By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer17 November 2014 WASHINGTON (Associated Press) – A key polar bear population fell nearly by half in the past decade, a new U.S.-Canada study [pdf] found, with scientists seeing a dramatic increase in young cubs starving and dying. Researchers chiefly blame shrinking sea ice from global warming. Scientists from the […]
By Jakob Schiller 11 November 2014 (Wired) – When Camille Seaman started photographing icebergs and other arctic wonders, she wasn’t thinking about climate change. She simply found the frozen landscape and white vistas visually stunning. Still, you can’t help but associate her images with the ongoing conversation about climate change. Seaman, 45, says she too […]
By Pat Dickens 5 November 2014 (Wild News) – Since 1976, the Ebola virus has caused some lethal human epidemics in Central Africa. Unfounded fears that the pandemic is spread across the entire continent of Africa is having a disastrous effect on its wildlife. Safari tourism has all but crashed. Camps are standing empty and […]
(NASA) – Satellite view of river delta changes in China. China’s Huang He (Yellow) River is the most sediment-filled river on Earth. Each year, it transports millions of tons of soil from a plateau it crosses to a delta it has built in the Bohai Sea. These images show the delta’s growth from 1985 to […]
By Richard Inger, et al.2 November 2014 (Ecology Letters) – Totaled abundance estimates of 144 European bird species from 1980 to 2009, separated into quartiles. (I) Quartiles based on abundance on a yearly basis hence quartiles have a variable species composition. (II) Quartiles based on abundance in year 1 of the study (1980) hence quartiles […]
LONDON, 3 November 2014 (AFP) – Europe has an estimated 421 million fewer birds than three decades ago, and current treatment of the environment is unsustainable for many common species, a study released on Monday said. The population crash is related to modern farming methods and the loss and damage of habitats, according to the […]
By Jonathan Watts31 October 2014 (Rio de Janeiro) – The Amazon rainforest has degraded to the point where it is losing its ability to benignly regulate weather systems, according to a stark new warning from one of Brazil’s leading scientists. In a new report, Antonio Nobre, researcher in the government’s space institute, Earth System Science […]
By David Fogarty20 October 2014 (mongabay.com) – Global miner BHP Billiton and Indonesian partner PT Adaro are developing what could become the single largest mine in Indonesia in terms of land area, with BHP owning 75 percent. The IndoMet mine complex in Central and East Kalimantan provinces on Borneo comprises seven coal concessions, which cover […]
By Jonathan Watts 19 October 2014 Rio de Janeiro (The Guardian) – The deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon has accelerated rapidly in the past two months, underscoring the shortcomings of the government’s environmental policies. Satellite data indicates a 190% surge in land clearance in August and September compared with the same period last year as […]
By Amelia Urry13 October 2014 (Grist) – Perhaps you have heard about Ebola, otherwise known as The Most Terrifying Disease Of Our Modern Times (Sorry, MERs; panic is a fickle friend). But you might not have heard that Ebola’s origin story also features a favorite environmental arch-villain? And by “favorite,” I mean “actually the worst”: […]
