By MATT SIEGEL4 March 2013 SYDNEY, Australia (The New York Times) – Climate change was a major driving force behind a string of extreme weather events that alternately scorched and soaked large sections of Australia in recent months, according to a report [pdf] issued Monday by the government’s Climate Commission. A four-month heat wave during […]
By Will Oremus4 March 2013 (Slate) – In January, the New York Times dismantled its environmental desk but promised that its coverage wouldn’t suffer. “We can tell the story just as well without the infrastructure,” managing editor Dean Baquet told the paper’s public editor, Margaret Sullivan. Reaction to the news was generally disconsolate, but Bora […]
By Matt Smith and Brandon Miller, CNN26 February 2013 (CNN) – OK, go ahead and get the “Where’s my global warming?” jokes out of your system. With the U.S. Midwest trudging through its second blizzard in a week, we understand. But while it may seem contradictory at first, scientists say bigger blizzards fit the pattern […]
[Desdemona was fascinated by this story in 2010; apparently, the prospects of the South China Mall haven’t improved since then.] By Johan Nylander3 March 2013 Dongguan, China (CNN) – They built it, but the shoppers didn’t come. New South China Mall in Guangdong Province opened in 2005. With 5 million square feet of shopping area, […]
By John Vidal 4 March 2013 (guardian.co.uk) – Ships should be able to sail directly over the north pole by the middle of this century, considerably reducing the costs of trade between Europe and China but posing new economic, strategic and environmental challenges for governments, according to scientists. The dramatic reduction in the thickness and […]
By Roger Harrabin, Environment analyst3 March 2013 (BBC) – Britain must become more resilient to both drought and flooding, Environment Agency chairman Chris Smith has said. New figures from the agency show that one in every five days saw flooding in 2012, but one in four days saw drought. Rivers such as the Tyne, Ouse, […]
By MALCOLM FOSTER, Associated Press28 February 2013 TOKYO (AP) – It is the king of sushi, one of the most expensive fish in the world – and dwindling so rapidly that some fear it could vanish from restaurant menus within a generation. Yet there is little alarm in Japan, the country that consumes about 80 […]
By Paul Rosenberg25 February 2013 Could feelings of disgust be the key to saving the planet from global warming? Strange as it might seem, the answer may be yes. Concern over environmental harm is disproportionately a liberal phenomena, but concern over violating the purity and sanctity of nature cuts across ideological lines. What’s more, it’s […]
By Rob Jordan 25 February 2013 (Stanford Report) – It’s no secret that China is faced with some of the world’s worst pollution. Until now, however, information on the magnitude, scope and impacts of a major contributor to that pollution – human-caused nitrogen emissions – was lacking. A new study co-authored by Stanford Woods Institute […]
Contact: Ruth Dasso Marlaire, ruth.marlaire@nasa.gov, Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California,650-604-470925 February 2013 NASA scientists report that warmer temperatures and changes in precipitation locally and regionally have altered the growth of large forest areas in the eastern United States over the past 10 years. Using NASA’s Terra satellite, scientists examined the relationship between natural plant […]
