By Ian Livingston 18 October 2018 (The Washington Post) – Throughout early fall, Alaska has been oddly warm and pleasant. The cause of the freakishly nice weather has been massive high pressure anchored over and around the state. One of the strongest on record for fall, this sprawling dome of warm air has helped keep […]
By Zaz Hollander 1 October 2018 PALMER (Anchorage Daily News) – A beetle infestation already decimating Susitna Valley spruce trees worsened sharply this summer. Spruce beetles killed trees across nearly 558,000 acres of forest this year and mostly in Mat-Su, according to an update released Monday by the U.S. Forest Service and Alaska Department of […]
By Damian Carrington 27 September 2018 (The Guardian) – At least half of the world’s killer whale populations are doomed to extinction due to toxic and persistent pollution of the oceans, according to a major new study. Although the poisonous chemicals, PCBs, have been banned for decades, they are still leaking into the seas. They […]
By Lisa Song and Al Shaw 27 September 2018 (ProPublica) – As lawmakers consider disaster relief in the wake of Hurricane Florence, projects to rebuild North Carolina’s shrunken shorelines are likely to get a healthy chunk of government money. To their advocates, these so-called beach nourishment initiatives are crucial steps in buffering valuable oceanfront properties […]
By Rheta Grimsley Johnson 22 August 2018 (The Bitter Southerner) – I am leaving my skiff at a funky little marina on the swamp’s west side, an access point to the Atchafalaya in the deep Cajun parish called St. Martin. Boat docked, I head to my pickup. […]It is the largest swamp and wetlands area […]
By Stefania Costa 24 September 2018(Imazon) – In August 2018, SAD detected 545 square kilometers of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, an increase of 199% in relation to August 2017, when deforestation totaled 182 square kilometers. In August 2018, deforestation occurred in Pará (37%), Mato Grosso (20%), Amazonas (19%), Rondônia (16%), Acre (7%), Roraima (1%) […]
By Yvette Sierra Praeli 24 September 2018 (Mongabay) – Illegal mining is destroying the Amazon. Most people know this, but it is chilling to see the destruction in aerial images that show details of the mining camps, trucks and backhoes operating 24 hours a day. The images also show dredges extracting material from riverbeds, as […]
By David Sharp 19 September 2018 BIDDEFORD, Maine (AP) – Canadians are known as friendly folks, but these crabby brutes migrating from Canadian waters are better suited for the hockey rink.Green crabs from Nova Scotia are the same species as their cousins that already inhabit Maine waters, but are ornerier and angrier, threatening to accelerate […]
SEATTLE, 13 September 2018 (AP) – Efforts to find an ailing orca from a critically endangered population of killer whales off Washington state have come up empty, and a scientist who tracks them has declared her dead. Ken Balcomb, of the Center for Whale Research, confirmed Thursday that he had declared the orca known as […]
By Patrick Whittle 30 August 2018 PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – The waters off of New England are already warming faster than most of the world’s oceans, and they are nearing the end of one of the hottest summers in their history. That is the takeaway from an analysis of summer sea surface temperatures in the […]
