By Raymond T. Pierrehumbert10 February 2015 (Slate) – Some years ago, in the question-and-answer session after a lecture at the American Geophysical Union, I described certain geoengineering proposals as “barking mad.” The remark went rather viral in the geoengineering community. The climate-hacking proposals I was referring to were schemes that attempt to cancel out some […]
By Chris Mooney 10 February 2015 (Washington Post) – The snowfall in Boston lately is simply insane. The local bureau of the National Weather Service has tallied up the data and here’s how it looks — with all-time records for snow within a 14-, 20-, and 30-day period. You could treat this as ordinary weather, […]
By Paul B. Farrell7 February 2015 (Market Watch) – Global food poisoning? Yes, We’re maxing out. Forget Peak Oil. We’re maxing-out on Peak Food. Billions go hungry. We’re poisoning our future, That’s why Cargill, America’s largest private food company, is warning us: about water, seeds, fertilizers, diseases, pesticides, droughts. You name it. Everything impacts the […]
2 February 2015 (CDC) – From January 1 to January 30, 2015, 102 people from 14 states were reported to have measles*. Most of these cases are part of a large, ongoing multi-state outbreak linked to an amusement park [Disneyland] in California. On January 23, 2015, CDC issued a Health Advisory to notify public health […]
By Warren Cornwall26 January 2015 (National Geographic) – People living around the Pacific Ocean, including in parts of Asia, Australia, and western North and South America, should expect wilder climate swings in the 21st century. Extreme versions of El Niño and La Niña, the sibling Pacific weather patterns that can translate into torrential rains or […]
By Victoria Tang 21 January 2015 (Wired) – United States Senators stood up for what they believed in today—and it wasn’t pretty. During a debate over construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, intended to carry oil from Canada to the United States, the Senate voted on an amendment—just for show, really—on whether climate change “is […]
By Jeremy Hance28 January 2015 (mongabay.com) – The world’s migrating monarch butterfly population has bounced back slightly from its record low last year, but the new numbers are still the second smallest on record. According to WWF-Mexico and the Mexican government, butterflies covered 2.79 acres (1.13 hectares) in nine colonies this year in the Mexican […]
By Fredreka Schouten27 January 2015 WASHINGTON (USA TODAY) – Top officials in the Koch brothers’ political organization Monday released a staggering $889 million budget to fund the activities of the billionaires’ sprawling network ahead of the 2016 presidential contest. The budget, which pays for everything from advertising and data-gathering technology to grass-roots activism, was released […]
By Hannah Osborne 27 January 2015 (IBT) – Winter Storm Juno has been dubbed a “historic” and “once-in-a-century” snowstorm, yet climate scientists say it is completely in line with what we should expect with climate change. Juno is expected to dump two to three feet of snow over an area stretching 250 miles on the […]
By DIONNE SEARCEY and ROBERT GEBELOFF25 January 2015 (The New York Times) – The middle class that President Obama identified in his State of the Union speech last week as the foundation of the American economy has been shrinking for almost half a century. In the late 1960s, more than half of the households in […]