Blogging the End of the World™
By Paul Rogers22 February 2016 (Santa Cruz Sentinel) – Even in the midst of a strong El Niño, California’s sunny weather this February is not surprising, experts say: The longest dry spell this month — 14 days — is actually less than the average for a strong El Niño winter. But state water officials said […]
By Liam Fox and Michael Walsh24 February 2016 (ABC) – The death toll from super-cyclone Winston that hit Fiji on the weekend has reached 42, with reports emerging entire villages have been wiped out on some remote islands. The Fijian Government confirmed the death toll, saying it feared the number would rise further as relief […]
23 February 2016 (UN) – Refugees and migrants crossing the seas of Southeast Asia died at a rate three times higher than those in the Mediterranean last year, a new United Nations report has found, highlighting the urgency of greater life-saving cooperation among the affected States. The report, Mixed Maritime Movements in South-East Asia, from […]
By Ksenia Galouchko and Henry Meyer23 February 2016 (Bloomberg) – For a decade, Dmitri Barinov has been following the volatile economy of his homeland from the safe distance of Union Investment’s offices in Frankfurt. Last year, as other money managers were steering clear of Russia’s broken economy, the Moscow-born Barinov pulled off something of a […]
By Steve Featherstone22 February 2016 (Popular Science) – A 50-foot wall of water spawned by the quake exploded over Daiichi’s seawall, swamping backup diesel generators. Four of six nuclear reactors on-site experienced a total blackout. In the days that followed, three of them melted down, spewing enormous amounts of radiation into the air and sea […]
23 February 2016 (BBC News) – At least 3,000 barrels of crude oil have been spilled in an Amazonian region after leaks from Peru’s main oil pipeline, the state oil company said. The oil has polluted two rivers that at least eight indigenous communities rely on for water, the government and indigenous leaders said. Petroperu […]
By Zahra Hirji, 22 February 2016 (InsideClimate News) – More than 100 geoscientists are calling on the American Geophysical Union to drop ExxonMobil as a sponsor of its annual earth science conference in response to the company’s years of spreading climate denial views. The call appeared in an open letter posted Monday morning on a […]
19 February 2016 (UN) – The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today highlighted the publication of a new study that quantifies, for the first time, how much crop yields depend on the work of bees that unknowingly fertilize plants as they move from flower to flower. In doing so, the agency says bees […]
18 February 2016By Sam Carana (Arctic News) – An earlier post wondered whether maximum extent for this year had already been reached on 9 February 2016, when sea ice extent was 14.214 million km2. As illustrated by the image above, extent since has been lower, including on the two most recent days on the image, […]
21 February 2016 (AccuWeather.com) – Fiji took a direct hit by Tropical Cyclone Winston, the strongest tropical cyclone to strike the island nation. Winston remains the equivalent of an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane in the eastern Pacific or Atlantic basins or a super typhoon in the western Pacific Ocean. According to a blog by […]
