Acidic oceans implicated in Earth's worst mass extinction – ‘These findings may help us understand the threat posed to marine life by modern-day ocean acidification’

By Will Dunham; Editing by Mohammad Zargham9 April 2015 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – It is one of science’s enduring mysteries: what caused the worst mass extinction in Earth’s history. And, no, it is not the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. Scientists said on Thursday that huge amounts of carbon dioxide spewed from colossal volcanic eruptions […]

Carly Fiorina blames environmentalists for California drought – ‘It is a man-made disaster’

[It is a “man-made disaster”, but not in the way she thinks. –Des] By Kendall Breitman6 April 15 (Politico) – Carly Fiorina is blaming liberal environmentalists for what she calls a “man-made” drought in California. “It is a man-made disaster,” Fiorina, who is “seriously considering” a run for president in 2016, told the Blaze Radio […]

Brazil water crisis: 56 Northeastern cities are in state of collapse, says government

[Translation by Microsoft Translator] By Catherine Alencastro 1 April 2015 BRASILIA (O Globo) – In yet another government meeting to evaluate the water crisis in part of the country, the diagnosis is that, in the Northeast, there are currently 56 cities in a state of collapse, i.e., without water for more than four days. According […]

Dolphin’s death leaves only 5 of her kind on the planet

By Christina M. Russo8 April 2015 (The Dodo) – The recent death of one of the remaining six Irrawaddy river dolphins in the Mekong River in Laos highlights the desperate situation for the already critically endangered animal. Villagers in Cambodia discovered the female dolphin carcass on April 1, according to news reports in Phnom Penh. […]

Before civilization on this planet eventually collapses, it will go stark-raving mad

7 April 2015 (CIVILIZATION) – The enormous cognitive dissonance between our growing awareness of our civilization’s accelerating collapse, and the ‘news’ in the media and the subjects of most public discourse, continues to baffle me. Though I suspect it shouldn’t. We are all slow learners, preoccupied with the needs of the moment, with a preference […]

Paula Kahumbu: ‘We don’t buy panda products, so the Chinese should get their hands off our elephants’

By Paula Kahumbu7 April 2015 (CNN) – Elephants could be extinct in the wild within a few decades, leading experts warned late last month in Botswana at the Kasane Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade, which gathered 150 delegates from countries that are sourcing, transiting and demanding ivory. The participants signed onto 15 new commitments […]

Despite heavy rains, reservoir levels still low in São Paulo

By Stan Lehman 2 April 2015 SÃO PAULO (Associated Press) – Brazil’s biggest city has recorded its rainiest March since 2008, but the worst drought in more than 80 years has left reservoir levels critically low and water experts fear that strict water rationing may still loom for São Paulo as it enters the April-September […]

Global debt increased by $57 trillion since 2007, outpacing world GDP growth – China debt quadrupled

February 2015 (McKinsey Global Institute) – Seven years after the bursting of a global credit bubble resulted in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, debt continues to grow. In fact, rather than reducing indebtedness, or deleveraging, all major economies today have higher levels of borrowing relative to GDP than they did in 2007. […]

Poaching vessel, the ‘Thunder’, sinks in suspicious circumstances, after longest pursuit of high-seas poachers in history – Crew rescued by Sea Shepherd activists

6 April 2015 (SSCS) – At 1152 GMT today, the notorious poaching vessel, Thunder, sank at 0˚ 20′ North 05˚ 23′ East inside the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Sao Tome. The Sea Shepherd ships Bob Barker and Sam Simon are in the process of rescuing the entire crew of 40, including the captain, officers, […]

Graph of the Day: Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels, 1751-2013

5 April 2015 (Desdemona Despair) – Recently, there’s been discussion about a possible decoupling between global financial growth and carbon dioxide emissions, so Desdemona decided to check in on recent CO2 emission data. The Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) maintains a database of fossil-fuel CO2 emissions, which has been updated with preliminary data to […]

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