No country in the world is tearing down its untouched forests faster than Canada, according to findings released by Global Forest Watch. Canada was responsible for more than 21 percent of the world's damaged or destroyed virgin forests– forests that were previously untouched by loggers or developers– between 2000 and 2013, the report found. Russia landed just behind Canada, accounting for 20 percent, Global Forest Watch's report added. It's fair to note that the two countries, along with Brazil, contain...

#10: South Florida Where are the effects of global warming already having a major impact? In places like South Florida and especially Miami, which faces major long-term threats from a slow but stealthy adversary: sea level rise. In this region, sea levels already have risen by about a foot since 1880. By the end of this century, according to the latest assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, they're expected to rise by another 1 to 3 feet,...

Twenty percent of the more than 700 places on UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites could be inundated by rising global sea levels if nothing is done to stem the tide of rising greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, according to a new study. Released this week by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the University of Innsbruck, the study examines the outlook for rising sea levels during the next 2,000 years. Because so many World Heritage sites are located...

Blue skies and calm waters greet the team searching for the H.M.S Terror. The CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier sets out on its journey, carrying Parks Canada’s RV Investigator and the Canadian Hydrographic Service’s two launches, Gannet and Kinglett. One of a pair of ships captained by a fabled British explorer that had been lost in the Arctic for more than 160 years has been found, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced earlier this week. Using a remotely-operated underwater vehicle, a...

California Suffering Third Year of Historic Drought Low water levels are visible from a boat ramp at the San Luis Reservoir on Sept. 5, 2014, in Gustine, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) California's cities cut their water use in July by 7 1/2 percent, or 17 billion gallons, a rare piece of good news as the state suffers through the third year of one of its worst droughts in more than a century. The news comes from the latest...

Indian men and boys swim in a river on the outskirts of Amritsar earlier this summer. (NARINDER NANU/AFP/Getty Images) Data released by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies on Monday shows that August 2014 was the warmest August worldwide since the instrument record began more than 130 years ago. The latest data from NASA's Global Land-Ocean Temperature index -- you can see the full record here -- showed that last month was the top-ranked August, with an anomaly of 0.70ºC...

A series of warm summers caused the massive Larsen-B ice shelf break up in 2002, scientists say. Rising air temperaturescould have caused meltwater and rain to build up in crevasses along the ice shelf and ultimately led to a collapse, said scientists in a recent report in the journal Science, according to Reuters. In the report, scientists wrote that "the 2002 Larsen-B Ice Shelf Collapse likely was a response to surface warming." (MORE: Hotter, Acidic Oceans Put Aquatic Life into...

Cody Creighton wants you to know why he hasn't showered for two months. The 23-year-old Ojai, California, native has launched a social media campaign to raise awareness of California's historic drought. Creighton's "One Day Dirtier" campaign took off last week to commemorate Creighton's 50thday without a shower and to spread the word. For every repost and #OneDayDirtier tag on Instagram, Creighton pledged another day without a shower – bringing his goal up to 128 days. "Seeing what this drought has...

In 2011, an historic flood devastated Bangkok. Hundreds died, and tens of billions of dollars were lost in economic damages. During and after the disaster, the combined efforts of thousands of residents formed the foundation of the city’s response. But while groups of citizens working in concert were able to deploy boats and organize shelters, one thing they couldn’t do on their own was distribute real-time data about the disaster. For that, they would need technology: a homegrown system that’s...

The city of Surat, India, has a problem: If it doesn’t keep it’s reservoir full, it won’t have enough water to sustain it through the dry season. If it does keep its reservoir full, however, then when monsoon rains suddenly arrive, the city needs to conduct an emergency release of the reservoir to keep the dam from overflowing, which floods the city of Surat. It’s a classic damned if you do, damned if you don’t dilemma. How does a city...

Virtually every year, the typhoons tear through the city of Da Nang, Vietnam. And virtually every year, neighborhoods, especially poor ones, are left in shambles. This perennial destruction of housing is one of the main factors keeping people here in poverty — to create a more stable life, you need a home that will stand strong in a storm. Four years ago, the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) launched a program to construct affordable storm-resistant housing in Da...

This photo, taken in July 2011 by scientists on board the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy in the Beaufort Sea, shows the ship as it cruised south through thin ice and ultimately into the open ocean. As summer draws to a close, the Arctic sea ice melt season is coming to an end. And while the season didn’t top2012’s astounding record melt, it has still resulted in what will likely be the sixth lowest September minimum ice extent on record....