"In the American Corn Belt this year, the weather has already felt apocalyptic at times. In the last six months, the Midwest has seen record-breaking floods, devastating twisters, unseasonable cold snaps and late heat waves. Now, add insect swarms to these forces of nature."
A Stanford professor is showing how many more ecological costs need to be factored in to estimates of the economic impacts of environmental actions.
Texas' record drought will damage entire ecosystems for years to come.
"Monsanto Co. is preparing to launch a genetically altered sweet corn, marking the global seed company's first commercial combination of its biotechnology with a consumer-oriented vegetable product."
As cash-strapped local governments in Florida cut their mosquito-control budgets, the fight against a surge in mosquito populations is getting ugly -- and mosquitos may be threatening both health and economic well-being.
"Marauding insects have become a leading threat to the nation’s forests over the past decade, a problem made worse by drought and a warming climate, a federal report says."
"White nose syndrome, a devastating disease that has killed more than one million bats in the Northeast, has been found in Maine, the last New England state to discover it, wildlife officials said on Tuesday."
"Hate insects? Afraid of germs? Researchers are reporting an alarming combination: bedbugs carrying a staph 'superbug.' Canadian scientists detected drug-resistant staph bacteria in bedbugs from three hospital patients from a downtrodden Vancouver neighborhood."
Climate change may be global, but it is already changing local North Carolina ecosystems in myriad ways. Beaches are eroding, shorelines are retreating, and birds are shifting their winter ranges. Even insects, fish, and frogs are changing behavior.
"Monarch butterfly colonies in Mexico more than doubled in size this winter after bad storms devastated their numbers a year ago, conservationists said on Monday although the migrating insect remains under threat."
