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Further evidence for the decline of the oceans’ historical role as an important sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide is supplied by new research by environmental scientists from the University of East Anglia. Since the industrial revolution, much of the CO2 we have released into the atmosphere has been taken up by the world’s oceans which act as a strong ‘sink’ for the emissions. This has slowed climate change. Without this uptake, CO2 levels would have risen much faster and the climate would be warming more rapidly. A paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research by Dr Ute Schuster and Professor...

The Top 100 Effects of Global Warming September 24, 2007 This piece is from the Center for American Progress Action Fund's Mic Check Radio. Global Warming Wrecks All the Fun Say Goodbye to French Wines Wacky temperatures and rain cycles brought on by global warming are threatening something very important: Wine. Scientists believe global warming will “shift viticultural regions toward the poles, cooler coastal zones and higher elevations.” What that means in regular language: Get ready to say bye-bye to French Bordeaux and hello to British champagne. [LA Times] Say Goodbye to Light and Dry Wines Warmer temperatures mean grapes...

Just when we thought we'd seen the back of one axis of evil, up pops another one to give us all sleepless nights. The original axis of evil, as defined by President George W Bush in his State of the Union address in January 2002, consisted of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. In fact, this axis was always an unlikely amalgam, conjured from the imagination of David Frum, the President's chief speechwriter at the time, who was casting around for a suitably demonic phrase to capture the gravity of the threat America was said to face from its combined enemies...

LONDON -- When Al Gore predicted that climate change could lead to a 20-foot rise in sea levels, critics called him alarmist. After all, the International Panel on Climate Change, which receives input from top scientists, estimates surges of only 18 to 59 centimetres in the next century. But a study led by James Hansen, the head of the climate science program at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and a professor at Columbia University, suggests that current estimates for how high the seas could rise are way off the mark -...

<p>The last politician who took advice from the bond market was Bill Clinton. When he pushed for a tax hike back in 1993 to cut the budget deficit, it was under the assumption that bond investors would respond by bringing down interest rates. (The theory here is that deficits are inflationary. Inflation is bad for bonds.) Yet long-term interest rates surged from 6.45 percent when Clinton signed his tax-hike bill on Aug. 10, 1993, to 8.16 percent on Nov. 7, 1994, the day before the midterm congressional election where Republicans won back the House and Senate.</p>

NY ALESUND, Norway (Reuters) - Previously unknown islands are appearing as Arctic summer sea ice shrinks to record lows, raising questions about whether global warming is outpacing U.N. projections, experts said. Polar bears and seals have also suffered this year on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard because the sea ice they rely on for hunts melted far earlier than normal. "Reductions of snow and ice are happening at an alarming rate," Norwegian Environment Minister Helen Bjoernoy said at a seminar of 40 scientists and politicians that began late on Monday in Ny Alesund, 1,200 km (750 miles) from the North...

Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’ Dominic Kennedy Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated. Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby. The sums were done by Chris Goodall, campaigning author of How to...

NEW YORK: US researchers say that lowering cholesterol levels with statins, a class of drugs, might increase the risk of cancer. The researchers who studied 40,000 people, however, could not say if this was a side effect of the drugs or due to the low cholesterol. Cholesterol is a waxy, fat-like substance that occurs naturally in all parts of the body. Our body needs some cholesterol to work properly. But if the substance increases in blood, it can stick to the walls of arteries. This is called plaque, which can narrow arteries or even block them. There are two types...

The freight train, carrying yellow phosphorus, derailed in western Ukraine late Monday. Rescuers extinguished a fire that broke out in the highly toxic substance, which can catch fire spontaneously on contact with air at temperatures higher than 104 degrees Fahrenheit. It can cause liver damage if consumed.

Temps Top 100 in West From Heat WaveJul 5, 7:52 PM (ET)By REBECCA BOONE (AP) Tourists walk in the shade to avoid the sunlight in Las Vegas, Thursday, July 5, 2007. A heat wave...   BOISE, Idaho (AP) - Sweltering residents across the West headed for lakes and rivers on Thursday, seeking relief from triple-digit temperatures expected to set records through at least Friday. (Snip) Around Las Vegas - where temperatures reached 109 degrees before 1 p.m. Thursday - transformers were overheating and causing electrical pole fires because of all the people switching on their air conditioners, said Scott Allison...

A few years ago, two Long Islanders with hepatitis C met in a support group and soon discovered they had something in common: both had become infected with the virus after open-heart surgery — by the same surgeon. Public health investigators, who were looking into one of the two cases, had not asked members of the patient’s surgical team whether one of them might be infected. Now they did. Eventually they determined that the surgeon, Dr. Michael Hall, was infected and that he was the inadvertent source of both patients’ infections — and that of at least one other patient....

America is facing its worst summer drought since the Dust Bowl years of the Great Depression. Or perhaps worse still. From the mountains and desert of the West, now into an eighth consecutive dry year, to the wheat farms of Alabama, where crops are failing because of rainfall levels 12 inches lower than usual, to the vast soupy expanse of Lake Okeechobee in southern Florida, which has become so dry it actually caught fire a couple of weeks ago, a continent is crying out for water. In the south-east, usually a lush, humid region, it is the driest few months...

According to the global left, the evidence is in: The earth is warming, and it's all your fault. Don't blame And so, without further ado, I henceforth dedicate myself to achieving the following goals to aid Mother Earth: -- EAT COWS. Turns out, cows are the climate's worst enemy. Cows, it seems, are culpable for 18 percent of greenhouse gases. Their cud-chewing, flatulence and burping create giant clouds of methane. All this time, we thought the cattle were our mammalian friends. But, fools that we are, the cows outsmarted us. While we milked them, they pursued their long-term strategy of...

NEWTOK, Alaska — The sturdy little Cessnas land whenever the fog lifts, delivering children’s bicycles, boxes of bullets, outboard motors and cans of dried oats. And then, with a rumble down a gravel strip, the planes are gone, the outside world recedes and this subarctic outpost steels itself once again to face the frontier of climate change. “I don’t want to live in permafrost no more,” said Frank Tommy, 47, standing beside gutted geese and seal meat drying on a wooden rack outside his mother’s house. “It’s too muddy. Everything is crooked around here.” The earth beneath much of Alaska...

Former US vice president Al Gore on Friday criticized the "trivialities and nonsense" of celebrity gossip in the media and called on people to focus instead on issues like Iraq and climate change. Gore, who is promoting his new book "The Assault on Reason," made the comments at a book signing in New York, where he was treated to a rock star reception by more than 1,300 cheering and screaming fans. "What is it about our collective decision-making process that has led us to this state of affairs where we spend much more time in the public forum talking about...

"Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio sent out a message about global warming at the Cannes Film Festival."

Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio sent out a message about global warming at the Cannes Film Festival. The heartthrob has made a film, the 11th Hour, warning that human beings face extinction as a result of the environmental crisis. At a press conference in the South of France following the screening, The Blood Diamond actor, 32, attacked US President George Bush, saying: "It's very simple. He's done very little for the environmental movement." The Titanic star's latest film, which he narrates, follows another environmental warming documentary by former US Presidential candidate Al Gore, shown at the Cannes Film Festival last year....

Ethanol is widely touted as an eco-friendly, clean-burning fuel. But if every vehicle in the United States ran on fuel made primarily from ethanol instead of pure gasoline, the number of respiratory-related deaths and hospitalizations would likely increase, according to a new study by Stanford University atmospheric scientist Mark Z. Jacobson. His findings are published in the April 18 online edition of the journal Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T). ''Ethanol is being promoted as a clean and renewable fuel that will reduce global warming and air pollution,'' said Jacobson, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering. ''But our results show...

A key element of the second major report on climate change being released Friday in Belgium is a chart that maps out the effects of global warming , most of them bad, with every degree of temperature rise. There's one bright spot: A minimal heat rise means more food production in northern regions of the world. However, the number of species going extinct rises with the heat, as does the number of people who may starve, or face water shortages, or floods, according to the projections in the draft report obtained by The Associated Press Some scientists are calling this...

The way it stands now, we Republicans are on track to get the thumping of a lifetime. We are about to get spanked, and spanked hard. I realized that the other day when I saw this bumper sticker: “Is it 2008 yet?” The point was clear. Democrats are eager for 2008 to come; Republicans are living in fear of its arrival. Because our party is on the rocks. George W. Bush and several years of a GOP congressional majority have just about killed it. And the horizon looks dark and foreboding. Let’s look at the two parties’ presidential prospects. The...

(Following the example of her pioneering father, Nina Leopold Bradley has documented our warming planet's effects on our state. The trend has us heading toward a new climate. Right now we're at the brink.) Second part in an occasional series...Town of Fairfield, WI - On a warm winter day, Nina Leopold Bradley walked nimbly along a trail to a weather-beaten cabin that figures prominently in modern environmental history. Bradley is 89 years old, and using a pair of hiking poles, she pointed out places where she has recorded the arrival of spring for the last 30 years. Her father, the...

An 80 Foot Sea Level Rise!!?? Here is a graphic that will make you stand up and take notice–especially if you have relatives who live in New York City. This image appeared in Vanity Fair magazine in May 2006 and shows how much of New York City would be under water if all of the ice on Greenland and the Antarctic were to melt causing sea levels to rise 80 feet. 80 feet! Where did they get that number? What a scare tactic. Not even Al Gore uses a number that high. Certainly the IPCC doesn’t.What does the IPCC Summary...

WASHINGTON - The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen. A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of the 2005 census figures, the latest available, found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. A family of four with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 - half the federal poverty line - was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less...

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US Corporate Profits At Highest Levels, Too (CBS4) WASHINGTON -- The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty is the highest in thirty years, in which millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line, and the gulf between this country’s ''haves'' and ''have-nots'' gets wider. The McClatchy Company - owners of the Miami Herald – a CBS4 news partner - went through an analysis of 2005 census figures, the latest available, and found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. A family of four, with two children and...

"The greatest single threat to human health since the discovery of AIDS". In particular, the release of a "transgenic nematode" (genetically altered and enhanced nematode) ,and subsequent trillions of releases since 1996 into the environment, via a loophole in United States law. The Law See: http://www.isb.vt.edu/epasrc/enacted/epa.gui.txt Evidence of its use See: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/brs/arthropod/permits/9605201r/9605201r.html

US plans to change daylight saving hours this spring could wreak havoc on computer systems, Gartner claims. The analyst firm said utomated systems could run haywire this March. Disruptions could affect calendars, billing programs and security systems as well as undermining automated trading systems.

The next Solar Storm is predicted to start Fall of 2006 and reach it's massive peak 2012. According to the National Center for Atmospheric Research, this could slow satellite orbits, cause satellite failures, disrupt communications and navigation, wipe out computer memories, bring down power systems, disrupt electric grids, cause blackouts, throwing millions of people into darkness. A previous storm in 1989 caused a nine hour blackout in Quebec after several power grids collapsed. It can create more dangerous conditions for our astronauts, and force airplanes to take alternate routes to avoid the poles. A storm of that magnitude could short-circuit...

<p>Hillary's first conversation will be begin tonight at 7 PM. You need to register at the linked site to participate.</p> <p>Hillary's website asks people to "help make these webcasts a true national conversation by spreading the word."</p> <p>I'm doing my part.</p>

Hot enough for you, Mr. President?Your administration's own National Climatic Data Center reported Tuesday that last year was the warmest in the continental United States of the past 112 years - and that 2006 capped a nine-year warming streak "unprecedented in the historical record." You might have noticed the cherry trees and azaleas in bloom along the Potomac River on New Year's Day. Government scientists say that's at least partly the result of the long-term effects of accumulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. By the way, some of those scientists over at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration must have...

THE widening gap between rich and middle-class Americans is undermining political support for free trade in the US, Federal Reserve Bank of New York president Tim Geithner warns. Mr Geithner told the Council on Foreign Relations the political challenge of sustaining support for further global economic integration may be the greatest economic challenge of our time. He warned also that the inflow of surplus savings from abroad could be distorting US asset prices and keeping risk premiums artificially low across financial markets. Mr Geithner's comments came amid growing concern in US political and business circles over the risk of a...

The Daily Troika: Fear McCain Richard Quinn, John McCain's top guy in South Carolina, might have written a better headline: "Big Money Backs McCain In South Carolina," but we're pretty sure he's pleased with the story splashed across the front page of The State today. By locking up virtually every major Bush '00/04 Palmetto state donor, McCain's political operation has more in mind than simply depriving potential opponents of campaign cash. McCain's advisers want to create an aura of inevitability around their candidate. That is, with every reckoned-with force in the party behind a McCain tidal wave, how could he...

Mankind's existence is always being threatened, or so it seems. The number of societal-threatening events that have occurred in roughly the last thirty years is nothing short of amazing. In 1976, hundreds of people became sick and dozens died at a convention in Philadelphia from what later became known as "Legionnaire's Disease." The illness was initially unrecognized, and it was feared that this "mystery" disease might break out into the general population with catastrophic results. In the late 1970's, Newsweek cited several scientific climactic studies that pointed to an unmistakable cooling trend in the Earth's weather pattern, one that might...

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE WASHINGTON (AP) - Another terrorist attack, a warmer planet, death and destruction from a natural disaster. These are among Americans' grim predictions for the United States in 2007. But on a brighter note, only a minority of people think the U.S. will go to war with Iran or North Korea over the countries' nuclear ambitions. An overwhelming majority thinks Congress will raise the federal minimum wage. A third sees hope for a cure to cancer. These are among the findings of an Associated Press-AOL News poll that asked Americans to gaze into their crystal balls and contemplate...

Congresswoman Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, was named to the House Appropriations Committee Wednesday, Lee's office reported. Lee will be one of five California Democrats on the Appropriations Committee, which is in charge of setting the specific expenditures of money by the government, according to Lee's office. `I look forward to working with my fellow Californians on the committee to ensure that our state is getting the federal resources we deserve,'' Lee said in a statement. `This committee assignment puts me in a better position than ever to continue to fight for and serve the people of California's 9th District.''

Severe Geomagnetic Storm Expected From Tuesday's Solar Flare Wednesday, December 13, 2006 By Robert Roy Britt Space weather forecasters revised their predictions for storminess Wednesday after a major flare erupted on the Sun overnight, threatening damage to communication systems and power grids while offering up the wonder of the Northern Lights. "We're looking for very strong, severe geomagnetic storming" to begin probably around mid-day Thursday, Joe Kunches, lead forecaster at the NOAA Space Environment Center, told SPACE.com. The storm is expected to generate aurora or Northern Lights as far south as the northern United States Thursday night. Astronauts aboard the...

The hottest year since 1659 spells global doom By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 12:54am GMT 14/12/2006 Central England sweltered in temperatures that are likely to make this year the hottest since records began in 1659, according to a report published by meteorologists. The findings came as the Paris based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned that climate change could devastate the ski resorts of Europe within a few decades. Worldwide, the provisional figures for 2006, using data from January to November, place the year as the sixth warmest in a global record that stretches back to 1850...

Ice is melting so fast in the Arctic that the North Pole will be in the open sea in 30 years, according to a team of leading climatologists. Ships will be able to sail over the top of the world and tourists will be able visit what was, until climate change, one of planet’s most inaccessible landscapes. Researchers assessing the impact of carbon emissions on the world’s climate have calculated that late summer in the Arctic will be ice-free by 2040 or earlier - well within a lifetime. Some ice would still be found on coastlines, notably Greenland and Ellesmere...

Former GOP Senator Al D’Amato said Republicans will "race to the center” in 2008 to make up for losses in the 2006 elections, and Sen. John McCain will be the man to lead them there. D’Amato, appearing Thursday on Fox News Channel, said the Republican Party was hurt in the elections by the "morass” in Iraq and the ineffectiveness of a GOP-controlled Congress to pass meaningful legislation. He also said President Bush was damaged by the appearance that he didn’t do enough to help Hurricane Katrina victims, with the image of Bush "flying over” New Orleans in a helicopter viewed...

Billions of people could be wiped out over the next century because of climate change, a leading expert said. Professor James Lovelock, who pioneered the idea of the Earth as a living organism, said as the planet heats up humans will find it increasingly hard to survive. He warned that as conditions worsen, the global population which is currently around 6.5 billion, may sink as low as 500 million. Prof Lovelock also claims that any attempts to tackle climate change will not be able to solve the problem, merely buy us time. Given the dire situation we face, he urged...

LONDON (Reuters) - The world has less than a decade to take decisive action in the battle to beat global warming or risk irreversible change that will tip the planet towards catastrophe, a leading climate scientist said on Tuesday. And the United States, the world' biggest polluter but major climate laggard, has a vital role to play in leading that fight, James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told Reuters on a visit to London. "The biggest problem is that the United States is not taking an active leadership role -- quite the reverse," he said. "We...

Sen. John McCain, considered the front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, intends to launch an exploratory committee next week, GOP officials said Friday.... McCain, the GOP maverick who unsuccessfully sought his party’s nomination in 2000, already has opened a bank account for the committee, one official said. The senator has made no decision about running for president,” said Eileen McMenamin, a McCain spokeswoman. Aides to McCain say the senator will discuss whether to seek the presidency with his family over the Christmas holiday, and make a final decision thereafter... Since losing to Bush in 2000, McCain has alternately challenged...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The new masters of the House, the Democrats, are promoting an economic agenda that would put more money in the pockets of ordinary citizens and government, while leading to greater oversight of big business. California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who is in line to become speaker, has promised to fight early on in the next Congress to lower the price of prescription drugs available through Medicare. Efforts to curb military spending are also likely, political and financial analysts said, following an election whose outcome was influenced in large part by voters' dissatisfaction with the handling of the war...

AUSTIN, Texas - David M. Walker sure talks like he's running for office. "This is about the future of our country, our kids and grandkids," the comptroller general of the United States warns a packed hall at Austin's historic Driskill Hotel. "We the people have to rise up to make sure things get changed." But Walker doesn't want, or need, your vote this November. He already has a job as head of the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress that audits and evaluates the performance of the federal government. Basically, that makes Walker the nation's accountant-in-chief. And the...

If you are the kind of person who worries about the future, this might not make happy reading.Scientists have found that on average mammal species enjoy only 2.5 million years of life before being wiped out because of the Earth's "wobble." They say when the tilt and orbit reach key points it can spark dramatic global cooling - and the last time this happened was 2.6 million years ago. This suggests we are overdue a wave of extinction. However, before you panic, scientists say our planet has changed beyond all recognition in the last 3 million years. The new research...

YAKIMA, Washington (AP) -- Federal investigators were set Tuesday to begin an investigation into a fire that ruined about 4 percent of America's yield of hops, used as flavoring in the brewing of beer and ale. The fire started shortly before noon Monday in a 40,000-square-foot (3,600-square-meter) warehouse operated by S.S. Steiner Inc., one of the four largest hop buyers in the Yakima Valley of central Washington. By mid-afternoon flames engulfed most of the building, sending up plumes of smoke and a pungent aroma.

Threat of 'superflu' rampage as mutant viruses resist drugs By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent (Filed: 01/10/2006) The drive to fight deadly flu pandemics with special antiviral drugs risks creating an untreatable "superflu", the head of -Britain's public health watchdog has warned. Sir William Stewart, the chairman of the Health Protection Agency, warned that the widespread use of antiviral drugs to treat illnesses, including bird flu and seasonal influenza, is causing- viruses to mutate into drug-resistant- forms. He claimed that drug-resistant viruses now represented as big a threat to public health as antibiotic-resistant superbug bacteria, such as MRSA. His comments come...

Solar flares will disrupt GPS in 2011 14:29 29 September 2006 NewScientist.com news service Jeff Hecht Navigation, power and communications systems that rely on GPS satellite navigation will be disrupted by violent solar activity in 2011, research shows. A study reveals Global Positioning System receivers to be unexpectedly vulnerable to bursts of radio noise produced by solar flares, created by explosions in the Sun's atmosphere. When solar activity peaks in 2011 and 2012, it could cause widespread disruption to aircraft navigation and emergency location systems that rely heavily on satellite navigation data. Particularly intense solar activity occurs roughly every 11...

<p>A master plan of the proposed toll road and rail line from the Oklahoma border to San Antonio was unveiled this morning by the Texas Department of Transportation.</p> <p>This summer, critics panned the secrecy of the privately funded deal and called for financial details to be revealed.</p>