submitted by Tim Siftar

swissre.com

According to the latest sigma study, global insured losses from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters were USD 45 billion in 2013, down from USD 81 billion in 2012. Of the 2013 insured losses, USD 37 billion were generated by natural catastrophes, with hail in Europe and floods in many regions being the main drivers.

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CONAKRY, GUINEA — Health workers in protective hazmat suits treated patients in quarantine centers on Tuesday in a remote corner of Guinea where Ebola has killed at least 60 people in West Africa's first outbreak of the deadly virus in two decades.

Seven patients are being hospitalized at one isolation ward in Gueckedou in southern Guinea, while two others are being treated elsewhere, said Doctors Without Borders. The aid group said it is sending mobile teams into the surrounding countryside in search of people who may have been exposed since the first cases emerged last week.

oceana.org - March 20, 2014

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Wasted Catch: Unsolved Problems in U.S. Fisheries)

thedailybeast.com - by Abby Haglage - March 23, 2014

A new report by Oceana exposes nine U.S. fisheries that throw away half of what they catch, and kill dolphins, sea turtles, whales, and more in the process.

A new study released this week called Wasted Catch: Unsolved Bycatch Problems in U.S. Fisheries reveals the nine dirtiest fisheries in the United States. It’s a dirty bunch indeed, the waste between them accounting for nearly half a billion wasted seafood meals in the U.S. alone.

Culled by Oceana, the largest international organization for ocean conservation, the fisheries are ranked based on bycatch—the amount of unwanted creatures caught while commercial fishing.

newscientist.com - by Andy Coghlan - March 25, 2014

Oil giant Exxon Mobil has promised to reveal how much of its fossil fuel reserves could become worthless if governments agree to cut greenhouse gas emissions. It is the first major fossil fuel company to declare the size of its exposure to the so-called carbon bubble – the over-valuation of fossil fuel companies that could result if their assets are left unused.

To save ourselves from the worst impacts of global warming, we have to leave fossil fuels in the ground instead of burning them.

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Africa’s biggest Ebola outbreak in seven years has probably spread from Guinea to neighboring Liberia and also threatens Sierra Leone.

Five people are suspected to have died from the disease in Lofa county in northern Liberia, Bernice Dahn, Liberia’s chief medical officer, said at a briefing yesterday. At least 86 cases and 59 deaths have been recorded across Guinea, the west African country’s health ministry said. The capital, Conakry, hasn’t been affected, government spokesman Albert Damantang Camara said.

Turkey shoots down Syrian plane

reuters.com - by Daren Butler - March 23, 2014

(Reuters) - Turkish armed forces shot down a Syrian plane on Sunday that Ankara said had crossed into its air space in an area where Syrian rebels have been battling President Bashar al-Assad's forces for control of a border crossing.

"A Syrian plane violated our airspace," Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told an election rally in northwest Turkey. "Our F-16s took off and hit this plane.

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Image: A harvester collects maize in a field at Severn Trent's crop-fed power plant in Stoke Bardolph, near Nottingham. Photograph: David Levenson/Getty Images

theguardian.com - March 14th, 2014 - George Monbiot

In principle it's a brilliant solution. Instead of leaving food waste and sewage and animal manure to decay in the open air, releasing methane which contributes to global warming, you can contain it, use micro-organisms to digest it, and capture the gas.

Biogas from anaerobic digestion could solve several problems at once.

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theguardian.com - March 16th, 2014 - Anne Penketh

The famously testy Parisians have one more reason to grumble after the French government announced that half the cars in the city would be banned from the roads, starting on Monday, in an effort to combat smog pollution.

From 5.30am, a scheme of alternating driving days, based on odd and even number plates, will come into effect for cars and motorcycles after Paris pollution reached dangerous levels for five consecutive days.

Even before the restrictions were announced, Parisians were given free travel on buses, metros and public bikes over the weekend.

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Image: Small version of a larger chart included within the article depicting climate predictions. Credit: Pitch Interactive; SOURCE: MICHAEL E. MANN

scientificamerican.com - March 18th, 2014 - Michael E. Mann

“Temperatures have been flat for 15 years—nobody can properly explain it,” the Wall Street Journal says. “Global warming ‘pause’ may last for 20 more years, and Arctic sea ice has already started to recover,” the Daily Mail says. Such reassuring claims about climate abound in the popular media, but they are misleading at best. Global warming continues unabated, and it remains an urgent problem.

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CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — Samples from victims of a viral hemorrhagic fever that has killed more than 50 people in Guinea have tested positive for the Ebola virus, government officials said Sunday, marking the first time an outbreak among humans has been detected in this West African nation. 

Please read mre...

whatweknow.aaas.org

The overwhelming evidence of human-caused climate change documents both current impacts with significant costs and extraordinary future risks to society and natural systems. The scientific community has convened conferences, published reports, spoken out at forums and proclaimed, through statements by virtually every national scientific academy and relevant major scientific organization — including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) — that climate change puts the well-being of people of all nations at risk.

Surveys show that many Americans think climate change is still a topic of significant scientific disagreement.i Thus, it is important and increasingly urgent for the public to know there is now a high degree of agreement among climate scientists that human-caused climate change is real. Moreover, while the public is becoming aware that climate change is increasing the likelihood of certain local disasters, many people do not yet understand that there is a small, but real chance of abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes with highly damaging impacts on people in the United States and around the world.

cnn.com - by Christabelle Fombu and Susanna Capelouto - March 23, 2014

(CNN) -- An Ebola outbreak has killed at least 59 people in Guinea, UNICEF said, as the deadly hemorrhagic fever has quickly spread from southern communities in the West African nation.

Experts in the country had been unable to identify the disease, whose symptoms -- diarrhea, vomiting and fever -- were first observed last month.

Health Minister Remy Lamah said Saturday initial test results confirm the presence of a viral hemorrhagic fever, which according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention refers to a group of viruses that affect multiple organ systems in the body.

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(CLICK HERE - STUDY - ABRUPT IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE - Anticipating Surprises)

National Academy of Sciences (NAS)

truth-out.org - by Bruce Melton - March 18, 2014

Today, we are burning fossil carbon one million times faster than it was naturally put in the ground, and carbon dioxide is increasing 14,000 times faster than anytime in the last 610,000 years (1,2). Climate is now changing faster than it has during any other time in 65 million years - 100 times faster than the Paleocene/Eocene extinction event 56 million years ago see here.(3) However, "climate change" is not the most critical issue facing society today; abrupt climate change is.

The Doomsday scenario we should have been worrying about

theregister.co.uk - by Iain Thomson - March 19, 2014

Video - A new analysis of data from NASA's Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) by Chinese and Berkeley helioboffins shows that a July 2012 solar storm of unprecedented size would have wiped out global electronic systems if it had occurred just nine days earlier.

"Had it hit Earth, it probably would have been like the big one in 1859, but the effect today, with our modern technologies, would have been tremendous," said UC Berkeley research physicist Janet Luhmann.

The 1859 storm, also known as the Carrington Event, after the British astronomer who recorded it, swept over the Earth at the end of August and is the largest recorded solar storm in history.