Panda habitat threatened by recent forest tenure reforms in China

By Apoorva Joshi27 January 2015 (mongabay.com) – Since the 1950s, plantations and second-growth forests in China have been locally managed by village communities as collective forests, which today account for 58 percent of China’s forestland. Many of these collective forests lie within mountainous rural areas, some of which are also home to the 1,600 or […]

Graph of the Day: Australia sea level trends, 1993-2010

27 January 2015 (CSIRO) – The rates of sea level rise are not uniform around Australia. Over the period from 1993 when satellite altimeter data are available, the sea level trends are larger than the GMSL trend in northern Australia and similar to the GMSL trend in southern Australia (Figure 8.1.4; White, et al., 2014). […]

¡Vive Jairo! protesters demand justice (again) for slain Costa Rica conservationist

29 January 2015 (Tico Times) – Hundreds of protesters gathered Thursday in front of a court complex in the Costa Rican capital to express outrage over a verdict earlier this week that acquitted seven defendants of the 2013 murder of sea turtle conservationist Jairo Mora, who has quickly become an environmental martyr in this small […]

49 U.S. Senators don’t believe humans cause global warming

By Victoria Tang  21 January 2015 (Wired) – United States Senators stood up for what they believed in today—and it wasn’t pretty. During a debate over construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, intended to carry oil from Canada to the United States, the Senate voted on an amendment—just for show, really—on whether climate change “is […]

Scientists meet to save endangered white rhino – Artificial methods of reproduction are now the only hope

OL PEJETA CONSERVANCY, 28 January 2015 (AFP) – Conservationists and scientists have held talks in Kenya this week to come up with a last-ditch plan to save the northern white rhinoceros from extinction. There are only five northern whites left on the planet: three live in a 700-acre enclosure on the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in […]

Drought may force Brazil’s biggest city to cut back water service to 2 days a week – ‘The water is at its end, our patience too’

São Paulo, January 28, 2015 (Associated Press) –  The worst drought to hit Brazil’s biggest city in decades may leave residents with water service only two days a week. São Paulo water utility company Sabesp says a five days-off, two days-on system would be a last-ditch effort to prevent the collapse of the Cantareira water […]

Monarch butterfly population still perilously low, new survey finds

By Jeremy Hance28 January 2015 (mongabay.com) – The world’s migrating monarch butterfly population has bounced back slightly from its record low last year, but the new numbers are still the second smallest on record. According to WWF-Mexico and the Mexican government, butterflies covered 2.79 acres (1.13 hectares) in nine colonies this year in the Mexican […]

South Australia to get much hotter and drier, new climate change report warns – ‘There is very high confidence that hot days will become more frequent and hotter’

By KATRINA STOKES27 January 2015 (The Advertiser) – South Australia is only going to get hotter and drier and more prevalent periods of drought and fire-related conditions will continue to increase, a report released today reveals. The CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology report says what climate change experts have been saying for a long time […]

Koch brothers to pour $889 million into 2016 elections – ‘There is no network akin to this one in terms of its complexity, scope and resources’

By Fredreka Schouten27 January 2015 WASHINGTON (USA TODAY) – Top officials in the Koch brothers’ political organization Monday released a staggering $889 million budget to fund the activities of the billionaires’ sprawling network ahead of the 2016 presidential contest. The budget, which pays for everything from advertising and data-gathering technology to grass-roots activism, was released […]

Winter Storm Juno: Historic snowstorm ‘typical of climate change expectations’

By Hannah Osborne 27 January 2015 (IBT) – Winter Storm Juno has been dubbed a “historic” and “once-in-a-century” snowstorm, yet climate scientists say it is completely in line with what we should expect with climate change. Juno is expected to dump two to three feet of snow over an area stretching 250 miles on the […]

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