Government muzzling of Canada scientists widespread, survey suggests – ‘We live in a climate of fear’

OTTAWA, 7 November 2014 (The Canadian Press) – The union representing scientists and other professionals in the federal public service is abandoning its tradition of neutrality in elections to actively campaign against Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) says delegates to its annual general meeting have agreed […]

Pollution is the greatest threat facing whales today: whale researcher Dr. Roger Payne

4 November 2014 (SSCS) – For more than four decades, environmentalist, Dr. Roger Payne, famous in the scientific world for discovering that humpback whales sing and communicate across the world’s oceans, has known a thing or two about the plight of the great whales and the oceans. He contends that while it is crucial to […]

Drought-stricken California town cuts water use 40 percent, but that’s not enough

By Amanda Covarrubias9 November 2014 CAMBRIA, California (Los Angeles Times) – They’re the trees that gave this quaint Central Coast village its nickname: Cambria Pines by the Sea. But the towering Monterey pines — one of only three such native forests in the United States — are being ravaged by the drought. Most are brown […]

Private water wells in Minnesota soaking up fertilizers – Over the next 20 years, there will be a 45 percent spike in nitrate well contamination

By Lyra Fontaine23 July 2014 (Minnesota Daily) – From 2007 to 2012, more than a quarter of southeastern Minnesota’s grassland disappeared as fertilized farmland expanded — a shift in land use that’s contaminating the region’s private drinking water wells. The switch from grass to crops — a trend across the Midwest that’s spurred by rising […]

Monster storm becomes strongest on record for Alaska

By Brian Lada, Meteorologist9 November 2014 (AccuWeather.com) – A powerful storm has moved into the Bering Sea and has become the most intense storm to ever impact the region. The former Super Typhoon Nuri has tracked northward into the Bering Sea, located in between Alaska and Russia, and has lost all tropical characteristics. The system […]

Threatened with rising sea level, officials want South Florida to break off into its own state – ‘South Florida’s situation is very precarious and in need of immediate attention’

By Adrienne Cutway21 October 2014 (Sun Sentinal) – Officials in the City of South Miami have passed a resolution [pdf] in favor of splitting the state in half so South Florida would become the 51st state. Vice Mayor Walter Harris proposed the resolution and it passed with a 3-2 vote at the city commission meeting […]

Record warmth in Western Europe – Record cold and snow in Eastern U.S.

By Christopher C. Burt3 November 2014  (wunderground.com) – The first weekend of November has brought an interesting contrast of weather regimes between the Eastern U.S. and Western Europe. All-time November warmth enveloped portions of Western Europe while the Eastern U.S. endured an early season snowstorm and some daily record low temperatures (in the Southeast). Western […]

As wildfires worsen in the U.S., calls for change in tactics – ‘Over the past decade, wildfires have increased in size and intensity, and the fire season now extends 60-80 days longer than historic averages’

By Alan Neuhauser 5 November 2014 (U.S. News & World Report) – Smokey Bear may not know the half of it. As one of the longest and costliest wildfire seasons in U.S. history comes to a close, a new study asserts the way we’ve been attempting to prevent forest fires is “simply wrong.” “We don’t […]

NASA bombshell: Global groundwater crisis threatens our food supplies and our security

By Joe Romm 31 October 2014 (Climate Progress) – An alarming satellite-based analysis from NASA finds that the world is depleting groundwater — the water stored unground in soil and aquifers — at an unprecedented rate. A new Nature Climate Change piece, “The global groundwater crisis,” by James Famiglietti, a leading hydrologist at the NASA […]

Confessions of a former climate change denialist – ‘I took online courses. I listened to podcasts. Every myth in my head popped and floated away.’

By Kasra Hassani28 October 2014 (CSWA) – I, a scientist with a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology, was a climate change denialist. Wait, let me add, I was an effective climate change denialist: I would throw on a cloak of anecdotal evidence and biased one-sided skepticism and declare myself a skeptic. Good scientists are skeptics, […]

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