MAQzine

Three Steps to Establish a Politics of Global Warming by Bill McKibben Try to fit these facts together: *  According  to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the planet has just come through the warmest decade, the warmest 12 months, the warmest six months, and the warmest April, May, and June on record. * A "staggering" new  study  from Canadian researchers has shown that warmer seawater has reduced phytoplankton, the base of the marine food chain, by 40% since 1950. *  Nine nations  have so far set their all-time temperature records in 2010, including Russia (111 degrees), Niger (118), Sudan (121), Saudi Arabia and Iraq (126 apiece), and Pakistan, which also set the  new all-time Asia record  in May: a hair under 130 degrees. I can turn my oven to 130 degrees. * And then, in late July, the U.S. Senate decided to do exactly nothing about climate change. They didn't do less than they could have -- they did  nothing , pr...

Scientists say it is 'just not true' that the vast majority of oil from the BP spill has gone by Suzanne Goldenberg The White House was accused today of spinning a government scientific report into the amount of oil left in the Gulf of Mexico from the BP spill which had officials declaring that the vast majority of the oil had been removed. As BP workers finished pouring cement into the well as a first step to permanently sealing it today, environmental groups and scientists - including those working with government agencies to calculate the scale and effects of the spill - said White House officials had painted far too optimistic a picture of a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) into the fate of the oil. "Recent reports seem to say that about 75% of the oil is taken care of and that is just not true," said John Kessler, of Texas A&M University , who led a National Science Foundation on-site study of the spill. "The fact is th...