By SANDRA BLAKESLEE24 December 2012 LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico (The New York Times) — Everywhere, trees are dying. The boreal forests of Canada and Russia are being devoured by beetles. Drought-tolerant pines are disappearing in Greece. In North Africa, Atlas cedars are shriveling. Wet and dry tropical forests in Asia are collapsing. Australian eucalyptus […]
By Ugo Bardi13 December 2012 In 2003, I attended my first conference on peak oil, in Paris. Everything was new for me: the subject, the people, the ideas. It was there that I could meet for the first time those larger than life figures of ASPO, the association for the study of peak oil. I […]
TARAWA, 22 December 2012 (Pina/Rnzi) – The Commonwealth Secretary-General has appealed to governments of developed countries to travel to Kiribati to witness the country’s vulnerability to climate change impacts. Kamalesh Sharma most recently visited Kiribati last month when he says he saw the devastation caused by the rising tide on an archipelago that largely stands […]
By Philip Bump 21 December 2012 As our friends at 350.org like to remind us, climate change really comes down to math. Put x amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, see y degrees of warming. Our goal — meaning, our goal as an evolved, aware species that would rather not be plagued by droughts […]
By Jim Salter23 December 2012 ST. LOUIS (AP) – From sunken steamboats to a millennium-old map engraved in rock, the drought-drained rivers of the nation’s midsection are offering a rare and fleeting glimpse into years gone by. Lack of rain has left many rivers at low levels unseen for decades, creating problems for river commerce […]
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, 21 December 2012 (AP) – Two types of ice seals joined polar bears Friday on the list of species threatened by the loss of sea ice, which scientists say reached record low levels this year due to climate warming. Ringed seals, the main prey of polar bears, and bearded seals in the Arctic […]
By Emma Whitford 20 December 2012 Despite the hysteria, it’s safe to say that tomorrow’s Mayan Doomsday will end up as nothing but the latest apocalyptic hype. But even after December 21, Earth will hardly be in the clear. While we may have dodged one gigantic, irreversible blow to humanity (for now, at least), various […]
By Seth Borenstein20 December 2012 WASHINGTON (MSN News) – As 2012 began, winter in the U.S. went AWOL. Spring and summer arrived early with wildfires, blistering heat, and drought. And fall hit the eastern third of the country with the ferocity of Superstorm Sandy. This past year’s weather was deadly, costly and record-breaking everywhere — […]
By Jack Broom and Alexa Vaughn, Seattle Times staff reporter18 December 2012 Following Monday’s highest tides ever recorded in Seattle, which sent waves spilling onto 100 properties in West Seattle, city climate-change watchers say the area could be in for more of the same — or worse — in years to come. “Yesterday’s tide would […]
By Zac Unger17 December 2012 On January 24, 2004, in the frigid moonscape of an Arctic winter, wildlife biologist Steven Amstrup rode in a helicopter flying low over the ice. Using an infrared heat detector, he hoped to find polar bears in their dens. When the gun recorded a hit, Amstrup circled around for a […]
