Half of Columbia River sockeye salmon dying due to hot water – ‘The river flow is abnormally low, but on top of that we’ve had superhot temperatures for a really long time’

By Keith Ridler27 July 2015 BOISE, Idaho (Associated Press) – More than a quarter million sockeye salmon returning from the ocean to spawn are either dead or dying in the Columbia River and its tributaries due to warming water temperatures. Federal and state fisheries biologists say the warm water is lethal for the cold-water species […]

Climate scientists: When the end of human civilization is your day job – ‘The business-as-usual world that we project is really a totally different planet’

By John H. Richardson7 July 2015 (Esquire) – The incident was small, but Jason Box doesn’t want to talk about it. He’s been skittish about the media since it happened. This was last summer, as he was reading the cheery blog posts transmitted by the chief scientist on the Swedish icebreaker Oden, which was exploring […]

Washington state’s terrifying new climate threat: ‘Urban wildfires’ – ‘We’re seeing significant amounts of fires in places where we’ve never seen fires before’

By Lindsay Abrams22 July 2015 (Salon) – Wildfire season isn’t what it used to be. In Washington state, a combination of ongoing drought and rapid development made 2014 particularly nightmarish, and this year’s unusually hot conditions are fueling another season of dangerous blazes — more than 300 so far, including one, 3,000-plus acre wildfire that […]

Premier of British Columbia fears raging forest fires new norm, blames global warming

By Keven Drews22 July 2015 WEST KELOWNA, B.C. (The Canadian Press) – Relentless forest fires burning across British Columbia may be the new normal, Premier Christy Clark warned as she stood not far from a raging fire that threatened homes in her own riding. Clark spoke near the Westside Road fire outside West Kelowna on […]

Recession rather than shale gas caused US carbon cuts: study – ‘Substitution of gas for coal has had a relatively minor role’

By Simon Evans21 July 2015 (Carbon Brief) – It is a truth almost universally acknowledged that the shale gas revolution has led to a fall in US emissions. But what if that wasn’t true? New research published in Nature Communications suggests it was the global financial crisis, not fracking, that has done most to reduce […]

Drought-stricken California is burning, flooding at the same time – ‘Really, this is super historic’

By Lindsey Bever 20 July 2015 (Washington Post) – Amid California’s historic drought, an even rarer weekend downpour that calmed wildfires also washed away a 30-foot bridge that carries commuters to Arizona. An elevated area on Interstate 10 collapsed early Sunday evening near Southeastern California’s Desert Center, leaving a pickup truck trapped underneath. Firefighters launched […]

Wildfires rage across Siberia as hot weather, storms, and carelessness combine

By Antonina Koshcheeva and Derek Lambie23 June 2015 (The Siberian Times) – Hot weather, thunderstorms, and carelessness have brought fresh wildfires to parts of Siberia just months after deadly blazes killed more than 30 people. Sixteen districts of the Republic of Buryatia have been affected, including one military forestry, two national parks and the Baikal […]

Study finds climate change is increasing length of wildfire seasons across globe – ‘Climate change isn’t a future projection, it actually started around 1980’

By David Erickson19 July 2015 MISSOULA (Independent Record) – The length of wildfire seasons across the globe and the burnable areas of Earth’s surface have drastically increased in the past three decades due to climate change, according to a groundbreaking new study supported by years of research from the U.S. Forest Service’s Missoula Fire Sciences […]

California drought leads to neighborhood turf battles – ‘Basically they’re asking me to put in lawn so I could let it die’

BRENTWOOD, 18 July 2015 (CBS SF) – Ed Pereira never thought that trying to save water at his Brentwood home would be so trying. Last month, he decided to take out his front lawn and put in drought-tolerant landscaping. But Ed says his homeowners association isn’t making it easy. The HOA [homeowners’ association] rejected his […]

California drought: Measuring life in gallons – ‘Water, water, water, water. I never thought about it before. Now I don’t think about anything else.’

By Eli Saslow20 July 2015 PORTERVILLE, California (Washington Post) – Their two peach trees had turned brittle in the heat, their neighborhood pond had vanished into cracked dirt and now their stainless-steel faucet was spitting out hot air. “That’s it. We’re dry,” Miguel Gamboa said during the second week of July, and so he went […]

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