By Alan Neuhauser 5 November 2014 (U.S. News & World Report) – Smokey Bear may not know the half of it. As one of the longest and costliest wildfire seasons in U.S. history comes to a close, a new study asserts the way we’ve been attempting to prevent forest fires is “simply wrong.” “We don’t […]
By Joe Romm 31 October 2014 (Climate Progress) – An alarming satellite-based analysis from NASA finds that the world is depleting groundwater — the water stored unground in soil and aquifers — at an unprecedented rate. A new Nature Climate Change piece, “The global groundwater crisis,” by James Famiglietti, a leading hydrologist at the NASA […]
By Ellen Knickmeyer and John Locher18 August 2014 Ivanpah Dry Lake, California (Associated Press) – Workers at a state-of-the-art solar plant in the Mojave Desert have a name for birds that fly through the plant’s concentrated sun rays — “streamers,” for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair. Federal wildlife investigators […]
By Evan Halper and Ralph Vartabedian 25 October 2014 (Los Angeles Times) – California’s pioneering climate-change law has a long reach, but that doesn’t mean all its mandates will help stave off global warming. To meet the requirement that it cut carbon emissions, for example, Southern California Edison recently sold its stake in one of […]
By Jennifer Medina2 October 2014 PORTERVILLE, California (The New York Times) – After a nine-hour day working at a citrus packing plant, her body covered in a sheen of fruit wax and dust, there is nothing Angelica Gallegos wants more than a hot shower, with steam to help clear her throat and lungs. “I can […]
By Rory Carroll6 October 2014 Los Angeles (theguardian.com) – “Stay safe!” went the mantra, as tens of thousands of cyclists zipped around Los Angeles this weekend for CicLAvia, an event to celebrate public spaces. Fellow riders, pedestrians and police shouted it as much in greeting as exhortation since clearly the safest thing was to be […]
By Alan Heathcock22 September 2014 (Matter) – I speed along highway 99, the asphalt bleary under the high scorching sun. I’m heading to Kingsburg to speak with farmers about one of the worst recorded droughts in California history. I’m running late, a little lost. My GPS screen flickers. The electric-lady-voice instructs me to turn right, […]
By Jonathan Benson1 September 2014 (Natural News) – Water is increasingly hard to come by in drought-stricken California, where many farmers are struggling to get enough water just to pay the bills. But the situation in the Golden State is far worse than many people realize, according to new reports, as underground aquifers that take […]
RENO, Nevada, 21 September 2014 (Associated Press) – Forecasters say severe drought or worse will continue into next year across much of the West, including parts of western Utah, most of Nevada, and practically all of California. Below-normal precipitation and normal or above-normal temperatures are forecast in the week ahead, according to the National Weather […]
By Joseph Serna12 September 2014 (Los Angeles Times) – The first eight months of 2014 were the warmest on average in California’s history since record-keeping began in 1895, federal scientists announced this week. The average temperature was 62.6 degrees in California over the time period, coming in at 1.1 degrees hotter than the previous high […]
