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Archive for January, 2011
More than 1 million cut off in Sri Lanka’s deluge
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 15th, 2011
Time: When the rains began on Dec. 26 along the eastern coast of Sri Lanka, they brought with them a foreboding sense of unease. The day after Christmas still gives the chills to those living here since the day six years ago when the Asian tsunami pulverized communities living along the beach.
This year, the nightmare has returned, raining almost continuously now for over fifteen days over an area of about 4000 square miles. According to data from the Meteorology Department, it has not rained like this...
Ex-Met Office chief blames greenhouse gases for floods
Posted by Western Mail: None Given on January 15th, 2011
Western Mail: EXTREME weather events in Brazil and Australia, which have killed hundreds of people, point towards a global warming trend, a Welsh climate change expert said last night.
The strongest La Niña event for decades in the Pacific, which sees the cooling of the sea temperatures in the ocean`s tropical regions, has been linked to a number of natural disasters around the world.
Floods in Queensland have been directly linked to the phenomenon, while similar rains in Brazil and Sri Lanka are less easily...
Designing Defence Against Climate Change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 15th, 2011
Inter Press Service: As the impact of climate change worsens around the globe, a disaster-resilient village is poised to be a solution for urban poor battling the constant floods and typhoons that hit the Philippines.
The concept village, submitted by Johanna Ferrer Guldager of Denmark, is designed around elevated housing clusters. Each house employs green building technologies, such as the use of sustainable materials like bamboo for the floors, walls and roof. Roofs are used as a rainwater collection system leading...
This isn’t about climate change – but it may be the face of the future
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 15th, 2011
Independent: Rain in Brazil, rain in Australia and rain in Sri Lanka. Rain is the factor that links all three large-scale disasters unfolding before our eyes in these very different regions of the world.
To try to make sense of what is going on around us, it is understandable to draw comparisons. The images of flooded homes and stranded people from as far apart as Rio de Janeiro and Brisbane underscore the human anguish shared by all those caught up by these devastating natural disasters.
Heavy torrential...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on This isn’t about climate change – but it may be the face of the futureUnited States: Salmon project marks new direction for Tongass Forest
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 15th, 2011
Associated Press: Public and private groups, which in the past were so fiercely divided over managing the temperate rainforest that their battles were called "The Tongass Wars," are collaborating on restoring the Sitkoh River.
The U.S. Forest Service announced last summer that it was taking a new direction in Tongass management by moving away from cutting old-growth trees and toward harvesting younger, second-growth trees and forest restoration work.
The Sitkoh River restoration project is one of the first significant...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United States: Salmon project marks new direction for Tongass ForestAustralian floods: Why were we so surprised?
Posted by Guardian: Germaine Greer on January 15th, 2011
Guardian: What's going on in Australia is rain. British people might think that they're rain experts. Truth is that they hardly know what rain is. The kind of cold angel sweat that wets British windscreens isn't proper rain. For weeks now rain has been drumming in my ears, leaping off my corrugated steel roof, frothing through the rocks, spouting off the trees, and running, running, running past my house and down into the gully, into the little creek, into the bigger creek, and on to the Nerang river and out...
What’s happening to the Arctic ice?
Posted by Ventura County Star: None Given on January 15th, 2011
Ventura County Star: I recently received another vitriolic e-mail chiding me for writing about global warming when the Northeast was under several feet of snow and experiencing unseasonably cold temperatures. So how can a warming world, especially in the mid-latitudes, be undergoing such intense periods of deep freezes?
Perhaps it’s best summed up by Jane Lubchenco, the undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator: “Whatever is going to happen in the rest of the world happens first,...
Learn to love uncertainty and failure, say leading thinkers
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 15th, 2011
Guardian: Being comfortable with uncertainty, knowing the limits of what science can tell us, and understanding the worth of failure are all valuable tools that would improve people's lives, according to some of the world's leading thinkers.
The ideas were submitted as part of an annual exercise by the web magazine Edge, which invites scientists, philosophers and artists to opine on a major question of the moment. This year it was, "What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?" ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Learn to love uncertainty and failure, say leading thinkersDoes climate change explain the fall of the Roman Empire?
Posted by Washington Post: Stephen Stromberg on January 15th, 2011
Washington Post: Professional and amateur historians have offered thousands of explanations for the fall of the Roman Empire. It was barbarians. It was Christianity. It was lead poisoning. It was "decadence" (in some circles understood as "homosexuality"). How many of these factors were really causal and how many are merely the imposition of contemporary agendas on ancient events (chemicals in food, the culture wars, etc.) is always a matter of dispute.
Now a group of scientists is adding another explanation for...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Does climate change explain the fall of the Roman Empire?Brazil’s environment chief resigns over controversial Amazon dam
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 14th, 2011
Mongabay: The president of Brazil's environmental agency IBAMA has resigned over pressure to grant a license for the Belo Monte dam, a hydroelectric project on the Xingu River that faces strong opposition from environmental groups and indigenous tribes, reports O Globo.
Abelardo Bayma Azevedo, the head of IBAMA, reportedly refused to grant the license due to environmental concerns. Azevedo was said to be under pressure from the country's Ministry of Mines and Energy to approve the license.
Azevedo's...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Brazil’s environment chief resigns over controversial Amazon dam