Lake Baikal ‘seriously ill’: World’s deepest lake suffers alien algae, record water-level drop

13 March 2015 (RT) – The shores of Lake Baikal in Siberia, the world’s largest body of fresh water and popular tourist destination, are covered with rotting algae dangerous to its unique ecosystem. Baikal is getting increasingly contaminated by spirogyra, which could pose a threat to the purity of its waters. Spirogyra is not native […]

From the droughts of Northeast Brazil to São Paulo’s thirst – Alliance for Water calls for emergency measures

By Mario Osava 10 March 2015 SÃO PAULO (IPS) – Six million people in Brazil’s biggest city, São Paulo, may at some point find themselves without water. The February rains did not ward off the risk and could even aggravate it by postponing rationing measures which hydrologists have been demanding for the last six months. […]

Aid workers arriving in Vanuatu witness ‘apocalyptic’ destruction – ‘This is likely to be one of the worst disasters ever seen in the Pacific’ – ‘Effectively the whole country is flattened’

By Jethro Mullen and Steve Almasy15 March 2015 (CNN) – The fury of Tropical Cyclone Pam, one of the most powerful storms ever to make landfall, has moved on, but the misery it left behind in the islands of Vanuatu is just starting to become apparent. Aid workers described scenes of extensive devastation in the […]

Work on California’s Imperial County solar project halted to protect lizard, while San Benito County solar project is approved, despite threat to endangered species

By Chris Clarke   12 March 2015 (KCET) – Work has halted on a solar power facility in Imperial County due to the possibility that a rare lizard on site may be listed as an endangered species by the state. Construction halted Wednesday at the Tenaska Imperial Solar Energy Center West, being built by Tempe, Arizona-based […]

Cyclone Pam roars over Vanuatu – U.N. aid agency calls it ‘the worst-case scenario for the country and for the people’ – ‘Port Vila looks like an absolute bomb has hit it’

By Ben Brumfield and Laura Smith-Spark14 March 2015 (CNN) – A tropical cyclone killed at least six people in Vanuatu, UNICEF said Saturday, confirming first casualties from one of the most powerful storms ever to make landfall. Hardly a tree stood straight after Tropical Cyclone Pam bellowed across the Pacific island nation. Aid workers fear […]

‘Unbelievable destruction’ reported in Cyclone Pam’s wake – UNICEF tweets ‘Initial reports of devastation’

13 March 2015 (CNN) – Relief workers reported “unbelievable destruction” after Tropical Cyclone Pam smashed the capital of Vanuatu, the Australian Red Cross said Saturday. The Australian Red Cross said via Twitter that “humanitarian needs will be enormous. Many people have lost their homes. Shelter, food and water (are) urgent priorities” in Port Vila. Meteorologists […]

10 reasons why BP got off and offshore oil drilling just got more dangerous – ‘The fine could be as low as $3.5 billion. It could be even less.’

By Antonia Juhasz 12 March 2015 (Rolling Stone) – On January 27th, as the U.S. Justice Department expounded upon the catastrophic harms of offshore oil drilling in the trial against BP for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, President Obama reneged on a 2008 campaign pledge by proposing to open up a vast stretch […]

New Zealand chief testifies before Parliament to explain why the Navy failed to board any of three vessels found fishing illegally in the Southern Ocean in January

By Captain Paul Watson13 March 2015(Facebook) – This week, the Chief of the New Zealand Defense Force, Lieutenant-General Tim Keating, had to appear before a Parliamentary Committee meeting to explain why, in January, the New Zealand Navy did not board and arrest an Interpol-listed toothfish poaching vessel in the Southern Ocean within the area controlled […]

Category 5 Cyclone Pam slams Vanuatu capital – ‘Strength of winds is incredible’ in ‘Vanuatu Monster’

By Brandon Miller, Madison Park, and Laura Smith-Spark13 March 2015 (CNN) – Tropical Cyclone Pam, one of the strongest storms seen in the South Pacific in years, has made a direct hit on the capital of Vanuatu, Port Vila. Satellite imagery shows the eye of the massive Category 5 storm making landfall on a small […]

Graph of the Day: Observed surface radiative forcing by CO2, 2000-2010

25 February 2015 (Nature) – a, Time series of observed spectrally integrated (520–1,800 cm−1) CO2 surface radiative forcing at SGP (in red) with overlaid CT2011 estimate of CO2 concentration from the surface to an altitude of 2 km (grey), and a least-squares trend of the forcing and its uncertainty (blue). b, Power spectral density of […]

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