Brazil water utility cut to junk by Moody’s amid São Paulo drought

By Dimitra DeFotis4 September 2015 (Barron’s) – Moody’s Investors Service said in a note this week that the credit rating of Sao Paulo, Brazil’s drought-starved water utility Companhia de Saneamento Basico do Estado de São Paulo or Sabesp (SBS) is at risk. As the Brazilian real stumbles lower against the dollar, shares of Sabesp, the […]

Study shows how climate change threatens health – ‘The science of climate change and the threat to human and population health is irrefutable, and the threat is evolving quickly’

14 August 2015 (NCDP) – Researchers at Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) and the University of Washington have published a new study focused on the public health implications of climate change. The article explores climate change impacts on human health in the U.S. Gulf Coast and has implications for this and other […]

How humans evolved into super predators – ‘Our impacts are as extreme as our behaviour and the planet bears the burden of our predatory dominance’

20 August 2015 (UVic) – You need not look far to find the world’s “super predator,” a term used by UVic scientists to describe how human dominance has bred an unrelenting predacious global culture that threatens nature’s balance. Research published in the Aug. 21 edition of the journal Science by a team led by Dr. […]

California drought causing land in the Central Valley to subside faster than ever – Increased pumping drives groundwater levels to record lows – ‘We are pumping at historic levels’

19 August 2015 (JPL) – As Californians continue pumping groundwater in response to the historic drought, the California Department of Water Resources today released a new NASA report showing land in the San Joaquin Valley is sinking faster than ever before, nearly 2 inches (5 centimeters) per month in some locations. The report, Progress Report: […]

August 13th is Earth Overshoot Day this year – In less than eight months, humanity has used up nature’s budget for the entire year

OAKLAND, CA, USA, 12 August 2015 (GFN) – In less than eight months, humanity has used up nature’s budget for the entire year, with carbon sequestration making up more than half of the demand on nature, according to data from Global Footprint Network, an international sustainability think tank with offices in North America, Europe and […]

Are water shortages the biggest threat to the Middle East? “Doha has just three days’ supply”

By Karim Elgendy16 July 2015 (City Metric) – Those who visit the Middle East and North Africa from more temperate climates are often struck with how hot and dry the region is, and how scarce its rainfall. Some wonder why cities became established here, and how they continue to exist despite the lack of renewable […]

Continued destruction of Earth’s plant life places humankind in jeopardy – ‘The sun’s energy is stored in plants and fossil fuels, but humans are draining energy much faster than it can be replenished’

By James Hataway14 July 2015 Athens, Georgia (UGA) – Unless humans slow the destruction of Earth’s declining supply of plant life, civilization like it is now may become completely unsustainable, according to a paper published recently by University of Georgia researchers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “You can think of the […]

Graph of the Day: World arable land per capita, 1961-2012

3 July 2015 (Desdemona Despair) – Will world agriculture be able to support a human population of 12 billion people in the year 2100? The answer largely turns on how much land is available for growing crops. Unfortunately, the world’s arable land area is declining at an enormous rate. The UN Convention to Combat Desertification […]

California drought is part of a much bigger water crisis

By Abrahm Lustgarten, Lauren Kirchner, Amanda Zamora, and ProPublica26 June 2015 (Scientific American) – Why do I keep hearing about the California drought, if it’s the Colorado River that we’re “killing”? Pretty much every state west of the Rockies has been facing a water shortage of one kind or another in recent years.  California’s is […]

A third of the world’s biggest groundwater basins are in distress – Reserves likely far smaller than previously thought

Irvine, California, 16 June 2015 (UCI) – Two new studies led by UC Irvine using data from NASA Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites show that human consumption is rapidly draining some of its largest groundwater basins, yet there is little to no accurate data about how much water remains in them. The result is […]

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