By Carol Rasmussen 12 October 2017 (JPL) – High-resolution satellite data from NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 are revealing the subtle ways that carbon links everything on Earth – the ocean, land, atmosphere, terrestrial ecosystems and human activities. Scientists using the first 2 1/2 years of OCO-2 data have published a special collection of five […]
By Manisha Ganguly 13 October 2017 (CNN) – A penguin colony in Antarctica has suffered a massive breeding failure, with only two chicks surviving the disaster. Terre Adélie (Adélie Land) is home to more than 18,000 pairs of Adélie penguins, but this year almost all the seabirds’ babies starved to death, a situation one expert […]
By Hannah Northey 13 October 2017 (E&E News) – President Trump’s nomination of a former Texas regulator who’s touted the benefits of carbon dioxide to lead the Council on Environmental Quality is being praised by industry but derided by environmentalists as “creative evil” and a “nightmare scenario.” If confirmed by the Senate, Kathleen Hartnett White […]
By Chris Flood 13 September 2017 (Financial Times) – A coalition of institutional investors managing more than $1 trillion in assets is demanding that 60 of the world’s largest banks take action to protect the world from the threat of catastrophic damage due to climate change.The devastation caused by Hurricane Irma across the Caribbean and […]
By Cristina Marcos 12 October 2017 (The Hill) – Legislation to provide $36.5 billion in aid for communities affected by recent wildfires and hurricanes, including Puerto Rico, secured widespread support in the House on Thursday save for 69 Republicans. The votes in opposition included many members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, who believe government […]
13 October 2017 (United Nations) – Sudden onset disasters, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and tropical cyclones, are likely to displace nearly 14 million people worldwide each year, warns a United Nations-backed study released Friday – International Day for Disaster Reduction.“This is an important baseline against which we can measure progress in reducing disaster risk. […]
Philadelphia, PA, 12 October 2017 (Elsevier) – While strong seasonal hurricanes have devastated many of the Caribbean and Bahamian islands this year, geologic studies on several of these islands illustrate that more extreme conditions existed in the past. A new analysis published in Marine Geology shows that the limestone islands of the Bahamas and Bermuda […]
By Mike Carlowicz 27 September 2017 (NASA) – Hurricane Maria tore across Puerto Rico on 20 September 2017, ravaging both urban and rural areas with category 4 winds and intense rainfall for several days. Most of the electric power grid and telecommunications network was knocked offline; towns both inland and at the coast were swamped […]
SAN FELIPE, Mexico, 5 October 2017 (Center for Biological Diversity) – Wildlife officials in Mexico next week will attempt to capture and protect some of the last vaquita on Earth in a desperate effort to save these small porpoises from extinction. The operation in the Gulf of California, scheduled to begin 12 October 2017, will […]
By Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Kristine Phillips, Joel Achenbach, and Herman Wong 12 October 2017 SANTA ROSA, California (The Washington Post) – The winds fanning wildfires in Northern California’s wine-country have calmed, for now, giving firefighters a badly needed break from the “red flag” conditions that have made this menacing arc of flames so deadly […]
