Environment

Thousands of dead seabirds have been reported as washed ashore on black rock beach in Whittier, California earlier this month.  Local biologist David Irons says he has never seen such a huge number of dead birds in such a small area before. “We have never found close to 8,000 birds on a 1-mile long beach before,” Irons said. “It is an order of magnitude larger than any records that I am aware of.” CNN reports: Biologists like Tamara Zeller have been boating around Prince William Sound scanning the beaches for dead and sickly murres.

I began my career as a historian of the century following 1660, an era of harsh climatic conditions that often affected political and cultural history. Some periods in particular, especially the years around 1680 and 1740, stand out as uniquely stressful. Extreme cold led to crop failures and revolts, social crises and apocalyptic movements, high mortality and epidemics, but it also spawned religious revivals and experimentation. If you write history without taking account of such extreme conditions, you are missing a lot of the story.

Two farmers have predicted that widespread food shortages are going to hit America, devastating the lives of millions. Cliff Harris and Ed Petrowski told The Common Sense radio show that due to government over-regulation of the farming industry, farmers are going out of business in record numbers, which is likely to lead to a food shortage in the coming years. Cliff Harris also pointed out that there would be a food shortage anyway due to extreme weather changes. This one hour interview explores what is really happening to the American food supply.

A report by the World Economic Forum says that plastic junk in the world’s oceans will soon outweigh fish by the year 2015.  According to the shocking report, the worldwide use of plastic has increased 2000% in the last 50 years, and is expected to double in the next 20 years. Washingtonpost.com reports: By 2050, we’ll be making more than three times as much plastic stuff as we did in 2014.

Astronomers have announced that they have found evidence for the existence of the infamous ‘Planet X’ – which they say is around the size of Neptune. The new planet is the ninth addition to our solar system, which scientists say orbits the sun every 15,000 years. Sciencemag.org reports: During the solar system’s infancy 4.5 billion years ago, they say, the giant planet was knocked out of the planet-forming region near the sun. Slowed down by gas, the planet settled into a distant elliptical orbit, where it still lurks today.