Antarctica losing six times more ice mass annually now than 40 years ago – “We expect multi-meter sea level rise from Antarctica in the coming centuries”

IRVINE, California, 14 January 2019 (UCI) – Antarctica experienced a sixfold increase in yearly ice mass loss between 1979 and 2017, according to a study published today in  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Glaciologists from the University of California, Irvine, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Netherlands’ Utrecht University additionally found that the […]

Global warming of oceans equivalent to an atomic bomb per second – Total heat taken up by oceans over the past 150 years was 1,000 times the annual energy use of the entire global population

By Damian Carrington7 January 2019 (The Guardian) – Global warming has heated the oceans by the equivalent of one atomic bomb explosion per second for the past 150 years, according to analysis of new research.More than 90% of the heat trapped by humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions has been absorbed by the seas, with just a […]

U.S. carbon emissions surged in 2018 even as coal plants closed – “We haven’t yet successfully decoupled U.S. emissions growth from economic growth”

By Brad Plumer8 January 2019 WASHINGTON (The New York Times) – America’s carbon dioxide emissions rose by 3.4 percent in 2018, the biggest increase in eight years, according to a preliminary estimate published Tuesday. Strikingly, the sharp uptick in emissions occurred even as a near-record number of coal plants around the United States retired last […]

Data mining adds evidence that war is baked into the structure of society – “There is little evidence that humankind is progressing toward a more peaceful world”

4 January 2019 (Emerging Technology) – War is the subject of detailed study among historians, reflecting a general hope that by learning from the past, we can avoid similar mistakes in future. Many historians study war in terms of the actors involved and the decisions they make. It is often possible to describe how wars […]

Antarctic sea ice is “astonishingly” low this melt season

By Eric Holthaus3 January 2019 (Grist) – Right now, on the shores of Antarctica, there’s open water crashing against the largest ice shelf in the world. The annual ice-free season has begun at the Ross Ice Shelf — a month ahead of schedule. The frozen region of freshwater ice the size of France partially protects […]

Worst mass extinction event in Earth’s history was caused by global warming analogous to current climate crisis

By Mike Gaworecki3 January 2019 (Mongabay) – New research by scientists at the United States’ University of Washington and Stanford University suggests that the most destructive mass extinction event in Earth’s ancient history was caused by global warming that left marine life unable to breathe. The Permian period, the last period of the Paleozoic Era, […]

U.S. national debt rises $2 trillion under Trump

By Lydia DePillis4 January 2019 Washington (CNN) – The US national debt stood at $21.974 trillion at the end of 2018, more than $2 trillion higher than when President Donald Trump took office, according to numbers released Thursday by the Treasury Department. The national debt has been rising at an accelerated rate in the aftermath […]

Amazon deforestation increase continued in November 2018 – Deforestation was four times higher than in November 2017

By Stefania Costa 2 January 2019 (Imazon) – Deforestation continues to increase, according to data from the Deforestation Bulletin (SAD) November 2018 published today by Imazon. The state of Pará contributed with 63% of deforestation alerts registered in November 2018. The areas that suffered the most destruction are mainly in the northeast of the state, […]

New data: Adult obesity rates top 35 percent in seven U.S. states – As recently as 2012, no state was over 35 percent

WASHINGTON, DC, 12 September 2018 (Trust for America’s Health) – Seven U. S. states had adult obesity rates at or above 35 percent in 2017, up from five states in 2016, and no state had a statistically significant improvement in its obesity rate over the past year, according to new national data reported in the […]

As carbon dioxide levels climb, millions at risk of nutritional deficiencies – “We cannot disrupt most of the biophysical conditions to which we have adapted over millions of years without unanticipated impacts on our own health and wellbeing”

BOSTON, Massachusetts, 27 August 2018 (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) – Rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) from human activity are making staple crops such as rice and wheat less nutritious and could result in 175 million people becoming zinc deficient and 122 million people becoming protein deficient by 2050, according to new […]

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