Kenyan rose-farm dam bursts after weeks of torrential rain – “Sea of water” kills at least 47

By Thomas Mukoya, George Obulutsa, Duncan Miriri, Humphrey Malalo, and Maggie Fick; Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Andrew Heavens 10 May 2018 SOLAI, Kenya (Reuters) – A dam on a commercial flower farm in Kenya’s Rift Valley burst after weeks of torrential rain, unleashing a “sea of water” that careened down […]

Dark Mountain: Issue 13 – Bearing Witness to a Disappearing World

By Michael Malay 9 May 2018 (Dark Mountain) – Today we bring you the last in our series of extracts from our thirteenth book, an anthology of new writing and art exploring what ‘being human’ means in an age of rapid ecological and social change. Dark Mountain: Issue 13 is now available through our online […]

Increase of plant species on mountain tops is accelerating with global warming

By Peter F. Gammelby 4 April 2018 (Aarhus University) – It is not as lonely at the top as it used to be. At least not for plants which, due to global warming, are increasingly finding habitats on mountain tops that were formerly reserved for only the toughest and most hardy species. A large international […]

Ai Weiwei’s little blue book on the global refugee crisis – “The tragedy is not only that people have lost their lives. The tragedy is the people who, in the very rich nations, have lost their humanity.”

By Robin Pogrebin 23 April 2018 (The New York Times) – The prominent Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei has long used his fame and social media as a megaphone for his activism. It was because of his blogging and Twitter activity criticizing the government that he was detained by the Chinese police for nearly […]

New Antarctic process contributing to sea-level rise and climate change revealed, that “may trigger a transition from a cold regime to a warm regime, characterised by high rates of melting from the base of ice shelves”

24 April 2018 (University of Tasmania) – A new Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS)-led study has revealed a previously undocumented process where melting glacial ice sheets change the ocean in a way that further accelerates the rate of ice melt and sea level rise.Led by IMAS PhD student Alessandro Silvano and published in […]

WHO report: 90 per cent of world population breathes polluted air

2 May 2018 (UN News) – In a call for Member States to take action urgently, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Gebreyesus, warned that air pollution “threatens us all, but the poorest and most marginalized people bear the brunt of the burden.”According to WHO’s ambient air quality database, despite some improvements, pollution levels […]

UN forest accounting loophole allows CO2 underreporting by EU, UK, US – “There may not be a pathway to 1.5 degrees anymore — at all. Carbon capture and storage is a fantasy.”

By Justin Catanoso 2 May 2018 (Mongabay) – For the past ten years, Mary Booth, an ecologist with the Partnership for Policy Integrity in Pelham, Massachusetts, has immersed herself in the complex, nuanced, politically charged world of international carbon emissions accounting models as if the planet’s fate depends on it. In many ways, it does. […]

Glacier loss is accelerating because of global warming

By John Abraham 18 April 2018 (The Guardian) – With global warming, we can make predictions and then take measurements to test those predictions. One prediction (a pretty obvious one) is that a warmer world will have less snow and ice. In particular, areas that have year-round ice and snow will start to melt. Alpine […]

Alaska sea ice took a steep, unprecedented dive to record low in winter 2018 – “There’s never ever been anything remotely like this for sea ice in the Bering Sea”

By Andrea Thompson 2 May 2018 (Scientific American) – April should be prime walrus hunting season for the native villages that dot Alaska’s remote western coast. In years past the winter sea ice where the animals rest would still be abundant, providing prime targets for subsistence hunters. But this year sea-ice coverage as of late […]

Florida kids sue Gov. Rick Scott over climate change: You have “moral obligation” to protect us

By Georgina Gustin 16 April 2018 (Inside Climate News) – Eight young Floridians, ages 10 to 19, sued their state and its climate-policy-averse governor on Monday for failing to protect residents from the impacts of a warming climate.They say they already see signs of climate change around them—from powerful hurricanes to extreme heat waves to […]

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