“Dodgy” greenhouse gas data threatens Paris accord – “We see methane going up. The warming impact from that methane is enough to derail Paris”

By Matt McGrath 7 August 2017 (BBC News) – Potent, climate warming gases are being emitted into the atmosphere but are not being recorded in official inventories, a BBC investigation has found. Air monitors in Switzerland have detected large quantities of one gas coming from a location in Italy. However, the Italian submission to the […]

Image of the Day: Satellite view of plankton bloom in Washington’s Hood Canal, 31 July 2017

By Kathryn Hansen 2 August 2017 (NASA) – Looking over the edge of a boat, it would be easy to mistake the jewel-toned waters for the Caribbean Sea. But you are more likely to find geoducks and barnacles than you are to find grouper and white sandy beaches. In the Pacific Northwest, the water does […]

U.S. federal department is censoring use of term “climate change”, emails reveal – “These records reveal Trump’s active censorship of science in the name of his political agenda”

By Oliver Milman 7 August 2017NEW YORK (The Guardian) – Staff at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have been told to avoid using the term climate change in their work, with the officials instructed to reference “weather extremes” instead.A series of emails obtained by the Guardian between staff at the Natural Resources Conservation Service […]

Toxic waste from U.S. pot farms alarms experts – “They are like superfund sites”

By Sharon Bernstein; editing by Ben Klayman and Richard Chang 6 August 2017 WEAVERVILLE, California (Reuters) – Pollution from illegal marijuana farms deep in California’s national forests is far worse than previously thought, and has turned thousands of acres into waste dumps so toxic that simply touching plants has landed law enforcement officers in the […]

Global warming causing suicides in India as crops fail – “The tragedy is unfolding today. This is not a problem for future generations. This is our problem, right now.”

By Kathleen Maclay 31 July 2017 (Berkeley News) – Climate change has already caused more than 59,000 suicides in India over the last 30 years, according to estimates in a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that suggests failing harvests that push farmers into poverty are likely the […]

Gulf of Mexico dead zone is the largest ever measured

2 August 2017 (NOAA) – Scientists have determined this year’s Gulf of Mexico “dead zone,” an area of low oxygen that can kill fish and marine life, is 8,776 square miles, an area about the size of New Jersey. It is the largest measured since dead zone mapping began there in 1985.The measured size is […]

As once-mighty Cauvery River dies, India could be facing its “greatest human catastrophe” ever

By Desmond Ng and Tamal Mukherjee 25 July 2017 INDIA (Channel New Asia) – Much of the once bountiful and lush-green rice fields was reduced to a dry, yellow-brown landscape, after successive years of scanty rainfall and severe drought. For farmer Mr Vijayakumar, 52, the rice crop was his family’s sole source of income. Hit […]

Loss of fertile land fuels looming crisis across Africa – “We are basically reaching the end of the road”

By Jeffery Gettleman 29 July 2017 LAIKIPIA, Kenya (The New York Times) – The two elders, wearing weather-beaten cowboy hats with the strings cinched under their chins, stood at the edge of an empty farm, covering their mouths in disbelief. Their homes — neat wooden cabins — had been smashed open. All their cattle had […]

Global tree cover loss remains high – In 2015, the world lost nearly 20 million hectares of tree cover, an area the size of Uganda

By Mikaela Weisse, Elizabeth Dow Goldman, Nancy Harris, Matt Hansen, Peter Potapov, and Svetlana Turubanova 17 July 2017 (World Resources Institute) – Global Forest Watch released new satellite-based data showing how forests around the world changed in the year 2015. The data, produced through the analysis of roughly a million satellite images by the University […]

After months of water rationing, Nairobi may run dry – “Our underground rivers have dried up”

By Cathy Watson 24 July 2017 (The Guardian) – For the team managing Nairobi’s water, the stakes have never been so high. Water-rationing has been going on in Kenya’s capital since 1 January 2017, and supplies might run dry by September. The last two rainy seasons were dismal; more rain is not expected until October […]

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