Drought and global warming are forcing young Guatemalans to flee to the U.S. – A harbinger of what’s to come throughout the world

  By Lauren Markham16 February 2017 JUMAYTEPEQUE, Guatemala (Huffington Post) –  Junior Dario “J.R.” Henriquez* started thinking about heading north on the long, hard migrant trail to the United States when the coffee plants started withering. Drought and a pernicious fungus called roya ― coffee rust ― were wreaking havoc on the plantation here, where […]

Thousands of emails detail EPA head’s close ties to fossil fuel industry

By Brady Dennis and Steven Mufson 22 February 2017 (The Washington Post) – In his previous role as Oklahoma’s attorney general, the Environmental Protection Agency’s new administrator regularly huddled with fossil fuel firms and electric utilities about how to combat federal environmental regulations and spoke to conservative political groups about what they called government “overreach,” […]

America’s aging dams are in need of repair

By Troy Griggs, Gregor Aisch, and Sarah Almukhtar23 February 2017 (The New York Times) – After two weeks that saw evacuations near Oroville, Calif., and flooding in Elko County, Nev., America’s dams are showing their age. Nearly 2,000 state-regulated high-hazard dams in the United States were listed as being in need of repair in 2015, […]

A huge Antarctic glacier just lost another chunk of ice — and we know because of NASA

By Chelsea Harvey 22 February 2017 (The Washington Post) – One of Antarctica’s most rapidly melting glaciers has shed yet another large block of ice in an event that NASA scientists say is “further evidence of the ice shelf’s fragility.” The agency drew attention to the incident in a tweet Wednesday morning.  Pine Island Glacier, […]

Fish affected by Deepwater Horizon oil spill give clues to air pollution and human heart disease

16 February 2017 (The University of Manchester) – A study by Manchester and Stanford scientists into the effects on fish of a 2010 oil disaster could shed new light on how air pollution affects humans’ hearts. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster resulted in a major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, an area of […]

Video: Flyover of Larsen C Ice Shelf crack, February 2017

21 February 2017 (British Antarctic Survey) – Currently a huge iceberg, roughly the size of Norfolk, looks set to break off Larsen C Ice Shelf, which is more than twice the size of Wales. Satellite observations from February 2017 show the growing crack in the ice shelf which suggests that an iceberg with an area […]

Fearing “feral hog apocalypse,” Texas approves mass poisoning

By Andrea Lucia 21 February 2017 NORTH TEXAS (CBS News) – Announcing the “feral hog apocalypse” is within reach, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller has approved of the first pesticide targeting wild pigs. The move has upset hunters, who’ve gathered more than 1,200 signatures in opposition within two days. “We don’t think poison is the […]

US Antarctic expert Eric Rignot on climate science in the age of Trump – “There’s a lot at stake here”

By Veronika Meduna 14 February 2017 (The Spinoff) – US-based glaciologist Eric Rignot is in New Zealand this week to talk about polar ice sheets and their potential to add to predicted sea level rise. He tells Veronika Meduna that it’s more important than ever to discuss climate science and what it’s like to be […]

Insurance industry grapples with potential losses from climate change

By Michael Lee19 February 2017 (Crain’s Detroit Business) – Climate change presents a knotty problem — and big risks — for insurers. Severe weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes and droughts are expected to occur with more frequency as the climate warms up, experts say. That presents the risk of greater losses for insurers to […]

Science activism on the rise, with Boston rally the latest iteration – “It would be great to live in a world where evidence speaks for itself”

  By Patrick Reilly20 February 2017 (The Christian Science Monitor) – As temperatures climbed above the 50 degrees F., on Sunday, many Bostonians enjoyed the February weekend outdoors on the city’s bike trails and waterfronts. But for those who gathered in Copley Square downtown, the unseasonable warmth was just the latest evidence of their cause […]

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial