Stop all drilling off our coasts: A NRDC Petition
The Obama Administration just released a new five-year plan that puts our cherished Atlantic coast off-limits to Big Oil for now, but opens the fragile Arctic to dangerous new oil and gas leasing and drilling. Any drilling in these pristine waters threatens the Arctic and its wildlife with the risk of a devastating oil spill and will drive more climate-wrecking carbon pollution for generations to come.
U.S. Blocks Oil, Gas Drilling in Atlantic Coastal Waters
The Obama administration on Tuesday pulled back its plan to sell new oil and gas leases off the southeast U.S. coast, ceding to environmental concerns and continuing a trend among federal agencies to slow fossil fuels development in an era of climate change. U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said that the decision was made because many coastal communities oppose oil drilling off their shorelines.
Southern flooding: seeing historic levels
All over the Mississippi Valley region, rivers quickly rose near record flood stages and homes were submerged. Louisiana National Guard spokesman Col. Pete Schneider called it the most widespread non-hurricane flooding the guard has ever dealt with, reports the Associated Press…
Downed Ships Reveal Hurricane History
Ancient Spanish shipwrecks and tree-ring data have revealed an unusual low in Hurricane activity during the “golden age of piracy,” new research suggests. The new data could also help researchers understand how hurricane patterns will change as the climate warms.
Huge glacier collapses in Argentina
Chunks of Argentina’s Perito Moreno glacier collapse on Thursday as large chunks of ice break off and crash into the water. The Patagonian glacier known as the “White Giant” is one of Argentina’s biggest attractions.
Moving to Higher Ground (After 12,000 years)
The Quinault Indian Nation has lived in what is now Washington State for thousands of years. But, it’s time to move. The tribe lives on the coast, and climate change has caused sea levels to rise and endanger the village. As the tribe moves to higher ground, it’s bittersweet, since a new home also means moving off sacred ground.
Greenhouse gas benchmark reached in 2015
Global carbon dioxide concentrations surpass 400 parts per million for the first month since measurements began…
Nansen Breaking Up with Antarctica
A floating shelf of ice attached to the coast of Antarctica appears ready to shed an iceberg into the Southern Ocean. Over the course of two years, a small crack grew large enough to spread across nearly the entire width of the Nansen Ice Shelf.
UCSB Researchers Studying El Niño Sea Level Rise, CA
Since the arrival of El Niño in November, sea levels have risen 20 cm to become a surrogate for the next 250 years of climate change, giving scientists the prime opportunity to study future erosion of the Santa Barbara coastline.