By Tsuyoshi Inajima, Takashi Hirokawa, and Yuji Okada14 September 2012 Japan plans to scrap atomic power by the end of the 2030s, bowing to public pressure after the Fukushima nuclear disaster caused mass evacuations and left areas north of Tokyo uninhabitable for decades. The country’s first post-Fukushima energy policy approved today by Prime Minister Yoshihiko […]
[This afternoon, Desdemona wondered why the Seattle sunlight again has that orange, hazy cast. Apparently, reports that Typhoon Bolaven extinguished the Siberia wildfires were premature.] Caption by Adam Voiland, with information from Christine Wiedinmyer, Jon Ranson, and Vyacheslav Kharuk. 13 September 2012 The summer of 2012 has proven to be the most severe wildfire season […]
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 IAN LOVETT11 September 2012 LOS ANGELES – Across Southern California, as far afield as Ventura County to the north of here, Orange County to the south and San Bernardino to the east, residents awoke this week to an olfactory insult: a sulfurous smell, like rotten eggs, wafting across hundreds of miles, source unknown. Some […]
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 […]
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL and ANDREW W. LEHREN7 September 2012 MIAMI – The chief executive of the century-old company from America’s heartland shifted nervously on the witness stand here as he tried to explain how a trusted senior vice president had been caught on a wiretap buying half a million dollars in smuggled merchandise, much of […]
[cf. So the leaders of men conceived of their most desperate strategy yet] By Alister Doyle and David Fogarty; editing by Andrew Roche30 August 2012 OSLO/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Planes or airships could carry sun-dimming materials high into the atmosphere for an affordable price tag of below $5 billion a year as a way to slow […]
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 […]
By Charles Digges28 August 2012 Enormous quantities of decommissioned Russian nuclear reactors and radioactive waste were dumped into the Kara Sea in the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia over a course of decades, according to documents given to Norwegian officials by Russian authorities and published in Norwegian media. Bellona had received in 2011 a draft […]
By Michael Walsh, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS 26 August 2012 (New York Daily News) – Ignited by lightning strikes two months ago, a massive fire rages in Alaska and shrouds the surrounding area beneath a dark blanket of smoke. The Dry Creek Fire has ravished over 42,000 acres near the Tanana River. Ominous clouds of […]
