Reduction in pollutant emissions slowing down in U.S. – “Air quality is better than it was decades ago, but now we’re starting to see the improvement slow down”

By Kasha Patel 31 May 2018 (NASA) – The air we breathe today in the United States is much cleaner than it was in the 1960s and 70s. But recent satellite data show that air quality is not improving as quickly as predicted by models.“Air quality is better than it was decades ago, but now […]

Wall Street Journal commentary grossly misleads readers about science of sea level rise – “If this were an essay in one of my undergraduate classes, he would fail”

By Emmanuel M Vincent 18 May 2018 (Climate Feedback) – This commentary published by The Wall Street Journal, written by Fred Singer, claims that warming (and therefore greenhouse gas emissions) has no effect on global sea level rise. Although Singer concedes the physical fact that water expands as its temperature increases, he claims that this […]

Officials relieved as flooding outlook improves along Yellowstone, Clarks Fork rivers

By Mike Kordenbrock 29 May 2018 (Billings Gazette) – River levels on the Yellowstone and Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone are trending away from flood stage, Tuesday forecasts showed.That news has left top disaster and emergency officials in Carbon and Yellowstone County optimistic.”It seems like we got away with not too much damage,” said Brad […]

Hurricane Maria killed 4,600 people in Puerto Rico, more than 70 times the official toll

29 May 2018 (BBC News) – Hurricane Maria killed more than 4,600 people in Puerto Rico, 70 times the official toll, according to estimates in a Harvard University study. A third of deaths after September’s hurricane were due to interruptions in medical care caused by power cuts and broken road links, researchers say.Interviews conducted in […]

Puerto Rico braces for hurricane season, eight months after Maria

By Joshua Hoyos 26 May 2018 (ABC News) – Eight months after being struck by Hurricane Maria, the island of Puerto Rico is bracing for another hurricane season while still cleaning up and restoring power.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday that this year’s Atlantic hurricane season will see five to nine hurricanes with […]

After 2nd 1000-year flood in two years, Maryland city ponders whether to rebuild again

By Kevin Rector and Pamela Wood 28 May 2018 ELLICOTT CITY, Maryland (The Baltimore Sun) – Residents, merchants and officials in Ellicott City on Monday began to examine the devastation wrought by floods that coursed through the historic mill town the night before — the second time in less than two years. Old Ellicott City’s […]

Prime growing areas for Canada oysters contain alarmingly high concentrations of plastic microbeads

23 May 2018 (SFU) – British Columbia’s premier shellfish farming region is heavily contaminated with microplastics, according to a new SFU study.New research from SFU’s Ecotoxicology Research Group shows Lambert Channel and Baynes Sound off Denman Island are awash with microbeads and other microplastics including fragments and fibres.The area is also home to approximately 130 […]

UN rights chief: Human rights under attack globally – World is headed “backwards, to an era when racists and xenophobes deliberately enflamed hatred and discrimination among the public”

22 May 2018 (UN News) – In a hard-hitting speech marking the 25th anniversary of the World Conference on Human Rights that underscored the “universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated” nature of human rights, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, said that a quarter century on, the world seemed instead to be […]

Paving the way for Trump: Past presidential assaults on environmental health protection

By Jamie Lyons 1 May 2018 (EDGI) – The Trump administration, including Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt, has undertaken an assault on environmental health protections. This assault includes deregulation, defunding, staff cuts, and the corrosion of science-based policy.This assault is severe, but is it unprecedented?Based on EDGI’s research, recently published in the American […]

That NASA climate science program Trump axed? House lawmakers just moved to restore it

By Jeffrey Mervis 17 May 2018 (Science News) – A U.S. House of Representatives spending panel voted today to restore a small NASA climate research program that President Donald Trump’s administration had quietly axed. (Click here to read our earlier coverage.)The House appropriations panel that oversees NASA unanimously approved an amendment to a 2019 spending […]

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