Blogging the End of the World™
The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. […]
March 25, 2009 — Fish caught near wastewater treatment plants serving five major U.S. cities had residues of pharmaceuticals in them, including medicines used to treat high cholesterol, allergies, high blood pressure, bipolar disorder and depression, researchers reported Wednesday. Findings from this first nationwide study of human drugs in fish tissue have prompted the Environmental […]
During 2008 and early 2009, Endangered Species International (ESI) conducted monitoring activities using undercover methods at key markets in the city of Pointe Noire, the second biggest city in Congo. Findings reveal that 95 percent of the illegal bushmeat sold originates from the Kouilou region about 100-150 km northwest to Pointe Noire where primary and […]
From Calculated Risk: The graph shows monthly vehicle sales (autos and trucks) as reported by the BEA at a Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR). This shows that sales have plunged to a 9.29 million annual rate in February; the lowest since Dec 1981. March 2009 sales will be down sharply from March 2008 too, but […]
by Joe Romm In this post, I will examine the key impacts we face by 2100 if we stay anywhere near our current emissions path. I will focus primarily on: Staggeringly high temperature rise, especially over land — some 15°F over much of the United States Sea level rise of 5 feet, rising some 6 […]
COLLEGE STATION, March 24, 2009 – Researchers led by a Texas A&M University professor have discovered coral beds off the coast of Hawaii that are more than 4,200 years old, making them among the oldest living creatures on Earth. The team, directed by Brendan Roark of Texas A&M’s College of Geosciences, and colleagues from the […]
Large size and a fast bite spelled doom for bony fishes during the last mass extinction 65 million years ago, according to a new study to be published March 31, 2009, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Today, those same features characterize large predatory bony fishes, such as tuna and billfishes, that […]
God will not intervene to prevent humanity from wreaking disastrous damage to the environment, the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned. In a lecture, Dr Rowan Williams urged a “radical change of heart” to prevent runaway climate change. At York Minster he said humanity should turn away from the selfishness and greed that leads it to […]
by Fred Pearce, environment correspondent for New Scientist “I AM shocked, truly shocked,” says Katey Walter, an ecologist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. “I was in Siberia a few weeks ago, and I am now just back in from the field in Alaska. The permafrost is melting fast all over the Arctic, lakes […]
Warm summers are dramatically reducing populations of daddy long legs, which in turn is having a severe impact on the bird populations which rely on them for food. New research by a team of bird experts, including Newcastle University’s Dr Mark Whittingham, spells out for the first time how climate change may affect upland bird […]
