Ecuador signs contracts with China oil giant for oil exploration in Amazon – Nearly 1 million acres of rainforest at risk – Indigenous people protest

1 February 2016 (Pachamama Alliance) – The indigenous people in this region are strongly opposed to any plans for oil development and vow to resist and stop these projects. They know the environmental and social disaster that oil development will bring. On January 26, the government of Ecuador formally signed exploration contracts for two Amazonian […]

Surrounded by diamonds, villagers go hungry in drought-hit Zimbabwe

By Andrew Mambondiyani; editing by Megan Rowling8 February 2016 MUTARE, Zimbabwe (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Shylet Mutsago, a 63-year-old who lives near the diamond fields of Marange, cannot hide her anger over how mining in this gem-rich part of eastern Zimbabwe has failed to improve the lives of local people. From a distance she watches […]

Australia climate science to be gutted as CSIRO swings jobs axe – ‘It’s a catastrophic reduction in our capacity to assess present and future climate change’

[This is a disaster. CSIRO is a world-class research organization for climate science, on par with the UK’s Hadley Centre for Climate Research, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and Germany’s Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research. Crippling Australia’s climate science capability deals a significant blow to humanity’s struggle to survive our greatest existential threat: […]

Ted Cruz’s pseudoscientific claims about climate change

By Vanessa Schipani1 February 2016 (FactCheck.org) – While on the campaign trail in New Hampshire, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz gave a speech to local residents that contained inaccurate and misleading claims about climate science and its terminology: Cruz claimed “none of the alarmists say ‘global warming’ anymore — now it’s ‘climate change.’ ” That’s […]

South Florida mayors to U.S. Presidential candidate: ‘We call on you to acknowledge the reality and urgency of climate change’

By Gina-Marie Cheeseman 29 January 2016 (Triple Pundit) – The mayors of 15 South Florida cities have a message for Sen. Marco Rubio and former Gov. Jeb Bush. They want the Republican presidential candidates to see that climate change is happening and it is already affecting their home state. The 15 mayors sent letters to […]

Climate deniers attack NASA scientist dying of cancer

By Katie Herzog20 January 2016 (Grist) – Readers of The New York Times were treated to a deeply touching essay this week by Piers Sellers, a NASA astronaut and climate scientist who was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. […] And yet, it took no time at all for the climate change deniers to […]

World discovers a $1 trillion ocean as Arctic sea ice vanishes – ‘These changes are like nothing we have seen. We don’t have anything to compare with in history.’

By Eric Roston22 January 2016 (Bloomberg) – As chairman of investments at Guggenheim Partners, Scott Minerd thought he had a realistic view on how big an economic challenge climate change poses. Then, at a Hoover Institution conference almost three years ago, he met former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz. Minerd recalled him saying: “Scott, […]

World’s leading whale scientists want Japan harpoon fleet to turn back – ‘Japan’s whaling is unscientific’

21 January 2016 (Business Insider Australia) – More than 30 of the world’s top whale scientists have called on Japan to stop its so-called scientific whaling program. In the correspondence section of the international journal Nature, the experts write a letter to the editor under the headline “Japan’s whaling is unscientific”. The experts are mostly […]

Brazil inflames forest fires with pro-deforestation laws

By Jan Rocha in Sao Paulo14 January 2016 (Climate News Network) – Almost a quarter of a million forest fires were detected in Brazil last year – and the main cause of a huge increase is being attributed to climate change that brought about a year-long drought in much of the country. Satellite data revealed […]

I stand with Linda Sue Beck: The armed attack on science at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge

By Travis Longcore, Ph.D9 January 2016 (Medium) – Linda Sue Beck. It is at her desk that Ammon Bundy, leader of the group of armed anti-government religious fanatics occupying Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, has set up shop. As a federal biologist, like my father was for decades, she works to steward the resources that are […]

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