Disasters & Extreme Weather

UCS Examines Climate Change From Sea To Shining Sea

More imminent than deadly viruses or terrorists at national events is the phenomenon of climate change, a force examined in a groundbreaking new report released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists. Titled National Landmarks at Risk: How Rising Seas, Floods and Wildfires are Threatening the United States’ Most Cherished Historic Sites, the study examines […]

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Drone Captures Fukushima Desolation Amid Cherry Blossoms

Cherry blossoms in the foreground of Mount Fuji (image: ladyadventurer.co.uk) So far, at least, the famed blossoming cherry trees of Japan don’t discriminate geographically. This time of year, they grace even the surroundings of nuclear power generators shaken by earthquake, tsunami, and meltdowns three years ago. Otherwise, though, the Fukushima landscape remains desolate. Despite widespread

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National Climate Assessment Pulls No Punches About US Options

(All figures are from the 2014 National Climate Assessment draft.) Later today (Tuesday, May 6), at 8 a.m. EDT, the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee of experts meets by conference call to approve the final version of the Third National Climate Assessment. The gist of their message, as Suzanne Goldenberg of The Guardian

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Two Giant Oarfish Spotted Off Mexican Beach (Video)

Not again. Last year, as PlanetSave’s James Ayre reported, dead giant oarfish—-bizarre and terrifying serpents of the sea (Regalecus glesne) five and six yards long—-washed ashore at separate locations off the California coast during one week in October. Also last year, National Geographic documented video by a remotely operated undersea vehicle of a giant oarfish

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Apocalypse News Roundup: Corn Declines, A Killer New Virus, NASA Forecasts 'Irreversible Collapse' & Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse [VIDEO]

Greetings faithful readers… Well, March is turning out to be a fine month for apocalyptica of seemingly every sort…So, as your faithful reporter of all things cataclysmic and eschatological (well, I try), I give you this friendly round-up of end-full news items for your reading pleasure, with brief commentary. To wit: Maize Can’t Take the Blaze

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Los Angeles Council Unanimously Puts Off Fracking

When the hydraulic fracturing measure passed the Los Angeles City Council today, several tweeters posted photos of this meeting (source of the above: Walker Foley on twitter). The City Council of Los Angeles, second-most populous metro in the United States, voted 10-0 today to prohibit hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) and other “unconventional” deep-underground drilling methods to produce

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Off-Shore Wind Farms Can 'Tame' Hurricane Winds, Surges, Stanford Study Finds [VIDEO]

  Climate scientists have been predicting more intense seasonal temperature variations and storms for several years now and recent winter ice storms in the deep south of the US, as well as ‘super storm’ Sandy, seem to lend much credence to this forecasting. And although this past hurricane season was less than spectacular — discounting Sandy,

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Neil Young Tour Took On Tar Sands — 10 Reasons The Tour Rocked (Other Than The Music)

http://youtu.be/J_QAdup7G0o Legendary rocker Neil Young, born in Toronto, recently went on a tour in Canada aiming to support the rights of First Nations when it comes to tar sands development. Needless to say, First Nations citizens are being almost completely ignored and greatly harmed by reckless development of the tar sands. Young asserted that Canadian

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What's "Sustainable Development"? Free Online Course!

On his blog “I see a change,” Nigerian Youth Development Expert Olumide Idowu presents the elements of sustainable development (source: olumideidowu.blog.com). Not all online courses provide all they promise you, but here’s one that should answer all your questions about environmentally sustainable, socially inclusive economic development. It will also challenge you to find out more.

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Fish…Oil.

Crude oil is a fossil fuel and was made naturally from decaying plants and animals, like this prehistoric dunkleosteus, living in ancient seas millions of years ago. Damn dunkleosteus, why couldn’t your decayed remains have become solar PV cells? Joe Mohr is a cartoonist for a variety of publications and children’s writer and illustrator. His

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A Longer Life: Frozen Bubbles

What happens when you blow a bubble and it’s cold outside? (Photo: Washington photographer Angela Kelly.) January 2014. It’s been unseasonably chilly, to say the least. Washington-based photographer Angela Kelly brings us a stunning gallery of photographs in the Huffington Post of what happens to a blown bubble when it’s exposed to extremely cold temperatures?

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Solar-powered Water Purifying Affordable Homes Can be Donated or Purchased

Mesocore offers a container-sized housing solution that purifies rain water and is solar-powered. The potential return on investment for donating one to a family in need is very large. If you consider that there are millions of people around the world living without housing, electricity or clean drinking water, Mesocore self-contained micro homes could drastically

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Pet Coke — #4 In "Top 10 Toxic Ingredients Used By The Fossil Fuel Industries" Series

This is part of a 10-part series on the “Top 10 Toxic Ingredients Used By The Fossil Fuel Industries.” Read, share, and check in tomorrow for the next part, which will focus on sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). 4. Petroleum Coke (Pet Coke) Fossil Fuel Source: Oil Pet coke is a rapidly expanding byproduct

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Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons — #6 In "Top 10 Toxic Ingredients Used By The Fossil Fuel Industries" Series

This is part of a 10-part series on the “Top 10 Toxic Ingredients Used By The Fossil Fuel Industries.” Read, share, and check in tomorrow for the next part, which will focus on formaldehyde. 6. Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) Fossil Fuel Sources: Oil and Coal In actuality, this is not a single listing — polycyclic aromatic

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Sea Level Likely To Rise One Meter By 2100, Threatening Coastal Cities (Largest Ocean Science Survey Ever)

If greenhouse gas emissions remain at current levels, global sea-level rise will by 70 to 120 centimeters by 2100, according to the results of a new survey of 90 of the world’s most active ocean and climate scientists. The survey was conducted by researchers from the United States and Germany, and published in the recent Quaternary

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BREAKING: Today's Illinois Tornadoes

Tornado watches and warnings in the Midwest, Sunday, November 17, 2013. On their way to Chicago. Peoria. Jennifer Wojcicki ☈ ‏‪@WxWithJenny‬ 20m RT ‪@TomPurdyWI‬: Beautiful wall cloud near Harvard, Illinois earlier, inflow screaming in on right side there. ‪#ilwx‬ ‪pic.twitter.com/8JvW8Hwfiq‬ Chicago Tribune ‏‪@chicagotribune‬ 58m Tornado touching down in LaSalle County ‪http://trib.in/1bwjOO7 ‬ ‪pic.twitter.com/zBOT9eyAH8‬ ChuckGoudieABC ‏‪@ChuckGoudieABC7‬ Twister

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U.S. To Aid TEPCO In Moving Hot Fukushima Fuel

Preparing to decommission the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, TEPCO recently dismantled the damaged roof parapet of Unit 4 and removed debris there. (Screenshot source: Enformable.com/Lucas W. Hixson.) As early as next Friday (November 8), the scariest decommissioning work at the ruined nuclear power complex may begin. Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), the largest electrical utility in

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The Private Mission To Save Planet Earth (From Asteroids)

Our Solar system is a potentially world-altering place when it comes to asteroid impacts; planetary scientists continue to find plentiful evidence of multiple and massive asteroid impacts on other planets and the various moons that orbit them…And, of course, there is evidence of “extinction level” impacts occurring in the distant past here on Earth. Such

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Our Way Of Life

By Maggie Fox, President and CEO, Climate Reality Project It’s funny. A lot of the rhetoric we hear pushing back against putting a price on carbon pollution parrots the argument that “it would threaten our way of life.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Fossil fuels like oil and coal helped power us through the

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Declining And Misused Federal Fire Dollars: The Rim Fire

“Monster” fire consumes almost 10% of Yosemite National Park, August-September 2013 (Photo: U.S. Forest Service) Annual costs of fighting wildfires have grown exponentially over the past decade. They now surpass the value of resources reclaimed. The Rim Fire burning in and near Yosemite National Park has already cost over $65 million, and it is less

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$60 Trillion — Global Economic Impact Of A Massive Methane Release In The Arctic, New Study Shows

Up to $60 trillion (just shy of the global GDP for one year) is what climate change impacts will cost the world’s economy if the estimated 50 billion tons of seafloor-trapped methane gas in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf were to be released into the atmosphere. That’s according to new economic modeling research conducted by

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Nighttime Heat Waves In Pacific Northwest Have Quadrupled In Frequency Over The Past 33 Years

Nighttime heat waves in the Pacific Northwest have quadrupled in frequency over the past 33 years, according to new research from the University of Washington. Specifically — the region of Washington state west of the Cascades experienced only three nighttime heat waves during the years of 1901-1980, but 12 nighttime heat waves during the years

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Architect Designs 'Ark' — Floating Housing Project — For An Uncertain Climate Future (Photos)

Like many contemporary architects, Alexander Remizov designs structures based upon principles of energy efficiency and environmental sustainability. But where he parts from many of his fellows is in his futuristic vision of a world impacted by highly uncertain climate change — particularly habitable land loss due to mass flooding events and extreme climate conditions. Many

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Volcanoes 'Scream' At Ever-Increasing Pitches Until They Erupt, Research Finds

Some volcanoes ‘scream’ at ever-higher pitches until erupting — the ‘scream’ being the harmonic tremors that often accompany the earthquakes which typically precede volcanic eruptions, according to new research from the University of Washington and the USGS. The new findings are the result of a new analysis of the March 2009 eruption of Alaska’s Redoubt

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Runaway Oil Train Causes Deadly Explosion In Eastern Quebec

At about 1:15 Saturday morning, a 72-freightcar train carrying crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken shale development, bound for Irving Oil’s plant in Saint John, New Brunswick, slipped its brakes in the eastern Quebec town of Nantes. The train’s only human passenger — the engineer — had checked into a nearby hotel. Driverless and continually

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Global Food Production Won't Keep Up With The World's Growing Population, Research Warns

Global food production isn’t increasing fast enough to support the world’s rapidly growing population, according to new research from the Institute on the Environment (IonE) at the University of Minnesota. Crop yields are actually falling rather notably in many of the warmer/poorer regions of the world as a result of rising temperatures and increasing natural

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Gulf Of Mexico Dead Zone 2013 — Record-Setting Deadzone Is Likely This Year

The 2013 Gulf of Mexico dead zone may very likely be the largest one ever, according to new predictions based on several different NOAA-supported forecast models. The hypoxic dead zone is forecast to cover somewhere between 7,286 and 8,561 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico. The largest dead zone on record was the 2002

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Antarctic Ice Shelves Losing Mass As A Result Of The Undersides Melting — Not Iceberg Calving As Was Previously Thought

The Antarctic ice shelves have been melting at ever increasing rates in recent years — losing mass, though not always extent, as much of the mass loss has been with regards to ice thickness. And now, new research has shed some new light on the causes of this ice loss — the warming ocean waters

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11 Billion People By 2100? New UN Report Predicts Faster Than Expected Population Rise — But Does The Report Ignore Inevitable And Approaching Realities?

11 billion people in the world by the year 2100? That’s what a new report from the United Nations is predicting. According to the report, that figure is about 8% higher than was previously predicted (in 2011), with the higher prediction being the result of fertility rates in Africa declining more slowly than was previously

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Megathrust Earthquake Strikes The North American West Coast — When Will The Inevitable Happen?

When will the next megathrust earthquake strike the Pacific coast of North America? It’s an important question for those living in the region, and also more generally for the governments and economies of the United States and Canada, but it is a difficult one to answer. But now, new research may finally be helping to

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Severe Thunderstorms Will Increase In Frequency As A Result Of Climate Change, Research Finds

Severe thunderstorms may increase in frequency as a result of the changing atmospheric conditions that will accompany climate change, new research has found. The recent research and analysis has revealed that the conditions which favor the development of severe thunderstorms will become much more common in the coming years. The severe thunderstorms of the near-future

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Oklahoma Tornado May 20 2013 — Sign Of Things To Come? Will Tornadoes Increase In Intensity With Climate Change? (VIDEO)

An extremely powerful EF5 tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma on Monday, May 20, 2013. The deadly tornado hit with peak winds of around 210 miles an hour, and leveled large swaths of the area, killing at least 24 people, and injuring at least another 377 others. The only reason that the numbers weren’t significantly higher is

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