p.m. local time on Friday. Private cars will be ordered off the road, with an odd-even number plate system in force, according to a notice posted on the official website of the Beijing municipal government.

NASA scientists have found brand new evidence of life on Mars in the form of a chemical element that is essential for DNA synthesis. According to a 14 December announcement at the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, NASA’s Curiosity rover found the chemical element boron on the surface of the red planet – a chemical that is crucial in supporting life. Sputniknews.com reports: “No prior mission to Mars has found boron,” said Patrick Gasda, a researcher at the US Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.