U.S. HAD MORE FLOODS IN 2016 THAN ANY YEAR ON RECORD...
2016 really was the year of the flood in the U.S.: In total, 19 separate floods swamped the nation last year, the most in one single year since records began in 1980. USA TODAY
Read moreTHERE WERE A CRAZY NUMBER OF RECORD HIGHS IN 2016...
credit: Climate Central
2016 will be remembered for many things. One of them will be heat...
Read moreLOUISIANA HISTORY WASHES AWAY AS SEA LEVELS RISE, LAND SINKS...
Richie Blink, born and raised in Plaquemines Parish, La., south of New Orleans, works for the National Wildlife Federation. He got in touch with an archaeologist to take a look at some shards of pottery that were eroding into the Gulf of Mexico. Blink holds a pottery shard that could be 300 to 500 years old, from the Plaquemine culture of what's called the Bayou Petre phase. (WWNO)
Louisiana is losing its coast at a rapid rate because of rising sea levels, development and sinking marshland. Officials are trying to rebuild those marshes and the wetlands, but much of the coast can't be saved. This makes Louisiana's history an unwitting victim. As land disappears and the water creeps inland, ancient archaeology sites are washing away, too...
Read moreWYOMING'S GREAT DISCONNECT...SHORT SIGHTEDNESS OR DESPERATION?
Sign in downtown Gillette, Wyoming | Photo by Toby Brusseau
The state's political leadership doubles down on coal while the industry flounders...
Read moreSTORM SURGE DAMAGE FALLS $8.3 BILLION A YEAR IN LOUISIANA'S NEW COASTAL PLAN...
What's currently left of the marsh along the East Pearl River and the Rigolets, where the 2017 Coastal Master Plan now includes a flood gate to combat storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. (Photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune) ((Photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com |The Times-Picayune))
The ambitious 2017 rewrite of Louisiana's $50 billion, 50-year coastal protection and restoration master plan could reduce hurricane storm surge damage by $8.3 billion a year through 2067 and create 800 more square miles of coastal wetlands and dry land than if the plan is not implemented...
Read moreHIMALAYAN BLOOM BRINGS SPRING FORWARD...
The Annapurna range in Nepal provides the backdrop to a vibrant display of rhododendrons. Image: Andrew Miller via Flickr
The flowering season of the Himalayan rhododendron has moved forward by three months in response to climate change...
WHERE TO FOLLOW THE CLIMATE ACTION IN 2017...
A clean energy project in China. Credit: Asian Development Bank/Flickr
The past year epitomized the toing-and-froing of planetary fortunes that have come to define global climate policy and debates...
Read moreBIGGER STEPS...
Photo by Travis Warren/CC By-NC 2.0
America’s first comprehensive environmental legislation, the National Environmental Policy Act, was the result of escalating public demand for less pollution and less impact...
Read moreA TRIGGER ACTION FROM SEA-LEVEL RISE?
Can a rising sea level can act as a boost for glaciers calving into the sea and trigger a surge of ice into the oceans? I finally got round to watch the documentary Chasing Ice over the Christmas and New Year’s break, and it made a big impression. I also was left with this question after watching it...
Read moreNO MORE MASS DEATHS FROM DROUGHT IN NORTHEAST BRAZIL...
Water tanks to collect rainfall water behind a house in Buena Esperanza, a settlement of 45 families in the state of Pernambuco in Brazil’s semiarid Northeast region, where thanks to such initiatives the rural population manages to survive prolonged droughts, without the tragedies of the past. Credit: Mario Osava/ IPS
The drought that has plagued Brazil’s semiarid Northeast region since 2012 is already more severe than the 1979-1983 drought, the longest in the 20th century. But prolonged dry spells no longer cause the tragedies of the past...
Read moreAT BLACKWATER REFUGE, RISING SEA LEVELS DROWN HABITAT...
Dredge material is applied to the wetlands at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge to help them keep up with rising sea levels. Kim Hairston / Baltimore Sun
Conservationists have a plan to save marshland at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge from rising sea levels...
Read moreROBIN HOOD'S SHERWOOD FOREST FACES FRACKING THREAT...
Major Oak in Sherwood Forest country park, Nottinghamshire, was voted England’s tree of the year in 2014. According to folklore the tree sheltered Robin Hood and his merry men. Photograph: Phil Lockwood/Woodland Trust/PA
Ineos to conduct seismic survey for shale gas and could be working within 200m of the 1,000-year-old tree Major Oak, documents reveal...
Read moreOUR BEST ENVIRONMENT STORIES FROM THIS PAST YEAR...
A chinstrap penguin surveys his domain near the shore of the Antarctic Peninsula. Some penguin species have already been displaced by the decline of ice in the region, and many populations will lose habitat in the decades ahead. (Photo: Bob Berwyn)
Stories not to miss from our environmental coverage over the past year...
Read moreCAN A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SCIENTIST IN CALIFORNIA CONVINCE TRUMP THAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL?
Ben Santer credit: Getty
In the two decades since Ben Santer helped write a landmark international report linking global warming and human activity, he’s been criticized by politicians, accused of falsifying his data and rewarded with a dead rat on his doorstep...
Read more2016: THE YEAR CLIMATE CHANGE CAME INTO OUR LIVING ROOMS... JOB ONE FOR HUMANITY'S BLOGS TOP TEN STORIES FOR 2016
cartoon by Adam Zyglis
Strong, smart adults do not want to be fed false hopes, false targets or false facts. They want to know the way things really are so that they can adapt to or effectively manage what actually is there. If you would like to quickly cut through the Paris Climate Conference media spin as well as other greenwashing from the poorly informed concerning the Paris agreement and results, keep reading…
(note: This ones on the cusp of the new year but it tells the story that is about to unfold...)
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