Sinkholes as deep as eight-story buildings form along shoreline of the disappearing Dead Sea – ‘These sinkholes are the direct result of inappropriate mismanagement of water resources in the region’

By Alexa Lewis17 April 2015 (AccuWeather.com) – The Dead Sea is disappearing at an alarming rate, leaving behind thousands of sinkholes that are chipping away at the coastline’s vibrant and touristy atmosphere. The Dead Sea – which is actually a lake – is known for being almost 10 times as salty as the ocean and […]

Siberia fires rage on ‘like an apocalypse’ as death toll from two blazes reaches 33

By Anna Liesowska16 April 2015 (The Siberian Times) – Fire is still raging in part of Siberia as the death toll from this week’s two massive outbreaks rises to 33. In Khakassia, people are slowly beginning to piece together their lives after the devastating wildfire that killed at least 29 people is finally extinguished. But […]

Parts of San Joaquin Valley sinking a foot per year as farmers deplete groundwater – Water level in underground aquifer near town of Stratford has dropped eighty feet in three years

18 April 2015 (NBC News) – Tony Azevedo’s a third-generation farmer in California’s Central Valley. For decades, his family has grown cantaloupes. This year, he won’t — and he’ll leave a third of his 11,500-acre farm fallow. “This field would have been cantaloupes, had we had the water,” he explained, pointing to some of his […]

Stench of dead fish in Rio lake won’t spoil Olympic Games, officials hope

By Bruce Douglas17 April 2015 Rio de Janeiro (The Guardian) – Below the open arms of the statue of Christ the Redeemer, and not far from the upmarket neighbourhood of Ipanema, the Rodrigo de Freitas lake is usually a popular spot for Rio’s cyclists, joggers and coconut sellers. But over the last few days the […]

Last living male northern white rhino under 24/7 armed guard

OL PEJETA CONSERVANCY, Kenya, 16 April 2015 (Cox Media Group) – After 50 million years, the northern white rhino is one death away from extinction. The last living male of the species is now under armed guard 24/7 at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.  His name is Sudan. There is hope that Sudan, elderly […]

Inter-decadal Pacific Oscillation explains global warming ‘hiatus’ since 2000

[cf. “Climate oscillations and the global warming faux pause” –Des] 14 April 2015 (Scripps News) – Atmospheric greenhouse gases have continued to rise during recent years, yet global mean surface temperature has shown no clear warming since about 2000. This slowdown in surface warming, often referred to as the global warming “hiatus,” is in sharp […]

Thunder gone under: The story of the world’s longest maritime chase

By Jonathon Gatehouse and Amanda Shendruk16 April 2015 (Maclean’s) – The captain of the MV Thunder didn’t go down with his ship. Instead, he stood cheering and applauding in a life raft as the 62-m fishing trawler sank beneath the glassy surface of the Atlantic, 200 km off the coast of Gabon. Then he and […]

Climate censorship gains steam in Republican-controlled states – ‘This is a situation that George Orwell would have recognized’

By Katherine Bagley16 April 2015 (Tribune News Service) – While plenty of people found humor in the recent news that officials in Florida and Wisconsin are censoring state workers’ ability to talk about, much less work on, climate change, other states are not necessarily laughing. In fact, several political and environmental experts told InsideClimate News […]

Siberia wildfires arrive early after warmest winter in recorded history – 137 forest fires burn across 152,000 hectares – Putin pledges $100 million in aid

[“The winter of 2014-2015 was the warmest on record in Russia, may have been warmest winter ever recorded in Northern Hemisphere” –Des] 16 April 2015 (The Moscow Times) – President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that the federal government would send at least 5 billion rubles ($100 million) to the southern Siberian republic of Khakasia, ravaged […]

Why this new study on Arctic permafrost is so scary – ‘You can’t re-freeze the permafrost’

[Is this what’s causing the explosive craters we’ve seen recently in Siberia? –Des] By Emily Atkin 8 April 2015 (Climate Progress) – Scientists might have to change their projected timelines for when Greenland’s permafrost will completely melt due to man-made climate change, now that new research from Denmark has shown it could be thawing faster […]

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial