OAKLAND, CA, USA, 12 August 2015 (GFN) – In less than eight months, humanity has used up nature’s budget for the entire year, with carbon sequestration making up more than half of the demand on nature, according to data from Global Footprint Network, an international sustainability think tank with offices in North America, Europe and […]
By David Mcfadden10 August 2015 KINGSTON, Jamaica (Associated Press) – The picture-perfect beaches and turquoise waters that people expect on their visits to the Caribbean are increasingly being fouled by mats of decaying seaweed that attract biting sand fleas and smell like rotten eggs. Clumps of the brownish seaweed known as sargassum have long washed […]
By David Volodzko5 August 2015 CHENGDU, China (Global Post) – While China clamps down on logging within its borders, illegal Chinese loggers are felling the world’s forests with abandon for the sake of teak floors and fancy chairs. In late July, 153 Chinese nationals were sentenced to life in prison for illegal logging in Myanmar’s […]
By Matthew Chance5 August 2015 Moscow (CNN) – Millions of locusts have descended on farmlands in southern Russia, devouring entire fields of crops and causing officials to declare a state of emergency in the region. A vast area of at least 800,000 hectares is currently being affected as the swarms of insects, each measuring about […]
By Ryan Schuessler1 August 2015 ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Al Jazeera) – The toxic algae blooms in the Pacific Ocean stretching from southern California to Alaska — already the largest ever recorded — appear to have reached as far as the Aleutian Islands, scientists say. “The anecdotal evidence suggests we’re having a major event,” said Bruce Wright, […]
28 July 2015 (Institute of Physics) – A global “gold rush” has led to a significant increase of deforestation in the tropical forests of South America. This is according to a study published in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters, which has highlighted the growing environmental impact of gold mining in some of the […]
By Laura Geggel 25 July 2015 (LiveScience) – The mighty megafauna of the last ice age, including the wooly mammoths, short-faced bears and cave lions, largely went extinct because of rapid climate-warming events, a new study finds. During the unstable climate of the Late Pleistocene, about 60,000 to 12,000 years ago, abrupt climate spikes, called […]
By Jeff Masters 24 July 2015 (Weather Underground) – Record warm sea surface temperatures in Hawaii’s waters threaten to bring a second consecutive year of record coral bleaching to their precious coral reefs this summer. According to NOAA, ocean temperatures in the waters near and to the south of the Hawaiian Islands were 1 – […]
By Keith Ridler27 July 2015 BOISE, Idaho (Associated Press) – More than a quarter million sockeye salmon returning from the ocean to spawn are either dead or dying in the Columbia River and its tributaries due to warming water temperatures. Federal and state fisheries biologists say the warm water is lethal for the cold-water species […]
By Antonina Koshcheeva and Derek Lambie23 June 2015 (The Siberian Times) – Hot weather, thunderstorms, and carelessness have brought fresh wildfires to parts of Siberia just months after deadly blazes killed more than 30 people. Sixteen districts of the Republic of Buryatia have been affected, including one military forestry, two national parks and the Baikal […]
