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Archive for December 22nd, 2010
Video: Floods hit southern California
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 22nd, 2010
Guardian: Floods hit southern California
Unusually wet weather has caused power cuts, road accidents and evacuations in San Diego, near the US border with Mexico
Posted in 
Biting winters driven by global warming: scientists
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 22nd, 2010
Agence France-Presse: Counter-intuitive but true, say scientists: a string of freezing European winters scattered over the last decade has been driven in large part by global warming.
The culprit, according to a new study, is the Arctic's receding surface ice, which at current rates of decline could to disappear entirely during summer months by century's end.
The mechanism uncovered triples the chances that future winters in Europe and north Asia will be similarly inclement, the study reports.
Bitingly cold weather...
Is the UK’s Storm Bad Weather or Climate Change?
Posted by Treehugger: None Given on December 22nd, 2010
Treehugger: The UK has been battered by a miserable snow storm: the worst since 1910. Airports have been closed since Saturday, people were marooned in their cars on the highway for hours and the line-up for the Paris-bound Eurostar was around the block.
But was this storm the result of a run of bad weather or should the country officially acknowledge that its weather patterns are changing and they had better do something about it.
This is the coldest December since 1910. The roads aren't ploughed, people...
U.N. creates biodiversity panel
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 22nd, 2010
United Press International: U.N. member states passed necessary measures needed to create a new intergovernmental panel on biodiversity, the U.N. Environment Program announced.
The U.N. General Assembly approved a measure to create the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. The platform will function alongside the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which spearheaded international conferences in Mexico and Denmark.
The UNEP said the biodiversity platform will "bridge the gulf" between...
U.N. creates biodiversity panel
Posted by United Press International: Monika Singh on December 22nd, 2010
United Press International: WHILE the Pacific Conference of Churches expressed its disappointment at the outcome of the Climate Change meeting in Cancun, the Department of Environment says Fiji will benefit from the financial assistance for the adaptation of programs to counter its effects.
At a press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last week on Thursday, Fiji's roving ambassador Ratu Tui Cavuilati said Fiji was prone to climate change and people should be aware of it.
Ratu Tui said the message on climate...
Cancun and Pakistan
Posted by Dawn: Rina Saeed Khan on December 22nd, 2010
Dawn: THE Cancun agreements “mark a new era in international cooperation on climate change”, concluded Mexico`s Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa, who presided over the two-week UN Climate Change Conference recently held in Mexico.
A series of agreements on finance, technology, adaptation and forest protection have emerged in Cancun. These can create the basis of a future global treaty on climate change.
The 16th meeting of the Conference of Parties signatory to the UN`s Framework Convention on...
Climate change a possible culprit in elevated Snake River zinc levels
Posted by Summit Daily News: None Given on December 22nd, 2010
Summit Daily News: A CU-Boulder research team has been studying rising zinc levels in the Snake River drainage, which runs from the top of the Continental Divide to Dillon Reservoir. Special to the Daily/University of Colorado
Climate change is suspected as the primary culprit of rising concentrations of zinc in the Snake River, according to a recent study from the University of Colorado.
Higher levels of zinc can affect stream ecology, including harming the survivability of microbes, algae, invertebrates and...
UK flood defence cuts leave 5m vulnerable homes ‘at risk’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 22nd, 2010
Guardian: The government's cuts to the UK's flood defence budgets risk leaving the country's 5m at-risk homes less protected and the poorest communities losing out to richer areas, according to a critical report by MPs.
"Urgent action is needed to ensure that our communities are adequately and effectively protected from flooding," said Anne McIntosh, a Conservative MP and chair of the Environment, Food and Rural affairs select committee.
The increased risk of flooding, such as the floods that swamped...
Census: 308.7 million people live in the United States
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 22nd, 2010
Mongabay: 308,745,538 people were living in the United States on April 1, 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The results represent a 9.7 percent increase since 2000, the smallest decadal increase since the 1930s. Nevertheless, America's growth rate remains among the highest among wealthy countries, partly a product of immigration.
The census found the largest increases in the West (13.8 percent) and the South (14.3 percent). The Midwest and the Northeast grew 3.9 percent and 3.2 percent respectively....