Climate Change

"Canada has become the first country to drop out of the UN convention to combat desertification."

"Snow-surveying crews across the Sierra are seeing bad news up close this week. California has about half a snowpack."

"The Arctic Ocean reached the most frozen it's going to get this year on 13 March. Now the melt season begins, predicts the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). The seasonal stats were gloomy. The max sea ice area of 2013 was was 5.84 million square miles (15.13 million square kilometers). That's the sixth lowest extent on record and a whopping 283,000 square miles (733,000 square kilometers) below the 1979 to 2000 average maximum."

"Energy subsidies cost governments from the U.S. to Egypt $1.9 trillion, discourage private investment and help wealthy consumers more than the poor, according to a study by International Monetary Fund staff."

"By the time today's K-12 students grow up, the challenges posed by climate change are expected to be severe and sweeping. Now, for the first time, new federal science standards due out this month will recommend that U.S. public school students learn about this climatic shift taking place."

"CARLSBAD, N.M. -- Just after the local water board announced this month that its farmers would get only one-tenth of their normal water allotment this year, Ronnie Walterscheid, 53, stood up and called on his elected representatives to declare a water war on their upstream neighbors."

"WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration on Tuesday announced a nationwide plan to help wildlife adapt to threats from climate change."

"President Barack Obama's plan to use federal agencies, and the Environmental Protection Agency in particular, to drive his second-term climate change agenda might be in peril if he cannot fill vacant seats on the federal court that has jurisdiction over major national regulations, legal experts say."

"NOAA predicts tough spring for already struggling farmers as growing demand for water leaves US more exposed dry seasons."

"Polar bears' territorial tendencies and the diminishing ice season on Hudson Bay are conspiring to leave the animals less time to eat, researchers say. This bodes ill for their ability to reproduce, and survive."