Category: climate change

Plummeting insect numbers ‘threaten collapse of nature’

Damian CarringtonEnvironment editor @dpcarrington Sun 10 Feb 2019 13.00 EST https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature The world’s insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, according to the first global scientific review. More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling

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Generation Anthropocene: How humans have altered the planet for ever

(Read original article here) by Robert Macfarlane We are living in the Anthropocene age, in which human influence on the planet is so profound – and terrifying – it will leave its legacy for millennia. Politicians and scientists have had their say, but how are writers and artists responding to this crisis? In 2003 the Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht coined the term solastalgia to mean a “form of psychic or existential distress

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A railway to Arctic riches: economic boom, environmental threat?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/a-railway-to-arctic-riches-economic-boom-environmental-threat/article4259449/?page=all http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/a-railway-to-arctic-riches-economic-boom-environmental-threat/article4259449/?page=all [Show picture list] A handful of people shuffle into the community hall in Kimmirut, Nunavut, a tiny outpost on the southern coast of Baffin Island. It’s early December, and the small group shakes off the cold winter air and settles into folding chairs to hear a presentation about something completely foreign to Baffin Island – a railway. INFOGRAPHIC A railway in the North INFOGRAPHIC A fragile environment TAKEOVER

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Why Climate Scientists Are So Intrigued By the Brutal Sea Voyages of the 19th Century

http://gizmodo.com/why-the-brutal-sea-voyages-of-the-19th-century-are-so-i-1746205997 Life aboard a ship in the 18th or 19th century—especially in the far north or south—was treacherous. Now, the records of these brutal voyages are playing a surprising role in scientists’ efforts to understand the future of the planet. If you’ve ever read In the Kingdom of Ice, which chronicles the race to the North Pole, or Endurance, a record of Shackleton’s Antarctic voyage, you’ve heard about what life

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Temujin Doran – North

“We often believe that our own time is at last modern and we are the last men who can act with the authority and weight of the generations that came before us. The wisdom of all human history, gathered together to inform our decisions, yet after a century of knowledge we have arrived here and now, once again cursed by resource and conflict, and unable to change. In another century,

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We Have “Learned Nothing” from BP Disaster: Obama Opens More of Arctic to Offshore Drilling

Yesterday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the Obama Administration’s highly anticipated plan for proposed offshore oil and gas leases from 2012-2017.  It focuses on exploration in the Gulf of Mexico and giving oil companies the chance to bid on drilling rights in Arctic waters, including the Beaufort and Chukchi seas and the Cook Inlet. Because the plan targets areas with known potential for oil and gas development where exploration is

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