"The Northern Hemisphere had its hottest summer on record in 2020, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday. Scientists from NOAA also said that 2020 is likely to be one of the five warmest years on record, and that last month was the second-warmest August on record."
"A coalition of 20 states and four municipalities sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday over its rollback of methane emissions standards for oil and gas production."
"Automaker Daimler AG and subsidiary Mercedes-Benz USA have agreed to pay $1.5 billion to the U.S. government and California state regulators to resolve emissions cheating allegations, officials said Monday."
"Two Antarctic glaciers that have long kept scientists awake at night are breaking free from the restraints that have hemmed them in, increasing the threat of large-scale sea-level rise."
"The EPA’s new rule restraining how it creates guidance documents could backfire on businesses that want to trim the use of such informal documents, according to legal scholars and environmentalists."
"Hurricane Sally is tracking even farther east as the strengthening storm slowly inches closer to the Gulf Coast, according to the National Hurricane Center on Monday night."
"Four west coast cities in the US currently rank in the top 10 for worst air quality in the world, as wildfires rage up and down the western seaboard, cloaking the entire region in smoke."
"Wildfires have now burned more than 4.6 million acres in 87 large fires across 10 states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. At least 35 people have died in California, Oregon and Washington, The Associated Press reported."
"Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden excoriated President Trump on Monday over his environmental record as wildfires continued to burn through much of the West and as the president used a trip to California to question the scientific consensus that climate change is a leading cause of the devastating blazes."
Bird brains, despite the dictum, are anything but deficient. In fact, a new book by science and nature writer Jennifer Ackerman reveals how scientists, driven by rising diversity in their own ranks and by the leverage of new technologies, are gaining a dramatically new understanding of the complexities of bird behavior. BookShelf has a review of “The Bird Way.”
