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Archive for November 19th, 2010
India: Heavier monsoon with climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 19th, 2010
Times of India: Climate change in the next 30-40 years will mean that the monsoon in India may get heavier by 8 to 10 per cent, but there may not be many days of rain, according to weather scientists at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune.
The temperature will also increase between 1 and 1.5 degree Celsius by 2030, the experts added.
The five-member team used the UK meteorological office s regional climate model called PRECIS (providing climate investigation studies) to arrive at both...
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Lawmakers Ponder Massive Water, Lands and Wildlife Bill Before End of Year
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 19th, 2010
Greenwire: Lawmakers are working to bundle a slew of waterways, public lands and wildlife bills into a monumental natural resources package that could attract enough bipartisan support to pass before Congress ends next month.
Success is far from assured, aides say, given the lame-duck session's already-crowded agenda. Staffers and environmental lobbyists are working down a list of possible measures, reaching out to Senate offices and counting votes to determine which individual bills could attract the support...
New Yorkers Learn the Troubles Posed by Sea Level Rise Flow Far Beyond Manhattan
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 19th, 2010
ClimateWire: New York state is beginning to take the threat of sea level rise attributed to climate change seriously as a new government prepares to settle in next year.
Starting Monday, state officials in Albany will gather with members of the public to discuss a recently released 93-page report that recommends major changes to development planning and conservation along coastlines from the tip of Long Island all way up the Hudson River Valley.
Any reforms to come from the process, starting next week,...
A call to action on ocean acidity
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 19th, 2010
New York Times: States bordering water bodies that are becoming more acidic from the absorption of carbon dioxide should list them as impaired under the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency declared in a memo this week.
Carbon dioxide emissions are considered a threat not only because of their heat-trapping properties in the atmosphere but also because of their ability to change ocean chemistry. The world`s oceans act as a sponge for carbon dioxide, and as the gas dissolves in seawater, it changes...
U.S. Oil Imports Shrink, Yet Worries Loom
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 19th, 2010
New York Times: Good news on the energy security front?
According to some October statistics released by the American Petroleum Institute, the United States imported 10.75 million barrels of oil a day last month, a decrease of 133,000 barrels a day from October 2009.
That decline may seem small, and indeed that is equivalent to only about one-eighth of what the country imports from Saudi Arabia every day. But from a security and economic point of view, some say that it`s a step in the right direction, particularly...
U.S. Regulators Omit Wider Implications of GM Salmon
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 19th, 2010
Inter Press Service: U.S. regulators are poised to decide as early as next week whether to approve a genetically modified salmon for human consumption.
It would be the first GM animal approved for human consumption, and there are fears that the review process is overlooking key ripple effects of approving the fish.
These ripple effects are both positive, such as public health benefits, and negative, such as environmental degradation, say researchers.
The debate over the salmon, which would be raised on fish...
Haiti’s cholera epidemic caused by weather, say scientists
Posted by SciDev.Net: María Elena Hurtado on November 19th, 2010
SciDev.Net: Weather conditions -- not UN soldiers -- may have triggered Haiti's cholera epidemic, which has killed more than 1,000 people in less than a month, three leading researchers have told SciDev.Net.
A coincidence of several catastrophic events -- from climatic changes caused by the ocean-atmosphere phenomenon La Niña, to the plunge in water and sanitation quality following Haiti's disastrous January earthquake -- provide the most likely explanation for the outbreak, which has hospitalised 17,000...