"For many Californians, the state’s long drought has meant small inconveniences such as shorter showers and restrictions on watering lawns. But in two rural valleys, the Coachella southeast of Los Angeles and the San Joaquin to the north, farmworkers and other poor residents are feeling its impact in a far more serious and personal way."
"Despite reports of U.S. Catholics’ largely positive reception to Pope Francis’s beginning campaign on the issue, not everyone is optimistic that the Catholics of Texas will suddenly start trying to shut down their local coal plant."
"A federal appeals court upheld Monday the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to order pollution reductions by Maryland and all the other states that drain into the Chesapeake Bay.
In a 60-page ruling, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia brushed aside challenges from agricultural and home building groups to the 'pollution diet' that EPA imposed for the bay in 2010.
"New analyses are giving mixed grades to the most recent greenhouse gas emissions targets submitted to the United Nations, with particularly low marks for the pledge from South Korea."
Greenland's massive ice sheet is melting faster this summer as the dome of hot air breaking records in Europe also threatens to hasten climate-related sea-level rise.
"The Canadian military has been called in to help fight wildfires in the Western province of Saskatchewan, where 112 active fires have forced the evacuation of more than 13,000 people and threatened several remote towns on Monday."
Predictably for this time of summer, an increased number of swimmers in ocean water has raised the incidence of shark attacks. Lost in the ratings-driven media frenzy is this estimate from Pew Trusts: "100 million sharks are killed in commercial fisheries every year. That means that during Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, about 1.9 million sharks—roughly 11,200 sharks an hour—will be killed."
"Twenty local governments, representing areas producing 5 percent of global climate-changing emissions, have committed to targets to cut those emissions, with the majority also setting goals for renewable energy, a platform uniting them said on Thursday."
Drought which has left their own lands bare of forage is driving some Nevada rangers to graze their cattle illegally on federal land.
"The tiny federal agency that has urged big reforms in how California regulates oil refineries is in disarray."
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