By Dan Turner18 September 2012 As the signs that the world is warming grow ever more unmistakable, one of the ironies of the American political debate on the topic is that leaders in the states being most heavily affected are often those least inclined to do anything about it, or even acknowledge that there’s a […]
Contact Kim Fulton-Bennett, kfb@mbari.org, (831) 775-1835 21 September 2012 Chasing gas bubbles in the Beaufort Sea In the remote, ice-shrouded Beaufort Sea, methane (the main component of natural gas) has been bubbling out of the seafloor for thousands of years. MBARI geologist Charlie Paull and his colleagues at the Geological Survey of Canada are trying […]
By JESS BIDGOOD and KIRK JOHNSON13 September 2012 BOSTON – The Commerce Department on Thursday issued a formal disaster declaration for the Northeastern commercial groundfish fishery, paving the way for financial relief for the battered industry and the communities that depend on it. To many here, the declaration underscored the urgency of a groundfish depletion […]
By Michael Walsh, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS 26 August 2012 (New York Daily News) – Ignited by lightning strikes two months ago, a massive fire rages in Alaska and shrouds the surrounding area beneath a dark blanket of smoke. The Dry Creek Fire has ravished over 42,000 acres near the Tanana River. Ominous clouds of […]
By Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post 5 August 2012 POINT HOPE, Alaska – Fermented whale’s tail doesn’t taste the same when the ice cellars flood. Whaling crews in this Arctic coast village store six feet of tail — skin, blubber and bone — underground from spring until fall. The tail freezes slowly while fermenting and […]
By Alison Singer; Edited by Antonia Sohns26 July 2012 Rezaul Karim Chowdhury is from Kutubdia, a Bangladeshi island in the Bay of Bengal. When Chowdhury was younger, the palm-dotted tropical island spanned 65 square kilometers, but rising sea levels and erosion have since shrunk it by more than half, to only 25 square kilometers. With […]
By CORNELIA DEAN23 July 2012 WHITEHORSE, Yukon Territory – […] Today, as the road now known as the Alaska Highway celebrates its 70th birthday, cars and trucks flash along what Wally Hidinger calls “a very good standard two-lane highway” from Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to Fairbanks, Alaska. “Our mantra is bare, dry pavement 365 days […]
By Suzanne Gamboa20 July 2012 WASHINGTON (AP) – Native American and Alaska Native leaders told of their villages being under water because of coastal erosion, droughts, and more on Thursday during a Senate hearing intended to draw attention to how climate change is affecting tribal communities. The environmental changes being seen in native communities are […]
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, 12 July 2012 (AP) – Even by Alaska standards, the rock slide in Glacier Bay National Park was a huge event. It was a monumental geophysical event that was almost overlooked until a pilot happened to fly over where the cliff collapsed and snapped some photographs nearly a month later. When the cliff […]
By Lorraine Jessepe 21 June 2012 LINCOLN, Nebraska – Native peoples are no stranger to forced relocation. It is a bitter chapter in the history of North American tribal peoples. Now, the 21st century version of Native relocation has emerged in Alaska, this time, as a consequence of man-made climate change. Climate-induced relocation is cited […]
