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since the 1970s, the frequency of wildfires has increased at least four-fold, and the total size of burn areas has increased at least six-fold in the western United States alone. Steadily rising, the U.S.'s bill for fighting wildfires now totals $1.5 billion per year

the paper presents a new framework for considering wildfires based on the Earth's pre-human fire history, ways that humans have historically used and managed fire and ways that they currently do so.

This research emphasizes the importance of understanding the relative influences of climate, human ignition sources and cultural practices in particular environments in order to design sustainable fire management practices that protect human health, property and ecosystems.

Global warming became a cause to save life on earth before it had a chance to become good science.  The belief that fossil fuel use is an emergency destroying our planet by CO2 emissions took over the media and political arena by storm.  The issue was politicized so quickly that the normal scientific process was stunted.  We have never had a full, honest national debate on either the science or government policy issues. Everyone "knows" that global warming is true.  The public has no idea of the number of scientists -- precisely one thousand at last count of a congressional committee -- who believe that global warming is benign and natural, and that it ended in 1998.  We have not been informed of the costs to our economy of discouraging fossil fuel development and promoting alternatives.  The public need to know the choices being made on their behalf, and to have a say in the matter.  We are constantly told that the scientific and policy debate on global warming is over.  It has just begun.

The worst hurricanes were in 1926, the second-worst in 1900.  The world's top hurricane experts say that there is no evidence that global warming affects storms.

More and more scientists are revolting against the global warming consensus enforced by government funding, the academic establishment, and media misrepresentation.  They are saying that solar cycles and the complex systems of cloud formation have much more influence on our climate, and account for historical periods of warming and cooling much more accurately that a straight line graph of industrialization, CO2, and rising temperatures.  They also point out that the rising temperatures that set off the global warming panic ended in 1998.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared a recent rash of seal deaths to be an "unusual mortality event" on Tuesday. More than 60 seals have died and 75 found diseased in Alaska with skin sores and patchy hair loss. The Fish and Wildlife Service has also identified diseased and dead walruses. A similar official declaration for Pacific Walrus in Alaska is pending. The walruses have suffered from similar symptoms, which have also included labored breathing and appearing lethargic. Scientists have yet to identify a cause for this disease, but tests have indicated that it is not a virus. Hunters, meanwhile, continue to see many healthy animals. Despite a significant contact with seals and walruses, no humans have reported similar symptoms. However, it is not known whether the disease can be transmitted to humans or other animals. In most cases, necropsies and lab tests have revealed skin lesions, fluid in the lungs, white spots on the liver, and abnormal growths in the brain. Some of the seals and walruses have undersized lymph nodes, possibly a sign of weakened immuned systems. In Canada and Russia, ringed seals have been reported suffering similar symptoms. It is unknown whether they are related.

The United States experienced some of the most extreme weather events in its history this spring, including deadly outbreaks of tornadoes, near-record flooding, drought and wildfires

Damages from these disasters have already passed $32 billion, and the hurricane season, which is just beginning, is projected to be above average, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Government scientists said Wednesday that the frequency of extreme weather has increased over the past two decades, in part as a result of global warming caused by the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

The science is now all-but-settled on global warming, convincing new evidence demonstrates, but Al Gore, the IPCC and other global warming doomsayers won’t be celebrating. The new findings point to cosmic rays and the sun — not human activities — as the dominant controller of climate on Earth.

The research, published with little fanfare this week in the prestigious journal Nature, comes from über-prestigious CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, one of the world’s largest centres for scientific research involving 60 countries and 8,000 scientists at more than 600 universities and national laboratories. CERN is the organization that invented the World Wide Web, that built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and that has now built a pristinely clean stainless steel chamber that precisely recreated the Earth’s atmosphere.

The hypothesis that cosmic rays and the sun hold the key to the global warming debate has been Enemy No. 1 to the global warming establishment ever since it was first proposed by two scientists from the Danish Space Research Institute, at a 1996 scientific conference in the U.K. Within one day, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bert Bolin, denounced the theory, saying, “I find the move from this pair scientifically extremely naive and irresponsible.” He then set about discrediting the theory, any journalist that gave the theory cre dence, and most of all the Danes presenting the theory — they soon found themselves vilified, marginalized and starved of funding, despite their impeccable scientific credentials.

The Obama administration cut corners before concluding that climate-change pollution can endanger human health, a key finding underpinning costly new regulations, an internal government watchdog said Wednesday.Regulators and the White House disagreed with the finding, and the report itself did not question the science behind the administration's conclusions. Still, the decision by the Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general is sure to encourage industry lawyers, global warming doubters in Congress and elsewhere, and Republicans taking aim at the agency for what they view as an onslaught of job-killing environmental regulations.

The report said EPA should have followed a more extensive review process for a technical paper supporting its determination that greenhouse gases pose dangers to human health and welfare, a finding that ultimately compelled it to issue controversial and expensive regulations to control greenhouse gases for the first time."While it may be debatable what impact, if any, this had on EPA's finding, it is clear that EPA did not follow all the required steps," Inspector General Arthur A. Elkins, Jr. said in a statement Wednesday.

But by highlighting what it calls "procedural deviations," the report provides ammunition to Republicans and industry lawyers fighting the Obama administration over its decision to use the 40-year-old Clean Air Act to fight global warming. While the Supreme Court said in 2007 that the act could be used to control greenhouse gases, the Republican-controlled House has passed legislation that would change that. The bill has so far been stymied by the Democratic-controlled Senate.Sen. James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who requested the investigation and one of Congress' most vocal climate skeptics, said Wednesday the report confirmed that "the very foundation of President Obama's job-destroying agenda was rushed, biased and flawed."

It has been proposed that Ecocide, the environmental equivalent of genocide, becomes the 5th International Crime Against Peace alongside Genocide itself, Crimes Against Humanity, Crimes of Aggression and War Crimes. The new law has been proposed to the UN by British Environmental Lawyer, Polly Higgins who proposes that under the new law Heads of States and Directors of Corporations be required to take individual and personal responsibility for their actions. On September 30th 2011, London's Supreme Court of the United Kingdom will be the venue for a Mock Trial, played out as though the crime of Ecocide had already been adopted.

Ecocide is defined as: "the mass damage, destruction to or loss of ecosystems of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished."

A recent study has confirmed that toxic compounds derived from oil that was released in the Deepwater Horizon spill that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico nearly two years ago has entered the ocean's food chain through microorganisms.

The study, funded by the National Science Foundation and led by a team of researchers from East Carolina University, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Oregon State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the U.S. Geological Survey, detected chemical compounds found in oil called hydrocarbons, some known to be carcinogenic, within the bodies of microscopic crustaceans called zooplankton.

"Our research helped to determine a 'fingerprint' of the Deepwater Horizon spill--something that other researchers interested in the spill may be able to use," Dr. Siddhartha Mitra of East Carolina University said in a statement. "Furthermore, our work demonstrated that zooplankton in the Northern Gulf of Mexico accumulated toxic compounds derived from the Macondo well." Zooplankton form the base of the ocean's food web and are typically fed upon by fish larva and smaller crustaceans, said Dr. David Kimmel of East Carolina University. Whether or not these larger organisms have accumulated significant amounts of toxic compounds, or has entered the human food chain, has yet to be determined. "That is certainly one of the questions we would like to see answered with more research," said Dr. Mitra in a phone interview.

The global patterns of the Holocene have receded and their return is no longer possible, sustainable or even desirable. It is no longer Mother Nature who will care for us, but us who must care for her.

The first step will be in our own minds. The Holocene is gone. In the Anthropocene we are the creators, engineers and permanent global stewards of a sustainable human nature.

a press release for the report which suggested that renewable sources alone, without nuclear power, could provide 77 per cent of the world’s energy supply by 2050.

The supporting documents, which weren’t released until over a month later, reveal that this claim was based on a large real-terms decline in worldwide energy consumption over the next 40 years (highly unrealistic as India and China grow their economies).

Now it appears that there are more apparent conflicts of interest in the IPCC’s energy report

With wildfires, floods, tornadoes, and other dramatic weather events making front page news around the world, many people are asking questions about the signs and impacts of a changing climate. Climate Science is the World Resources Institute’s periodic review of the state of play of the science of climate change. With summaries and explanations of recent peer-reviewed research from a host of scientific journals, Climate Science is a window into what scientists are discovering about how climate change affects the living things and complex systems of our planet.

The latest edition, Climate Science 2009-2010 will be released this summer. In the meantime, we have assembled a preview of some of the research covered in the report. Take a look at our slideshow detailing the huge variety of impacts we are already seeing from warming global temperatures, including insights into sea-level rise, human migration, weather extremes, and the shrinking habitats of wildlife. Then, use our interactive map to learn more about the regional consequences of climate change around the United States

Slideshow:

"And what we want do," says John Sauven, who is executive director of Greenpeace UK, "is say that this area, which is currently not national territory, this area of sea ice around the North Pole, should be a 'global commons', collectively owned by humanity under the auspices of the United Nations.

So now Greenpeace, Mr Sauven says, is planning a global campaign to make the North Pole off-limits. Internalionalised. No development. No oil drilling. No territorial claims

It has done so by its own form of protest, by being present (often at considerable personal risk) at the sharp end of all these situations, and making the world aware: it is the idea of "bearing witness", from the Quaker background of some its founders.

Coral reefs are on course to become the first ecosystem that human activity will eliminate entirely from the Earth, a leading United Nations scientist claims. He says this event will occur before the end of the present century,

"a new first for mankind – the 'extinction' of an entire ecosystem"

The predicted decline is mainly down to climate change and ocean acidification, though local activities such as overfishing, pollution and coastal development have also harmed the reefs. The book, Our Dying Planet, published by University of California Press, contains further alarming predictions, such as the prospect that "we risk having no reefs that resemble those of today in as little as 30 or 40 more years"

Jellyfishes rely on drifting to eat. They take their luck with currents, and create tiny eddies to guide food toward their tendrils. Yet in waters from the Sea of Japan to the Black Sea, jellies today are thriving as many of their marine vertebrate and invertebrate competitors are eliminated by overfishing, dead zones and other human impacts. How have these drifters of the sea reversed millions of years of fish dominance, seemingly overnight?