Free Republic

There is a theoretical, magic tipping point for adoption of electric vehicles. Once somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of new car sales are all-electric, some researchers say, huge numbers of drivers will follow. They predict that electric car sales will then soar — to 25 percent, 50 percent and eventually to close to 80 percent of new sales. Early adopters who love shiny new technologies will be replaced by mainstream consumers just looking for a good deal. Last year, the United States finally passed that elusive mark — 5 percent of all new cars sold in the fourth quarter...

A group of U.S. scientists say they have repeated their landmark energy feat - a nuclear fusion reaction that produces more energy than is put into it. But this time, they say the experiment produced an even higher energy yield than one in December...the lab "won't be discussing further details" of the July experiment until after more analysis.

The world has just gotten its first real taste of a planet that is 1.5 degrees Celsius — or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit — hotter than preindustrial times. According to data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, July of this year was the most scorching July on record, clocking in at somewhere between 1.5 and 1.6 Celsius hotter than the average before the widespread use of fossil fuels.

When Sean Youra was 26 years old and working as an engineer, he started watching documentaries about climate change. Youra, who was struggling with depression and the loss of a family member, was horrified by what he learned about melting ice and rising extreme weather. He started spending hours on YouTube, watching videos made by fringe scientists who warned that the world was teetering on the edge of societal collapse — or even near-term human extinction. Youra started telling his friends and family that he was convinced that climate change couldn’t be stopped, and humanity was doomed. In short, he...

When Meera Sanghani-Jorgensen was in her 30s, she and her husband began to discuss having children. They both wanted to have kids, but Sanghani-Jorgensen couldn’t shake the feeling that, by giving birth, she might be doing something bad for the earth. “I wanted to have a child, but I was also looking at the planet and thinking: ‘Well, what kind of future will we have if there’s more of the same?’ ” she said. She thought about the diapers, the party favors, the toys, and the billions of tons of carbon emissions warming the planet every year. She felt weighed...