PLANET IN PERIL

 inside climate  news Nine of the 10 warmest years on modern record have been since 2005. This was the warmest without El Niño's influence, and it was marked by climate-related disasters. Story here.

Bloomberg "Rainbow Lake" - Alberta tar sands. Photo credit - "Beautiful Destruction." Amid the bogs and forests of northern Alberta, in the heart of the Canadian oil patch, lie some of the largest waste dumps of the global energy business. Story here.

Common  Dreams Mt. Herschel, Antarctica. Photo by  Andrew Mandemaker. "We are in desperate need for governments to come together and do what is best for these amazing ecosystems." More here.

by Larry Powell A "Snowy" swoops down on its prey (probably a lemming). Photo credit - Government of Quebec. The beautiful Snowy Owl, like so many other wild creatures on Earth, faces an uncertain future. The  “Red List,”  a British agency, has just put the graceful, white bird of prey on the “vulnerable” list for the first time. It has drastically downgraded earlier estimates of 200 thousand individuals, worldwide, to as low as 10 thousand.  Snowy Owl numbers have proven hard to judge since they fluctuate so widely, depending on the availability of food. Factors in their decline may include illegal hunting, collisions with vehicles and power lines and climate change, which can affect the availability of prey. So the agency’s prognosis is a somber one.  “This species faces a high risk of extinction in the wild in the medium-term future.”  Snowy Owls nest in the Arctic, but have a range that spans the northern hemisphere.”  A conservation spe

ScienceNews Rising temperatures are skewing population ratios toward extreme imbalance. Story here. Photo by Karla

The Washington Post The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in official documents being prepared for next year’s budget. More here.

NATIONAL OBSERVER Five years ago, Superstorm Sandy ripped through the most populous city in the United States, spreading destruction fueled by climate change. Today, New York City's mayor said it was time to "break the cycle" by suing the culprits — fossil fuel companies. Story here.