Blogging the End of the World™
By Abrahm Lustgarten18 July 2014 (ProPublica) – California officials have ordered an emergency shut-down of 11 oil and gas waste injection sites and a review more than 100 others in the state’s drought-wracked Central Valley out of fear that companies may have been pumping fracking fluids and other toxic waste into drinking water aquifers […]
By Ryan McNeill; editing by John Blanton28 July 2014 (Reuters) – Flooding is increasing in frequency along much of the U.S. coast, and the rate of increase is accelerating along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts, a team of federal government scientists found in a study released Monday. The study examined how often 45 […]
By Jenny Staletovich13 July 2014 (Miami Herald) – One of the world’s rarest forests, a section of Miami-Dade County’s last intact tracts of endangered pine rockland, is getting a new resident: a Walmart. About 88 acres of rockland, a globally imperiled habitat containing a menagerie of plants, animals and insects found no place else, was […]
By Alana Semuels16 July 2014 DETROIT (Los Angeles Times) – In the year since this city filed for bankruptcy, becoming the largest municipality ever to do so, leaders have adopted a more optimistic tone about the future, pledging to fix streetlights and attract new residents and jobs.. But Eric Byrd isn’t buying it. “No change […]
24 June 2014 (Global Oceans Commission) – The main drivers leading to overfishing on the high seas are vessel overcapacity and mismanagement. However, measures to improve management alone will not succeed without solving the problem of overcapacity caused by subsidies, particularly fuel subsidies. Overcapacity is often described as “too many boats trying to catch too […]
By Jonathan Brown20 July 2014 (The Independent) – When they emerged from the forest on the outskirts of an Ashaninka indigenous community on the upper reaches of Brazil’s Envira river, it was the first time in recent history that members of an uncontacted tribe of Amazonian Indians had chosen to leave their home and visit […]
By Janaki Lenin15 July 2014 (mongabay.com) – In 1983, Sri Lanka became embroiled in a 26-year-long civil war in which a rebel militant organization fought to establish an independent state called Tamil Eelam. The war took an enormous human toll; unknown numbers disappeared and millions more were displaced. Economic development stagnated in the rebel-held north […]
By DON THOMPSON15 July 2014 SACRAMENTO, California (AP) – In one of the most drastic responses yet to California’s drought, state regulators on Tuesday will consider fines up to $500 a day for people who waste water on landscaping, fountains, washing vehicles and other outdoor uses. The rules would prohibit the watering of landscaping to […]
By Will Oremus9 July 2014 (Slate) – Las Vegas is parched. A 14-year drought has left Lake Mead, the local water source, dangerously low. It has dropped 100 feet in the past decade. If it drops 12 more feet, federal water rationing rules will kick in. Some climate scientists predict that will happen in the […]
“To the philosopher, the physician, the meteorologist and the chemist, there is perhaps no subject more attractive than that of ozone.” ~ C.B Fox, 1873 By Gail Zawacki11 July 2014 (Wit’s End) – There is a man who lives on the other side of my village (it is said) who one day, setting out for […]
