Trace amounts of CO2 made a drought occur "significantly faster"? - Dot Earth Blog - NYTimes.com

Mr. Hillerman, who died last month, was a reporter for The Santa Fe New Mexican then, and what he wrote in 1957 about bark beetles stripping “a vast area of Northern New Mexico of its pinon and ponderosa pine” might have been written in the recent drought of 2002-2003. But the landscape changes of the 1950s came more slowly. The recent drought occurred “significantly faster” and with significantly greater mortality not just among trees, but shrubs and grasses as well, Mr. deBuys writes.

AFGHANISTAN: Government vows to keep roads open in winter

Last winter road access to districts in Badakhshan, Ghor, Daykundi, Bamyan and Nooristan provinces was blocked by heavy snow, hampering aid deliveries and the provision of services.

At least 72 locations in 19 of the country’s 34 provinces are considered vulnerable to blocked roads from November to March, officials said.

Over 2,000 people lost their lives last winter due to extremely cold weather, diseases and lack of access to medical care and adequate food, according to the Afghanistan National Disasters Management Authority (ANDMA).

Why is the mainstream media uninterested in this story? If extremely warm weather killed 2,000 polar bears, how much emphasis would that story get?