If global warming empties India – ‘The rapid evacuation of the tropics would cause migrants to concentrate in tropical margins and the subtropics, where population densities would increase by 300 percent or more’

By Gayathri Vaidyanathan9 June 2016 (ClimateWire) – In an armchair experiment where humans are thought of as no wiser than animals, scientists have found that climate change could empty some nations by 2100. A warming of 2 degrees Celsius would cause 34 percent of the world’s population to migrate more than 300 miles, to places […]

Warning issued that Lake Baikal could ‘drain dry like the Aral Sea’ – ‘Construction of three hydro power stations on the Selenga River and its tributaries can cause the unique lake to dry out’

By Olga Gertcyk25 May 2016 (Siberian Times) – The lake’s level is falling, and Mongolian hydro plans would disrupt inflows, and could cause a ‘tsunami’ of water, say campaigners. Newspaper Izvestia this week was blunt in assessing the eco-damage threat to Baikal, a natural reservoir which contains around 20% of the world’s unfrozen freshwater. ‘Baikal […]

Video: Diving in the stench of millions of rotting animals at the bleached Great Barrier Reef

7 June 2016 (Guardian) – Richard Vevers from the Ocean Agency had never experienced anything like the devastation he witnessed in May diving around the dead and dying coral reefs off Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef. When his team emerged from the water, he says, ‘We realised we just stank – we stank […]

Amazon deforestation increases by one third over 2015 – Forest degradation up 733 percent

[Translation by Bing Translator.] By Antônio Fonseca, Marcelo Justino, Carlos Souza Jr., and Adalberto Veríssimo31 May 2016 (Imazon) – In April 2016, 42% of the forested area of the Amazon rainforest was covered by clouds, a lower coverage than April 2015 (55%). States with larger cloud coverage were Roraima (86%) and Amapá (84%). In the […]

A quarter of all Russian forests could be left to burn – Some regions in Siberia underreporting extent of forest fires for ‘political reasons’

By Olga Gertcyk29 May 2016 (Siberian Times) – A quarter of all Russian forests, 89% of stocks in Sakha Republic, could be left to burn, even though they are essential to fight global warming. These vast tracts of forest have been labelled ‘distant and hard-to-reach territories’, and as such it is officially permitted not to […]

Wildfires in U.S. West have gotten bigger, more frequent and longer since the 1980s

By Anthony LeRoy Westerling23 May 2016 (The Conversation) – Dramatic images of out-of-control wildfires in western North American forests have appeared on our television and computer screens with increasing regularity in recent decades, while costs of fire suppression have soared. In 2015, federal spending on suppression exceeded US$2 billion, just 15 years after first exceeding […]

Arctic sea ice goes far beyond record low extent for May

By Bob Henson 20 May 2016 (wunderground.com) – The sea ice that coats the Arctic Ocean each winter and erodes each summer is going through its most depleted spring since modern observing began. The Danish Meteorological Institute reported the lowest sea ice extent of any April in the Arctic’s 38-year-long satellite record. As luck would […]

Last stand for Europe’s remaining ancient forest as loggers prepare to move in – ‘An environmental coup is being staged here’

By Arthur Neslen18 May 2016 Białowieża, Poland (The Guardian) – Europe’s last primeval forest is facing what campaigners call its last stand as loggers prepare to start clear-cutting trees, following the dismissal of dozens of scientists and conservation experts opposed to the plan. Poland’s new far right government says logging is needed because more than […]

New photos show the rapid pace of Great Barrier Reef bleaching – ‘We are currently experiencing the longest global coral bleaching event ever observed’

By Merrit Kennedy14 May 2016 (NPR) – The massive bleaching hitting the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia is likely that country’s “biggest ever environmental disaster,” says Dr. Justin Marshall, who has studied the reef for three decades. Only 7 percent of the reef has escaped bleaching, according to researchers at the ARC […]

‘Unprecedented’ mangrove dieback worries scientists

By David Sigston10 May 2016 (AAP) – Scientists are worried about an “unprecedented” dieback of mangroves in northern Australia and the link with large-scale coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef. The widespread damage to mangroves around the Gulf of Carpentaria has been highlighted at an international wetland conference held this week in Darwin. While […]

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