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A few weeks ago, Unknown Country reported that NASA were investing millions of dollars into a new laser-based instrument, located on the International Space Station,  which is intended to provide a unique 3-D view of Earth’s forests. The focus of its mission is to provide definitive information about the role of forests in the carbon cycle, and as such, in global warming.

The laser, known as the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) lidar, the instrument will be the first to systematically probe the depths of the forests from space, and assess how they affect our weather systems and other ecosystems.
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A poll led by the Pew Global Attitudes Project has canvassed more than 48,000 people from all different cultures, religions and nationalities to discover what they believe to be the greatest current threats facing humanity in the 21st century.

People from 44 different countries were given a list of potential threats and asked to name which of these constituted their greatest fears for the human race, answering the question:

"Which one of these poses the greatest threat to the world?"
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We have reached the climate tipping point much more quickly than anybody anticipated. But with methane outgassing in arctic tundra and beginning to boil up from under the Arctic Ocean, Greenland ice turning black due to lack of snowfall, and rapid warming of northern waters, the stage is set.

Nobody has any idea when dramatic changes will overtake us, but the form they will likely take is becoming more clear. It is likely that, when arctic temperatures spike during some summer soon, the jet stream will fail because the temperature difference between the atmosphere in the far north and mid-latitudes will not be enough to enable it to continue.
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This weekend, hundreds of thousands of people will take to the streets for the People’s Climate March, part of the biggest global protest ever to highlight the issue of climate change.

The march will take place in New York on September 21st, ahead of a major United Nations summit that is bringing together government leaders from around the globe to discuss this global emergency. Satellite marches will also take place in a variety of other locations around the world (see http://peoplesclimate.org/global/ for more details).
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