Law would force California cities to plan for sea level rise

By Julia Scott8 June 2011 Bay Area cities and counties whose jurisdictions contain the San Francisco and Oakland airports and the ports of Oakland and Redwood City would be required to prepare action plans to deal with rising sea levels under a trailblazing bill passed by the state Assembly last week. The bill would require […]

China CO2 emissions rose over 10 percent in 2010: BP

By Nina Chestney; Editing by James Jukwey8 Jun 2011 LONDON (Reuters) – China’s carbon dioxide emissions rose 10.4 percent in 2010 compared to the previous year as it surpassed the United States as the world’s biggest energy consumer, data released by BP on Wednesday showed. China’s emissions from energy use totaled 8.33 billion tonnes last […]

Australia report outlines worst-case climate damage

June 5 (ABC) – A new report on the risk of climate change to Australia’s coasts predicts sea level rises could claim thousands of buildings and significant infrastructure by the end of the century. The report, titled Risk to Coastal Settlements and Communities [pdf], was commissioned by the Federal Government and assesses the potential damage […]

Damaging the Earth to feed its people

By JUSTIN GILLIS4 June 2011 On a warming planet, humanity faces a great challenge in feeding itself at reasonable cost in the coming century, as I explain in Sunday’s paper. An issue I raise only in passing in the article is that agriculture itself is one of the earth’s greatest environmental threats. To put a […]

Carbon release to atmosphere 10 times faster than during mass extinction event 55 million years ago

Contact: Andrea Elyse Messer, 814-865-9481, http://live.psu.edu6 June 2011 University Park, Pennsylvania – The rate of release of carbon into the atmosphere today is nearly 10 times as fast as during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), 55.9 million years ago, the best analog we have for current global warming, according to an international team of geologists. […]

Five largest Arizona wildfires on record occurred in the last nine years – ‘This does not foretell well for the future’

SPRINGERVILLE, Arizona, June 6 (MSNBC) — More evacuations were ordered Monday as Arizona’s third largest wildfire on record threatened new areas, including a New Mexico town. Officials also revised upwards their estimate of the burn size, now saying that it covers 365 square miles, up from 301 square miles earlier Monday. Those who hadn’t already […]

Wheat fields wilt in drought as parched earth spreads from China to Kansas – ‘I’ve never seen so many problems in so many places’

By Luzi Ann Javier, Madelene Pearson, and Whitney McFerron; William Bi in Beijing, Phoebe Sedgman in Wellington, Chanyaporn Chanjaroen in Singapore, and Tony Dreibus in London; Editors: James Poole, Steve Stroth 6 June 2011 The worst droughts in decades are wilting wheat fields from China to the U.S. to the U.K., overwhelming Russia’s return to […]

Climate of fear: Australia scientists face death threats

BY ROSSLYN BEEBY, SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT REPORTER04 June 2011 Australia’s leading climate change scientists are being targeted by a vicious, unrelenting email campaign that has resulted in police investigations of death threats. The Australian National University has confirmed it moved several high-profile climate scientists, economists and policy researchers into more secure buildings, following explicit threats […]

Drought may cost UK farmers £400m

By Rowena Mason4 Jun 2011 The likely shortage of wheat and barley next season is already causing wholesale prices to rise, with a knock-on effect on the price of bread and beer. This spring’s lack of rainfall is severely affecting crops, particularly in the east of England, where wheat and malting barley are wilting and […]

A warming planet struggles to feed itself

By JUSTIN GILLIS4 June 2011 CIUDAD OBREGÓN, Mexico — The dun wheat field spreading out at Ravi P. Singh’s feet offered a possible clue to human destiny. Baked by a desert sun and deliberately starved of water, the plants were parched and nearly dead. Dr. Singh, a wheat breeder, grabbed seed heads that should have […]

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