Philippines president Duterte won’t honor international climate deal – ‘You are trying to stymie us’

By Pia Ranada 18 July 2016 MANILA, Philippines (Rappler) – President Rodrigo Duterte “will not honor” international agreements binding the Philippines to limit its carbon emissions. “You are trying to stymie us with an agreement na ganito lang kayo (that you will stay this way) … That’s stupid. I will not honor that. Sabi niya […]

Clouds study alarms scientists – ‘The data shows major reorganization of the cloud system’

By Chris Mooney 14 July 2016 (Washington Post) – Every week, there are many new scientific studies published relating to climate change. It is a big field, a multidisciplinary field and a hot field. But according to leading climate scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan — credited with discovering that chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, are actually a greenhouse gas, […]

Global threat to agriculture from invasive species

21 June 2016 (CSIRO) – The research, which is published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that although the chances of invasive species entering Australia were relatively high, the overall threat to agriculture is lessened due to our robust management practices. The research examines the worldwide distribution of nearly 1300 invasive […]

How a single word sparked a four-year saga of climate fact-checking and antiscience hysteria

By Joelle Gergis 10 July 2016 (The Conversation) – In May 2012, my colleagues and I had a paper accepted for publication in the Journal of Climate, showing that temperatures recorded in Australasia since 1950 were warmer than at any time in the past 1,000 years. Following the early online release of the paper, as […]

Vanishing Act: Why insects are declining and why it matters – ‘The decline is dramatic and depressing and it affects all kinds of insects, including butterflies, wild bees, and hoverflies’

By Christian Schwägerl6 July 2016 (e360) – Every spring since 1989, entomologists have set up tents in the meadows and woodlands of the Orbroicher Bruch nature reserve and 87 other areas in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The tents act as insect traps and enable the scientists to calculate how many bugs live […]

Firefly populations are blinking out globally – ‘Everyone is reporting declines’

By John R. Platt 7 July 2016 (TakePart) – Blink and you’ll miss them this summer. Around the world, people are reporting that local firefly populations are shrinking or even disappearing. The insect’s dilemma first came to the world’s attention at the 2010 International Firefly Symposium, where researchers from 13 nations presented evidence of firefly […]

Poorer than their parents: Between 2005 and 2014, real incomes in advanced economies were flat or fell for 65 to 70 percent of households, more than 540 million people

By Richard Dobbs, Anu Madgavkar, James Manyika, Jonathan Woetzel, Jacques Bughin, Eric Labaye, and Pranav Kashyap14 July 2016 (McKinsey) – Most people growing up in advanced economies since World War II have been able to assume they will be better off than their parents. For much of the time, that assumption has proved correct: except […]

Algae bloom engulfs Florida’s Lake Okeechobee as agricultural operations dump nitrogen and phosphates – ‘Enjoy your vacation on Playa Guacamole’

By Carl Hiaasen8 July 2016 (Miami Herald) – They say a picture tells a thousand words. If it’s a picture of an algae-covered beach, it can also cancel thousands of hotel reservations. That’s the new dread in Florida, as photos and news videos of gunk-covered shorelines are making headlines all over the world. Why would […]

Climate change department axed by new British PM in ‘plain stupid’ and ‘deeply worrying’ move – ‘This is shocking news. Less than a day into the job and it appears that the new Prime Minister has already downgraded action to tackle climate change.’

By Ian Johnston 14 July 2016 (Independent) – The decision to abolish the Department for Energy and Climate Change has been variously condemned as “plain stupid”, “deeply worrying” and “terrible” by politicians, campaigners and experts. One of Theresa May’s first acts as Prime Minister was to move responsibility for climate change to a new Department […]

China has been killing turtles, coral, and giant clams in the South China Sea – ‘There is no hope for many of these reefs to recover in the coming decades or centuries’

By Julie Makinen13 July 2016 (Los Angeles Times) – China struck back loudly and forcefully Wednesday after an international tribunal invalidated many of its claims in the South China Sea. But Beijing has largely been silent about some of the tribunal’s most damning findings: that its activities there have “caused devastating and long-lasting damage to […]

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