Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy [Desdemona finds it very hard to watch the last of Earth’s charismatic megafauna suffer as they become extinct.] By Miguel Llanos, NBC News13 September 2012 Wildlife biologist Ian Bullock is a seasoned visitor to the Arctic, but even he was surprised by what […]
By John Vidal and Adam Vaughan, www.guardian.co.uk14 September 2012 Sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk to its smallest extent ever recorded, smashing the previous record minimum and prompting warnings of accelerated climate change. Satellite images show that the rapid summer melt has reduced the area of frozen sea to less than 3.5 million square […]
By Rhett A. Butler, www.mongabay.com20 August 2012 Latin America lost nearly 260,000 square kilometers (100,000 square miles) of forest — an area larger than the state of Oregon — between 2001 and 2010, finds a new study [pdf] that is the first to assess both net forest loss and regrowth across the Caribbean, Central and […]
Futurist Daniel Rirdan’s passionate appeal to save what’s left of Earth’s biosphere: (www.getreal.info) This is the formation of an action-oriented movement with an actual plan to avert an eventual collapse of the various ecosystems and also, indirectly, the manmade world. Also, check out his well-researched book: The Blueprint: Averting Global Collapse. The most important call […]
By Michael D. Lemonick 11 September 2012 The official end of the Arctic Ocean melt season could come any time now, but the sea ice that covers the North Polar region has already smashed the previous record low for end-of-summer ice area set in 2007. Back then, a combination of warm temperatures and ice-dispersing winds […]
By Michael D. Lemonick9 September 2012 Forests cover some 30 percent of Earth’s surface, and it’s hard to overestimate how crucial they are to the functioning of the planet. Forests provide shelter for uncountable numbers of species, hold soil in place that would otherwise wash away, pull excess carbon out of the atmosphere, absorb and […]
By Miguel Llanos7 September 2012 (NBC News) – Reefs in the Caribbean and Florida Keys have lost most of the colorful corals that feed a rich ecosystem and made the region a diving and snorkeling mecca, a major conservation group reported Friday. On average, reefs have live coral on just 8 percent of their surface […]
29 August 2012 (mongabay.com) – Brazil’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered work on the controversial Belo Monte dam in the Amazon to resume, overturning a lower court order that suspended the project less than two weeks ago. Construction activities by the Norte Energia, the consortium building the dam, resumed immediately, according to the Associated Press. […]
By LESLIE KAUFMAN26 August 2012 BOSTON – Sitting on an artificial mangrove island in the middle of the ray and shark “touch tank,” Lindsay Jordan, a staff member at the New England Aquarium, explained the rays’ eating habits as children and their parents trailed fingers through the water. “Does anyone know how we touch these […]
By Alister Doyle; editing by Tim Pearce31 August 2012 OSLO (Reuters) – The vital tasks carried out by tiny “engineers” like earthworms that recycle waste and bees that pollinate crops are under threat because one fifth of the world’s spineless creatures may be at risk of extinction, a study showed on Friday. The rising human […]
