Climate change will reduce crop yields much earlier than we thought – ‘Climate change means a less predictable harvest, with different countries winning and losing in different years’

16 March 2014 (PhysOrg) – A study led by the University of Leeds has shown that global warming of only 2°C will be detrimental to crops in temperate and tropical regions, with reduced yields from the 2030s onwards. Professor Andy Challinor, from the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds and lead […]

China is building a ‘coal base’ the size of Los Angeles

By Brian Merchant13 February 2014 (Motherboard) – China, faced with ever-worsening pollution in its major cities—a recent report deemed Beijing “barely suitable for living”—is doing what so many industrializing nations have done before it: banishing its titanic smog spewers to poor or rural areas so everyone else can breathe easier. But China isn’t just relegating […]

Earth will cross the climate danger threshold by 2036 – The rate of global temperature rise may have hit a plateau, but a climate crisis still looms in the near future

  By Michael E. Mann18 March 2014 (Scientific American) –  “Temperatures have been flat for 15 years—nobody can properly explain it,” the Wall Street Journal says. “Global warming ‘pause’ may last for 20 more years, and Arctic sea ice has already started to recover,” the Daily Mail says. Such reassuring claims about climate abound in […]

Warmest winter on record worsens California drought – ‘If you’re starting from a deficit and going into the dry season, it’s setting you up for a drier summer’

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) — California is coming off of its warmest winter on record, aggravating an enduring drought in the most populous U.S. state, federal weather scientists said Monday. The state had a average temperature of 48 Fahrenheit (9 Celsius) for December, January and February, an increase from 47.2 F in 1980-81, the last hottest […]

Climate change keeps a quarter of the U.S. Senate up all night

By Arlette Saenz10 March 2014 (ABC news) – Get ready for another all-nighter in the Senate. Twenty-eight Democratic senators are expected to take turns speaking on the Senate floor this evening all the way through Tuesday morning, all in the name of climate change awareness. While there is no specific legislation the senators will address, […]

Study: Housing developments near drying forests a deadly combination in the West

By Darryl Fears8 March 2014 (Washington Post) – As the climate warms, forest fires in the West increasingly will feast on acres of dry brush, growing into giants. In a cycle that will become routine, homeowners will flee, while firefighters will rush toward their houses — and away from areas where they could be putting […]

In California’s time of drought, turning to Native traditions to plead for rain – ‘Everyone in this town has got to come together and pray and dance for rain, and we’ve got to do it now’

By Diana Marcum6 March 2014 SAN JUAN BAUTISTA, California (Los Angeles Times) – The woman in line at the bank said she had already sold all her cattle and was now selling her land. It was one too many tales of drought hardship for Laynee Reyna, also known as She Who Makes Things Happen — […]

Industry-funded CPAC panelists: Climate change a ‘silly’ ‘scam’, ‘modern witchcraft’

By Miranda Blue7 March 2014 (Right Wing Watch) – The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this morning hosted a panel titled, “What’s The Deal With Global Warming?,” the answer to which was apparently that it’s a “silly debate,” a “scam” and “modern witchcraft.” The panel was moderated by Joseph Bast of the Heartland Institute, a […]

Global warming spreads malaria to higher altitudes – ‘In Ethiopia, based on the distribution of malaria with altitude, a 1C rise in temperature could lead to an additional three million cases in under-15-year-olds per year’

By Rebecca Morelle, Science reporter6 March 2014 (BBC World Service) – Warmer temperatures are causing malaria to spread to higher altitudes, a study suggests. Researchers have found that people living in the highlands of Africa and South America are at an increased risk of catching the mosquito-borne disease during hotter years. They believe that temperature […]

Climate change felt in deep waters of Antarctica – A surge in freshwater at the surface may have shut down mixing of water layers in the Weddell Sea

By  Sarah Zielinski3 March 2014 (smithsonianmag.com) – In 1974, just a couple years after the launch of the first Landsat satellite, scientists noticed something odd in the Weddell Sea near Antarctica. There was a large ice-free area, called a polynya, in the middle of the ice pack. The polynya, which covered an area as large […]

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