U.S. agencies fear Gulf oil spill could persist 100 years or more if unchecked

By ERIC TUCKER and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN25 May 2015 WASHINGTON (AP) – A decade-old oil leak where an offshore platform toppled during a hurricane could continue spilling crude into the Gulf of Mexico for a century or more if left unchecked, according to government estimates obtained by The Associated Press that provide new details about the […]

Leading health charities should divest from fossil fuels, say climate scientists – Gates Foundation holds $1.4 billion in fossil fuel investments

By Karl Mathiesen, Harry Davies, and James Ball23 May 2015 02.00 EDT (The Guardian) – Senior scientific figures, including influential climate researcher Michael Mann, have called on the world’s two leading health charities to review their fossil fuel investments in light of a series of Guardian investigations published this week. The Big Carbon investigations uncovered […]

Military and police board last two toothfish poaching vessels in Cabo Verde – ‘All six of the Bandit Six have been intercepted’

23 May 2015 (Sea Shepherd Global) – Military and police have boarded the last two Interpol-wanted toothfish poaching vessels, Songhua and Yongding, in Cabo Verde, an archipelago state off the northwest coast of Africa. The action took place thanks to intelligence provided to international law enforcement by Sea Shepherd, which had been gathered two days […]

Forbidden data: Wyoming just criminalized citizen science – First state to enact a law so expansive that it criminalizes taking pictures on public land

By Justin Pidot 11 May 2015 (Slate) – Imagine visiting Yellowstone this summer. You wake up before dawn to take a picture of the sunrise over the mists emanating from Yellowstone hot springs. A thunderhead towers above the rising sun, and the picture turns out beautifully. You submit the photo to a contest sponsored by […]

Afghanistan has 400,000 football fields worth of opium – UN estimates Afghan opium cultivation increased by 7 percent in 2014

By Lucy Westcott 11 May 2015 (Newsweek) – Afghanistan has the equivalent of 400,000 football fields of opium fields, despite significant efforts and money spent by the United States on curbing the development of the country’s drug supply. The country’s enormous drug reserve is one of several issues holding back the U.S.’s Afghanistan reconstruction efforts, […]

Rising sea levels threaten Florida cities, but state has few plans – Saltwater intrusion forcing cities to abandon water wells

By Jason Dearen11 May 2015 ST. AUGUSTINE, Florida (Associated Press) – America’s oldest city is slowly drowning. St. Augustine’s centuries-old Spanish fortress is feet from the encroaching Atlantic, whose waters already flood the city’s narrow streets about 10 times a year — a problem worsening as sea levels rise. The city relies on tourism, but […]

Australia PM advisor says climate change a UN-led conspiracy – ‘This is not about facts or logic’

7 May 2015 (AFP) – Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s top business advisor on Friday claimed climate change was a ruse encouraged by the United Nations to create a new authoritarian world order under its control. Maurice Newman, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council, said the real agenda was “concentrated political authority. Global […]

Graph of the Day: Change in debt-to-GDP ratio in advanced and developing nations, 2007-2014

February 2015 (McKinsey Global Institute) – A new McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) report, Debt and (not much) deleveraging [pdf], examines the evolution of debt across 47 countries—22 advanced and 25 developing—and assesses the implications of higher leverage in the global economy and in specific sectors and countries. The analysis, which follows our July 2011 report […]

Secrecy shrouds decade-old oil spill in Gulf of Mexico – ‘A dirty little secret in plain sight’

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and JEFF DONN 16 April 2015 OVER THE GULF OF MEXICO (AP) – A blanket of fog lifts, exposing a band of rainbow sheen that stretches for miles off the coast of Louisiana. From the vantage point of an airplane, it’s easy to see gas bubbles in the slick that mark the […]

5 canards in Rep. Lamar Smith’s Earth Day editorial on global warming

25 April 2015 (Desdemona Despair) – The Wall Street Journal continues its long tradition of printing editorials that reject the findings of climate science. On Earth Day 2015, we were treated to Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, rolling out some old denialist chestnuts, to criticize proposed […]

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