Environmental News Wrap - New Media and Politics

Seems like the MSM has discovered religion so far as ACC (anthropogenic climate change) is concerned. The New York Times had the link between the extreme weather we've been witnesssing globally this year and its' possible connection to climate change, on the front page on Sunday -- not below the fold, not on page A-16. Of course it took unprecedented weather around the globe to bring about this change of reporting on the likely link - floods in Pakistan that has the number of people suffering from the massive floods in Pakistan exceeding 13 million — more than the combined total of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the United Nations said Monday. A continuing heat wave in Russia that is unlike anything seen in their history -- and a series of events including a flood in Tennessee back in May that has been called a `thousand year event,` flooding and mudslides in China, and the summer’s heat waves which baked the eastern United States, parts of Africa and eastern Asia.

The BBC, Reuters, USA Today, and Time magazine also report on the likely link between warming and extreme weather. Good for them! Using peer reviewed science articles and studies readily available to all on the web, I`ve been reporting on this for about 3 years now.

A great example of the unforeseen consequences of a rapidly changing climate are the great swaths of trees are dead or dying after being attacked by the mountain pine beetle and a disease called white pine blister rust - these forests were once protected by harsh winters and cool summers but no longer. This is also affecting Canadian forests and are expected to wipe out 80 per cent of B.C.'s pine forest by 2013.