Leaders meeting at U.N. underscore need to fast-track climate action – “It is here, now, and we need to deal with it”

19 September 2017 (United Nations) – Leaders from various levels of government, the private sector and civil society highlighted the need for climate action as they convened at United Nations Headquarters, where Secretary-General António Guterres warned that current pledges and plans are insufficient to keep global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees. “Hurricanes Harvey […]

Hurricane Maria heads for catastrophic hit on Puerto Rico, St. Croix

By Bob Henson 19 September 2017 (Weather Underground) – After a direct hit on the small Lesser Antilles island of Dominica on Monday night, followed by a brief weakening, Hurricane Maria reintensified to Category 5 strength with winds of 160 mph on Tuesday morning. Maria will likely be a catastrophic Category 5 or high-end Category […]

Image of the Day: Hurricane Irma turns Caribbean Islands brown

By Kathryn Hansen 10 September 2017 (NASA) – Hurricane Irma churned across the Atlantic Ocean in September 2017, battering several Caribbean islands before moving on to the Florida Keys and the U.S. mainland. As the clouds cleared over places like the Virgin Islands, the destruction became obvious even from space.These natural-color images, captured by the […]

Category 5 Hurricane Maria hits Dominica – Prime Minister calls damage “devastating” and “mind boggling”

Dr. Jeff Masters 18 September 2017 (Weather Underground) – Category 5 Hurricane Maria made a direct hit on the small Lesser Antilles island of Dominica (population 72,000) near 9 pm EDT Monday, becoming Dominica’s first Category 5 landfall on record. At the time of landfall, an Air Force hurricane hunter aircraft measured surface winds of […]

The world’s parasites are going extinct – Here’s why that’s a bad thing

By Ben Panko 7 September 2017 (Smithsonian) – What if the world’s parasites suddenly went extinct? Given how much work we’ve put into combating malaria-carrying mosquitoes and horrifying Guinea worms, it sounds like a reason for celebration. But think twice: Actually, losing these much-despised mooches, bloodsuckers and freeloaders could have disastrous consequences for the environment […]

The great nutrient collapse – “We are witnessing the greatest injection of carbohydrates into the biosphere in human history – an injection that dilutes other nutrients in our food supply”

By Helena Bottemiller Evich 13 September 2017 (Politico) – Irakli Loladze is a mathematician by training, but he was in a biology lab when he encountered the puzzle that would change his life. It was in 1998, and Loladze was studying for his Ph.D. at Arizona State University. Against a backdrop of glass containers glowing […]

Yes, global warming made Hurricanes Harvey and Irma worse

By Wayne Drash 15 September 2017 (CNN) – The right time to talk climate change is now. It might seem premature when people in the Caribbean, Florida, and Texas are still mucking out their flooded homes. And no, changes in our planet’s atmosphere did not cause Hurricanes Harvey or Irma. But the consensus among scientists […]

Image of the Day: Time lapse view of Eagle River wildfire near Hood, Oregon

By Raymond Perkins 14 September 2017(Facebook) – A couple of time lapse videos from last night, taken from the Wind River bridge, near Carson, Oregon. This is a section of the fire that they are not going to fight, far too steep to get anyone or equipment into.Pretty scary how fast this fire can just […]

This weather is not normal. And it will only get worse. “How many more lives must be destroyed by historic hurricanes, floods, and wildfires before the government admits that climate change is a problem?”

By Emily Atkin 7 September 2017 (New Republic) – The days leading up to Hurricane Harvey’s landfall in Texas last week were some of the most nerve-wracking in meteorological history. Forecasters watched helplessly as a true monster storm—one that would eventually become the most extreme rain event in recorded American history—moved toward Houston, the country’s […]

A third of wells shut down at site of troubled natural gas facility in California

By Brian Melley 12 September 2017 LOS ANGELES (Associated Press) – The largest gas storage facility in the West halted using a third of the wells pumping methane underground at high pressure just weeks after it resumed operations following a blowout that crippled it for nearly two years.Southern California Gas Co. said Monday it notified […]

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