International Business Times: Climate change worries continue to compound as the UN Weather Agency releases report on the record pace erosion of ice cover at the Arctic Sea last year. The year 2012 was considered to be the ninth hottest year to date. According to the 2012 year-end report of the World Meteorological Organisation, the ice that covers the Arctic Sea within the melting season of August to September was recorded to be just 3.4 million square kilometres. That is 18 percent less than the previously recorded...

Atlantic Cities: f the subway disruption, and the housing damage and residential displacement, and the general psychological toll of Superstorm Sandy weren't enough, there's also the sewage. Approximately 11 billion gallons of untreated (or only semi-treated) waste spilled into waterways after Sandy, according to a new report from the environmental group Climate Central. The vast majority of that overflow occurred in the rivers and bays surrounding New York and New Jersey. Forgive us if we order sparkling the...

Christian Scienc Monitor: After a record loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean last year, the 2013 melt season has begun at the top of the world, with ice vanishing in April at a faster pace than it did this time last year. Summer sea ice – a key player in Earth's climate system and one whose decline is widely taken as a prominent sign of global warming – has been shrinking in extent since satellites first started to build a consistent record of the ice in late 1978. Ice losses in 2007 set a melt-season record, only...

Guardian: Waitrose is to source all its seafood from independently certified sources by the end of 2016, it said on Thursday. The supermarket, which sells 12% of the UK's fish, hopes to build on its responsible fish sourcing policy that was launched 15 years ago. The retailer said the move will also help it ensure a longer-term guarantee of sustainability in the face of increasing global pressure on fish stocks. Waitrose fish buyer Jeremy Langley said: "With global demand for fish increasing, and...

Guardian: Senior US government officials are to be briefed at the White House this week on the danger of an ice-free Arctic in the summer within two years. The meeting is bringing together Nasa's acting chief scientist, Gale Allen, the director of the US National Science Foundation, Cora Marett, as well as representatives from the US Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. This is the latest indication that US officials are increasingly concerned about the international and domestic security...

Yale Environment 360: The sea urchin is a doughty animal that can withstand cold and turbulent seas, eat almost anything, and defend itself from many predators -- though not human gourmands -- with its pincushion of tough spines. It’s one of the creatures that lured biologists to establish one of the world’s first marine research stations in 1877 at Kristineberg on Sweden’s west coast, for the sheltered Gullmar Fjord there is characterized by deep, cold waters that support a wide array of sea life. That water is still...

ScienceDaily: Crude oil toxicity continued to sicken a sentinel Gulf Coast fish species for at least more than a year after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to new findings from a research team that includes a University of California, Davis, scientist. With researchers from Louisiana and South Carolina, the scientists found that Gulf killifish embryos exposed to sediments from oiled locations in 2010 and 2011 show developmental abnormalities, including heart defects, delayed...

EcoWatch: Evoking the international call for maritime distress, 36 groups stood united today in opposition to a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) port proposed to be built off of Jones Beach, NY. The groups, from across New York and New Jersey, call on Gov. Cuomo to oppose the plan. The proposal by Liberty Natural Gas (Liberty LNG), a corporation owned by a nameless bank account in the Cayman Islands, was submitted to the Maritime Administration, a sub-agency of the Department of Transportation. The organizations,...

ScienceDaily: Our global networks have generated many benefits and new opportunities. However, they have also established highways for failure propagation, which can ultimately result in human-made disasters. For example, today's quick spreading of emerging epidemics is largely a result of global air traffic, with serious impacts on global health, social welfare, and economic systems. Helbing's publication illustrates how cascade effects and complex dynamics amplify the vulnerability of networked systems. For...

Washington Post: Even if the weather hasn't quite come around yet, summer is almost here. For many people, that means it's almost time to head -- very, very slowly, if you leave on a Friday -- to the beach. For the environmentally conscious, however, a beach vacation is sometimes fraught with guilt. Few places exhibit man's encroachment on nature more clearly than a beach. Turn your back to the ocean, and you see rows of hotels and high-rise condos. Gas-powered jet skis skid across the ocean, and planes drag advertisements...

BusinessGreen: Diners all over the globe will soon be able to find out just how sustainable their meals are, after a new international rating system was launched today. The method developed by the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) scores restaurants on how they manage their energy, waste and water, as well as their sourcing of local food and treatment of staff. Since its launch in the UK in 2010, the SRA has rated more than 500 restaurants using its three-star system and is also working with Eurostar...

Guardian: BP made a record pre-tax profit in the first quarter of double its $9bn for the same period in 2012, the company announced on Tuesday, as a Norwegian regulator rebuked the company for a 2012 oil spill in the North Sea. The company's pre-tax profit was nearly $20bn in the first quarter of 2013 on a turnover of $107bn. BP was censured on Monday by Norway's Petroleum Safety Authority after a leak at a major North Sea platform. The watchdog accused BP of poor maintenance and "serious breaches of...

Guardian: BP's profits slipped in the first quarter as it emerged that the oil company had paid out more than half of the cash it has set aside to pay for damages caused by the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The company's replacement cost profit – its preferred measure because it removes one-off items and the effect of oil prices – was $4.2bn (£2.7bn) for the quarter, compared with $4.7bn for the same period last year and $3.9bn for the last quarter of 2012. It was above analysts'forecasts of $3.27bn...

BusinessGreen: Cities around Europe may have to erect flood barriers similar to the Thames Barrier that protects London from sea surges, as climate change takes hold and leads to the danger of much more destructive storms, floods, heavy rainfall and higher sea levels, Europe's environmental watchdog has warned. The effects of climate change will be so far-reaching across the continent that vineyards may have to plant new grape varieties, farmers may have to cultivate new crops and water suppliers look to technology...

Inter Press Service: The deceptively calm waters of Langa Langa Lagoon on the west coast of Malaita Island in the Solomon Islands is home to thousands of people who have lived on artificial islands for centuries. For generations the islanders in this south-west Pacific nation have employed tenacity and ingenuity to maintain their existence on these tiny low-lying man-made atolls, devoid of freshwater and arable land. But climate change is now the greatest threat to their survival. "The seas are rough and the tides...

RTCC: Pacific Island states at risk from rising sea levels have indicated they will push for compensation unless global emissions are brought under control. In a statement issued at the start of the latest round of UN climate talks, which started today in Bonn, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) also called for any global climate deal to limit warming to below 1.5°C by the end of the century. “Work…must be driven by a sense of urgency, bearing in mind that our failure to act decisively now...

Reuters: The latest round of U.N. climate talks, a second session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP), resumed this week in Bonn, Germany. As so often seems to be the case, the meeting began against the backdrop of alarming news about climate change from the scientific community. Researchers at the Mauna Loa laboratory confirmed that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are on track, this month, to exceed 400 parts per million for sustained lengths of...

Radio new Zealand International: A book which aims to teach primary school children in Kiribati about climate change has gained interest from around the world, with requests to print the book in several languages. The book, called, "The Children Take Action - A Climate Change Story", was developed by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme and aims to help children learn about the basics of climate change and its impacts on the environment. Seema Deo is SPREP`s communications and outreach advisor, and...

PlanetEarth: This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: Robert Mulvaney and Emilie Capron from NERC's British Antarctic Survey explain how ice cores drilled from Antarctica give us a unique window into Earth's past climate and reveal a worrying trend over the last 50 years.

LA Times: Confidential surveys of water officials, water users and others involved with the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta offer some telling insight on why the delta is stuck in a perpetual quagmire. When it comes to fixing the hub of California's water system, most parties would prefer it if someone else made the sacrifices. The surveys, conducted last year by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California and discussed in a new institute report, found that there was general agreement with scientists...