As I said, I try to bring you the best of the best or the topically new or, where possible, both. From the last few days:

Below, a piece on Canadian Environmental MP, Indonesia slash and burn, Greenland Melt per recent NY Times, recent video by Marc Haneburght, and comments on Slate article on Antarctic ice loss, update on Keystone Pipeline, and Never-Before-Seen Images of Fukushima Exclusion Zone–a particularly good one!  Huge is the term. Video of river of snow in Saudi Arabian desert.  Sea organ music.
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Below includes audio for, Marketplace for Thursday, November 5, 2015: ‘Large companies stoke the fires in Indonesia’s peatlands.’  Nice summary of Peat Swamp Forests, a large store of megatones of soil carbon (notably in Indonesia), here.

http://www.marketplace.org/node/154374/player/storyplayer (segment, at 5:00 mark)

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‘Greenland Is Melting Away‘, NY Times // Oct 27, 2015:  ‘But Mr. Overstreet’s task, to collect critical data from the river, is essential to understanding one of the most consequential impacts of global warming. The scientific data he and a team of six other researchers collect here could yield groundbreaking information on the rate at which the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, one of the biggest and fastest-melting chunks of ice on Earth, will drive up sea levels in the coming decades. The full melting of Greenland’s ice sheet could increase sea levels by about 20 feet.‘  h/t @FB, SeeMoreRocks blog.  Thank you Robin!

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Fresh out today [11/06], by Marc Haneburght:  ‘Abrupt Climate Change 2015 information * Scientists * Guy McPherson * Paul Beckwith etc’ 23:53 mark, here.  Also shown at SeeMoreRocks, here.

‘Biggest story ever for Humanity.  A must see for any caring person on the Planet. The climate is spinning out of control.  Information from Professor Guy McPherson, Climatologist Paul Beckwith, Methane Scientist Natalia Shakhova, NASA Scientist Eric Rignot, Scientist David Wasdell, Sam Carana, Malcolm Light, Jennifer Hynes …..’
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My comment from a few days ago on: ‘Is Antarctica Gaining or Losing Ice? Hint: Losing‘:

Think about what this present study (call it P, referring to GRACE showing ice mass loss) means, in relation to the recent paper finding that Antarctica could actually be gaining mass from increasing snowfall (call it B).

Possibility 1)
Results in P are correct, and the Gravity Anomaly sensors (GRACE) are correct. In that case, melt from both Antarctica and Greenland and ocean thermal expansion are all increasing at ever greater rates. In fact, for Greenland (in graphic above) melt rate from 1997 (rough midpoint from 1992 to 2001) was 34 Gigatons increasing to 215 in about 2007, an increase of 6.3 times in 10 years. An enormous increase.

Possibility 2)
The new Antarctica study (B) measuring ice surface height is correct and Antarctica is gaining mass from increased snowfall. Since sea level rise is still rapidly increasing, this demands that the Greenland melt rate and/or thermal expansion rates are much LARGER than we think. This is horrible news, since it would mean that Greenland ice is being slaughtered.

In summary, if the recent study B is correct, this is even worse for the Arctic, jet steams, ocean currents, cold blob, and thus extreme weather events. My confidence is with the GRACE results being correct.
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Obama rejects Keystone XL, left scores major victory:

‘Countless environmental activists invested considerable time and energy into defeating the Keystone XL pipeline proposal. As of this afternoon, they’ve succeeded – President Obama has scrapped the project.

The president, citing concerns about the impact on the environment and a political climate that overly-hyped the pipeline’s benefit, said the effort “would not serve the interests of the United States.”

“While our politics have been consumed with whether this pipeline would increase jobs and lower gas prices, we have increased jobs and lowered gas prices,” Obama said.’

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THIS IS HUGE.  Never-Before-Seen Images Reveal How The Fukushima Exclusion Zone Was Swallowed By Nature:

‘Polish photographer Arkadiusz Podniesinski travelled to the site of the Fukushima nuclear disaster last month to see the location with his own eyes. When he obtained permits to enter the roughly 20 km (12.5 mile) Exclusion Zone, he was confronted with a scene similar to one from a post apocalyptic film. Podniesinski previously photographed the area around the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

“It is not earthquakes or tsunami that are to blame for the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, but humans,” writes Podniesinski on his website. He undertook the project so that he could draw his “own conclusions without being influenced by any media sensation, government propaganda, or nuclear lobbyists who are trying to play down the effects of the disaster, and pass on the information obtained to as wider a public as possible.”’

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Uncharacteristic snow in Greece and Crete last year, now snow in Saudi Arabian Desert:  ‘Cold snow running thru city of Afif Saudi Arabia // Published on Nov 5, 2015, rec 10-30-15’

‘Al Arabiya News captured a glimpse of the first snow that has blanketed the northwestern Saudi Arabian city of Tabouk this week. Stormy weather that swept into the region lately brought snow to the kingdom, commonly known for its desert warm climate.’
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Sea organ music in Croatia.

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