Economy | ANALYSIS
Households to take hit from tax hike
by Tomoko Otake
The consumption tax increase will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people’s financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the hike's impact.
Science & Health Sep 13, 2013
Mammoths failed to adapt to warmth: study
A wide-ranging probe into woolly mammoths has added to evidence that they were wiped out by climate change. British and Swedish researchers sequenced DNA from 88 samples of mammoth bone, tooth and tusk, looking for a signature in the genetic code that is handed ...
Environment Sep 2, 2013
Cattle ranching goes green in Brazil's Amazon region
In a remote corner of the Brazilian Amazon, farmer Lacir Soares is promoting sustainable cattle rearing that shuns deforestation and meets the environmental requirements of a new forestry law. His venture, supported by the cattle industry and environmentalists, illustrates how things are changing in ...
Environment Aug 21, 2013
Humans '95% likely' behind warming
It is all but certain that human activity has caused a steady increase in global temperatures over the past 60 years, leading to warmer oceans and an acceleration in rising sea levels, according to the most recent climate change report by an international U.N. ...
Environment Aug 19, 2013
Global coastal flooding losses could hit $1 trillion a year by 2050: report
The world's 136 largest coastal cities could risk combined annual losses of $1 trillion from floods by 2050 unless they drastically raise their defenses, a study warns.
Environment Aug 15, 2013
Climate change linked to ancient civilizations' fall
A cold, dry spell that lasted hundreds of years may have driven the collapse of Eastern Mediterranean civilizations in the 13th century B.C., researchers in France said Wednesday. In the Late Bronze Age, powerful kingdoms spanned lands that are now Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Syria, ...
Environment Aug 15, 2013
Extreme heat waves likely to be the new normal
Climate change will trigger harsher and more frequent heat waves in the next 30 years regardless of the amount of Earth-warming carbon dioxide we emit, a study said Thursday. But targets adopted today for curbing greenhouse gas emissions will determine whether the pattern stabilizes ...
Environment Aug 7, 2013
New records for sea ice loss, greenhouse gas in 2012
The world lost record amounts of Arctic sea ice in 2012 and spewed out all-time high levels of greenhouse gases by burning fossil fuels, international climate scientists said Tuesday.
Science & Health Jul 25, 2013
Arctic methane a climatic, economic 'time bomb'
Massive leakage of methane from thawing shorelines in the Arctic would devastate the world’s climate and economy, three scientists warned Wednesday. Billions of tons of the potent greenhouse gas are locked in the shallow frozen shelf of the Arctic Ocean, which warms when summer ...
Environment Jul 19, 2013
Amazon deforestation up sharply, group says
Deforestation has soared in the Brazilian Amazon since a new forestry code was passed last year at the urging of the agribusiness lobby, a nonprofit environmental group said Thursday. Between August 2012 and last month, 1,838 sq. km of forest were lost, a 103 ...
Environment Jun 25, 2013
Frequency of storms linked to aerosols
Higher levels of air pollution reduced the frequency of North Atlantic hurricanes and other tropical storms for most of the 20th century, a study said Sunday. Adding to evidence for mankind’s impact on the weather system, the probe found a link between these powerful ...
Environment Jun 25, 2013
Melting ice brings continents closer
The town of Kirkenes in the northernmost portion of Norway used to be further away from Asia than virtually any other European port, but it suddenly seems a lot closer. The reason: global warming. Melting ice has opened up the Northern Sea Route along ...
Environment Jun 24, 2013
Migratory birds starving to death
At the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge, the tiny bodies of Arctic tern chicks have piled up. Over the past few years, biologists have counted thousands that starved to death because the herring their parents feed them have vanished. Puffins are also having ...