Norway is the best place to be a mother, researchers say. Find out what they’re doing right! by Sandy J. Duncan

Norway has been named the world’s best place to be a mother in an annual report released by Save the Children. Save the Children is an independent organization dedicated to helping children throughout the world and has been producing the State of the World’s Mothers report for 13 years now. The rating system takes into consideration factors such as the overall health …

Retreating sea ice linked to changes in ocean circulation, could affect European climate

Retreating sea ice in the Iceland and Greenland Seas may be changing the circulation of warm and cold water in the Atlantic Ocean, and could ultimately impact the climate in Europe, says a new study by an atmospheric physicist from the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) and his colleagues in Great Britain, Norway and the United States. “A warm western …

Scientists Detect Mysterious Warming in U.S. Coastal Waters By Tim Radford

Oceanographers are puzzled by an accelerated burst of warming sea that threatens the fisheries of the American Atlantic coast. Meanwhile, off the US West coast, scientists report that they have been baffled by a mysterious “blob” of water up to 4°C warmerthan the surrounding Pacific, linked to weird weather across the entire country. Jacob Forsyth and research colleagues from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution(WHOI) …

2 Sneaky Ways Women’s Rights Are Being Threatened Right Now By Georgeanne M. Usova

The House has been hard at work in recent weeks passing spending bills to fund the government — but it’s no secret that these bills are about more than just setting funding levels. As has been the case historically, these bills are a chance for Congress to show the American people where its priorities really lie. And this year, the agenda includes …

Biodiversity reduces human, wildlife diseases and crop pests

With infectious diseases increasing worldwide, the need to understand how and why disease outbreaks occur is becoming increasingly important. Looking for answers, a team of University of South Florida (USF) biologists and colleagues found broad evidence that supports the controversial ‘dilution effect hypothesis,’ which suggests that biodiversity limits outbreaks of disease among humans and wildlife. The paper describing their research …

Ice sheet collapse triggered ancient sea level peak

An international team of scientists has found a dramatic ice sheet collapse at the end of the ice age before last caused widespread climate changes and led to a peak in the sea level well above its present height. The team found the events 135,000 years ago caused the planet to warm in a different way to the end of …

Capitalism Could Kill All Life on Earth

Are we going to let capitalism destroy life on Earth? According to 99 percent of climate scientists – we’ll know by the end of the century. Scientists have agreed for three decades about what is causing atmospheric temperatures to rise – humans are burning Earth’s carbon resources to fuel economic activity. But even before we knew what was causing the …

The methane apocalypse – Anil Ananthaswamy

They look like massive bomb craters. So far seven of these gaping chasms have been discovered in Siberia, apparently caused by pockets of methane exploding out of the melting permafrost. Has the Arctic methane time bomb begun to detonate in a more literal way than anyone imagined. The “methane time bomb” is the popular shorthand for the idea that the …

Exposure of US population to extreme heat could quadruple by mid-century

U.S. residents’ exposure to extreme heat could increase four- to six-fold by mid-century, due to both a warming climate and a population that’s growing especially fast in the hottest regions of the country, according to new research. The study, by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the City University of New York (CUNY), highlights the importance …

The Great Grief: How To Cope with Losing Our World – Per Espen Stoknes

Climate scientists overwhelmingly say that we will face unprecedented warming in the coming decades. Those same scientists, just like you or I, struggle with the emotions that are evoked by these facts and dire projections. My children—who are now 12 and 16—may live in a world warmer than at any time in the previous 3 million years, and may face challenges that we are only …