Rescuers struggled to reach victims trapped beneath rubble in the aftermath of a February 22 magnitude 6.3 earthquake that killed at least 75 people in Christchurch, New Zealand. Several hundred more are still missing.
"Climate change is a major obstacle to a 2004 global treaty aimed at cutting exposure to 21 highly dangerous chemicals, says a new U.N.-commissioned report issued Monday. The 66-page report says the risks of exposure could increase if more stockpiles and landfills leak due to flooding, or other extreme weather linked to rising temperatures."
"Pollen season is lengthening in proportion to warming observed in North America: An extra two weeks, on average, across Wisconsin, Nebraska, Minnesota and almost a full month in the Canadian breadbasket."
"Baby dolphins, some barely three feet in length, are washing up along the Mississippi and Alabama coastlines at 10 times the normal rate of stillborn and infant deaths, researchers are finding."
"BP has reneged on promises made in November to negotiate early payments to Louisiana to help rebuild oyster beds, repair damaged wetlands and build a fish hatchery to allow the state to respond immediately to the collapse of commercial fisheries in the wake of the BP Gulf oil spill, state officials said Monday."
"Oil from the BP spill remains stuck on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, according to a top scientist's video and slides that she says demonstrate the oil isn't degrading as hoped and has decimated life on parts of the sea floor."
"The construction permits are in and the financing is ready to go, but some of the Chicago area's biggest sources of toxic air pollution still might not be cleaned up anytime soon."
"WASHINGTON -- Fifty million 'environmental refugees' will flood into the global north by 2020, fleeing food shortages sparked by climate change, experts warned at a major science conference that ended here Monday."
