The Downfall of the Plastic Bag: A Global Picture

Earth Policy Institute

Worldwide, a trillion single-use plastic bags are used each year, nearly 2 million each minute. Usage varies widely among countries, from over 400 a year for many East Europeans, to just four a year for people in Denmark and Finland. Plastic bags, made of depletable natural gas or petroleum resources, are often used only for a matter of minutes. Yet they last in the environment for hundreds of years, shredding into ever-smaller pieces but never fully breaking down. Full story here.

Antimicrobial Resistance: Global Report on Surveillance 2014

WHO

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) threatens the effective prevention and treatment of an ever-increasing range of infections caused by bacteria, parasites, viruses and fungi. Details here.

Climate Change: Don't Wait Until You Can Feel it

ScienceDaily

Despite overwhelming scientific evidence for the impending dangers of human-made climate change, policy decisions leading to substantial emissions reduction have been slow. New research shows that even as extreme weather events influence those who experience them to support policy to address climate change, waiting for the majority of people to live through such conditions firsthand could delay meaningful action by decades. Full story here.

Only With Political Will Can we Avoid the Worst of Climate Change

David Suzuki

It's fitting that the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report was released during Earth Month. Details here.

U.S. Schoolchildren Exposed to Arsenic in Well Water Have Lower IQs

Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

In Maine study, rates of contamination exceed WHO and EPA guidelines. Details here.

Related: Keep Arsenic Out of the Water in Virden, Manitoba - an Open Letter to the Minister of Environment.

Does El Niño Plus Global Warming Equal Global Temperature Records This Year and Next?

ClimateProgress

An El Niño appears increasingly likely this year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). If it starts relatively quickly, then 2014 could well be the hottest year on record. But if it is a strong El Niño, then 2015 would likely break all previous global records. Details here.
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In January of 2011, I wrote the following here on PLT in a post I entitled:

Is Canada's Flagship TV Newscast Telling the Whole Story of Climate Change?

Both La Niñas (cooling trends) and El Niños (warming ones), have been scientifically shown to be behaving strangely in recent years, with the onset of global warming.

In the early ‘90s, several El Niños were recorded, but with no La Niñas in between! The IPCC describes this occurrence as"highly unusual and very unlikely to be accounted for solely by natural variability.”

In a research paper in 1996, Dr. Trenberth noted this same event was “the longest on record…and opens up the possibility that the changes may be partly caused by the observed increases in greenhouse gases.”

Then, in the spring of 1997 until the summer of '98, perhaps the most devastating and prolonged El Niños of all time slammed into Ecuador, in South America. It caused a staggering $2.6 billion in damage to that country's infrastructure, farms, fisheries, homes and businesses.

Events like this have prompted the IPCC itself to observe"Whether global warming is affecting El Niños is now a key question."

l.p.

Biologist Tyrone Hayes Battles One of the Biggest Agribusinesses in the World (Podcast)

CBC Radio - The Current.

Hayes has spent his career studying the effects of one particular herbicide - Atrazine - on frogs. When he presented the maker Syngenta with results that he said showed sexual abnormalities in frogs, Dr. Hayes says the company tried to launch a campaign to discredit his work. Listen here.