21 February 2018 (Nature) – Decarbonization of the world’s economy would bring colossal disruption of the status quo. It’s a desire to avoid that change — political, financial and otherwise — that drives many of the climate sceptics. Still, as this journal has noted numerous times, it’s clear that many policymakers who argue that emissions […]
By Sharon Kelly 2 March 2018 (The Guardian) – Executives at the world’s most ambitious “clean coal” plant knew for years about serious design flaws and budget problems but sought to withhold key information from regulators before their plans collapsed, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.The Kemper plant in Mississippi – held up as […]
2 March 2018 (The Costra Rican Times) – Ten tons of hammerhead shark fins have been in storage in Costa Rican warehouses since 1 March 2015, when the government issued a ban on the export of hammerhead shark fins as part of its Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora […]
By Samiha Khanna 26 February 2018 (Duke Health News) – Despite reports in recent years suggesting childhood obesity could be reaching a plateau in some groups, the big picture on obesity rates for children ages 2 to 19 remains unfavorable.Three decades of rising childhood obesity continued their upward trend in 2016 according to a new […]
By Richard Grossman 2 March 2018 (Population Matters) – Back in January 2008 the Durango Herald published a unique challenge: “I offer a public wager of $5,000 that the Earth will be cooler in 10 years.” Dr. Roger Cohen, a physicist, proposed this wager. I responded, and our bet started the next month. Cohen’s rules […]
3 March 2018 (BBC News) – Police in Honduras have arrested an energy company executive on suspicion of masterminding the murder of a renowned environmental activist. Berta Cáceres was shot dead inside her home exactly two years ago, on the night of 2 March 2016. She had led protests against a dam project. The arrested […]
1 March 2018 (Mongabay) – On Tuesday, a federal judge in California ruled that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not abuse its authority in waiving dozens of environmental laws to build sections of wall along the border between the U.S. and Mexico. The ruling frees the department to waive laws for future border […]
14 February 2018 (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research) – Tropical forests around the world play a key role in the global carbon cycle and harbour more than half of the species worldwide. However, increases in land use during the past decades caused unprecedented losses of tropical forest. Scientists at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research […]
By Angela Fritz 27 February 2018 (The Washington Post) – For the second year in a row, spring has sprung early. In the Mid-Atlantic, cherry blossoms started to pop out of their buds in mid-February, and the crocuses have all but come and gone. Temperatures have dipped below freezing on only five mornings this February […]
By Elisabeth O’Leary and Padraic Halpin 1 March 2018 (Reuters) – Snow storms from Siberia blasted Britain and Ireland on Thursday with the worst weather since 1991, trapping several hundred motorists on roads in Scotland, closing thousands of schools, grounding planes and halting trains. With up to 90 cm of snow and temperatures as low […]
