Climate Change? What climate change? While Mitt Romney has expressed uncertainty over whether global warming is occurring or not, his vice-presidential pick, Congressman Paul Ryan, is a virulent denier of climate science, with a Congressional voting record to match, reports Brad Johnson at Climate Progress. Thus, this election will be crucial in deciding how the U.S. addresses climate change. Make your vote part of it!
Endless Summer Surfing Will End with Climate Change according to Curt Storlazzi, a surfer and a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who studies coastlines, reports Sam Kornell at the Pacific Standard. It might cause larger swells from storms, but overall it will probably decrease conditions for good surfing.
It's Melting, Melting... Arctic sea ice that is, at a rate about 50 percent faster than most predictions, according to data from the first satellite launched to study the thickness of the Earth's polar caps, reports Robin McKie for the Guardian. The summer Arctic could be ice-free in a few years, further accelerating global warming, and ultimately causing more volatile weather in the lower 48, of the kind we've been experiencing only... worse.
To Every Tide, Turn, Turn, Turn... at least in the Bay of Fundy, where the first U.S. tidal turbine, the TidGen turbine, has begun harvesting the powerful tides of the Bay of Fundy, reports Jess Bidgood at The New York Times. Once completed in 2016, the array of turbines there could power up to 1,500 homes.
Poached Caviar, Anyone? Thousands of fish are dying in the Midwest as the hot, dry summer dries up rivers and causes water temperatures to climb in some spots to nearly 100 degrees, reports Grant Schulte. About 40,000 shovelnose sturgeon, worth nearly $10 million for their caviar, were killed in Iowa recently as water temperatures reached 97 degrees.
My foster baby Arctic chicks have hatched! Born in July, they are doing well and prospering, I hear, but not all chicks have the safety of bear-proof boxes, and the bears visit in August. Climate change has melted the ice pack food source of Arctic ice birds and is even starting to melt the frozen core of their nesting habitat, Cooper Island, making it a prime target for hungry polar bears. These Arctic "penguins" need more bear-proof nesting boxes from humans to keep their chicks safe. You can learn more here, and find out more about how dramatically climate change is changing their lives.
Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by this swallowtail I photographed in my mom's garden. Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you'd like to tell Congress that you're voting for candidates that will support clean energy, join the increasing numbers of people doing so here. For more detailed summaries of the above and other climate change items, audio podcasts and texts are freely available.
