Climate Change

"Big changes are occurring in one of the fastest-warming spots on Earth".

"The midnight sun still gleamed at 1 a.m. across the brilliant expanse of the Greenland ice sheet. Brandon Overstreet, a doctoral candidate in hydrology at the University of Wyoming, picked his way across the frozen landscape, clipped his climbing harness to an anchor in the ice and crept toward the edge of a river that rushed downstream toward an enormous sinkhole."

"By the end of this century, areas of the Persian Gulf could be hit by waves of heat and humidity so severe that simply being outside for several hours could threaten human life, according to a study published Monday. Because of humanity’s contribution to climate change, the authors wrote, some population centers in the Middle East 'are likely to experience temperature levels that are intolerable to humans.'"

"Indonesia's president Joko Widodo will return early from an official trip to the United States due to a haze crisis caused by raging peat fires in the Southeast Asian country, the government said."

"The head of a congressional committee on science has issued subpoenas to the Obama administration over a recent scientific study refuting claims that global warming had 'paused' or slowed over the last decade."

In the run-up to December's climate talks in Paris, the battle over hard targets for financial aid to poor countries has emerged as a potential obstacle to a final treaty.

"The legal onslaught against the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan kicked off [Friday] as 25 states, industry and labor groups challenged the rule in court."

"After an investigation found that ExxonMobil has been funding climate-denying organizations — despite the findings of its own scientists on climate change—the world’s fourth-largest oil company is now going after the journalists who revealed it."

"Collaborating with the Bush-Cheney White House, Exxon turned ordinary scientific uncertainties into weapons of mass confusion."