Climate Science

Long Island lobster catch dwindling to nothing

It really sucks to be a lobster fisherperson working in the Long Island Sound. Twelve years ago, 90 percent of the lobsters died off because of pesticides or climate change or both. The ones still there have weird-looking shells, a result of bacteria colonizing the sounds, that keep people from wanting to eat them. Things are so bad some of the lobstermen don't even bother fishing for lobster anymore, says the New York Times:

Brace yourself for more stink bugs

Here's one invasive species that's never going to end up on an invasivore menu: the brown marmorated stink bug. (This is actually the most appetizing photo I could find.) They smell when you squish them, they get all up in your house, and they ruined $37 million worth of fruit crops last year. And they're likely to make an even bigger mess this year as they migrate into warmer climates.

Sand kitten gives hope for near-extinct species, is ridiculously cute

The Israeli sand cat is extinct in the wild, so its only hope is breeding programs in captivity. The birth of this stupifyingly cute fuzzball at Safari Zoo in Tel Aviv is therefore really good news — it could help put the species on the path to recovery and reintroduction. But mostly we just like to look […]

Tar-sands emissions could negate all other Canadian carbon cuts

A report from Canada's environmental agency predicts that the rise in greenhouse-gas emissions associated with mining tar-sands oils will be more than double the decrease in the country's emissions from other sources.

Environment Canada said in its emissions trends report that the country could avoid 31 megatons in emissions by 2020. Most of those savings come from switching out natural gas for coal in electricity generation. But in that same period, emissions from tar-sands oil could rise by 62 megatons, the report said.

Most of the country had record heat in July

This July has seen so many record daytime and nighttime temperatures that if you plot them on a map, they show a nearly complete image of the lower 48 states.  Almost 9,000 daily records were broken or tied last month, including 2,755 highest maximum temperatures and 6,171 highest minimum temperatures (i.e., nighttime records). It should […]

Texans drinking urine, consulting Bibles in face of ongoing climate apocalypse

Texas is now in the midst of its worst-ever one-year drought. Austin, Texas' capital, has received less than two inches of rain since October, a period that would normally see 18 inches. Here are just a few of the impacts of the state's ongoing drought, which is entirely consonant with the northward march of the world's subtropical deserts that will continue, unabated, as climate change intensifies:

How do you solve a problem like conservative white men?

Conservative white men are loathe to accept the threat of climate change. What should we do about it? Kick their asses.

New tool maps how badly climate change affects you

A new web tool from the Natural Resources Defense Council lets you map climate change threats — excessive heat, disease risk, pollution, drought, and flooding — anywhere in the United States. Above is the full U.S. map showing the average number of extreme heat days in 2000-2009, but you can also zoom in on your […]

Western Pacific nations create the world's largest shark sanctuary

If you never quite believed your parents when they told you big, scary animals have more to fear from us than we do from them, consider this, via The New York Times' Joanna Foster: Sharks kill two or three people every year. People kill 73 million sharks in the same time period.

To protect these sharp-toothed scapegoats, Micronesian chief executives have decided to create a shark preserve of 2 million square miles in the western Pacific -- the largest shark sanctuary in the world.

Murdoch's sins go way beyond the hacking scandal

News of the World's phone hacking has been offensive, but News Corp has done something worse: It damaged the public's understanding of climate science