By Ryan Schuessler1 August 2015 ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Al Jazeera) – The toxic algae blooms in the Pacific Ocean stretching from southern California to Alaska — already the largest ever recorded — appear to have reached as far as the Aleutian Islands, scientists say. “The anecdotal evidence suggests we’re having a major event,” said Bruce Wright, […]
By Matt Viser1 August 2015 WASHINGTON (Boston Globe) – Rick Santorum calls climate change “a beautifully concocted scheme.” Senator Ted Cruz contends that no climate change has been recorded in the last 15 years, bluntly declaring, “It hasn’t happened.” Ben Carson, a renowned neurosurgeon, has said, “We may be warming. We may be cooling.” Former […]
By Jessica Marmor Shaw2 August 2015 (MarketWatch) – A wildfire that has been raging in northern California since last Wednesday jumped 20,000 acres overnight, and has now charred 47,000 acres and is threatening 6,300 homes. Fire officials say the massive blaze, called the Rocky Fire, in the Lower Lake area north of San Francisco is […]
2 August 2015 (AFP) – A giant photo of the beloved Zimbabwean lion killed by an American trophy hunter was among images projected Saturday onto the Empire State Building in New York in a dazzling display. The “Projecting Change on the Empire State Building” initiative was designed to raise awareness about the plight of endangered […]
By Fernanda Santos1 August 2015 WALLA WALLA, Washington (The New York Times) – Another summer of record-breaking drought and heat has seized the West, setting off costly and destructive wildfires from Southern California, where a single blaze burned more than 30,000 acres of national forest east of Los Angeles, to Montana, where a fast-moving fire […]
By Doyle Rice1 August 2015 (USA Today) – Freakishly hot, dry weather in the Pacific Northwest is killing millions of fish in the overheated waters of the region’s rivers and streams. “We’ve lost about 1.5 million juvenile fish this year due to drought conditions at our hatcheries,” Ron Warren of Washington State’s Department of Fish […]
By Adam Voiland1 August 2015 (NASA) – In mid-July, Alaska seemed to be headed toward its worst wildfire year on record. But then a period of cool, wet weather arrived later in the month and calmed several large fires. Government officials also trimmed tens of thousands of acres from earlier estimates of burned area after […]
By Jeff Chiu and Haven Daley1 August 2015 LOWER LAKE, California (Associated Press) – Blazes raging in forests and woodlands across California have taken the life of a firefighter and forced hundreds of people to flee their homes as an army of firefighters continue to battle them from the air and the ground. Twenty-three large […]
By Chad T. Hanson and Dominick A. Dellasala23 July 2015 (The New York Times) – In the fall of 2013, shortly after fire swept across 257,000 acres of forest and shrub lands near Yosemite National Park in California’s Sierra Nevada, Republicans in the House of Representatives approved a bill that would have suspended environmental laws […]
By Chris Mooney 26 July 2015 FAIRBANKS, Alaska (Washington Post) – Hundreds of wildfires are continually whipping across this state this summer, leaving in their wake millions of acres of charred trees and blackened earth. At the Fairbanks compound of the state’s Division of Forestry recently, workers were busy washing a mountain of soot-covered fire […]