WASHINGTON, 11 July 2019 (Center for Biological Diversity) – Highlighting the need for global action to fight giraffes’ silent extinction, a body of scientific experts today declared giraffes in Kenya and Tanzania — called Masai giraffes — endangered. Masai giraffes, one of nine giraffe subspecies, had long been considered a key population for the species. But […]
By Merrit Kennedy 17 July 2019 (NPR) – Two vital research agencies at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are hemorrhaging staff as less than two-thirds of the researchers asked to relocate from Washington to the Kansas City area have agreed to do so. When U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced the planned new location […]
27 June 2019 (Chalmers University of Technology) – The Powering Past Coal Alliance, or PPCA, is a coalition of 30 countries and 22 cities and states that aims to phase out unabated coal power. But analysis led by Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, published in Nature Climate Change, shows that members mainly pledge to close […]
By Kevin Krajick 15 July 2019 (Columbia University) – Against a backdrop of long-term rises in temperature in recent decades, California has seen ever higher spikes in seasonal wildfires, and, in the last two years, a string of disastrous, record-setting blazes. This has led scientists, politicians and media to ponder: what role might warming climate be […]
By Steve Lundeberg 2 July 2019 CORVALLIS, Oregon (Oregon State University) – The most extensive and systematic insect monitoring program ever undertaken in North America shows that butterfly abundance in Ohio declined yearly by 2%, resulting in an overall 33% drop for the 21 years of the program. Though the study was limited to one […]
By Bob Henson 12 July 2019 (Weather Underground) – Residents of southeast Louisiana need to finalize preparations for widespread and severe flooding this weekend with the approach of Tropical Storm Barry. Packing top sustained winds of 65 mph, slow-moving Barry will push its way onshore Saturday, possibly as a Category 1 hurricane. What matters most […]
By Bob Henson 9 July 2019 (Weather Underground) – Topping a remarkable record that was set just a month earlier, the year-long period ending in June was the wettest 12-month span in U.S. records that go back to 1895. For the 48 contiguous U.S. states, precipitation averaged 37.86” over the period from July 2018 to […]
By Julia Jacobo 9 July 2019 (ABC News) – Scientists are researching the potential consequences of the rapid decline of the honey bee population in the U.S. and how to mitigate its effects before it causes dire problems for crop management and production. Honey bees are essential for the pollination of flowers, fruits and vegetables, and support about $20 […]
By Hannah Pitt, Kate Larsen, Hannah Kolus, Shashank Mohan, John Larsen, Whitney Herndon, and Trevor Houser 8 July 2019 (Rhodium Group) – For the past five years, Rhodium has provided an independent annual assessment of US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and progress towards achieving the country’s climate goals. Given the current state and federal policy […]
By Jason Samenow, Ian Livingston, and Jeff Halverson 8 July 2019 (The Washington Post) – A month’s worth of rain deluged the immediate D.C. area early Monday, resulting in one of its most extreme flooding events in years. The record-setting cloudburst unleashed four inches of water in a single hour, way too much for a […]