Environment

( Otherwords) – Mercury regulations save 11,000 lives each year. Now, the EPA wants to weaken them. While Americans were quietly preparing to ring in the New Year, the EPA gave families a deadly present to start the year off wrong. On December 28, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a proposal that would effectively weaken […]

Climate Change

Our Carbon Dioxide Addiction: “We’re not going to stop this train wreck.”

Dahr Jamail

( Tomdispatch.com) – I’m standing atop Rush Hill on Alaska’s remote St. Paul Island. While only 665 feet high, it provides a 360-degree view of this tundra-covered, 13-mile-long, seven-mile-wide part of the Pribilof Islands. While the hood of my rain jacket flaps in the cold wind, I gaze in wonder at the silvery waters of […]

Ice Melt

Ominous: Annual Antarctica Ice Loss Increases 6-Fold over 1979 Rate

AFP

Tampa (AFP) – Global warming is melting ice in Antarctica faster than ever before — about six times more per year now than 40 years ago — leading to increasingly high sea levels worldwide, scientists warned Monday. Already, Antarctic melting has raised global sea levels more than half an inch (1.4 centimeters) between 1979 and […]

Climate Change

Solar and Wind Good news Stories Today

Juan Cole

Scotland is now getting 70% of its electricity from renewables (wind, solar, wave and hydro) and plans to be at 100% in 2020. In some months in 2018 Scotland’s renewables generated more 100% of the electricity the country uses. Scotland is innovating in tidal power, driven by the powerful currents in its seas, but onshore […]

Climate Change

Climate Emergency: Oceans Hotter than in Recorded History and Getting Hotter

AFP

Tampa, United States | AFP | – The world’s oceans are heating up at an accelerating pace as global warming threatens a diverse range of marine life and a major food supply for the planet, researchers said Thursday. The findings in the US journal Science, led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, debunk previous reports […]

Acidification of Oceans

Wall or Watchtower? The real Threat is invasive Climate Crisis, and our Shield is Science

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In his story “The Wall and the Books,” the great Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges wrote, “I read, in past days, that the man who ordered the construction of the nearly infinite Wall of China was that First Emperor, Shih Huang Ti, who likewise ordered the burning of all the […]

Climate Change

With Trump AWOL, Can Europe & China Lead Globe away from Climate Suicide?

Climate Home News

By Natalie Sauer | – ( Climate Home News ) – As 2019 dawns, it is crunch time for the Paris Agreement on climate change. Last month’s UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland set (most of) the technical rules of the Paris Agreement, but showed little sign of renewed ambition. Responding to the latest scientific […]

Climate Change

Climate Sabotage & Forever Wars: Is America the Most Dangerous Country in the World?

Tom Engelhardt

(Via Tomdispatch.com ) – Sixty-six million years ago, so the scientists tell us, an asteroid slammed into this planet. Landing on what’s now Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, it gouged out a crater 150 kilometers wide and put so much soot and sulfur into the atmosphere that it created what was essentially a prolonged “nuclear winter.” During […]

Mass Extinction

Mysterious Mass die-off of Insects threatens Pollination, Food Supply

Nature

(Nature) Recognizing the quiet extinction of invertebrates Nico Eisenhauer, Aletta Bonn & Carlos A. Guerra Nature Communications, volume 10, Article number: 50 (2019) | Download Citation Abstract Invertebrates are central to the functioning of ecosystems, yet they are underappreciated and understudied. Recent work has shown that they are suffering from rapid decline. Here we call […]