Climate Change

"New study finds that as warming heats up oceans and melts Arctic sea
ice, buried POPs are being re-released into the environment"

"A three-year study to determine the possible impacts of climate change on federal flood insurance will warn of huge increases to the amount of land that could be inundated by rising sea levels, heavier downpours and stormier coastlines."

"For aid donors and humanitarian agencies, it is a Faustian bargain: reach and save tens of thousands of people on the verge of starving to death. The price: come to an 'understanding' with one of the most active affiliates of al Qaeda, and perhaps help it retain control of large swathes of Somalia."

"New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined with the Sierra Club on Thursday in a $50 million, four-year plan to campaign for replacing one-third of aging U.S. coal-fired power plants with clean energy."

Kate Sheppard observes that it is very hot outside in much of the eastern U.S. She notes a blog post by Miles Grant citing NOAA records showing "June 2011 was the 316th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average." Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh says that the Heat Index is a government conspiracy.

"The persistent inability of the United Nations to forge international consensus on climate change issues was on display Wednesday, as Security Council members disagreed over whether they should address possible instability provoked by problems like rising sea levels or competition over water resources."

"Polar bear cubs forced to swim long distances with their mothers as their icy Arctic habitat melts appear to have a higher mortality rate than cubs that didn't have to swim as far, a new study reports."

"The House of Lords has taken the unprecedented step of publishing a 'cease and desist' letter on its website demanding that Lord Christopher Monckton, a prominent climate sceptic and the UK Independence party's head of research, should stop claiming to be a member of the upper house."

"Politicians might not believe in climate change, but insurance companies do. They track disasters, and it turns out that disasters just in the first six months of this year already cost the world more than any other year of disasters on record."

"Five million people are at risk of cholera in drought-hit Ethiopia, where acute watery diarrhea has broken out in crowded, unsanitary conditions, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday."