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Penguins are on the front line of climate change, as rising global temperatures melt the ice the iconic and lovable creatures call home. Scientists who count the birds are finding that penguins are beginning to feel major impacts from the drastic changes to their habitat. But, perhaps surprisingly, the breeding populations of three brush-tailed species of penguins inhabiting the Western Antarctic Peninsula, where the temperatures are warmest, are not all falling as the ice is quickly melting.

Members of an Indian tribe that has long lived in voluntary isolation in Peru’s south-eastern Amazon have attempted to make contact with outsiders in a tense encounter that almost ended in violence.More than 100 members of Mashco-Piro clan appeared across the Las Piedras river from the remote community of Monte Salvado in the Tambopata region of Madre de Dios state in June. They asked for bananas, rope and machetes from the local Yine people but were stopped from crossing the river by rangers posted at the settlement who directed them to a banana patch on their side of the river....

A tribe of Indians that lives in voluntary isolation in Peru’s southeastern Amazon has made a tense attempt at contact. The president of the regional FENAMAD indigenous federation says more than 100 Mashco-Piro appeared across a river from the remote community of Monte Salvado in Madre de Dios state. Klaus Quicque says they asked local Yine people for bananas, rope and machetes. Newly available video that Quique says was shot by forest rangers over three days in June shows Mashco-Piro of all ages and sexes, including men with lances, bows and arrows. Quicque said Monday there were tense moments but...

Brazilian indigenous protection officers to make emergency visit to isolated community facing threat from heavily armed gangsThe head of Brazil's indigenous protection service is to make an emergency visit to a remote jungle outpost, amid fears that members of an isolated Amazon tribe may have been "massacred" by drug traffickers. Fears for the tribe's wellbeing have been escalating since late July when a group of heavily armed Peruvian traffickers reportedly invaded its land, triggering a crisis in the remote border region between Brazil and Peru. On 5 August Brazilian federal police launched an operation in the region, arresting Joaquim...

UPDATE: 4 February An extraordinary new film of the tribe in these pictures has been released. It is the first aerial footage of any uncontacted community. Watch now » New photos obtained by Survival International show uncontacted Indians in never-seen-before detail. The Indians are living in Brazil, near the Peruvian border, and are featured in the ‘Jungles’ episode of BBC1’s ‘Human Planet’ (Thurs 3 Feb, 8pm, UK only). The pictures were taken by Brazil’s Indian Affairs Department, which has authorized Survival to use them as part of its campaign to protect their territory. They reveal a thriving, healthy community with...

Recent photos of an "uncontacted tribe" of Indians near the Brazil-Peru border have sparked media reports of a hoax, but the organization that released the images defends its claims and actions. The photographs, which showed men painted red and black and aiming arrows skyward, were released in late May by Survival International, a London-based organization that advocates for tribal people worldwide. The release stated that "members of one of the world's last uncontacted tribes have been spotted and photographed from the air,"

Uncontacted" Amazon Tribe Actually Known for DecadesKelly Hearn for National Geographic NewsJune 19, 2008 Recent photos of an uncontacted tribe firing arrows at a plane briefly made these Amazon Indians the world's least understood media darlings. Contrary to many news stories, the isolated group has actually been monitored from a distance for decades, past and current Brazilian government officials say. No one, however, is known to have had a face-to-face meeting with the nomadic tribe, which lives along the Peru-Brazil border. And no one knows how much, if anything, these rain forest people know about the outside world. The tribe—whose...

..... In support of bag bans, the Surfrider Foundation has posted a video that asserts, "Plastics kill 1.5 million marine animals each year." "I have no idea where they got that number," Joel Baker, environmental science professor at the University of Washington, Tacoma, told me. He has assigned students to track down that number, and "the trail goes cold." ....

A study sponsored by the American Psychological Association and ecoAmerica warns that climate change, including an expected increase in the global mean temperature, will cause increased “ecoanxiety” resulting in severe psychological and sociological consequences. The study, Beyond Storms and Droughts: The Psychological Impacts of Climate Change, led by College of Wooster psychologist Susan Clayton, warns that “we can expect a likely increase in mental health-related symptoms and conditions as a result of climate change.” Communities at risk include those with high levels of poverty, lower education levels, large populations of older adults, children and infants, disabled people, recently arrived immigrants,...

Climate change is happening in America’s national parks, and in some cases in rapid and concerning ways, says a new report authored by the National Park Service. The changes will have implications for what visitors see and experience and will require new approaches to the protection of natural and historic resources within parks, the report says. “This report shows that climate change continues to be the most far-reaching and consequential challenge ever faced by our national parks,” says National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis. “Our national parks can serve as places where we can monitor and document ecosystem change without...

Physics professor and climate change expert Dr. Christopher Keating is offering a $30,000 reward to anyone who can disprove that man-made climate change is real. Keating, a professor of two decades at the University of South Dakota and U.S. Naval Academy, has challenged climate change skeptics to prove that man-made global warming is not real. Keating is prepared to offer $30,000 of his own money for the “Global Warming Skeptic Challenge,” which has an application deadline of July 31. “I have heard global warming skeptics make all sorts of statements about how the science doesn’t support claims of man-made climate...

The Obama administration’s just-released criminal complaint against the alleged mastermind of the Benghazi terrorist attacks provides a final contradiction to its own evolving explanations for what happened that day. The Justice Department’s indictment spells out a calculated conspiracy by Ahmed Abu Khatallah and associates to attack the U.S. diplomatic mission and CIA annex, which killed four Americans. The indictment might be viewed as a death knell for a theory that the attack resulted from a spontaneous protest against a U.S.-produced video. Now in custody, Khatallah was a commander of Ansar al-Sharia in Benghazi, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, and is himself...

Move over Newspeak: now here is Newlogic: A.) The 796 children of the St Mary's (Bon Secours) Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co, Galway, Ireland being-buried-in-a-septic-tank-story has been "debunked." Therefore, that means that the 796 missing children are (as a result) no longer missing! Problem is... B.) One proves the other? C.) They have been found? D.) If so, where are they? . A supposed positive for the former (A) is not tantamount to a positive for the latter three (C-D). They are still missing. Ah, but lets make others prove that they aren't missing, that they weren't baptized,...

Tucked away between houses on an estate in the Republic of Ireland is a small field that many believe, until recently, had a big secret. Beneath a grotto of the Virgin Mary, lie flowers and teddy bears by well-wishers in memory of the children of unmarried mothers, described at the time as "fallen women." It is believed nearly 800 children are buried in the grounds of what was once a mother and baby home run by nuns in Tuam, County Galway. A child died nearly every two weeks between the mid 1920's and 60's. After world-wide publicity, the Irish government...

A recent NAACP Texas State Conference report declares energy and climate change as civil rights issues. The report assesses energy policy in the State of Texas from a civil rights lens. In a statement, NAACP Texas President Gary Bledsoe said “The poisoning of Latino Americans and African Americans living in the shadows of oil refineries and coal fired power plants from Houston to San Antonio; the children who are flooding across our borders sent by hopeful parents who pray that these children will have better lives than their own as their crops dry up and their communities are destroyed by...

Climate change is happening, and with that will come more deaths from heat-related illness and disease, according to a report released Tuesday. The report, spearheaded and funded by investor and philanthropist Thomas Steyer, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, examines many of the effects of climate change for business and individuals. "One of the most striking findings in our analysis is that increasing heat and humidity in some parts of the country could lead to outside conditions that are literally unbearable to humans, who must maintain a skin temperature below 95°F in order to...

Barack Obama has turned up the political heat on climate deniers, making fun of Republicans in Congress for catering to “a bunch of fringe elements”. In a speech to environmental activists in Washington, Obama suggested Republicans were playing dumb on climate change to avoid a backlash from ultra-conservative Tea Party elements. Republicans actually recognised climate change was real, Obama suggested, but were afraid to admit it in public. “They ducked the question and said 'Hey I'm not a scientist,' which really translates into 'I accept that manmade climate change is real but if I say so I will be run...

... The president mocked those who question the science behind climate change or the urgency of addressing the problem, which has emerged as a legacy issue for his presidency and a polarizing topic in November congressional elections. "In most communities and work places, et cetera, when you talk to folks, they may not know how big a problem, they may not know exactly how it works, they may doubt that we can do something about it, but generally they don’t just say, no, I don’t believe anything scientists say," he said, to laughter. He likened evidence that human activity causes...

Hours after a Mississippi family reassured the public Tuesday that their story of a little 3-year-old disfigured girl getting kicked out of a Jackson KFC was true, the fast food giant confirmed that two different investigations proved it was a hoax.... But KFC, who pledged $30,000 to the girl’s family for her care, easily debunked the tall tale, finding, for example, that Mullins and little Victoria never set foot in a Jackson KFC on May 15, much less were kicked out. One investigation was carried out by KFC, while a third party did a more thorough review. “Neither revealed any...

Annual property losses from hurricanes and other coastal storms of $35 billion; a decline in crop yields of 14 percent, costing corn and wheat farmers tens of billions of dollars; heat wave-driven demand for electricity costing utility customers up to $12 billion per year. Commissioned by a group chaired by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Secretary of the Treasury and Goldman Sachs alum Henry Paulson, and environmentalist and financier Tom Steyer, the analysis "is the most detailed ever of the potential economic effects of climate change on the U.S.," said climatologist Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University.