Stephen Leahy's Storefront

Stephen Leahy Environmental Journalist

• Arctic Meltdown Signals Long-Term Trend

  2008 Sep 05

  By Stephen Leahy UXBRIDGE, Canada , Sep 5 (IPS) - Soaring temperatures have led to the collapse of several huge ice shelves in the Canadian Arctic over the past few weeks. One 50 sq km ice shelf on the northern coast of Canada’s Ellesmere Island simply “vanished” over three days, exposing a coast that lay buried under [...]

• Flying Blind Into Future Hurricane Seasons

  2008 Aug 31

  “…New Orleans is at the same risk as it was before Katrina.” – Stephen Leatherman, director of the International Hurricane Research Center In just two years from now 40 percent of the current weather and science satellites will be out of service. NASA budget cuts means few if any replacements are on the way. Billions of dollars [...]

• Cut Energy Costs 70%: Save Money, Live Better, Help the Climate

  2008 Aug 28

  Making buildings more environmentally friendly is the easiest and most effective way to cut climate-changing carbon emissions, often slashing energy costs by up to 70 percent. So why isn’t there a massive effort to “green up” existing buildings and set green standards for all new construction? Apparently energy costs aren’t high enough. And then there are multi-billion-dollar [...]

• Canada, Home of the World’s Dirtiest Oil

  2008 Aug 28

  A new multi-million government PR campaign claims Canada is a “clean energy superpower“. Meanwhile oil production from Canada’s oil sands — the world’s dirtiest oil — is ramping up from 1.2 million barrels a day to 3.5 million. Sadly yet another example of a government resorting to the “big lie”. By the way virtually all of [...]

• Extinction Crisis Serious Threat to Our Health - says Harvard Doc

  2008 Aug 26

  “Few people realize our health is directly tied to the health of the natural world,” – Dr. Aaron Bernstein, Harvard Medical School Bernstein and colleagues reveal the latest scientific evidence to make a persuasive case that the current extinction crisis, with species vanishing every day, is a serious threat to humanity equal to, if not greater [...]

• Lose Corals and We Will be Fighting for Our Own Survival

  2008 Aug 19

  Interview with Marine Scientist Roberto Iglesias-Prieto  Roberto Iglesias-Prieto  Credit:UNAM FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida, U.S., Jul 31 (Tierramérica)  “There would be no white sands on the beaches of Cancún without the Mesoamerican reef,” Professor Roberto Iglesias-Prieto, a marine ecophysiologist working at the Institute of Marine Sciences and Limnology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told Tierramérica. Tourism is Mexico’s third [...]

• Humans Have Halted The Next Ice Age

  2008 Aug 12

  Interview with climate expert Sir David King: Humanity is now the primary driver of our climate Sir David King    BARCELONA, Spain, Jul 22 (IPS) - Humanity faces enormous challenges at the start of the 21st century, says Sir David King, Britain’s former chief scientific advisor and now director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment [...]