Talk about ironic. Wise people stashed an emergency supply of seeds in a vault buried in permafrost within the Arctic Circle, in case humanity ever needed it. Only it turns out the permafrost isn’t perma. We done melted it.

It was designed as an impregnable deep-freeze to protect the world’s most precious seeds from any global disaster and ensure humanity’s food supply forever. But the Global Seed Vault, buried in a mountain deep inside the Arctic circle, has been breached after global warming produced extraordinary temperatures over the winter, sending meltwater gushing into the entrance tunnel.

The vault is on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen and contains almost a million packets of seeds, each a variety of an

Over 400 is the new normal – and that’s not normal. USA Today:

Six months after 195 nations vowed tougher action to curb global warming, the problem has only grown worse, with higher accumulations of greenhouse gas emissions, record worldwide temperatures and widespread coral bleaching from hotter ocean waters.

On top of that, a new United Nations report documents increased pollution levels for the world’s cities.

The primary greenhouse gas that leaders at a global summit in Paris last December agreed to reduce — carbon dioxide (CO2) released from burning of fossil fuels — is now fixed above the historic milestone of 400 parts per million that was reached for the first time last year.

Less than 300 feet … Read the rest

Fiona Harvey at the Guardian on new evidence that global warming is going to wallop poorer countries harder than the not-poor ones:

It has long been expected that poor people would bear the brunt of climate change, largely because so many more of the world’s poorest live in tropical latitudes whereas, wealthier people tend to live in more temperate regions.

This is inverse to the generally accepted responsibility for climate change, which falls mainly on rich countries that benefited early on from industry, and thus have historically high emissions, compared with poorer countries that have only begun catching up in the past few decades.

Heads we win tails they lose, innit. We got the accumulated wealth, and we won’t … Read the rest