Blogging the End of the World™
By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica21 June 2012 Over the past several decades, U.S. industries have injected more than 30 trillion gallons of toxic liquid deep into the earth, using broad expanses of the nation’s geology as an invisible dumping ground. No company would be allowed to pour such dangerous chemicals into the rivers or onto the […]
Contact: Janet Lathrop, 413-545-044421 June 2012 AMHERST, Massachusetts – First analyses of the longest sediment core ever collected on land in the terrestrial Arctic, published this week in Science, provide documentation that intense warm intervals, warmer than scientists thought possible, occurred there over the past 2.8 million years. (“2.8 Million Years of Arctic Climate Change […]
[It’s been awhile since Desdemona has had an update on this story; here are previous posts on the Asian carp invasion.] By Dan Egan of the Journal Sentinel18 June 2012 While it’s been nearly two years since crews landed the only live Asian carp specimen above an electric barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship […]
By NEAL PEIRCE, Times-Dispatch 17 June 2012 HONOLULU – An Asian century, an urban century — the rise of the East and the role of such expansive urban giants as Shanghai are emblematic of popular assessments of where the world’s economy is heading. But talk with Roland Fuchs of the East-West Center in Honolulu and […]
By Rohit Kachroo, NBC News in Niger, West Africa19 June 2012 One-and-a-half-million children are in imminent danger of starvation in West Africa, according to The United Nations Children’s Fund, despite recent pledges of international aid. As world leaders gathered for the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development, aid workers warned there were only four weeks left […]
By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor19 June 2012 A population of chinstrap penguins is feeling the heat, with more than one-third of a breeding colony lost in the past 20 years, new research finds. A warming planet, which is causing sea ice in Antarctica (and elsewhere) to melt, may ultimately be to blame for the […]
By HIROKO TABUCHI19 June 2012 TOKYO – The United States shared detailed radiation measurements with Japan in the early days of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster that the Japanese government did not make public or use in conducting evacuations, officials acknowledged on Tuesday. Lacking information about the direction of airborne particles, some evacuees fled, […]
20 June 2012 (BBC) – China has warned that the decline in its rare earth reserves in major mining areas is “accelerating”, as most of the original resources are depleted. In a policy paper, China’s cabinet blamed excessive exploitation and illegal mining for the decline. China accounts for more than 90% of the world’s rare […]
This map shows the percentage increases in very heavy precipitation (defined as the heaviest 1 percent of all event) from 1958 to 2007 for each U.S. region. There are clear trends toward more very heavy precipitation for the nation as a whole, and particularly in the Northeast and Midwest. Updated from Groisman, et al., via […]
By Matt Vande Bunte15 June 2012 GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan – Without uniform agreement that the globe is warming or that people are causing it, the Christian Reformed Church’s governing body this week asserted that “human-induced climate change is an ethical, social justice, and religious issue.” Synod 2012 also stated that the church should “take private […]
