Climate Change

"SEATTLE -- Polar bears are skating on thin ice in Alaska these days: Warming temperatures have resulted in dramatic shrinkage of sea ice, leaving the bears with fewer ice floes on which to rest and hunt seals. But at least for the moment, the Endangered Species Act won't be used to control the greenhouse gas emissions that conservationists say are contributing to climate change and posing one of the biggest threats to the bears' survival."

"Two billion years ago, around the time atmospheric oxygen levels were rising, one cell engulfed another, and instead of becoming lunch, the ingestee became an Earth-changer and, eventually, a vital part of you: mitochondria."

"After dropping for two years during the recession, emissions of the gases blamed for global warming rose in 2010 as the economy heated up, the Environmental Protection Agency reports. Output of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gasses were up 3.2 percent from 2009 as the nation climbed slowly out of the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression, the E.P.A. said."

"Dramatic warming at the end of the last ice age produced an intense rise in sea level and a massive ice sheet collapse in the Antarctic.

The sea level rise is known as Melt-Water Pulse 1A, and new research indicates it increased sea level by about 45 feet (14 meters) sometime between 14,650 and 14,310 years ago, during the same time as a period of rapid climate change known as the Bølling warming.

Understanding the impacts of earlier warming and sea-level rise is important for predicting the effects of future warming."

"The USA hasn't been this dry in almost five years."

"Still reeling from last year's devastating drought that led to at least $10 billion in agricultural losses across Texas and the South, the nation is enduring another unusually parched year.

"GENEVA -- United Nations officials are urging the international community to extend immediate help to millions of hungry and thirsty people in the Sahel region of West Africa, warning that a humanitarian disaster is near."

"We spend lots of time these days focused on children bullied by their classmates at school, at play, and online. ... Bullying is the nicest word to use in describing the recent spate of irresponsible attacks on climate scientists."

"ASHEVILLE, North Carolina, April 10, 2012 (ENS) - Record-high temperatures prevailed across the eastern two-thirds of the nation in March, adding up to the warmest March for the lower 48 states since recordkeeping began in 1895, the National Climatic Data Center reports."