How America lost its mind – “A third of us believe not only that global warming is no big deal but that it’s a hoax perpetrated by scientists, the government, and journalists”

By Kurt Andersen 8 August 2017 (The Atlantic) – When did America become untethered from reality?I first noticed our national lurch toward fantasy in 2004, after President George W. Bush’s political mastermind, Karl Rove, came up with the remarkable phrase reality-based community. People in “the reality-based community,” he told a reporter, “believe that solutions emerge […]

We’re choking on smoke in Seattle

By Lindy West 9 August 2017 SEATTLE (The New York Times) – The weather forecast for Seattle on Wednesday reads “89 degrees, smoke.” We first noticed the smoke, drifting down from wildfires still burning in British Columbia, around Aug. 2, just as a heat wave sent temperatures spiking well into the 90s (the historical average […]

Global warming blamed as EU forest fires treble in 2017

By Chris Harris 27 July 2017 (Euronews) – Exclusive: The number of forest fires in the EU has trebled so far this year, according to figures obtained by Euronews, affecting an area nearly the size of Luxembourg. There have been 677 blazes in 2017 – a huge increase on the 215 the bloc saw annually […]

Scientists fear Trump will dismiss blunt climate report by government agencies

By Lisa Friedmanaug 7 August 2017 WASHINGTON (The New York Times) – The average temperature in the United States has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades have been the warmest of the past 1,500 years, according to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval by the Trump administration. The draft report […]

Peru’s glaciers have made it a laboratory for adapting to global warming. It’s not going well.

By Nick Miroff  7 August 2017 LAKE PALCACOCHA, Peru (The Washington Post) – After a day of bright sunshine, a chunk of ice the size of a dump truck broke off the glacier on Mount Pucaranra a few weeks ago. It plunged into the lake below and kicked up a wave nine feet high. Victor […]

Earth likely to warm more than 2°C this century – “The most optimistic projections are unlikely to happen”

By Hannah Hickey 31 July 2017(UW News) – Warming of the planet by 2 degrees Celsius is often seen as a “tipping point” that people should try to avoid by limiting greenhouse gas emissions.But the Earth is very likely to exceed that change, according to new University of Washington research. A study using statistical tools […]

“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 […]

Asia under water: How 137 million people’s lives are being put at risk – “In the next 30 years, it is projected that heavy rainfall events will be increasing by about 20 percent for sure”

By Ben Westcott and Steve George 25 July 2017(CNN) – Khorsheeda Khatun had been left with nothing – then that too was washed away.The 28-year-old fled her home country of Myanmar in January with her two daughters, escaping the latest outbreak of violence, and was living in the Kutupalang Makeshift Settlement in Bangladesh when cyclone […]

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