http://modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/whats-killing-the-bay-areas-oysters By Jacoba Charles, San Francisco Magazine. Excerpt: Signifiers of the good life, local bivalves may be harbingers of another phenomenon: species extinction. ...roughly 7 million oysters ... the five oyster farms on Tomales Bay sell each year to local restaurants and bars. ...Though Hog Island’s inventory had restabilized by 2013, ...We just couldn’t supply the product. It was painful—and still is because we’re not over it. The culprit? Ocean acidification—climate change’s caustic cousin—caused by rising carbon dioxide emissions. ...In 2005, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began reporting that hatcheries throughout the West Coast were seeing steep declines in production, putting the $84 million industry in jeopardy. Hatchery staff and scientists scrambled to pinpoint the cause, .... It wasn’t until a year later that [Alan] Barton [or Whiskey Creek shellfish hatchery in Tillamook, Oreg...

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28367198 Author: Mario Cacciottolo Source: BBC News Magazine Topic: ocean currents Excerpt:  A container filled with millions of Lego pieces fell into the sea off Cornwall in 1997. But instead of remaining at the bottom of the ocean, they are still washing up on Cornish beaches today - offering an insight into the mysterious world of oceans and tides. ...353,264 plastic daisies dropped into the sea on 13 February 1997, when the container ship Tokio Express was hit by a wave described by its captain as a "once in a 100-year phenomenon", tilting the ship 60 degrees one way, then 40 degrees back. ...62 containers were lost overboard about 20 miles off Land's End - and one of them was filled with nearly 4.8 [million] pieces of Lego, bound for New York. ...shortly after that some of those Lego pieces began washing up in both the north and south coasts of Cornwall. They're still coming in today.... For Investig...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/24/science/report-tallies-toll-on-economy-from-global-warming.html Author : Justin Gillis Source: The New York Times Topic: climate change Excerpt: More than a million homes and businesses along the nation’s coasts could flood repeatedly before ultimately being destroyed. Entire states in the Southeast and the Corn Belt may lose much of their agriculture as farming shifts northward in a warming world. Heat and humidity will probably grow so intense that spending time outside will become physically dangerous, throwing industries like construction and tourism into turmoil. That is a picture of what may happen to the United States economy in a world of unchecked global warming, according to a major new report released Tuesday by a coalition of senior political and economic figures from the left, right and center, including three Treasury secretaries stretching back to the Nixon administration. ...The former Treasury secretaries — including Henry M....

http://www2.epa.gov/carbon-pollution-standards/regulatory-actions Source:        EPA  On June 2, 2014, the EPA proposed the Clean Power Plan to cut carbon emissions from existing power plants. Under President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, EPA is proposing commonsense approaches to reduce carbon pollution from new and existing power plants.        For Investigation : 10.3

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/science/the-melting-isnt-glacial.html By Kenneth Chang, The New York Times. Excerpt: Centuries from now, a large swath of the West Antarctic ice sheet is likely to be gone, its hundreds of trillions of tons of ice melted, causing a four-foot rise in already swollen seas. Scientists reported last week that the scenario may be inevitable, with new research concluding that some giant glaciers had passed the point of no return, possibly setting off a chain reaction that could doom the rest of the ice sheet. For many, the research signaled that changes in the earth’s climate have already reached a tipping point, even if global warming halted immediately. ...A full melt would cause sea level to rise 215 feet. During recent ice ages, glaciers expanded from the poles and covered nearly a third of the continents. And in the distant past there were episodes known as Snowball Earth, when the entire planet froze over. At the other extreme, a warm p...

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-everest-climate-20130514,0,7957473.story Author : Ira Glass Source:  WBEZ, This American Life Topic:  climate change "Podcast - After years of being stuck, the national conversation on climate change finally started to shift — just a little — last year, the hottest year on record in the U.S., with Hurricane Sandy flooding the New York subway, drought devastating Midwest farms, and California and Colorado on fire. Lots of people were wondering if global warming had finally arrived, here at home. This week, stories about this new reality. " For Investigation: 10.3

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/business/insurers-stray-from-the-conservative-line-on-climate-change.html Author : Eduardo Porter Source:  New York Times Topic: climate change Excerpt: If there were one American industry that would be particularly worried about climate change it would have to be insurance, right? ...From Hurricane Sandy’s devastating blow to the Northeast to the protracted drought that hit the Midwest Corn Belt, natural catastrophes across the United States pounded insurers last year, generating $35 billion in privately insured property losses, $11 billion more than the average over the last decade. And the industry expects the situation will get worse. “Numerous studies assume a rise in summer drought periods in North America in the future and an increasing probability of severe cyclones relatively far north along the U.S. East Coast in the long term,” said Peter Höppe, who heads Geo Risks Research at the reinsurance giant Munich Re. “The rise in ...