Stephan: Perhaps humanity is going to destroy civilization as we presently understand it. I am just amazed that these reports come out almost weekly now and yet nothing happens. Even worse it is becoming apparent that the Republican gerrymandering, voter suppression, and local election rigging is gathering momentum with the goal of giving that party control of both houses of Congress, and all this malevolent activity is being augmented by the failure of the Democrats to come together and create confidence in voters.
A coral and fish community is pictured in the Great Barrier Reef on August 28, 2018. Credit: Francois Gohier/ VWPics/Universal Images Group / Getty
Research published Thursday in the journal Science warns that runaway global warming driven by carbon dioxide emissions has put marine life at risk of the most catastrophic mass extinction since the “Great Dying” 250 million years ago, when 90% of all ocean species were wiped out.
Using models of varying emissions scenarios, Princeton University scientists Curtis Deutsch and Justin Penn found that the continued burning of fossil fuels and “business-as-usual global temperature increases” are likely to result, by 2300, in mass extinctions of marine systems “on par with past great extinctions.”
“With accelerating greenhouse gas emissions, species losses from warming and oxygen depletion alone become comparable to current direct human impacts within a century and culminate in a mass extinction rivaling those in Earth’s past,” the researchers write. “Polar species are at highest risk of extinction, but local biological richness declines more in the tropics.”
While their findings are dire, Deutsch and Penn go out of their way to emphasize […]
Stephan: Millions of people in Arizona, California, Colorado and Mexico now face major water problems because the Lake Mead water level, the largest manmade reservoir in the U.S., is so low the system for drawing water from the lake no longer functions as a result of climate change and the drought it is producing.
The original water intake is no longer of use since the water level is too low for it to work.
The West is in the grips of a climate change-fueled megadrought, and Lake Mead — the largest manmade reservoir in the country and a source of water for millions of people — has fallen to an unprecedented low.The lake’s plummeting water level has exposed one of the reservoir’s original water intake valves for the first time, officials say.
The valve had been in service since 1971 but can no longer draw water, according to the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which is responsible for managing water resources for 2.2 million people in Southern Nevada, including Las Vegas.
Across the West, extreme drought is already taking a toll this year and summertime heat hasn’t even arrived yet. Drought conditions worsened in the Southwest over the past week, the US Drought Monitor reported Thursday. Extreme and exceptional drought, the two worst designations, expanded across New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado — […]
Stephan: The reports just keep coming in, and yet it mostly produces.... crickets, silence, incompetent failure. Ten years from now when the ocean ecosystems have collapsed further people will be going around wringing their hands as species have disappeared, fishing has become largely impossible, and a host of unrecognized consequences now face humanity. Our children and grandchildren are going to hate us for what we have done, or rather did not do.
Sea Turtle Credit: AFP/ Tarik Tinazay
At least one in five reptile species are threatened with extinction, including more than half of turtles and crocodiles, according to the first major global assessment of the world’s so-called cold-blooded creatures.
Catastrophic declines in biodiversity across the world are increasingly seen as a threat to life on Earth — and as important as the interrelated menace of climate change.
Threats to other creatures have been well documented. More than 40 percent of amphibians, 25 percent of mammals and 13 percent of birds could face extinction.
But until now, researchers did not have a comprehensive picture of the proportion of reptiles at risk.
In a new global assessment, published in the journal Nature, researchers assessed 10,196 reptile species and evaluated them using criteria from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of threatened species.
They found that at least 1,829 — 21 percent — were either vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered.
“It’s just overwhelming the number of species that we see as being threatened,” said co-author Neil Cox, who manages […]
Stephan: I have been warning my readers for over a decade about the internal migrations that were going to happen as a result of climate change, well, now they have started. If you own real estate where these migrations are going to occur I urge you to calculate when you should sell before the value of your property collapses or you are notified by your insurance company that they will no longer give you coverage.
Taholah, a village on the Washington coast and capital for the Quinault Indian Nation, is in the process of relocating. Credit: Jovelle Tamayo / The Guardian
Sea levels have risen about 9in since 1880, with one-third of that gain from the last 25 years alone. Every year, a flurry of reports are published warning of the risk to towns and cities along coastal areas.
It’s one thing to hear about a looming disaster; it’s another to see the cataclysm play out in real time. That’s what’s happening in Taholah, a village on Washington’s coast that acts as the capital for the Quinault Indian Nation, a tribe of about 3,600 members. In Taholah, climate change-caused sea level rise has brought to the community a fast receding shoreline, and with it a heightened threat of flooding: according to Quinault estimates, the ocean level could increase by 2.6ft by 2100, pushing storm surges higher and bringing waves closer to town.
On an overcast February morning, Larry Ralston, the 62-year-old treasurer of the Quinault Nation, drove his silver Ford SUV down a network […]
Corinne Segal , Senior Editor at Lit Hub, previously a Senior Editor at PBS NewsHour Weekend. - Bklyn Public Library
Stephan: This is the coolest story. Please pass it along, particularly to kids in Red states.
Teens who want to apply for the free eCard can send an email to BooksUnbanned@bklynlibrary.org or a message to @bklynfuture on Instagram.
Like we needed another reason to love libraries: with book bans ramping up in school systems around the country, the Brooklyn Public Library is taking steps to make its massive catalog available to as many young people as possible.
Right now, and for a “limited time,” anyone in the United States between the age of 13 and 21 can apply for a free Brooklyn Public Library eCard, which gives access to 350,000 eBooks, 200,000 audiobooks, and online databases. (Normally, Brooklyn Public Library eCards are only free for people who live and/or work in New York state.)
Meanwhile, anyone who already has a Brooklyn Public Library card can now access a list of “frequently challenged books” online and through Libby, its online book-loan app.
Both efforts are part of Books UnBanned, a larger campaign by the Brooklyn Public Library to challenge book bans and censorship in schools. The library is also offering other resources for anyone facing these issues in their town, including an effort to connect people with the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom […]
