Blogging the End of the World™
By Andrew Freedman20 March 2014 (Mashable) – It’s been exactly 29 years — or 348 consecutive months — since the last cooler-than-average month on this planet, according to new data released on Wednesday morning. The data, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), reflects the warming trend seen around the world during the past […]
By Dana Nuccitelli 19 March 2014 (Guardian) – John Stanley (J.S.) Sawyer was a British meteorologist born in 1916. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1962, and was also a Fellow of the Meteorological Society and the organization’s president from 1963 to 1965. A paper [pdf] authored by Sawyer and published […]
By Rachel Nuwer 14 March 2014 (Smithsonian Magazine) – Nearly 30 years have passed since the Chernobyl plant exploded and caused an unprecedented nuclear disaster. The effects of that catastrophe, however, are still felt today. Although no people live in the extensive exclusion zones around the epicenter, animals and plants still show signs of radiation […]
By Tim Radford20 March 2014 (Climate News Network) – Methane or natural gas is a greenhouse gas. Weight for weight, it is more than 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a century, and researchers have repeatedly examined the contribution of natural gas emitted by ruminant cattle to global warming. But Gabriel Yvon-Durocher […]
By Scott Cohn and Brad Quick21 March 2014 (NBC News) – The first thing you notice at the Spring Creek mine in Decker, Montana, is the size. It’s a sprawling, 9,000-acre site in Big Sky Country near the Wyoming line. Giant coal hauling trucks the size of two-story buildings zip around the complex with surprising […]
20 March 2014 (AAP) – The Abbott government has failed in its first bid to scrap the carbon tax, with the Senate refusing to pass a package of bills to repeal the Gillard-era climate change policy. After three months of debate, the package of nine bills was finally put to a vote in the upper […]
WASHINGTON, 18 March 2014 (ANI) – A new UN report suggests that climate change will displace hundreds of millions of people by the end of this century, increasing the risk of violent conflict and wiping trillions of dollars off the global economy. The second of three publications by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, […]
By Peter Hannam, Environment Editor21 March 2014 (Sydney Morning Herald) – Sydney faces the chance of more thunderstorms on Friday and over the weekend as the city’s run of record warm weather heads towards a third week. Parts of the western suburbs and the Blue Mountains are likely to see thunderstorm activity from late morning […]
By Bryan Walsh 20 March 2014 (TIME) – The first day of spring is finally here, even if it doesn’t feel that way in much of the still frigid East. Of course, the official beginning of spring has less to do with the weather than it does with Earth’s orbit around the sun—the vernal equinox […]
By CARL HULSE and ASHLEY PARKER20 March 2014 WASHINGTON (The New York Times) – Americans for Prosperity — the group backed by David H. and Charles G. Koch that has been pouring millions of dollars into competitive Senate races to the rising alarm of Democrats — was also among the politically active groups on the […]