Science News for Writers

Credit: Image courtesy of Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine  Research Northern gannet use old fishing nets  as nesting  material  in their nesting colony at the  North Sea  island of Helgoland. Speaking of ideas for writers:  Since the invention of Bakelite in New York in 1907 by Leo Baekeland, plastics have become ubiquitous - everywhere in everyday life.  Leading to six huge patches of discarded plastic debris floating across the world's oceans, something we have achieved in just over 100 years.   Plastics don't break down, rather large pieces of plastic deconstruct into smaller pieces of plastic, microscopic in size that are consumed by fish from sardines to whales, and by sea birds. This is not good.  These marine animals form the very basis of the food chain that we rely on for our daily bread.  The consumption of microscopic fragments of plastics by sea life that contain no food v...

Credit: L. Tan This is an inscription from 1891 found in Dayu Cave. It reads: On May 24th, 17th year of the Emperor Guangxu period (June 30th, 1891 CE), Qing Dynasty,  the local mayor, Huaizong Zhu led more than 200 people into the cave to get water. A fortuneteller named Zhenrong Ran prayed for rain during a ceremony. What is the effect of climate change of the short-term?  As this story points out, social instability, attacks on government, starvation, even cannibalism. What could be the effect of long-term climate change?  We appear to be in the early stages of change and conflict.  It's real on all continents as people are starting to leave areas of the greatest effect - drought, heat waves and so on - and moving toward the Poles.  Follow international news, and you'll find stories almost daily of people crossing to Europe from Africa, fleeing not just political repression but the lack of food.  I leave the details to the writer'...

www.pinterest.com You gotta love this photo found on Pinterest.  One happy cat. This climate update indicates where we are on global warming, one of the nine critical Earth systems being impacted by human activity, one of four systems critically impacted.  For a review of the latest science on all nine systems, click on the link The Global Environment below. *  *  *  *  * International report confirms:  2014 was Earth’s warmest year on record Climate markers continue to show global warming trend In 2014, the most essential indicators of Earth's changing climate continued to reflect trends of a warming planet, with several markers such as rising land and ocean temperature, sea levels and greenhouse gases -- setting new records. These key findings and others can be found in the State of the Climate in 2014 report released online by the American Meteorological Society (AMS). For State of the Climate in 2014 maps, images and highlig...

Credit: © underworld / Fotolia  Scientists are concerned that global environmental change represents a growing threat to human health. Global warming and the rest of it is one of the more confusing topics we're confronted with.  Not that there's any doubt that warming is happening, but how do all of the various topics tie together?  One day it's research on warming, the next on the decline of fishing worldwide, followed by a report on the extinctions of species. How does this all tie together? We know that we're facing a series of environmental crises, but keeping it all organized in our minds is difficult. Two weeks ago I came across a 2010 report from the University of Stockholm and several related groups that offers a solution to the confusion. The Stockholm Resilience Centre, founded in 2007 as a joint project of Stockholm University and the Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics at The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences published a...