Climate Change Displaces 35,000 Walruses in Alaska
An estimated 35,000 walruses have gathered on a beach in northwest Alaska as their natural resting grounds vanish due to climate change. Walruses usually gather to rest on sea ice offshore. But as Earth warms, they have begun appearing on beaches in recent years. The discovery of 35,000 walruses marks the largest number ever recorded on land. The Federal Aviation Authority has re-routed flights to avoid scaring the walruses amidst fears of a massive and deadly stampede.
Humans Are Causing Lethal Tumors on Endangered Sea Turtles
A team of scientists from Duke University, the University of Hawaii and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) discovered that pollution around the Hawaiian islands is causing lethal tumors in the endangered sea turtle population. The report, which was published in the peer-reviewed open-access journal PeerJ, states that high levels of nitrogen from urban and farm runoff have poisoned the algae that sea turtles eat, causing deadly tumors to grow on the poor turtles’ flippers, eyes and internal organs.
JPMorgan Chase Reports Massive Data Breach
JPMorgan Chase has disclosed one of the largest corporate data breaches in U.S. history. While the hack had been previously disclosed, prior estimates said only about one million accounts had been impacted. Now, the banks says 76 million household accounts and seven million small businesses’ accounts were compromised as hackers penetrated deep into its systems, gathering customers’ names and contact information. The hack went undetected for two months.
Europe Versus Facebook
An Austrian doctoral student at the University of Vienna is waging a legal battle that could force Facebook to change how it manages data in Europe. Maximilian Schrems, privacy activist and founder of the advocacy group Europe Versus Facebook, claims that Facebook’s Irish unit breached European Union data protection laws by transferring information to the United States that was later obtained by the National Security Agency’s notorious PRISM program, a massive dragnet of electronic communication.
Fred Branfman Dies at 72; Exposed U.S. Covert Bombing of Laos
The peace activist and author Fred Branfman has died of ALS at the age of 72. Branfman exposed the covert U.S. bombing of Laos. In the 1960s and 1970s, in what became the largest bombing campaign in history, the United States dropped more than two million tons of bombs on the small Southeast Asian country. Branfman interviewed refugees and helped illuminate their plight for other journalists and activists, including world-renowned linguist Noam Chomsky, who traveled to Laos in 1970. Branfman died last Wednesday in Budapest, Hungary, where he shared a home with his wife Zsuzsa. He was 72.
Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions declined in 2012
Energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2012 were the lowest in the United States since 1994, at 5.3 billion metric tons of CO2. With the exception of 2010, emissions have declined every year since 2007. The largest drop in emissions in 2012 came from coal, which is used almost exclusively for electricity generation. During 2012, particularly in the spring and early summer, low natural gas prices led to competition between natural gas- and coal-fired electric power generators. Lower natural gas prices resulted in reduced levels of coal generation, and increased natural gas generation—a less carbon-intensive fuel for power generation, which shifted power generation from the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel (coal) to the least carbon-intensive fossil fuel (natural gas).http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=10691&src=email