This year’s drought is as bad as scientists predict for mid-century.
Climate change
Posted inApril 27, 2015: Lost frontier
Wyoming coal, Cliven Bundy and megadrought
HCN.org news in brief.
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On a methane mystery tour in the Four Corners region
Scientists, planes and instruments descend on San Juan Basin to find roots of the massive greenhouse gas hotspot.
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Are we in a megadrought?
As the dry-spell continues, a radio forum on water security in Western states.
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Permafrost’s ticking “carbon bomb” may never truly detonate
New research suggests that carbon stored in frozen soil will be released gradually.
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Forest Service sticks up for coal mining on roadless lands
The agency will calculate climate impacts of mine expansions in western Colorado.
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A battle for America’s trust
The war between the fossil fuel industry and Big Green may boil down to who can tell the best story.
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Land-based foods won’t float polar bears through ice declines
As climate change sends bears searching for calories, new research suggests there’s no substitute for seals.
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Snapshot of a drought in progress
Southwest Colorado’s snowpack is dismal and melting fast.
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BLM’s new fracking rules strike middle ground
But they’re unlikely to resolve today’s fierce skirmishes over oil and gas development.
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Should the Bureau of Reclamation be abolished?
Former Reclamation Commissioner Daniel Beard tells how defunct water policy, and the bureau itself, contribute to drought.
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This just happened: Alaska’s warm winter
It might seem like the big weather story this winter was the spate of snow and cold that hit the East Coast. But a more prolonged and sobering story was all the snow and cold that did not hit large parts of the West, and especially Alaska. Today, the Sierra Nevada’s snowpack hovers at around […]
Posted inMarch 16, 2015: Wild Ride
The case of the snotty streams
A mysterious algae known as “rock snot” is smothering wild rivers — and may hold clues to their future.
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States give Senate an earful on EPA greenhouse gas plan
Wyoming critiques federal coal plant cleanup at Senate hearing.
Posted inMarch 2, 2015: Unite and Conquer
The water czar who reshaped Colorado River politics
Las Vegas’ Pat Mulroy initiated an era of deal-making that may buffer against catastrophic drought.
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Early start to wildfire season
Blazes in California and Utah have officials on alert, but what they spell for the coming season is unclear.
Posted inFebruary 2, 2015: This Land is Their Land
Give the fossil fuel industry free rein!
In 1729, Jonathan Swift published the most famous satirical essay in the English language: A Modest Proposal For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public. And what was Swift’s proposal? Merely that the one-year-old children of indigents […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2015: This Land is Their Land
Why are environmentalists mad at Jerry Brown?
The California governor has made bold moves on climate — but greens are disgruntled.
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Mapping Earth’s hidden water
A new NASA satellite will measure the planet’s soil moisture.
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When the atmosphere ‘goes bananas,’ wildfires do too
2011’s huge wildfires and what they portend. Spoiler: More dead trees.