You can't navigate through multiyear ice... photo: arcticroute.com via flickr.
You've probably seen all sort of predictions about when the
Arctic will see it's first ice-free summer in, umm, all of human history. Well, the University of Manitoba's
David Barber, just returned from an expedition to examine multi-year ice in the Beaufort Sea, has told
Reuters that, for all practical purposes we're already there:...
photo: Photos8.com via flickr.
Recently we heard that Africa's elephants face a bleak future, but it seems the world's tigers aren't long for this world either.
The Economic Times reports that at the
Kathmandu Global Tiger Workshop, the latest numbers show that the world population of 3,500 tigers could all be extinct in 15-20 years without better conservation efforts:...
Greater short-nosed fruit bat feeding on kapok, photo: Wikipedia.
New research published in the online journal
PLoS ONE demonstrates for the first time that a non-human adult animal species regularly engages in oral sex behavior. While the behavior has been seen in juvenile animals before, this is the first time it has been observed in adult animals.
Warning: While the following information is scientifically accurate, some of the descriptions are slightly graphic. ...
photo: Kevin Dooley/Creative Commons via flickr.
Between the brouhaha over
Super Freakonomics and an article from the
BBC, there seems to be a lot of discussion about whether or not the climate is actually warming now. It didn't seem to matter that
NOAA stats indicate warming, and that the
Union of Concerned Scientists, as well as numerous prestigious climate scientists' work all show that the trend is toward more warming. Well, the
Associated Press put their own statisticians on the case and found, yes, the world is indeed still warming: ...
photo: Rob and Stephanie Levy via flickr.
Here's a testimony to the resiliency of tropical forests:
Mongabay points out that a study in the journal
Conservation Biology shows that, if managed properly, forests which have been logged can return to levels of biodiversity found in untouched forests in just 15 years:...
People in the Mountain West have the lowest opinion of there being solid evidence of global warming. Colorado Springs photo: Jay Miller via flickr.
A new
Pew Research poll shows that fewer US residents think there's
solid evidence for global warming than in previous years, with just 57% seeing climate change evidence. That's down 20% since 2006 and down 14% since last year. Furthermore, only 36% of respondents thought that global warming was caused by human activity:...
Though short-lived in the atmosphere, soot from diesel engines and cooking fires can be strong contributors to global warming. Photo: Matt Buck via flickr.
As if getting one global climate treaty isn't hard enough:
University of California at Berkeley researcher Stacy Jackson says we need to start planning for a future summit to specifically address short- and medium-term acting components of global warming such as
soot, ozone, and
methane:...
The Met Office map lets you zoom in and examine climate change impacts in a number of sub-areas: Forest fires, crop yields, water availability, sea level rise, droughts, etc.
It's
interactive climate change map day on TreeHugger! We just saw how badly hit the southeastern part of the US could get, and now it's time to check out what the world might look like under a 4°C (that's 7°F) average temperature rise scenario. This time it's the UK's
Met Office Hadley Centre providing the Flash magic: ...
Oxfam America's map shows areas of the Southeast United States and their overall vulnerability to climate change. Darkest colors are most vulnerable.
Want some more evidence that the
effects of climate change won't just be strongly felt overseas? Here it is:
Oxfam America has just launched a new project highlighting how vulnerable the southeastern part of the United States is to climate change. On a county-by-county basis you can examine how bad drought, floods, sea level rise, and hurricanes are going to be, as well as look at how socially vulnerable areas are:...
photo: Seth Lieberman via flickr.
What an interesting intersection of biology and
geo-engineering: Our colleagues over at
Discovery News are pointing out that because the amount of extra iron
sperm whales bring up from the ocean depth when the feed they stimulate enough carbon-trapping plankton growth to effectively be considered a carbon sink: ...
Credit: Philippe Verbelen via MSU.
The Banggai crow was thought to be extinct, and only found in a museum. A Michigan State University species sleuth recently confirmed the existence of the black bird on a remote, mountainous Indonesian Island.
The only problem now: The bird needs protection. It looks a lot like a more common slender-billed crow called the Corvus enca, and the endangered version is being hunted by local residents. ...
New
UNEP analysis serves as an update to the last IPCC report on climate change from two years ago and really should serve as a wake-up call to anyone who thinks climate change isn't happening and fast: After reviewing more than 400 studies done in the past two years, the report concludes that because of faster-than-predicted carbon emissions growth
we are now committed to at least 1.4°C of warming by 2100 and as much as 4.3°C.
Saying that the "pace and the scale of climate change is accelerating, along with the confidence among researchers in their forecasts," the UNEP stresses that scientists are increasingly saying that some climate changes are really becoming commitments. In other words, even once we stabilize emissions these changes will still occur:...
Political leaders have made all sorts of back slappingly good
2050 commitments for emission reductions, but without the right short- and mid-term targets those long-term goals don't entirely cut it. That may be just my opinion, but it seems to be shared by
IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri -- who was just quoted by
AFP on the matter.
Pachauri said,"It is not enough to set any aspirational goal for 2050, it is critically important that we bring about a commitment to reduce emissions effectively by 2020."
Reinforcing the point he added, if the G8 commitment to keep global temperature rise to 2°C is to be met that global emissions must peak by 2015....
Hello there, TreeHuggers, and welcome back to the weekly roundup of
Mother Jones' environment news.
You've likely heard that the US Chamber of Commerce is shrinking as its members
balk at the organization's Draconian climate policies. That's too bad for the Chamber, especially since, as Josh Harkinson reports, the Chamber wasn't as big as it claimed it was. Three million businesses strong?
Not by a long shot.
Meanwhile, in California, Gov. Schwarzenegger
steals the spotlight from the real stars of solar power legislation. But Bill McKibben
makes the case that it'll take more than politicians to fix the climate before time runs out.
This week's
Econundrum sheds new light on an age-old chestnut: Do snot-nosed kids trample all over the planet? And speaking of snot, the latest symptom of climate change is floating islands of mucus in the Mediterranean. Read all the charming details
here.
That's all for this week. For more greenish news from
Mother Jones, check out the
Blue Marble blog. ...
all photos courtesy Jennifer Redfearn
Though it may be a number of years before your life is personally impacted by climate change, for people in low-lying island nations and the world's great river deltas
rising sea levels and saltwater ruining land is already a fact of life. One such place is the
Carteret Islands off the coast of Papua New Guinea. TreeHugger recently interviewed documentary filmmaker
Jennifer Redfearn about her work-in-progress
Sun Come Up, which chronicles the efforts of these people to uproot their lives and find new homes: ...
We'll be working on better category archives soon. In the meantime, take a look at the
if you really want to dig around, or use the search box at the top of the page.
on 11. 6.09
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