Today's Top 5 Trending: Honduras Activists, Coal Exec Sentenced, Antarctic Ice Sheet Predictions, Coral Die-Offs, Flint Lawsuit

Why Is Honduras the World's Deadliest Country for Environmental Activists? 

My story today on the environmental as an important battleground for human rights, and why Honduras has become so dangerous for indigenous and environmental activists. - The Guardian

Coal Exec Gets Maximum Sentence in West Virginia Mining Disaster

Former Massey Energy Co. CEO Don Blankenship, who rose from humble beginnings in Mingo County to become the wealthy and powerful chief executive of one of the region’s largest coal producers, will serve one year in prison and pay a $250,000 fine for a mine safety criminal conspiracy, a judge decided Wednesday. - Charleston Gazette

Antarctica in the Year 2500

A new scientific study predicts varying scenarios in which climate change could cause the West Antarctic ice sheet to melt in the coming decades and centuries. If greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced significantly, seas around the world could rise to potentially catastrophic levels before 2100. This graphic shows what could happen by 2500. - Los Angeles Times

Scientists Blame El Nino, Warming for 'Gruesome' Coral Death

Kiritimati is where El Nino, along with global warming, has done the most damage to corals in the past two years, experts said. While dramatic images of unprecedented total bleaching on Australia's Great Barrier Reef are stunning the world, thousands of miles to the east conditions are somehow even worse. - Associated Press

Michigan Claims Immunity in Flint Class Action Lawsuit

Attorneys for the state and Gov. Rick Snyder are asking a judge to dismiss one of several class action lawsuits filed on behalf of Flint residents over the city’s ongoing water contamination crisis, claiming immunity in federal court. A motion filed Monday with U.S. District Judge John Corbett O’Meara argues the federal court does not have jurisdiction to hear the case and that plaintiff claims against Snyder are “not viable.” - Detroit News

Today's Top 5 Trending: Sea Level Rise, Naomi Klein, CO2 Spike, Fracking Suit, Cyanide Fishing

This Mind-Boggling Study Shows Just How Massive Sea Level Rise Really Is

So is there any other way to head off sea level rise? It may sound ridiculous to even contemplate. But in a new study just out in the open access journal Earth System Dynamics, scientists have actually published an idea for doing that and provided some calculations regarding the scale of what it would take. That scale turns out to be simply massive, ultimately rendering the idea about as unfathomable as the oceans themselves. But then, that’s kind of the point. - Washington Post

Naomi Klein: We Face a Series of Radical Options

There are only a few short decades left to achieve the goal agreed to at the Paris climate talks of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. To do so would mean a full transition off fossil fuels by 2050. But if we fail, a multi-metre sea level rise could wreak enough social and economic havoc to "make the planet ungovernable,"according to former NASA climatologist James Hansen. Which is why Klein is convinced that the only options we have left are radical. - The Tyee

Unprecedented Spike in CO2 levels in 2015

The annual growth rate of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose more in 2015 than scientists have ever seen in a single year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday. It was the fourth year in a row that carbon dioxide concentrations grew by more than 2 parts per million, with an annual growth rate of 3.05 parts per million in 2015. ­The spike comes in the same year that Earth reached an ominous global warming milestone -- scientists last year measured the highest atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide ever recorded. - Climate Central

Federal Judge Awards $4.24 million to Dimock Families in Fracking Case 

An eight-member federal jury found Cabot Oil and Gas negligent and ordered the driller to pay a total of $4.24 million to two Dimock families for polluting their well water starting back in 2008. The company says it will appeal the decision. - StateImpact

The Horrific Way Fish Are Caught for Your Aquarium - With Cyanide 

Up to 90 percent of saltwater aquarium fish imported to the U.S. are caught using cyanide. A new petition is calling for the government to crack down. - National Geographic News

Today's Top 5 Trending

The Crisis Within: How Toxic Stress and Trauma Endanger Children

It has long been known that growing up in impoverished and dangerous neighborhoods dims life prospects. But now a commanding body of medical research presents a disturbing, biological picture of why. It suggests that the stress itself — if left unchecked — is physically toxic to child development and health. - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Colombian Court Bans Oil, Gas and Mining Operations in the Paramos

Colombia’s Constitutional Court has ruled against a controversial legal loophole permitting oil, gas and mining operations in the country’s paramos - high altitude eco-systems. Colombia’s paramos are the most extensive on earth and supply more than 70% of the country’s population with water, according to the Bogota-based Alexander von Humboldt Institute. - The Guardian

Scientists Urge American Geophysical Union to Cut Ties With Exxon

A letter from more than 100 researchers calls on the AGU to drop the oil giant as a sponsor of its annual earth science conference, the largest of its kind. - InsideClimate News

Ocean Acidification Expected to Cause Skeletal Deformities in 50 Percent of Juvenile Corals

Tiny juvenile corals face skeletal deformities as ocean acidification gets worse. New research shows that as more atmospheric carbon dioxide is absorbed in the ocean, corals develop deformed and porous exoskeletons, which does not provide the support required for a long and fruitful life. - International Business Times

Efficacy of Compensation for Nuclear Workers Program Under Scrutiny

An investigation by the McClatchy DC news service found that fewer than half of the people who have applied for benefits have received them, and workers’ complaints are often suspended in the complex process of paperwork or court hearings, with some claims languishing in the system for up to 10 years. A new documentary coming out in March, titled Safe Side of the Fence, questions why side-by-side workers with similar ailments would receive different judgments from the Department of Labor on the validity of their claims. - Santa Fe New Mexican