Blogging the End of the World™
By Te-Ping Chen, James T. Areddy, and James Hookway 24 November 2013 TACLOBAN, Philippines (The Wall Street Journal) – Framed by mountains and facing the deep sapphire waters of the Pacific Ocean, Tacloban was a city on the rise. The bustling provincial capital had a busy port and seaside cathedrals, and is just a few […]
By Jeff Barbee and Mira Dutschke in Nata, Botswana, David Smith in Johannesburg 17 November 2013 (The Guardian) – Botswana has been accused of sacrificing the Kalahari, one of the world’s most precious wildlife reserves, to commercial fracking while ignoring the concerns of environmentalists and communities who could lose access to scarce water. Hydraulic fracturing, […]
17 November 2013 (Jewish News One) – Newly released video filmed by an aid worker shows the storm surge caused by Typhoon Haiyan on 8 November 2013, with two big waves hitting Hernani town in the Philippines. He, along with five others, took refuge in the top floor of a boarding house and said that […]
By Brian Bienkowski and Environmental Health News22 Novenber 2013 Only about half of the prescription drugs and other newly emerging contaminants in sewage are removed by treatment plants. That’s the finding of a new report by the International Joint Commission, a consortium of officials from the United States and Canada who study the Great Lakes. […]
WASHINGTON, 23 November 2013 (AP) – A major U.S. power company has pleaded guilty to killing eagles and other birds at two Wyoming wind farms and agreed to pay $1 million as part of the first enforcement of environmental laws protecting birds against wind energy facilities. Until the settlement announced Friday with Duke Energy Corp. […]
By James West19 November 2013 (Mother Jones) – When Japan dramatically slashed its plans last week for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, from 25 percent to just 3.8 percent compared to 2005 figures, the international reaction was swift and damning. Britain called it “deeply disappointing.” China’s climate negotiator, Su Wei, said, “I have no […]
By Ben Jervey21 November 2013 WARSAW, Poland (Grist) – For the first time ever, environmental groups have staged a mass walkout of a U.N. climate summit. Citing immense frustration with the lack of productive action in the COP19 climate talks, which have been dogged by a persistent rift between rich and poor countries on the […]
By Brad Plumer14 November 2013 (Washington Post) – From a new study in the journal Science: the first effort to quantify in detail how forests are changing and disappearing over the past decade. The research team, led by the University of Maryland, used Landsat satellite images and Google’s Earth Engine to assemble detailed new maps. […]
20 November 2013 (UNOCHA) – The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) estimates that 13.25 million people have been affected by Typhoon Haiyan (known locally as Yolanda), including about 5.4 million children, many of whom face serious protection, health and safety risks. In total, over 4.4 million people have been displaced, including over 1 […]
By Nina Chestney; Editing by Louise Heavens18 November 2013 WARSAW (Reuters) – Global economic losses caused by extreme weather events have risen to nearly $200 billion a year over the last decade and look set to increase further as climate change worsens, a report by the World Bank showed on Monday. A United Nations’ panel […]
