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The global Transition tipping point has arrived - vive la révolution. Last Friday, I posted an exclusive report about a new NASA-backed scientific research project at the US National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (Sesync) to model the risks of civilisational collapse, based on analysis of the key factors involved in the rise and fall of past civilisations.

The global Transition tipping point has arrived - vive la révolution

The story went viral and was quickly picked up by other news outlets around the world which, however, often offered rather misleading headlines. Arctic Research Station Evacuated After Ice Melts Underneath It. Research at Russia's North Pole-40, a station located aboard an ice floe in the Arctic, has ceased following an emergency evacuation of personnel.

Arctic Research Station Evacuated After Ice Melts Underneath It

The ice upon which the station was built had begun to melt at an alarming rate and split into six pieces. According to ITAR-TASS, a Russian news agency, North Pole-40 had been constructed in October 2012 with the expectation of working through September 2013. Those plans were scrapped in late May, however, after its foundation began melting and the research was quite literally put on thin ice. Top ten toxic chemicals suspected to cause autism and learning disabilities. An editorial published April 25 in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives calls for increased research to identify possible environmental causes of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders in America's children and presents a list of ten target chemicals including which are considered highly likely to contribute to these conditions.

Top ten toxic chemicals suspected to cause autism and learning disabilities

Philip Landrigan, MD, MSc, a leader in children's environmental health and Director of the Children's Environmental Health Center (CEHC) at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, co-authored the editorial, entitled "A Research Strategy to Discover the Environmental Causes of Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities," along with Luca Lambertini, PhD, MPH, MSc, Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai and Linda Birnbaum, Director of the National Institute OF Environmental Health Sciences. The editorial was published alongside four other papers -- each suggesting a link between toxic chemicals and autism. 1.

Lead. Bill McKibben's Sermon at The Riverside Church - "God's Taunt" EPA: More than half of U.S. rivers unsuitable for aquatic life. Sean Gardner / Reuters Barges sit along the banks of the Mississippi River in Vicksburg, Mississippi in this file photo taken May 13, 2011.

EPA: More than half of U.S. rivers unsuitable for aquatic life

Fifty-five percent of river and stream lengths are in poor condition for aquatic life, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Tuesday in an unprecedented survey of U.S. There Is Little Hope Left of Keeping Global Temperature in the 'Safe' Zone - Climate Desk. "The prospects of keeping climate change below that [two-degree goal] are fading away," says Pieter Tans, leader of NOAA's greenhouse-gas measurement team.

There Is Little Hope Left of Keeping Global Temperature in the 'Safe' Zone - Climate Desk

Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory (AP) The chances of the world holding temperature rises to two degrees Celsius -- the level of global warming considered "safe" by scientists -- appear to be fading fast, with U.S. scientists reporting the second-greatest annual rise in CO2 emissions in 2012. Carbon dioxide levels measured at at Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii jumped by 2.67 parts per million (ppm) in 2012 to 395 ppm, said Pieter Tans, who leads the greenhouse gas measurement team for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The record was an increase of 2.93 ppm in 1998. Tans told the Associated Press the major factor was an increase in fossil fuel use. Preliminary data for February 2013 show CO2 levels last month standing at their highest ever recorded at Manua Loa, a remote volcano in the Pacific. Derrick Jensen: Endgame Part One. Money grows on trees! Tar Sands Oil Extraction - The Dirty Truth. H2oil - Animations. GASLAND Trailer 2010. Creating a Home Graywater System. Remembering Elinor Ostrom, Nobel Laureate : Planet Money. Hide captionElinor Ostrom in January 2011.

Remembering Elinor Ostrom, Nobel Laureate : Planet Money

Raveendran /AFP/Getty Images Elinor Ostrom, the only woman ever to win an economics Nobel, died today at age 78. Apocalypse Soon: Has Civilization Passed the Environmental Point of No Return? The discussion of climate change is so poisoned by politics that I just can't follow it. So r/askscience, I beg you, can you filter out the noise? What is the current scientific consensus on the concept of man-made climate change? : askscience. Seattle's First Urban Food Forest Will Be Open To Foragers : The Salt. Hide captionDesigners of a food forest in Seattle want to make blueberry picking a neighborly activity. iStockphoto.com Designers of a food forest in Seattle want to make blueberry picking a neighborly activity.

Seattle's First Urban Food Forest Will Be Open To Foragers : The Salt

If you're a regular reader of The Salt, you've probably noticed our interest in foraging. From San Francisco to Maryland, we've met wild food experts, nature guides and chefs passionate about picking foods growing in their backyards. US rejects Keystone XL Canada oil sands pipeline. 18 January 2012Last updated at 21:56.

US rejects Keystone XL Canada oil sands pipeline

Saving the Amazon: Winning the war on deforestation. 2 January 2012Last updated at 00:55 By Justin Rowlatt BBC News, Amazonia For years, the story told about the Amazon has been one of destruction - the world's largest rainforest, a region of amazing biodiversity, key to the fight against climate change, being remorselessly felled.

Saving the Amazon: Winning the war on deforestation

But that is no longer the whole truth. The Environment Agency special ops team gathered in a sultry town right on the southern edge of the Amazon. Pipeline Inspector-Turned Whistleblower Calls Keystone XL a Potential "Disaster" By Stephen Lacey on January 3, 2012 at 2:43 pm "Pipeline Inspector-Turned Whistleblower Calls Keystone XL a Potential “Disaster”" Mike Klink: Let’s be clear — I am an engineer; I am not telling you we shouldn’t build pipelines.

Pipeline Inspector-Turned Whistleblower Calls Keystone XL a Potential "Disaster"

We just should not build this one. By forcing the White House to make a decision on the politically and environmentally-toxic Keystone XL pipeline as part of an agreement reached in December to extend the payroll tax cut, Republicans are being lambasted by environmental groups for undercutting the federal environmental review process. NASA: Climate Change May Flip 40% of Earth's Major Ecosystems This Century. By Climate Guest Contributor on December 26, 2011 at 1:00 pm "NASA: Climate Change May Flip 40% of Earth’s Major Ecosystems This Century" by Rolf Schuttenhelm, cross-posted from Bits of Science The results of studies that try to quantify the effects of climate change on biodiversity loss — which include damage to the micro scale level of subspecies and genetic variation — are perhaps most shocking.

Regenerative Landscapes: Ben Falk, Whole Systems Design. If Star Wars was made by environmentalists.. Pavan Sukhdev: Put a value on nature! The brutal logic of climate change mitigation. Grist does not support alcohol as a means to deal with problems. Nor does it support trading climate change mitigation for economic growth. Game Over for Planet Earth: The Month’s Biggest Story You Never Read. 7 Scary Facts About Pharmaceutical Pollution of Drinking Water. Last Updated Sep 12, 2011 10:27 AM EDT. Green lifestyle choices won’t solve the climate problem. Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan, aka the Greenie Pig, is feeling guilty about her plane trip to a friend’s wedding and decided to try to make up for it by rolling her own carbon offsets — that is, skimping on car travel and other energy use to make up for all that jet fuel she helped burn.

While I appreciate her avoiding offset schemes, I think rolling her own misses the point, and it makes her life harder than it needs to be. Elisabeth doesn’t have much to feel guilty about, really. I guess instead of taking a plane, she should have taken the high-speed rail. Oh wait, we don’t have any existing true high-speed rail lines in the U.S. Well, certainly she could have taken light rail from the airport to her final destination, or maybe rented an electric car.