Should we fight climate change by re-engineering life itself?

Life has transformed our world over billions of years, turning a dead rock into the lush, fertile planet we know today. But human activity is currently transforming Earth again, this time by releasing greenhouse gases that ...

China's bid to decarbonize may have hidden costs

Environmentalists rejoiced when China announced its commitment to reach carbon neutrality by 2060, but the decarbonization of China—which emits 27% of global carbon dioxide and a third of the world's greenhouse gases—may ...

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Greenhouse gas

Greenhouse gases are gases in an atmosphere that absorb and emit radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. Common greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. In our solar system, the atmospheres of Venus, Mars and Titan also contain gases that cause greenhouse effects. Greenhouse gases greatly affect the temperature of the Earth; without them, Earth's surface would be on average about 33°C (59°F) colder than at present.

Human activities since the start of the industrial era around 1750 have increased the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The 2007 assessment report compiled by the IPCC observed that "changes in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols, land cover and solar radiation alter the energy balance of the climate system", and concluded that "increases in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations is very likely to have caused most of the increases in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century".

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