A new study has found that a 2011 estimate of methane emissions generated by the planet’s livestock was incorrect, with the new finding indicating that they were actually 11 percent higher than the numbers used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), leading to the guidelines and targets set out in the Paris climate accord. Methane (CH4) is produced from the decomposition of biological matter, such as livestock manure, and is a potent greenhouse gas, retaining up to 86 times more heat energy than the same mass of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.
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Although it’s (finally) not raining cats and dogs in Tamaulipas state in northeastern Mexico, on September 26 the coastal city of Tampico reported a rain of small fish from the sky, accompanying a light rainshower.

Although a rare and extremely unusual occurrence, events such as this have been explained as being caused by tornadoes or waterspouts that form over water, sucking fish high into the air, that eventually fall back down in a different area.

Strange phenomena such as this were extensively cataloged by early 20th-century writer Charles Fort, including falls of frogs, fishes, as well as other inorganic materials, leading to the term "Fortean phenomena".
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In early 2016, 29 male sperm whales beached themselves along the shores of shores of France, Germany, Great Britain, and the Netherlands; with the tragic incidents occurring over a period of time totaling less than a month from January 8 to February 4. Autopsies performed on the whales found that they were all healthy, and well-nourished – offering no apparent physiological reason for the cetaceans to run themselves aground. But researchers looking into the case began to question whether or not the creatures’ navigation systems were compromised in some manner, disorienting them in a fashion that would ultimately prove to be fatal.read more

California Governor Jerry Brown has signed a formal agreement between his state and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, linking the three regions’ carbon-emission markets. The deal, going into effect on January 1, creates the largest carbon market in North America: Ontario and Quebec are Canada’s largest provinces, with Ontario being the country’s most populous, and California itself represents the world’s sixth largest economy.
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