ScienceDaily: Using a "patient monitoring" device attached to a whale entangled in fishing gear, scientists showed for the first time how fishing lines changed a whale's diving and swimming behavior. The monitoring revealed how fishing gear hinders whales' ability to eat and migrate, depletes their energy as they drag gear for months or years, and can result in a slow death. The scientists in this entanglement response suction-cupped a cellphone-size device called a Dtag to a two-year-old female North Atlantic...

Guardian: An unprecedented stocktake of UK wildlife has revealed that most species are struggling and that one in three have halved in number in the past half century. The unique report, based on scientific analysis of tens of millions of observations from volunteers, shows that from woodland to farmland and from freshwater streams to the sea, many animals, birds, insects, fish and plants are in trouble. The causes include the intensification of farming, with the consequent loss of meadows, hedgerows and...

Inter Press Service: Everyone knows water is life. Far too few understand the role of trees, plants and other living things in ensuring we have clean, fresh water. This dangerous ignorance results in destruction of wetlands that once cleaned water and prevented destructive and costly flooding, scientists and activists warn."We have accelerated major processes like erosion, applied massive quantities of nitrogen that leaks from soil to ground and surface waters and, sometimes, literally siphoned all water from rivers."...

Philadelphia Inquirer: For the third time, Gov. Christie has refused to link climate change and Sandy. "I don't think there's been any proof thus far that Sandy was caused by climate change,' Christie said yesterday in response to a question from a reporter from WNYC, an NPR affiliate. Today at a union meeting for teachers, Christie's expected Democratic challenger, State Sen. Barbara Buono, brought up his remark. "Wake up!" Buono said. "How much proof do you need? This kind of putting his head in the sand, being...

New York Times: Like ocean waters around the world, the Chesapeake has become more and more acidic as a result of rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Now, by studying oyster populations in relation to acidity levels, a team of researchers has concluded that oysters — particularly their shells — can play a significant role in reducing that acidity. “Oyster shells are made out of calcium carbonate, so they’re sort of like an antacid pill,” said George Waldbusser, an assistant professor of earth, ocean...

InsideClimate: U.S. oil production is suddenly growing so fast that some analysts are questioning how much the country really needs the Canadian tar sands oil that would move through the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. This month, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said it expects domestic crude oil production to surge 20 percent by the end of 2014 from its level at the start of this year. That means an additional 1.4 million barrels of U.S.-produced oil will be available each day—about twice as much...

Guardian: What do emptier waters look like? This web aquarium shows declining fish populations over the past 100 years - and it uses more than 200 datasets to do it. We recommend that you closely analyse the data showing that the population of big fish has been decimated while small fish are now overly abundant. Or else you can leave it on your screen as a digital pet and a grim modern Tamagotchi.

Guardian: One of the world's largest fish farm companies, Marine Harvest, has voluntarily agreed to much tougher limits on its pesticides use and seal killing by joining a strict new environment scheme. Marine Harvest will join the Aquaculture Stewardship council, a new accreditation scheme championed by WWF, after coming under repeated attack for heavy use of toxic chemicals, seal-killing and major outbreaks of sea lice and salmon diseases. The Norwegian-owned company, which grows 25% of all Scotland's...

Reuters: Days before a Shell drillship went aground in the storm-tossed Gulf of Alaska, it was clear that towing failures could spell disaster for the vessel, the crew and the marine environment, a company official told a U.S. Coast Guard panel on Monday. The Kulluk, having completed preliminary drilling on an exploration well in the Beaufort Sea, broke away from its tow lines, and support vessels attempting to regain control of the drillship developed their own engine and mechanical problems, Norman Custard,...

Reuters: Extreme global warming is less likely in coming decades after a slowdown in the pace of temperature rises so far this century, an international team of scientists said on Sunday. Warming is still on track, however, to breach a goal set by governments around the world of limiting the increase in temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, unless tough action is taken to limit rising greenhouse gas emissions. "The most extreme rates of warming simulated by...

Inter Press Service: The Caribbean does not have the luxury of time for decisive action on climate change and global warming. In fact, it is on the brink of calamity, according to a prominent scientist. Conrad Douglas, a Jamaican scientist who has published over 350 reports on environmental management and related matters, has warned that "urgent action at all levels [is] required now", cautioning the region against complacency in dealing with climate change. Noting that earlier models forecast that an atmosphere...

BBC: Scientists say the recent downturn in the rate of global warming will lead to lower temperature rises in the short-term. Since 1998, there has been an unexplained "standstill" in the heating of the Earth's atmosphere. Writing in Nature Geoscience, the researchers say this will reduce predicted warming in the coming decades. But long-term, the expected temperature rises will not alter significantly. The slowdown in the expected rate of global warming has been studied for several years...

New York Times: When a handful of retired homeowners from Osborn Island in New Jersey gathered last month to discuss post-Hurricane Sandy rebuilding and environmental protection, L. Stanton Hales Jr., a conservationist, could not have been clearer about the risks they faced. “I said, look people, you built on a marsh island, it’s oxidizing under your feet — it’s shrinking — and that exacerbates the sea level rise,” said Dr. Hales, director of the Barnegat Bay Partnership, an estuary program financed by the Environmental...

ScienceDaily: For decades, ecologists have assumed the worst invasive species -- such as brown tree snakes and kudzu -- have an "away-field advantage." They succeed because they do better in their new territories than they do at home. A new study led by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center reveals that this fundamental assumption is not nearly as common as people might think. The away-field advantage hypothesis hinges on this idea: Successful invaders do better in a new place because the environment...

Summit Voice: The world`s major ice sheets -- on Greenland and Antarctica -- haven`t really started a major meltdown yet. But the rest of the world`s glacial regions have been losing ice at a rate of about 260 billion metric tons annually, raising sea level by about 0.03 inches per year -- about a third of the observed sea level rise. The biggest ice losses are happening in Arctic Canada, Alaska, coastal Greenland, the southern Andes and the Himalaya. Combined, the areas contribute as much to sea level rise...

Sussex County Post: Sussex County Council members are not on the same wave length regarding the debatable issue of sea level rise. At the May 7 council meeting, Susan Love, a planner with the Department of Environmental Control and Natural Resources’ Coastal Management Program, delivered an update on progress made by the state’s Sea Level Rise Advisory Committee, which is developing an adaptation plan for the state that will provide a path forward for planning for impacts of sea level rise. Ms. Love’s presentation...

Globe and Mail: Another kind of Canadian government would take this opportunity as Arctic Council chair to lead a diplomatic effort to demilitarize the region, to make it a northern Antarctica where, by international treaty, military activities are banned. Of course, the Arctic Council alone couldn't bring about demilitarization since it has no such power, but it could become an important place to put the issue on the international agenda. Canada should borrow a slogan from someone Americans love - Ronald Reagan,...

Associated Press: Giant leatherback turtles, some weighing half as much as a small car, drag themselves out of the ocean and up the sloping shore on the northeastern coast of Trinidad while villagers await wearing dimmed headlamps in the dark. Their black carapaces glistening, the turtles inch along the moonlit beach, using their powerful front flippers to move their bulky frames onto the sand. In years past, poachers from Grande Riviere and nearby towns would ransack the turtles' buried eggs and hack the critically...

EcoWatch: A study featured in the current issue of Nature reveals that ocean warming has already affected fisheries around the world over the past four decades as fish populations shift in response to changing sea temperatures. The findings provide an indicator of the effect that climate change has on the distribution and abundance of fish. The study also points to the need for wildlife officials in New England and around the world to give fish and the ecosystems they rely upon a better chance to adapt to...

Telegraph: Fiji's picturesque Natewa Bay must be a hard place to leave, and for none more so than the villagers of Vunidogoloa, who are preparing to abandon their ancestral home in the face of the rising sea. But they have little choice: big waves now overtop a once-protective sea wall, their salt-polluted vegetation is dying. They are to move as a community a mile inland, and uphill, to a new site on the northern island of Vanua Levu. Devout Methodists, they have named Kenani, Fijian for Canaan – the promised...