[June 23, 2015] That is not a good news: global warming get more real: An article published by Bloomberg.com summarizes the findings of the world's top monitoring agencies, which show that the first five months of 2015 are the hotest ever recored. NOAA and the Japan Meteorological Agency both find May to be the hotest May on record, while NASA had it as tied for the second-hottest. Based on a pattern of unusually warm waters in the Pacific Ocean, there is an 85% chance of El Nino persisting through the 2015-2016 winter, and this could easily turn 2015 into the hotest year on record.

[June 22, 2015] Extinction rates are 10 times to more than 100 times higher than normal: In an article in The Guardian, it is reported that the extinction rate in the last 100 years is significantly above the normal extinction rate in pre-industrial time. The article is based on a new study, whihc finds that “rather than the nine extinctions among vertebrates that would be expected to have occurred in normal geological circumstances since 1900, their conservative estimate adds in another 468 extinctions, spread among mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish. Examples of lost species would include the Yangtze dolphin and the Costa Rica golden toad. Depending on the group, extinction rates are 10 times to more than 100 times higher than normal. A sixth mass extinction, therefore, is beginning. They estimate that it would grow to rival the last great catastrophe of the past, when the dinosaurs and much else died out 65m years ago, in as little as three human lifetimes.”