The House Science Committee’s witch hunt against NOAA climate scientists – ‘To work under a government that tries to silence scientists is pretty demoralizing’

By Michael Halpern23 October 2015 (UCS) – We have long been suspicious of the House Science Committee’s expanded subpoena power. The evidence now demonstrates that the committee is using this new authority not to conduct effective oversight but to harass those who produce robust scientific analysis it refuses to accept. The committee is harassing individuals, […]

A megacity without water: São Paulo’s drought

By Jon Gerberg13 October 2015 (TIME) – The biggest city in the Western hemisphere is facing its greatest water crisis in over 80 years — and climate change is only part of the problem. Millions of residents in São Paulo, Brazil face daily water shutoffs unless the city manages its water better. It is not […]

Why did Hurricane Patricia become a monster so quickly?

By Seth Borenstein24 October 2015 WASHINGTON (AP) – Hurricane Patricia zoomed from tropical storm to record-beater in 30 hours flat like a jet-fueled sports car. Why? The Pacific storm had just the right ingredients. Plenty of warm water provided the energy what meteorologists call explosive intensification. The air was much moister than usual, adding yet […]

The Bill Gates message on global warming needs debugging

Guest post by Richard Pauli24 October 2015 (Desdemona Despair) – Bill Gates has a new interview on the web site of The Atlantic magazine. Many will read it because it’s Bill Gates, but I suspect he positioned himself there because of public pressure to take a stand on global warming. Bill Gates now faces growing […]

Mexico braces for Hurricane Patricia, the strongest storm ever recorded in the Western hemisphere – ‘This is the only hurricane that’s ever been this powerful’

By Christopher Sherman, with additional reporting by Peter Orsi, and E. Eduardo Castillo23 October 2015 MANZANILLO, Mexico (AP) – Hurricane Patricia headed toward southwestern Mexico Friday as a monster Category 5 storm, the strongest ever in the Western Hemisphere that forecasters said could make a “potentially catastrophic landfall” later in the day. Residents of a […]

Philippine typhoon toll hits 54 as floods shift downstream – ‘Our rice farm looked like it was run over by a giant flat iron’

22 October 2015 (AFP) – The death toll from a ferocious typhoon in the Philippines climbed to 54 on Thursday, as home-wrecking floods shifted downstream to coastal villages, displacing tens of thousands of residents. Inundations from torrential weekend rains in mountain regions caused by Typhoon Koppu cascaded into coastal fishing and farming villages, submerging them […]

September 2015 had largest departure of temperature from average of any month since records began in 1880

By: Jeff Masters21 October 2015 (wunderground.com) – September 2015 had the largest departure of temperature from average of any month among all 1629 months in the record that began in January 1880, said NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) on Wednesday. (Note that since July and August are typically the warmest months globally in […]

Colonial church resurfaces in Mexico as water levels drop in Nezahualcoyotl Reservoir

By Natalie Roterman18 October 2015 (Latin Times) – The colonial Temple of Quechula has once again resurfaced for a second time in the Nezahualcoyotl reservoir due to a drought. Thanks to a drastic drought in the Grijalva River in Chiapas, Mexico, a mid-16th century church has resurfaced for a second time in the Nezahualcoyotl reservoir. […]

Stephen Harper resigns as Conservative leader of Canada – Does this mark the end of Canada’s antiscience campaign?

20 October 2015 (CTV News) – Nearly a decade after he became prime minister, Stephen Harper has resigned as party leader following a decisive defeat by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals. In a statement sent out late on Monday evening, Conservative Party President John Walsh said he had spoken to Harper, “and he has instructed me to […]

Typhoon Koppu kills at least 16 in Philippines, strands thousands – ‘I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s the worst flood I’ve seen in my entire life.’

19 October 2015 (AFP) – Residents of flooded farming villages in the Philippines were trapped on their rooftops on Monday and animals floated down fast-rising rivers, as the death toll from Typhoon Koppu climbed to 16. Koppu, the second strongest storm to hit the disaster-plagued Southeast Asian archipelago this year, had also forced more than […]

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