Belief in biblical end-times stifling climate change action in U.S. – ‘The Earth will end only when God declares it to be over’

By Eric W. Dolan1 May 2013 (The Raw Story) – The United States has failed to take action to mitigate climate change thanks in part to the large number of religious Americans who believe the world has a set expiration date. Research by David C. Barker of the University of Pittsburgh and David H. Bearce […]

Climate change compounds rising threats to koala – ‘The koalas are highly susceptible to heat stress and dehydration’

Australia’s iconic marsupial is at risk from shrinking habitats, road traffic and dog attacks – and increasingly, global warming  By Neena Bhandari for IPS, part of the Guardian Environment Network    30 April 2013 SYDNEY (guardian.co.uk) – Australia’s iconic marsupial is under threat. Formerly hunted almost to extinction for their woolly coats, koalas are now struggling […]

Graph of the Day: All-time daily rainfall records on Australia east coast, January 2013

(Climate Commission) – Between 22 and 29 January 2013 extreme rainfall occurred over the east coast of Queensland and the New South Wales coast north of the Illawarra, resulting in severe flooding (BoM, 2013b). Many areas received daily rainfalls greater than 400 mm, with many breaking daily rainfall records (BoM, 2013b) (see Figure 2, Figure […]

Europe bans neonicotinoid pesticides blamed for destroying bee populations – ‘This is a victory for the precautionary principle, which is supposed to underlie environmental regulation’

By Charlotte McDonald-Gibson   29 April 2013 Brussels (Independent) – Environmentalists hailed a “victory for bees” today after the European Union voted for a ban on the nerve-agent pesticides blamed for the dramatic decline global bee populations.  Despite fierce lobbying by the chemicals industry and opposition by countries including Britain, 15 of the 27 member states […]

Burned rainforest vulnerable to grass invasion

24 April 2013 (mongabay.com) – Rainforests that have been affected by even low-intensity fires are far more vulnerable to invasion by grasses, finds a new study published in special issue of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. The findings are significant because they suggest that burned forests may be more susceptible to […]

Petition: Tell ABC, NBC, and CBS News to cover climate change

(Media Matters) – Twelve. That’s the combined number of segments that ABC, CBS, and NBC’s nightly news programs devoted to climate change throughout all of 2012. This is woefully inadequate. We need coverage that’s consistent with the importance of dealing with this issue. That’s why we and the Sierra Club are joining the League of […]

Yachtsmen, rats, global warming threaten Chile’s humboldt penguins – ‘This area used to be completely filled with penguins and birds’

28 April 2013 (Sapa-AFP) – Several dozen Humboldt penguins sun themselves along the coast of an islet in central Chile where the majestic birds coming here to nest once numbered in the thousands. Humboldt penguins – which nest only in parts of Chile and Peru – over the years have become decimated by human encroachment, […]

Mobile device giant Samsung admits to using tin linked to child labor, deforestation – Apple mum on sourcing

25 April 2013 (mongabay.com) – Mobile device giant Samsung has admitted to using tin sourced from a controversial mining operation on the Indonesian island of Bangka, where unregulated mining kills 150 miners a year and causes substantial environmental damage, reports the Guardian and Mongabay-Indonesia. Samsung’s admission came after a campaign by Friends of the Earth, […]

Rhinos now extinct in Mozambique’s Limpopo National Park – Poachers include park rangers

25 April 2013 (mongabay.com) – Poachers have likely killed off the last rhinos in Mozambique’s Limpopo National Park, according to a park official who spoke with Portugal News. Park director António Abacar said that no rhinos have been sighted in Limpopo National Park since January, “which means that the ones that lived in the park […]

Why elk are robbing birds of nesting habitat as Arizona climate changes rapidly

By Sonya Auer, University of Massachusetts, Amherst26 April 2013 (LiveScience) – Plants and animals in a given area form an ecological system of interacting species. Impacts on one, or just a few, species can ripple throughout the system and have indirect effects on other species within a larger community. Many plants and animals are sensitive […]

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