Clean energy won’t save us – only a new economic system can

By Jason Hickel15 July 2016 (Guardian) – Earlier this year, media outlets around the world announced that February had broken global temperature records by a shocking amount. March broke all the records too. In June, our screens were covered with surreal images of flooding in Paris, the Seine bursting its banks and flowing into the […]

Lawns are a soul-crushing timesuck and most of us would be better off without them

By Christopher Ingraham 4 August 2015 (Washington Post) – A recent essay by an Ohio woman who refuses to mow her lawn has struck a nerve. Thirteen hundred people have weighed in with a comment on Sarah Baker’s tale of flouting a neighborhood mowing ordinance in the face of a $1,000 fine. As Baker notes […]

Amid epic drought, villagers bitter over Zimbabwe ethanol plant

By Andrew Mambondiyani28 July 2016 (mongabay.com) – Lyben Minyizeya’s homestead in Chisumbanje in eastern Zimbabwe resembles a dumpsite for disused tractors and other agricultural equipment. The broken and rusty machinery reminds him of the good old farming days. In this farming community near the border with Mozambique, it is sizzling hot in summer. Baobab, acacia, […]

2015 State of the Climate: El Niño came, saw, and conquered

By Rebecca Lindsey2 August 2016 (NOAA) – A record-smashing hurricane season in the central North Pacific. Water rationing in Puerto Rico. The biggest one-year jump in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations on record. Severe drought in Ethiopia. The hottest global surface temperature—by one of the largest margins—on record. Those are just a few of 2015’s major […]

June deforestation in Brazilian Amazon doubled over same period in 2015

[Translation by Bing Translator.] 22 July 2016 (Imazon) – In June 2016, SAD detected 972 square kilometers of deforestation (the total destruction of forest for other alternative uses of the soil) in the Amazon, with a cloud coverage of 16% of the territory. This represented an increase of 97% over June 2015 when deforestation amounted […]

Will replacing thirsty lawns with drought-tolerant plants make L.A. hotter?

By Deborah Netburn2 August 2016 (Los Angeles Times) – Last summer, a revolution occurred in Los Angeles landscaping: Across the city, tens of thousands of homeowners tore up their water-thirsty lawns and replaced them with gravel, turf, decomposed granite and a wide range of drought-tolerant plants at a rate never seen before. The water-saving benefits […]

15 fire-linked firms escape prosecution in Indonesia’s Riau – ‘The clearing of land for oil palm plantations is still ongoing to this day’

By Philip Jacobson28 July 2016 (mongabay.com) – On July 23 the local police headquarters in the Sumatran province of Riau released SP3 notices related to 15 companies that the Ministry of Environment and Forestry had listed in connection with last year’s fires. A SP3 is an official police document that confirms a case has been […]

Food crisis in Southern Africa after two consecutive seasons of droughts, including worst in 35 years – Race against time to ensure 23 million people receive farm aid

28 July 2016, Rome (FAO) – With only a few weeks before land preparation begins for the next main cropping season, some 23 million people in Southern Africa urgently need support to produce enough food to feed themselves and thus avoid being dependent on humanitarian assistance until mid 2018, FAO said today. A FAO-prepared response […]

Crisis on high: In the Himalayas, a climate disaster is unfolding that will impact the lives of more than 1 billion people

By Matthew Carney; photography by Wayne McAllister25 July 2016 (ABC News) – Deep in the Himalayas sits a remote research station that is tracking an alarming trend in climate change, with implications that could disrupt the lives of more than one billion people and pitch the most populated region of the world into chaos. The […]

NOAA scientists report mass die-off of invertebrates at East Flower Garden Bank in Gulf of Mexico

1 August 2016 (Science Blog) – On Monday, sport divers on the M/V Fling, diving in the Gulf of Mexico 100 miles offshore of Texas and Louisiana, were stunned to find green, hazy water, huge patches of ugly white mats coating corals and sponges, and dead animals littering the bottom on the East Flower Garden […]

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