Blogging the End of the World™
By STEVEN LEE MYERSPublished: June 12, 2010 SIBA, Iraq — The Shatt al Arab, the river that flows from the biblical site of the Garden of Eden to the Persian Gulf, has turned into an environmental and economic disaster that Iraq’s newly democratic government is almost powerless to fix. Withered by decades of dictatorial mismanagement […]
By MarketWatch SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — BP’s annus horribilus just got a little more horrible. So did the Gulf’s. Three weeks ago, a handful of scientists watching grainy video shot at 5,000 feet beneath the sea suggested that BP’s ruptured wellhead was disgorging up to 25,000 barrels of crude a day into the Gulf of […]
PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. — BP won permission to start burning oil and gas piped up from its broken seafloor well, one step toward fulfilling a pledge to more than triple how much crude it stops from spewing into the Gulf of Mexico. Federal authorities gave permission late Monday for BP PLC to use a new […]
By Dmitry OrlovTuesday, June 15, 2010 In all of the descriptions of perilous situations that I have studied, arising during adventures on the high seas or in the high mountains, or during armed conflict, a single mistake rarely proves fatal. More often than not, death comes as a result of a sequence of bad choices […]
By Joe Romm NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center has published its monthly “State of the Climate Report.” The combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for May, March-May (Northern Hemisphere spring-Southern Hemisphere autumn), and the period January-May. The warming in May is greatest precisely where climate science suggested it would […]
Associated PressJune 15, 2010, 8:42AM GRAND ISLE, La. — The Coast Guard says it found a shrimper working in an area closed because of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, confiscated 19,000 pounds of white shrimp and put it all back in the water. Petty Officer Casey Ranel says the shrimp were live when returned […]
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSONPublished: June 14, 2010 GRAND ISLE, La. — Deano Bonano, the emergency preparedness director for Jefferson Parish, marched from a motor home being used as a command center to an office across the street filled with BP officials. It was late May. Oil had been creeping into the passes around Grand Isle. Two […]
This figure shows annual change in latitude of bird center of abundance for 305 widespread bird species in North America from 1966 to 2005. Each winter is represented by the year in which it began (for example, winter 2005–2006 is shown as 2005). The shaded band shows the likely range of values, based on the […]
By PHUONG LEASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER TACOMA, Wash. — Motoring along the Thea Foss Waterway one morning, researcher Julie Masura dropped a fine-mesh net into the water and skimmed the surface for plastic debris. Candy wrappers, a plastic cup, a grocery bag floated by, but the University of Washington researcher was in search of smaller items: […]
By Jeremy Hancewww.mongabay.com June 13, 2010 The Indonesian government failed to live up to its promises to reduce fires across the tropical nation last year. Instead a 2009 State Environment Report showed a 59 percent rise of fire hotspots from 19,192 in 2008 to 32,416 last year, as reported by The Jakarta Post. Officials say […]
