New data show annual rate of deforestation in Brazilian Amazon is up for first time in five years

By Amel Ahmed11 September 2014 (Al Jazeera) – The rate of destruction blighting the world’s largest rain forest spiked by nearly a third last year, according to new data released by the Brazilian government. Satellite data showed that 2,315 square miles of forest had been cleared from the Brazilian Amazon in the 12 months through […]

Great Barrier Reef plan ‘like saving a sinking ship with a thimble’

15 September 2014By Amy Remeikis  (Brisbane Times) – It’s the 35-year plan designed to stave off UNESCO’s “in danger” rating and save the reef, but conservationists are already doubting it will work. Queensland Environment Minister Andrew Powell announced the Reef 2050 plan on Monday while the government was in Yeppoon for community cabinet. The plan, […]

After 90 percent decline, Federal protection sought for monarch butterfly – ‘The widespread decline of monarchs is driven by the massive spraying of herbicides on genetically engineered crops’

Contact:  Tierra Curry, Center for Biological Diversity, (928) 522-3681Abigail Seiler, Center for Food Safety, (443) 854-4368 Lincoln Brower, Sweet Briar College, (434) 277-5065Sarina Jepsen, Xerces Society, (971) 244-3727 26 August 2014 WASHINGTON (CBD) – The Center for Biological Diversity and Center for Food Safety as co-lead petitioners joined by the Xerces Society and renowned monarch […]

Scientists raise questions about the doomsday scenario that made one Pacific island leader spend millions on new land

By Christopher Pala21 August 2014 (The Atlantic) – Mikarite Temari, the mayor of Christmas Island, Kiribati’s largest atoll, rolled his eyes and shook his head as I read off my laptop in his office what his president, Anote Tong, had said during a visit to New York. “According to the science and the projections,” Tong, […]

40 million people depend on the Colorado River, and now it’s drying up – ‘Quite honestly, we are alarmed and concerned about the implications of our findings’

By Tom Philpott4 August 2014 (Mother Jones) – Science papers don’t generate much in the way of headlines, so you’ll be forgiven if you haven’t heard of one called “Groundwater Depletion During Drought Threatens Future Water Security of the Colorado River Basin,” recently published by University of California-Irvine and NASA researchers. But the “water security […]

Why California could run out of water in two years if the drought continues – ‘Pray for rain’

By Todd Woody 4 August 2014  (TakePart) – If anyone knows how dire the drought is, not just in California but throughout the Southwest of the United States, it’s Jay Famiglietti. A senior water cycle scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a professor at the University of California, Irvine, Famiglietti is frighteningly familiar with […]

California halts injection of fracking waste, warning it may be contaminating aquifers – State’s drought has forced farmers to rely on groundwater, even as aquifers have been intentionally polluted due to exemptions for oil industry

  By Abrahm Lustgarten18 July 2014 (ProPublica) – California officials have ordered an emergency shut-down of 11 oil and gas waste injection sites and a review more than 100 others in the state’s drought-wracked Central Valley out of fear that companies may have been pumping fracking fluids and other toxic waste into drinking water aquifers […]

Sri Lanka still losing forests at rapid rate, on track to ‘go beyond the critical point’

By Janaki Lenin15 July 2014 (mongabay.com) – In 1983, Sri Lanka became embroiled in a 26-year-long civil war in which a rebel militant organization fought to establish an independent state called Tamil Eelam. The war took an enormous human toll; unknown numbers disappeared and millions more were displaced. Economic development stagnated in the rebel-held north […]

Gail Zawacki: A fine frenzy ~ the universal dance of delusion … and the paucity of hope

“To the philosopher, the physician, the meteorologist and the chemist, there is perhaps no subject more attractive than that of ozone.” ~ C.B Fox, 1873 By Gail Zawacki11 July 2014 (Wit’s End) – There is a man who lives on the other side of my village (it is said) who one day, setting out for […]

Heartland water crisis: Why the planet depends on these Kansas farmers – ‘We need to make sure our grandkids and our great grandkids have the capacity to feed themselves’

By Brian Brown13 July 2014 MANHATTAN, Kansas (NBC News) – In America’s Breadbasket, a battle of ideas is underway on the most fundamental topics of all: food, water, and the future of the planet. Last August, in a still-echoing blockbuster study, Dave Steward, Ph.D., and his colleagues at Kansas State University, informed the $15 billion […]

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