By JUSTIN GILLIS12 December 2011 Scientists trying to understand the future of forests on a warming planet have a strange problem: They do not know how to kill trees. I don’t mean the trees in their backyards. I would bet that the average climate scientist, especially one who studies forests, is better with a chain […]
WASHINGTON, December 15 (Reuters) – A growing number of families in the United States are struggling to put food on the table as poverty rises in major cities, a new survey showed on Thursday. The U.S. Conference of Mayors’ 2011 hunger and homelessness survey [pdf] found all but four of the 29 cities surveyed reported […]
Preparing for the winter storms, a bulldozer piles up a protective bank on the north shore. The coastline has become increasingly vulnerable to erosion as the sea ice retreats. More open water allows waves to build up in the fierce Arctic winds. Point Hope lies south of lease site 193 where oil giant Shell plan […]
By Sarah Yang, Media Relations 12 December 2011 BERKELEY – Trees are dying in the Sahel, a region in Africa south of the Sahara Desert, and human-caused climate change is to blame, according to a new study led by a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. “Rainfall in the Sahel has dropped 20-30 percent […]
By Chris McGreal in Washington, www.guardian.co.uk 14 December 2011 Barack Obama has abandoned a commitment to veto a new security law that allows the military to indefinitely detain without trial American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped to Guantánamo Bay. Human rights groups accused the president of deserting his principles […]
WASHINGTON, December 15 (AP) – Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income. The latest census data depict a middle class that’s shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government’s safety […]
By Arwyn Rice, Peninsula Daily News14 December 2011 PORT ANGELES – The first piece of debris that could be identified as washing up on the West Coast from the March 11 tsunami in Japan — a large black float — was found on a Neah Bay beach two weeks ago, Seattle oceanographers Curtis Ebbesmeyer and […]
By William Pesek 13 December 2011 Want to know why Japan’s earthquake recovery efforts are moving in slow motion? Ask the whales. Tokyoites have grown accustomed to shocking news items since the earth shook and the oceans rose: the nuclear meltdown has proven far worse than the government admitted; radioactive cesium made its way into […]
By Rick Jervis, USA TODAY13 December 2011 PORT LAVACA, Texas – In better days, the loading dock in this East Texas harbor city would be a bustle of activity: fishermen unloading sacks filled with fresh oysters, dealers paying by the sack for the bivalves, 18-wheelers hauling them to Florida, Virginia and other destinations. On an […]
Global phytoplankton decline over the past century. Observed phytoplankton declines have occurred in eight out of ten ocean regions. The global rate of decline is estimated to be ~1% of the global median per year. ABSTRACT: In the oceans, ubiquitous microscopic phototrophs (phytoplankton) account for approximately half the production of organic matter on Earth. Analyses […]
