Ocean geoengineering scheme condemned by scientists – ‘The consequences of tampering with nature at this scale are not predictable’

By Rhian Waller of NG Explorers18 October 2012 (National Geographic) – Unbeknownst to most scientists until a few days ago, two hundred thousand pounds of iron sulphate were dumped into North Pacific Ocean in July, with the aim to trigger a large plankton bloom. This experiment was conducted by the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation, under […]

Graph of the Day: Flood Extent and Standing Water in Pakistan, 9 October 2012

16 October 2012 (ReliefWeb) – Flash floods prompted by monsoon rains across Pakistan in the third week of August 2012 affected Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Gilgit Baltistan (GB) provinces, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJ & K) state. A second spell of monsoon rainfall started over the southern parts of the country from the end […]

UN warns of rising food costs after year’s extreme weather – ‘It’s been soul-destroying for the farmers’

By John Vidal, Rebecca Smithers, and Shiv Malik 10 October 2012 (The Guardian) – The UN has warned of increasing meat and dairy prices in the wake of extreme weather in the United States and across large parts of Europe and other centres of global food production. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) […]

Dry summer helps push Lake Michigan water levels to near-record lows

By Cynthia Dizikes, Chicago Tribune reporter19 October 2012 As Lake Michigan water levels have dipped lower and lower this year, so too has shoreline fisherman Patrick Finley. A leisurely stand, cast and reel routine will no longer do. Actually catching a fish in such shallow water calls for methods more extreme. “You literally have to […]

Who’s moving in? Adult kids, aging parents

By Haya El Nasser16 October 2012 (USA TODAY) – Almost a third of homeowners expect their grown children or aging parents to eventually move in with them, according to a survey by one of the nation’s largest home builders. About one in seven say they already have a “boomerang kid” – an adult child who […]

How do you move 100,000 people off a disappearing island?

By Tereza Jarnikova18 October 2012 WHEN YOU LOOK AT A MAP, Kiribati seems to be at the end of the world. From one of the nation’s largest islands, Kiritimati, it is well over 2,000 kilometers to the nearest international airport. With a population of 113,000 people and a landmass area totaling 717 square kilometers spread […]

Image of the Day: Aerial View of Growing Rift in Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier, September 2012

Rift in Pine Island Glacier, 31 October 2011   Rift in Pine Island Glacier, 14 September 2012 Caption by Adam Voiland19 October 2012 On 14 October 2011, scientists flying over Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier (PIG) ice shelf as part of NASA’s Operation IceBridge mission made a startling discovery: there was a massive rift running about […]

If extreme weather becomes the norm, starvation awaits

By George Monbiot, The Guardian 15 October 2012 I believe we might have made a mistake: a mistake whose consequences, if I am right, would be hard to overstate. I think the forecasts for world food production could be entirely wrong. Food prices are rising again, partly because of the damage done to crops in […]

Antiscience beliefs jeopardize U.S. democracy

By Shawn Lawrence Otto16 October 2012 It is hard to know exactly when it became acceptable for U.S. politicians to be antiscience. For some two centuries science was a preeminent force in American politics, and scientific innovation has been the leading driver of U.S. economic growth since World War II. Kids in the 1960s gathered […]

Study confirms sea-level rise is accelerating along northeast U.S. coast

By David Malmquist, VIMS 16 October 2012 A new study by emeritus professor John Boon of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science shows that the rate of sea-level rise is increasing at tidal stations along the Atlantic coast of North America, including those in Norfolk, Baltimore, New York, and Boston. Boon’s findings, published online in […]

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