Blogging the End of the World™
By Tanya Dimitrova 24 August 2014 (mongabay.com) – Scientists have discovered a new snail species on a limestone hill near a cement quarry in Malaysia, which as far as they know lives nowhere else in the world. The animal’s shell is only one tenth of an inch in size. “Narrow endemic species are a common […]
By Katia Moskvitch31 July 2014 (Nature) – A mystery crater spotted in the frozen Yamal peninsula in Siberia earlier this month was probably caused by methane released as permafrost thawed, researchers in Russia say. Air near the bottom of the crater contained unusually high concentrations of methane — up to 9.6% — in tests conducted […]
By Rong-Gong Lin II21 August 2014 (Los Angeles Times) – The ongoing drought in the western United States has caused so much loss of groundwater that the Earth, on average, has lifted up about 0.16 inches over the last 18 months, according to a new study. The situation was even worse in the snow-starved mountains […]
By Ethan Elkind 18 August 2014 (Legal Planet) – Dr. Michael Mann, one of the country’s leading climate scientists, has been harassed, threatened, and berated for his views that human actions are contributing to global climate change. But not just from anonymous commenters on websites — from leading publications like the National Review Online. After […]
Reporters: Ken Armstrong, Justin Mayo, Mike Baker and Jim BrunnerInteractive: Thomas WilburnGraphics: Mark NowlinEditor: Beth KaimanJuly 2014 (Seattle Times) – The decades preceding the deadly landslide near Oso reflect a shifting landscape with one human constant: Even as warnings mounted, people kept moving in. This interactive graphic tells that story, starting in 1887. Thirteen aerial […]
By Rose Hackman 17 August 2014 (theguardian.com) – Detroit police chief James Craig – nicknamed “Hollywood” for his years spent in the LAPD and his seeming love of being in front of the camera – has repeatedly called on “good” and “law-abiding” Detroiters to arm themselves against criminals in the city. His words have not […]
By Josh Sanburn2 August 2014 (TIME) – The suburbs aren’t the middle-class haven many imagine them to be as new numbers show 16.5 million suburban Americans are living beneath the poverty line. Colorado Springs is often included on lists of the best places to live in America thanks to its 250 days of sun a […]
By Brian Merchant1 August 2014 (Vice) – This week, scientists made a disturbing discovery in the Arctic Ocean: They saw “vast methane plumes escaping from the seafloor,” as the Stockholm University put it in a release disclosing the observations. The plume of methane—a potent greenhouse gas that traps heat more powerfully than carbon dioxide, the […]
By Christopher Pala21 August 2014 (The Atlantic) – Mikarite Temari, the mayor of Christmas Island, Kiribati’s largest atoll, rolled his eyes and shook his head as I read off my laptop in his office what his president, Anote Tong, had said during a visit to New York. “According to the science and the projections,” Tong, […]
By ADAM FRANK21 August 2013 ROCHESTER (The New York Times) – IN 1982, polls showed that 44 percent of Americans believed God had created human beings in their present form. Thirty years later, the fraction of the population who are creationists is 46 percent. In 1989, when “climate change” had just entered the public lexicon, […]
