2014 Poised to Be Hottest Year on Record
This year is poised to become the hottest year ever recorded. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2014 is on pace to either tie or surpass the current global record. Last month was the hottest September on record worldwide. Before that, both August and the entire summer of 2014 were also the hottest ever recorded.
1.5 Million Died of Tuberculosis in 2013
The World Health Organization has also released new data on a disease that kills far more people each year than Ebola. Nine million people developed tuberculosis last year, and 1.5 million of them died, even though the disease is curable. About 3.5 percent of cases were drug-resistant.
Migrating Monarch Butterfly Population in Mexico Drops to Record Low
The number of Monarch butterflies who fly south to spend the winter in Mexico has dropped to its lowest level since record keeping began more than 20 years ago. A new report finds the butterflies covered less than two acres of forest in December compared to nearly 45 acres during their peak in the mid-1990s. Researchers attribute the decline to factors including deforestation, extreme weather from climate change, and a rise in genetically modified corn and soybean crops designed to resist Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller. Widespread dousing with the herbicide has destroyed milkweed, the butterflies’ food source. Experts fear the Monarchs’ annual migration from Canada and the United States to Mexico is at risk of disappearing entirely.
Climate Change Whistleblower Rick Piltz Dies After Cancer Battle
Piltz resigned from the U.S. Global Change Research Program in 2005 and provided documents which revealed how the George W. Bush administration was editing government climate reports to downplay the threat of climate change. Just days after the story broke in The New York Times, Philip Cooney, the White House official who made the edits, resigned to return to his former job as an oil industry lobbyist. Piltz later started the Climate Science Watch blog at the Government Accountability Project.