Koch Group, spending freely, hones attack on government – ‘The notion that two billionaires are bankrolling Republican candidates because they support an agenda that is good for the Koch brothers and bad for middle-class families is very persuasive to voters’

By CARL HULSE and ASHLEY PARKER20 March 2014 WASHINGTON (The New York Times) – Americans for Prosperity — the group backed by David H. and Charles G. Koch that has been pouring millions of dollars into competitive Senate races to the rising alarm of Democrats — was also among the politically active groups on the […]

Nate Silver’s new science writer ignores the data on climate science

By Kiley Kroh19 March 2014 (Climate Progress) – Nate Silver’s highly anticipated data-driven news site FiveThirtyEight launched on Monday, with a controversial figure covering science issues. Silver has brought on Roger Pielke, Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, as a contributing writer – a political scientist who comes with […]

Bangladesh warns of rising climate change costs as donations plummet

By John Vidal    10 March 2014 (theguardian.com) – Bangladesh needs $5bn (£3bn) over the next five years to adapt to current climate changes, and the cost is rising each year, according to a lead negotiator for developing countries in the UN climate talks, which resume in Bonn on Monday. It, and other developing countries, may […]

In parched California, town taps run nearly dry – ‘Our wells are so deep. I have lived here for 40 years, and this is the first time we’ve had a problem like this.’

By ADAM NAGOURNEY7 March 2014 LAKE OF THE WOODS, California (The New York Times) –  People in this mountain town straddling the San Andreas Fault are used to scrapping for water. The lake for which it is named went dry 40 years ago. But now, this tiny community is dealing with its most unsettling threat […]

Climate change will reduce crop yields much earlier than we thought – ‘Climate change means a less predictable harvest, with different countries winning and losing in different years’

16 March 2014 (PhysOrg) – A study led by the University of Leeds has shown that global warming of only 2°C will be detrimental to crops in temperate and tropical regions, with reduced yields from the 2030s onwards. Professor Andy Challinor, from the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds and lead […]

China is building a ‘coal base’ the size of Los Angeles

By Brian Merchant13 February 2014 (Motherboard) – China, faced with ever-worsening pollution in its major cities—a recent report deemed Beijing “barely suitable for living”—is doing what so many industrializing nations have done before it: banishing its titanic smog spewers to poor or rural areas so everyone else can breathe easier. But China isn’t just relegating […]

Earth will cross the climate danger threshold by 2036 – The rate of global temperature rise may have hit a plateau, but a climate crisis still looms in the near future

  By Michael E. Mann18 March 2014 (Scientific American) –  “Temperatures have been flat for 15 years—nobody can properly explain it,” the Wall Street Journal says. “Global warming ‘pause’ may last for 20 more years, and Arctic sea ice has already started to recover,” the Daily Mail says. Such reassuring claims about climate abound in […]

Warmest winter on record worsens California drought – ‘If you’re starting from a deficit and going into the dry season, it’s setting you up for a drier summer’

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) — California is coming off of its warmest winter on record, aggravating an enduring drought in the most populous U.S. state, federal weather scientists said Monday. The state had a average temperature of 48 Fahrenheit (9 Celsius) for December, January and February, an increase from 47.2 F in 1980-81, the last hottest […]

Climate change keeps a quarter of the U.S. Senate up all night

By Arlette Saenz10 March 2014 (ABC news) – Get ready for another all-nighter in the Senate. Twenty-eight Democratic senators are expected to take turns speaking on the Senate floor this evening all the way through Tuesday morning, all in the name of climate change awareness. While there is no specific legislation the senators will address, […]

Study: Housing developments near drying forests a deadly combination in the West

By Darryl Fears8 March 2014 (Washington Post) – As the climate warms, forest fires in the West increasingly will feast on acres of dry brush, growing into giants. In a cycle that will become routine, homeowners will flee, while firefighters will rush toward their houses — and away from areas where they could be putting […]

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