29 August 2013 (mongabay.com) – Nearly 500 fires are burning across the Indonesian island of Sumatra, raising fears that choking air pollution could return to Singapore and Malaysia. The fires, set to clear land for agriculture, are concentrated in Riau, Jambi, and South Sumatra provinces. Like the fires that charred the region two months ago, […]
By Rhett A. Butler3 September 2013 (mongabay.com) – Conversion of forests for palm oil production now appears to be the single largest driver of deforestation in Indonesia, accounting for roughly a quarter of forest loss between 2009 and 2011, asserts a new Greenpeace report that accuses the sector’s main certification standard of failing to stop […]
By Dan Vergano6 August 2013 GRAND ISLE, Louisiana (USA TODAY) – Pelicans and pickups roam the beach, where the waves roll in and return, lapping over the open water of the Gulf of Mexico. The water covers land that was once beach, and it has devoured land that was once marsh tucked behind this 6-square-mile […]
By Emilio Godoy12 July 2013 PROGRESO, Mexico (IPS) – Towns on Mexico’s Caribbean coast are behind schedule on the design and implementation of plans to face the challenges of climate change, in spite of the urgency of measures to reduce vulnerability. The country’s 2012 General Law on Climate Change requires state and municipal governments to […]
10 July 2013 (mongabay.com) – A new mapping tool based on NASA satellite data confirms that the majority of fires that drove the recent haze over Sumatra and Malaysia were concentrated in deforested peatlands and scrub, rather than natural forest areas. The interactive fire risk tool, developed by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), […]
By Aaron Kase 20 June 2013 (Salon) – The habitat for half the world supply of wild sockeye salmon — as well as a critical area for other wildlife, tourism and native peoples — is at urgent risk of being filled with pollutants, and sterilized in the name of gold and copper mining. Dillingham is […]
By Mark Schleifstein4 June 2013 (The Times-Picayune) – With the United States coastline, its residents and businesses vulnerable to trillions of dollars of losses from catastrophic storms during the next 75 years, in part fueled by climate change, it’s time for the nation to focus on coastal resiliency, according to Lindene Patton, a risk management […]
By Jeff Montgomery 24 May 2013 (The News Journal) – In a symbolic blow to state climate change adaption efforts, the Delaware county with most at stake in future sea-level rise forecasts abruptly declined to take any stand on the issue Thursday as a state panel approved dozens of recommendations for dealing with the threat. […]
By Timothy B. Wheeler22 May 2013 (The Baltimore Sun) – Some of springtime’s more notable heralds appear to be fading away, as a new study finds frogs, toads and salamanders disappearing at an alarming rate across the United States. In what they say is the first analysis of its kind, scientists with the U.S. Geological […]
By Joanna M. Foster 7 May 2013 (Takepart.com) – On the southern edge of Louisiana, there is almost as much water as land. You can’t drive to anyone’s house, you have to travel by boat, and sometimes there are hours of water between neighbors. It takes a special breed to make a home here, in […]