Sea Shepherd returns to ‘The Cove’ in Taiji, Japan

By Captain Paul Watson 31 August 2016 (Huffington Post) – Since 2009, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has been on the ground in Taiji, Japan, documenting and bringing to light the atrocious dolphin drive hunt taking place from September to March. Originally dubbed Operation Infinite Patience, this Sea Shepherd campaign has volunteers on the ground enduring […]

‘Like it’s been nuked’: Millions of bees dead after South Carolina sprays for Zika mosquitoes

By Ben Guarino 1 September 2016 (Washington Post) – On Sunday morning, the South Carolina honey bees began to die in massive numbers. Death came suddenly to Dorchester County, S.C. Stressed insects tried to flee their nests, only to surrender in little clumps at hive entrances. The dead worker bees littering the farms suggested that […]

China’s trans-Amazon railway stokes forest fears

By Jan Rocha29 August 2016 SÃO PAULO (Climate News Network) – China’s fast-rising population and its burgeoning economy make steep demands on natural resources, so steep that Beijing is searching constantly for supplies from overseas. And it wants to obtain them, naturally, as cheaply as it can. Now in prospect is China’s trans-Amazon railway – […]

‘Raging Grannies’ arrested for blocking oil and coal trains in Washington State

By Jonathan Glover31 August 2016 (The Spokesman-Review) – Police arrested three protesters calling themselves “Raging Grannies” for standing on railroad tracks Wednesday when they refused orders to stop blocking oil and coal trains in east Spokane. The women – all grandmothers – were3 the last of about 20 protestors who blocked rail lines near Trent […]

More U.S. parents believe vaccines are unnecessary

By Dennis Thompson29 August 2016 (HealthDay News) – Pediatricians are encountering more parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated, mainly because they don’t see the point of vaccines, a U.S. survey found. In the survey, conducted in 2013, about 87 percent of pediatricians said they had encountered vaccine refusals, an increase from the 75 […]

Study reveals surprising role of haze in the warming of China cities

By Timothy Brown23 August 2016 (Yale) – A new Yale-led study published in the journal Nature Communications sheds light on the surprising role that haze in China plays in promoting the urban heat island effect [UHI], a process whereby city centers tend to be significantly warmer than surrounding rural areas. Scientists have always suspected that […]

350: Exxon killed the reef

25 August 2016 (350) – The seas of dead coral are a crime scene. This year, the world witnessed the most devastating mass coral bleaching event ever recorded which left behind dead reefs in at least 38 countries. Many of these reefs will never recover. The immediate cause is clear: the ongoing rise in global […]

Pro-nuclear countries making slower progress on climate targets

By James Hakner22 August 2016 (University of Sussex) – A strong national commitment to nuclear energy goes hand in hand with weak performance on climate change targets, researchers at the University of Sussex and the Vienna School of International Studies have found. A new study of European countries, published in the journal Climate Policy, shows […]

Dead mussels ‘as far as the eye can see’ on Long Island Sound beach – ‘They’ve been hit with these consecutive heat waves that are just too hot for them’

By Grant Parpan24 August 2016 (Riverhead News Review) – David Gruner has been visiting the same private beach on the Long Island Sound in Jamesport for more than 50 years. On Wednesday afternoon, he witnessed something he’d never seen before. When Mr. Gruner walked down to the beach he found the shoreline covered in mussels […]

The Anthropocene is here: Scientists recommend naming a new geological epoch as humans ‘permanently reconfigure Earth’s biological trajectory’

29 August 2016 (AFP) – The human impact on Earth’s chemistry and climate has cut short the 11,700-year-old geological epoch known as the Holocene and ushered in a new one, scientists said Monday. The Anthropocene, or “new age of man,” would start from the mid-20th century if their recommendation—submitted Monday to the International Geological Congress […]

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