Blogging the End of the World™
By Brad Plumer11 February 2014 (Washington Post) – There have been five mass extinction events in Earth’s history. In the worst one, 250 million years ago, 96 percent of marine species and 70 percent of land species died off. It took millions of years to recover. Nowadays, many scientists are predicting that we’re on pace […]
February 2014 (UCS) – Back in 2012, after the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National Review each published pieces that likened climate scientist Michael E. Mann to a child molester and called his work a fraud, Mann fought back with a lawsuit, charging them with libel. Now, in a preliminary ruling, a Superior Court Judge […]
11 February 2014 (Japan Times) – Tokyo Electric Power Co. did not tell the public until recently that massively high levels of radiation were found in groundwater collected last July at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, even though the utility was aware of the data that month, according to sources. Tepco released the data […]
By Matt Pearce11 February 2014 (Los Angeles Times) – President Obama declared a state of emergency in Georgia on Tuesday as the southern state awaited what the National Weather Service called a potentially “crippling” ice and snow storm “of historical proportions.” The roads in Atlanta, usually clogged with traffic, were unusually quiet at midday Tuesday […]
1 February 2014 (World Bulletin) – Even by Brazilian standards – man, it’s hot. January was the hottest month on record in parts of Brazil including its biggest city, São Paulo. The heat, plus a severe drought, has kindled fears of water shortages, crop damage and higher electricity bills that could drag down the economy […]
By Thomas Moore, Science Correspondent 11 February 2014 (Sky News ) – Scientists have told Sky News that groundwater levels are now so high that parts of Britain face a serious risk of flooding for weeks or even months to come. Andy McKenzie, a groundwater scientist at the British Geological Survey, told Sky News that […]
By Suzanne Goldenberg 8 February 2014 (The Observer) – On 17 January 2014, scientists downloaded fresh data from a pair of NASA satellites and distributed the findings among the small group of researchers who track the world’s water reserves. At the University of California, Irvine, hydrologist James Famiglietti looked over the data from the gravity-sensing […]
10 February 2014 (BBC News) – Flooded homes along the River Thames are being evacuated and thousands more are at risk, with water levels expected to keep rising for the next 24 hours. Residents in one Berkshire village say the scenes are from a “horror movie”. Fourteen severe flood warnings are in place in Berkshire […]
By Loren Bell, Mongabay-Indonesia contributor 10 February 2014 (mongabay.com) – Protecting large, isolated areas of no-take zones for over 10 years with strong enforcement is the key to effective Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), according to a letter published this week in Nature. However, 59% of all MPAs meet less than three of the five criteria, […]
10 February 2014 (mongabay.com) – 365-988 million birds are killed in the U.S. each year in collisions with buildings, estimates a review published last month in the journal The Condor: Ornithological Applications. The research, based on some 92,869 records across 23 studies, finds that low-rise buildings (56 percent) and residences (44 percent) rather than skyscrapers […]
