Piles of dirty secrets behind a model ‘clean coal’ project – ‘Hope is not a strategy’

By Ian Urbina5 July 2016 DE KALB, Mississippi (The New York Times) – The fortress of steel and concrete towering above the pine forest here is a first-of-its-kind power plant that was supposed to prove that “clean coal” was not an oxymoron — that it was possible to produce electricity from coal in a way […]

California drought killing trees by the millions, NASA scientist says – Tree mortality in the Sierra Nevada range ‘is far greater than previously observed’

By Michael Edison Hayden3 July 2016 (ABC News) – The devastation the California drought has caused to conifer trees in the Sierra Nevadas over the last couple of years “is far greater than previously observed,” NASA scientists said in announcement of the publication of new map of the region. David Schimel, a senior research scientist […]

Scientists: Window for avoiding 1.5C global warming ‘seems to have closed’

By Megan Darby29 June 2016 (Climate Change News) – Scientists have bad news for people on the front line of climate change impacts. The 1.5C global warming limit vulnerable countries fought hard to include in the Paris Agreement may already be out of reach. There is slim chance of stabilising temperature rise at that level […]

Study: climate change warming Asian waters, altering monsoon

By Katy Daigle1 July 2016 (PhysOrg) – Each year as temperatures rise across India, farmers look to the sky and pray for rain. The all-important monsoon forecast becomes a national priority, with more than 70 percent of India’s 1.25 billion citizens engaged in agriculture and relying on weather predictions to decide when they will sow […]

Venezuelans are storming supermarkets and attacking trucks as food supplies dwindle – ‘This is savagery’

By Joshua Partlow and Mariana Zuñiga 28 June 2016 CARACAS, Venezuela (Washington Post) – In the darkness the warehouse looks like any other, a metal-roofed hangar next to a clattering overpass, with homeless people sleeping nearby in the shadows. But inside, workers quietly unload black plastic crates filled with merchandise so valuable that mobs have […]

Industrial pollutants found in Earth’s deepest ocean trenches – Crustaceans at depths of 10,000 meters have higher concentrations of chemicals than animals in the most polluted rivers

By Jane Qiu 20 June 2016 (Nature) – Toxic chemicals are accumulating in marine creatures in Earth’s deepest oceanic trenches, the first measurements of organic pollutants in these regions have revealed. “We often think deep-sea trenches are remote and pristine, untouched by humans,” says Alan Jamieson, a deep-ocean researcher at the University of Aberdeen, UK. […]

Blog claim that jet stream crossing equator is ‘climate emergency’ is nonsense

[The situation with global warming is bad enough; no need to make up a disaster where none exists. –Des] [UPDATE: See Paul Beckwith’s rebuttal here, via Robin Westenra. –Des] [UPDATE2: Climate Feedback gives the original claim a scientific credibility rating of “low”: Analysis of Gabriel Samuels’ “Scientists warn of ‘global climate emergency’ over shifting jet […]

Amazon forest degradation increased by 5,785 percent over May 2015 estimate

[Translation by Bing Translator.] By Antônio Fonseca, Marcelo Justino, Carlos Souza Jr., and Adalberto Veríssimo16 June 2016 (Imazon) – In May 2016, 34% of the forested area of the Amazon rainforest was covered by clouds, less coverage than May 2015 (39%). States with larger cloud coverage were Amapá (70%) and Roraima (61%). In the analyzed […]

Ranch crisis in Mexico: 45,000 cattle killed this year by severe drought and heat

[Translation by Google.] By Gerardo Sanchez Source25 June 2016 VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico (Televisa News) – The herd of Tabasco is undergoing one of its worst crises in recent years, severe drought and heat are killing animals. “If you do not have livestock water is consumed, is spent their energies, their body fat and muscle, there are […]

Great Barrier Reef mammal declared extinct due to global warming – ‘Significantly, this probably represents the first recorded mammalian extinction due to anthropogenic climate change’

[Many more to follow. –Des] 14 June 2016 (University of Queensland) –  University of Queensland and Queensland Government researchers have confirmed that the Bramble Cay melomys (Melomys rubicola) – the only mammal species endemic to the Great Barrier Reef – is the first mammal to go extinct due to human-induced climate change. In a newly […]

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