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  • Flooding hits Italian countryside; climate change will bring more torrential rains

    Americans may not care about weather-related disasters in places like Tuvalu, but it's possible that mudslides and flooding devastating some of Italy's most beautiful tourist ares will make a blip on the country's collective radar screen. (How will we prove we're cultured if Italy's one big mud pile?) Six people have died and hundreds more […]

    Sarah Laskow Science

  • Underwater cities: Climate change begins to reshape the urban landscape

    Flooding in Miami.Photo: kthreadDan Kipness, a retired fishing boat captain and a 60-year Miami Beach resident, has a video that offers a glimpse of where this coastal city is headed. In it, cars and trucks kick floodwater into the air as they drive down Miami Beach’s streets. This isn’t rainwater — the skies are at […]

    Tony Davis Science

  • Climate scientists to reformed skeptic: ‘Duh’

    Climate Scientist Eric Steig's reaction to the announcement that former climate skeptic Richard Muller recently confirmed that the earth is in fact warming is perhaps best captured by this classic XKCD comic. As Steig put it at RealClimate: As far as the basic science goes, the results could not have been less surprising if the […]

    Christopher Mims Science

  • No more Javan rhinos in Vietnam

    The Javan rhinoceros, an endangered species, no longer exists in Vietnam: poachers killed the last one and took its horn, according to the World Wildlife Fund. That rhinoceros was killed last April and since then there have been no signs (viewings, scat, etc.) of any others remaining in the Cat Tien National Park where they […]

    Sarah Laskow Science

  • Happy warrior: Fighting coal where it’s hardest

    Grist is proud to present the Change Gang — profiles of people who are leading change on the ground toward a more sustainable society and a greener planet. Some we’ve written about before; some are new to our pages. Some you’ll have heard of; most you probably won’t. Know someone we should add to the […]

    Andrew Leonard Science

  • Dangerous levels of warming could happen in your lifetime

    It's easy for a lot of people to ignore climate change, because it's not going to affect them, it'll only affect their children. If they don't have children, all the better! Who cares! Well, two new research papers in the latest Nature warn that most of the world could be seeing dangerous levels of global warming […]

    Jess Zimmerman Science

  • It is shockingly easy to own exotic animals in the U.S.

    The depressing news from Ohio -- where the owner of a large and mismanaged personal exotic animal park let the animals loose to be shot by police, then killed himself -- has led a number of people, such as me, to wonder, "where do you even get 18 endangered Bengal tigers in this day and age?" Turns out it's easier than you might think.

    New Scientist has rounded up info on U.S. exotic animal laws, from their comfortable position outside the U.S. where they can freely be appalled.

    Jess Zimmerman Science

  • Underwater homes: A visual guide to NYC's future floods

    A New York City artist brings climate change home by mapping the coming floods and drawing them on the actual cityscape.

    Greg Hanscom Science

  • Scientists are underplaying climate effects

    So, talking about global warming is "alarmism"? Hardly. In many cases, it now turns out, climate reality has been much worse than climate scientists predicted. The Arctic now has ice-free summers, 90 years in advance of predictions. Animals are fleeing to higher elevations twice as fast as models said. Extinction rates are double what was expected, […]

    Jess Zimmerman Science

  • This exotic animals story just keeps getting more depressing

    We noted yesterday that 48 exotic animals had escaped from an Ohio farm, and that authorities were handling the problem by shooting them. That's enough of a downer, but the more details we hear the worse it gets.

    There ended up being more than 50 animals running amok, and 49 of them were killed, including 18 endangered Bengal tigers and 17 lions. Local police say they did try to sedate the animals instead of killing them, but they didn't really have tranquilizers suited to 300-pound wildcats. And, as if that's not enough, the reason they were loose in the first place is that owner Terry Thompson released them before committing suicide. Maybe because he heard a story about 18 Bengal tigers getting shot to death.

    Jess Zimmerman Science