The US Geological Survey (USGS) in its most recent report has indicated climate change as the culprit behind the drastic reduction in horse shoe crab population. In fact, the report references the measured rate of their decline in numbers to figures associated with the end of the last Ice Age the report specifically stated. The USGS based its findings with Genomics, the scientific discipline by which it’s able to assess historical trends in population sizes. Furthermore, scientists through the same field of study predict that numbers in horse shoe crabs may continue to decline because of predicted climate change, the USGS said.

Despite horse shoe crabs being heavily harvested for fishing bait or the pharmaceutical industry, scientists at the USGS are able to calculate exactly how much climate change has appeared to have historically played a part in their diminishing population by gauging sea levels. The USGS has inferred that oceans have been altered by climate change and will continue to jeopardize the successful reproduction of horse shoe crabs which need a precise temperature and depth of water with beach in order to mate. Even the US National Oceanic and Air Administration in its latest report confirm findings that climate change is in fact altering sea levels.

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China and Japan pledged over the weekend to enhance dialogue and exchanges on climate change, energy conservation and environmental protection.

The two nations, meeting in Beijing, agreed to make a combined effort to implement the Joint Statement on Climate Change between China and Japan, said Zhang Ping, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), during the third China-Japan high-level economic dialogue.

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Environmentalists world-wide may have been shocked to hear the news that the Obama Administration has chosen to side with major utility companies rather than protect the environment. The decision contradicts his initiative for green energy, eco-activists claim, arguing that the decision would hurt the cause to reduce green-house gas emissions or even formally bring legal suit to it in future instances.

The legal case, brought recently before the US Supreme Court on Thursday, in which the Federal Government officially backed the utility companies, in theory stated that there was no need to go after them. The Administration has been very clear on the matter reiterating the incremental steps the Environmental Protection Agency has been regulating to restrain carbon dioxide emissions, and as such made the lawsuit unnecessary. As a result, the Supreme Court was asked by the solicitor general to return the case back to the US Court of Appeals for the 2^nd Circuit Courts.

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Increasingly frequent droughts caused by the effects of climate change across Africa threaten to destroy the livelihoods of millions across the continent, but a new study has found the adoption of drought resistant corn could save African farmers and earn them nearly $1 billion in the coming years.

Hundreds of millions of Africans rely on corn production for income, as well as basic sustenance in their daily lives.  But in recent decades, drought has wreaked havoc on populations across the continent, killing many and forcing others to rely on handouts to survive.

From 2007 through 2009 unusually low rainfall across East Africa devastated rural communities and forced the Kenya government to adopt measures to combat food shortages and rising prices.

But a new study conducted by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center has found new breeds of corn could help farmers fight the effects of drought and provide food throughout periods of low rainfall.  The study, conducted in cooperation with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation found widespread adoption of so-called “drought-tolerant” corn could result in collective economic benefits of around $900 million for African farmers by 2016.

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Our partners and independent filmmakers network Shooting People are currently supporting MOFILM’s Rome Film Festival competition. They’re looking for filmmakers to create engaging ads for one (or more) of 7 brands.

These need not be dry or dull - the opposite in fact. They want to see creative and  unique approaches to the briefs.

For your efforts you have the chance of picking up a lot of prizes, including $82,000, a car, a trip to one of two eco-tourism resorts in Australia and India, 5 Kodak Zi8 Digital Video Cameras, 5 Nokia technology packs and round trip airfare for you and a guest to Rome plus 3 nights accommodation.

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Brandon Keim at Wired.com has re-published a series of satellite photographs conveying the epic scale of the floods sweeping through Pakistan, leaving millions homeless and the world aghast at an extreme weather disaster that experts consider the new normal.

At the right is the central Pakistan city of Hyderabad on July 31. The ramifications of the disaster are clear; agriculture has been disrupted and their society has been thrown into disarray.

As University of Michigan atmospheric scientist Ricky Rood wrote on the Weather Underground blog, “What is happening in Pakistan cannot be described in a single word – like disaster or catastrophe. We are watching a combination of climate, weather, population, societal capacity, and geopolitics whose scope and ramifications are far beyond a historic flood.”

The water has flowed south from northwestern Pakistan, where seasonal monsoon rains lasted for a month without stopping. Monsoons are normal, but the duration and intensity was bizarre. Climate scientists often describe such weather aberrations as fitting a pattern predicted by global warming — indeed, Indian subcontinent monsoons have been getting more extreme for a half-century — but don’t assign blame for specific events. In Pakistan, however, some scientists have no trouble placing blame.

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The Globe and Mail has reported that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin travelled beyond the Arctic Circle today to look into evidence for climate change after a record heatwave ravaged central Russia this summer.

Putin, who has in the past displayed a light-hearted approach to global warming by joking Russians would have to buy fewer fur coats, flew to a scientific research station in the Samoilovsky island at the delta of Siberia’s Lena River.

“The climate is changing. This year we have come to understand this when we faced events that resulted in fires,” Mr. Putin told climate scientists working at the station, opened in 1998 to study the melting Siberian permafrost.

The two-month heatwave, Russia’s worst on record, killed 54 people in forest fires, destroyed a quarter of the grain crop and shaved at least $14-billion off the economy.

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The ratio between humanitarian aid and military response in regions close to or in disaster stricken areas of the Middle East, specifically Pakistan as of late, is very much broad in respect from one another. However, the two needs, military and humanitarian, amidst the one region aren’t mutually exclusive of each other, in so far that climate change might shift foreign policy tactics altogether.

Though President Obama has requested nearly $334 million for international climate adaptation in the Fiscal Year 2011 budget, its merely a step in the right direction, failing far too short for what’s really needed. In 2009, only ten percent of the US’s foreign disaster aid budget was devoted to disaster risk reduction which is estimated to have reached $86.7 million. However, the UN is estimating for at least 5 times that amount alone to deal with disaster response in Pakistan, calling for at least $460 million dollars to mitigate the crisis. If the US commits more earlier, it should reason that less would be needed after disasters

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Bloomberg has reported that nearly three-quarters of U.K. companies have yet to measure their carbon footprints.

The news, brought to Bloomberg from the government’s Carbon Trust, stated that some 26 percent of companies currently measure greenhouse gas output, with 38 percent planning to begin within five years. The trust in total surveyed 200 finance directors at firms employing more than 500 people.

With new emissions laws coming in, the task of auditing carbon in a company is increasingly falling onto finance departments, said Harry Morrison, general manager of the Carbon Trust Standard Co., which certifies the environmental performance of corporations.

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Recent flooding in Pakistan is leaving many to speculate whether or not the incident plays a piece in a very much larger puzzle depicting climate change. Evidence of its destruction might be seen in one country, however, manifests its origins of destruction far away.

Despite contrasting opinions on the cause of climate change, scientists are in agreement, however, over its existence and moreover how it will manifest physically, let alone do so adversely. Greater weather extremes in Pakistan have been documented over a large period thus far raising the flags of climate change.

For 160 million Pakistanis, droughts and floods alike have become regular. With respect to current flooding, rainfall of about 16 inches in mountainous areas in the far north of Pakistan and adjoining parts of Afghanistan between July 28 and 29 triggered a torrent of water down the Indus and Kabul Rivers. It was a record amount of rain in that period to be precise.

In fact, Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, director-general of the Pakistan Meteorological Department is on record with Reuters stating, “The only explanation can be the link to climate change. Because that area very rarely receives monsoon rains,” while discussing the risk of the monsoon belt shifting as well as reasons for the changes in the intensity of monsoons in the region.

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The New York Times has run a front page Sunday story quoting scientists that view this summer’s dangerous weather — from Russia’s brutal heat wave to flooding in Pakistan — as a warning sign of what’s to come from global warming.

Now, in the spirit of Eat, Pray, Love, the Journal of Biogeography is warning that climate change could affect dinner plates too.

The journal is publishing a new study by University of South Carolina researchers who conclude higher air and water temperatures along the East Coast are shrinking the range of blue mussels.

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