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Archive for June 16th, 2011
Record dead zone projected due to Midwest floods
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 16th, 2011
Mongabay: Flooding in the Midwest is likely to cause the largest-ever dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, reports the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
NOAA-supported scientists from three universities –; the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, Louisiana State University and the University of Michigan –; predict the area of low oxygen in the Gulf will measure between 8,500 and 9,421 square miles, an area roughly the size of New Hampshire. The largest Gulf dead zone ever measured...
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Over 900 species added to endangered list during past year
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 16th, 2011
Mongabay: Over 900 species added to endangered list during past year Previously unpublished 17th Century Dutch sketch of the dodo, taken from a real specimen, either alive or stuffed. Dronte means dodo in Dutch.
The past twelve months have seen 914 species added to the threatened list by the world's authority of species endangerment, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Red List. Over 19,000 species are now classified in one of three threatened categories, i.e. Vulnerable, Endangered,...
Stiff winds test gains of wildfire crews in Arizona
Posted by Reuters: David Schwartz on June 16th, 2011
Reuters: Fire crews battling stubborn flames in eastern Arizona's mountainous pine forests braced on Thursday for a return of stiff winds that could reverse gains against the largest wildfire in state history.
By daybreak, a force of more than 4,600 firefighters had managed to extend containment lines around nearly 30 percent of a blaze that has charred an area half the size of Rhode Island in and around the Sitgreaves-Apache National Forest.
Fire information officer Kelly Wood said much of the effort...
Farm Jobs Lost? Blame Environmentalists! (Or Not.)
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 16th, 2011
New York Times: Protesters marching along a dry canal in 2009. When a drought led California farmers to fallow fields and let workers go, they said environmental laws deprived them of water they needed.
The Pacific Institute, one of the premier research organizations on water issues, has undermined the conventional wisdom in California`s Central Valley with its latest report.
Farmers and most other residents in the state`s breadbasket blame environmentalism run amok for forcing them to leave fields unplanted...
Defiant NRC Chief Rejects Calls to Resign Over Yucca Mountain Dispute
Posted by Greenwire: Hannah Northey on June 16th, 2011
Greenwire: Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko rebuffed a top House Republican's call for his resignation yesterday, saying he did not break any laws and that only President Obama has the authority to take away his chairmanship.
"I have no intention to leave office and the only other person who has the ability to remove me from office is the president, so if the president makes that decision then that's what will happen," Jaczko said during an interview. "But I have no intention of stepping...
How Calif. Farmers Finessed Impacts of Long Drought but Could Stumble in the Next One
Posted by Climate Wire: Colin Sullivan on June 16th, 2011
Climate Wire: The third of an occasional series. Click here to read the first story and here for the second in the series.
California's three-year drought ending earlier this year was poorly understood by the media and demonstrated how vulnerable the state's water supply could be in years ahead, especially as climate change brings prolonged dry years, a new report says.
The Pacific Institute, in a study released today, found that press coverage of the drought, which was declared over in March by Gov. Jerry...
More sewage on EU beaches last year: watchdog
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 16th, 2011
Reuters: Europe's beaches became more polluted with bacteria from the sewage of humans or livestock last year, the European Union's environmental watchdog said on Thursday.
The European Environment Agency (EEA), which monitors 22,000 bathing sites, reported a 3.5 percent drop in the number of swimming areas meeting the basic standards for intestinal bacteria such as E.coli and fecal streptococci.
It also reported a 9.5 percent fall in the number meeting its more stringent "guide values" for the cleanest...
Food ark
Posted by National Geographic: Charles Siebert on June 16th, 2011
National Geographic: Food Ark A crisis is looming: To feed our growing population, we’ll need to double food production. Yet crop yields aren’t increasing fast enough, and climate change and new diseases threaten the limited varieties we’ve come to depend on for food. Luckily we still have the seeds and breeds to ensure our future food supply—but we must take steps to save them.
Six miles outside the town of Decorah, Iowa, an 890-acre stretch of rolling fields and woods called Heritage Farm is letting its crops go...
California drought drove up energy costs
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 16th, 2011
LA Times: One of the biggest costs of California's recent drought went largely unnoticed, according to a report that estimates state ratepayers paid $1.7 billion to replace lost hydropower with natural gas generation that also pumped millions of tons of pollutants into the atmosphere.
"Some of the drought's most direct and costly impacts were to air quality and California electricity ratepayers," concludes an analysis of the drought's impacts by the Pacific Institute, a Northern California think tank that...
Southwest wildfires and global warming, explained
Posted by Climate Central: Alyson Kenward and Andrew Freedman on June 16th, 2011
Climate Central: The Guadalupe Fire Department fights a wildfire near Nutrioso, Arizona on June 4, 2011. Credit: US Forest Service, Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests.
For much of the Western US, wildfire season hits its peak near the end of summer, after months of hot and dry weather have increased the susceptibility of plants and trees, or "fuels' in wildfire parlance, to burning. But 2011 has already been a banner year for wildfires, in terms of acres burned to date, and the official start of summer is still...