Winter storm Jonas brings record coastal flooding to New Jersey and Delaware

By Andrew Freedman and Megan Specia23 January 2016 (Mashable) – This blizzard has another hazard besides the snow, sleet and strong winds its bringing to the East Coast: flooding. The storm is pounding the New Jersey and Delaware shorelines with 22-foot waves and a 3 to 5-foot storm surge that sent water levels to all-time […]

Siberian Arctic leads the way in Northern Hemisphere warming – ‘The planet and humanity can adapt to the evolutionary process. But now revolutionary changes are taking place.’

5 January 2016 (The Siberian Times) – Average temperatures in the north of the Kara and Barents seas were 4C to 5C higher than previous years. This startling increase comes as meteorologists say the negative consequences of this warning can be measured directly, with a rapid rise in deadly and destructive wild fires, for example. […]

Plastic to outweigh fish in oceans by 2050, study warns

19 January 2016 By David Williams (PhysOrg) – Plastic rubbish will outweigh fish in the oceans by 2050 unless the world takes drastic action to recycle the material, a report warned Tuesday on the opening day of the annual gathering of the rich and powerful in the snow-clad Swiss ski resort of Davos. An overwhelming […]

Second largest lake in Bolivia dries up – ‘There’s no future here’

By Carlos Valdez, with additional reporting by Frank Bajak21 January 2016 UNTAVI, Bolivia (AP) – Overturned fishing skiffs lie abandoned on the shores of what was Bolivia’s second-largest lake. Beetles dine on bird carcasses and gulls fight for scraps under a glaring sun in what marshes remain. Lake Poopo was officially declared evaporated last month. […]

World’s leading whale scientists want Japan harpoon fleet to turn back – ‘Japan’s whaling is unscientific’

21 January 2016 (Business Insider Australia) – More than 30 of the world’s top whale scientists have called on Japan to stop its so-called scientific whaling program. In the correspondence section of the international journal Nature, the experts write a letter to the editor under the headline “Japan’s whaling is unscientific”. The experts are mostly […]

Regulators delay action again on huge California methane leak – Impact zone doubles in size

By Lucy Nicholson, with additional reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Alistair Bell20 January 2016 (Reuters) – Air quality regulators, meeting for the third time this month to address a huge natural gas leak that has forced thousands of Los Angeles residents from their homes, delayed action again on Wednesday on a proposal to curtail […]

Video: NASA analysis reveals record-shattering global warm temperatures in 2015 – ‘2015 was remarkable even in the context of the ongoing El Niño’

  20 January 2016 (NASA) – Earth’s 2015 surface temperatures were the warmest since modern record keeping began in 1880, according to independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Globally-averaged temperatures in 2015 shattered the previous mark set in 2014 by 0.23 degrees Fahrenheit (0.13 Celsius). Only once before, in […]

Demand for fish bladder may wipe out world’s rarest porpoise – ‘The vaquita’s only hope for survival is that gill nets are permanently removed from its entire range in the Gulf of California’

By Rachael Bale10 January 2016 (National Geographic) – Just last week, a friend at the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) emailed me to ask if I’ve ever written about the trafficking of totoaba swim bladders, adding that she’s been working on vaquita conservation in the Gulf of California. Totoaba? Vaquitas? These were […]

Helping tomorrow’s climate refugees by engaging today: A dispatch from Bangladesh – ‘What will happen to the rest of the world tomorrow is already happening there today’

By Timmons Roberts13 January 2016 (Brookings) – I spent the past week in Bangladesh, visiting the countryside on a fascinating and heartening trip from the country’s massive capital, Dhaka, to the south, a region being hammered by climate change. I came to give some speeches and took the opportunity to see for myself how foreign […]

U.S. city and metropolitan inequality on the rise, driven by declining incomes

By Alan Berube and Natalie Holmes14 January 2015 (Brookings) – The issue of high and rising income inequality continues to influence policy and political debates at all levels of government. Local officials, such as mayors and county executives, are increasingly finding themselves at the center of those debates given a federal government hamstrung by partisan […]

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