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Archive for September 1st, 2011
Insurers worried about recent water damage
Posted by Vancouver Sun: Alison MacGregor on September 1st, 2011
Vancouver Sun: The Insurance Bureau of Canada says global warming -- and the apparent increase in the severity and number of tropical storms -- is having a negative effect on the industry and that insurers are particularly worried about the rapidly increasing rate of water-damage claims.
"Fifty per cent of every dollar paid by an insurance company is for water damage," bureau spokesman Jack Chadirdjian said Tuesday. "In the good old days, it was fire and theft."
"Even without Irene, water damage is costing...
Posted in 
United States: August heat ends on a high note: 100 again
Posted by Houston Chronicle: Eric Berger on September 1st, 2011
Houston Chronicle: We survived.
August mercifully ended Wednesday with yet another 100-degree day, giving the city 30 of them in 31 days of the month.
But that's not the most mind-blowing statistic of the month, which was the warmest on city records by far.
With an estimated average temperature of 90.4 degrees, this month obliterated the previous record holder in more than a century's worth of data.
The previous record holder was August 2010, which had an average temperature of 87.7 degrees.
How improbable...
Days after the storm, many are still in the dark
Posted by New York Times: Patrick McGEEHAN on September 1st, 2011
New York Times: First came the roaring winds and drenching rain, followed by devastating floods. Now, for four straight days, darkness and disconnect. One of the most frustrating and stubborn aftereffects of Tropical Storm Irene has been the inability to restore electricity to swaths of the Northeast, especially in Connecticut, where roughly 300,000 customers were still without power on Wednesday night. Some whole towns in New England were cut off, while almost every home and business in New York City had been...
Vast ice island set to break off Greenland glacier
Posted by MSNBC: Ian Johnston on September 1st, 2011
MSNBC: New photographs taken of a vast glacier in northern Greenland have revealed the astonishing rate of its breakup, with one scientist saying he was rendered "speechless." In August 2010, part of the Petermann Glacier about four times the size of Manhattan island broke off , prompting a hearing in Congress. Researcher Alun Hubbard, of the Centre for Glaciology at Aberystwyth University, U.K., told msnbc.com by phone that another section, about twice the size of Manhattan, appeared close to breaking...
China: Apple defends record on pollution
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 1st, 2011
BBC: Apple has defended its environmental record after allegations that some of its suppliers are polluting in China.
The technology giant said that it was committed to the highest standard of social responsibility.
The comments come after a report by Chinese environmental groups claimed a number of Apple manufacturers were discharging harmful pollutants.
Chinese companies have often been criticised for focusing on output rather than environmental issues.
The report by the Institute of Public...
Extreme 2010 Russian Fires and Pakistan Floods Linked Meteorologically, Study Suggests
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 1st, 2011
ScienceDaily: Two of the most destructive natural disasters of 2010 were closely linked by a single meteorological event, even though they occurred 1,500 miles (2,414 km) apart and were of completely different natures, a new NASA study suggests.
The research finds that the same large-scale meteorological event -- an abnormal Rossby wave -- sparked extreme heat and persistent wildfires in Russia as well as unusual downstream wind patterns that shifted rainfall in the Indian monsoon region and fueled heavy flooding...
Waters recede but storm victims suffer in East
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 1st, 2011
Reuters: On Meadow Street in Ludlow, Vermont, a dozen local high school students hauled mud-covered furniture from flooded houses, dumping it on lawns as the town dug out from the mess left by Hurricane Irene.
Lorraine Hughes, 60, walked through her nearly empty single-story house, which showed signs of the two-and-a-half feet of water it held on Sunday when more than a dozen Vermont communities experienced the worst floods in nearly a century.
"You spend all your time to try to make something nice,...
The rest of the story – Climate change arrest at the White House
Posted by Daily Planet: Steve Clemens on September 1st, 2011
Daily Planet: When I first signed up to come to Washington and return to the White House, I thought to myself: wasn’t it just a year and a half ago that I told Christine that I’m getting too old to spend another night in jail? My experience protesting President Obama’s continuation of the Afghan and Iraq Wars had left me physically very sore (but spiritually content) after 28 hours in the four different DC jails we occupied after our “die in” at the White House the day before the 2010 State of the Union address....