In The News

Study: Climate Change in East Asia Caused by China’s Air Pollution

Viola Zhou September 13, 2016
Manufacturers reduced costs by relocating factories to China where wages were low and regulations few. Researchers from China, Britain and the United States published a study in Nature Geoscience that suggests China’s role in producing goods for the West is contributing to a changing climate for East Asia. New climate patterns are linked to factory and export activities, as well as a reliance on...

Will ExxonMobil Have to Pay for Misleading the Public on Climate Change?

Paul Barrett and Matthew Philips September 7, 2016
A handful of climate-change skeptics have convinced legislators in the United States and other nations to dismiss ample findings by climate researchers that the planet is warming. The Union of Concerned Scientists in 2007 compared fossil-fuel industry tactics “to manufacture uncertainty” on scientific findings with those of the cigarette industry. Investigative journalists in 2015 suggested that...

Flooding of Coast, Caused by Global Warming, Has Already Begun

Justin Gillis September 6, 2016
Rising waters threaten communities along the eastern and southern coasts of the United States even without storms as warned by climate researchers. “The inundation of the coast has begun,” reports Justin Gillis for the New York Times. “The sea has crept up to the point that a high tide and a brisk wind are all it takes to send water pouring into streets and homes. Federal scientists have...

Tough Question in Climate Change: Who Gets Saved?

Christopher Flavelle August 29, 2016
Governments preparing for climate change already assess which communities can be saved and which cannot. Christopher Flavelle compares Newtok and other remote communities in Alaska with Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana, all trying to escape rising waters. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development ran a National Disaster Resilience Competition intended to raise awareness about climate...

World Risk Index: The Human Factor in Natural Disasters

Axel Bojanowski August 26, 2016
Natural disasters strike without warning, but government preparation and regulations on infrastructure contribute to saving lives, suggests the World Risk Index from United Nations University researchers and development organizations. Shallow earthquakes struck Haiti and New Zealand each in 2010, reports Axel Bojanowski. In Haiti, more than 100,000 lost their lives while New Zealand suffered...

Are We Feeling Collective Grief Over Climate Change?

Margaret Hetherman August 17, 2016
Extreme weather events lead news reports, and changing weather patterns disrupt business and community routines. “The deterioration of our planet – the only home we have ever known and an assurance we used to take for granted – is bound to elicit a wide range of emotions in different individuals,” explains Margaret Hetherman for Scientific American. She interviews forensic psychiatrist Lise Van...

Is Insecticide Sprayed to Fight Zika a Risk for People and Wildlife?

Andres Viglucci August 15, 2016
Florida is using naled, a pesticide that is reported to target honey bees as well as mosquitoes. “County mosquito-control officials and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency play down the risks posed by aerial spraying of naled, which has been approved for use against adult mosquitoes in the United States since 1959, but is banned by the European Union,” reports Andres Viglucci for the Miami...