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Archive for September 15th, 2011
Evaporation from Trees Helps Cool the Global Climate, Study Says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 15th, 2011
Yale Environment 360: Water that evaporates from trees and forests not only has a significant local cooling effect, but also plays a role in cooling the global climate, according to a new study by scientists at the Carnegie Global Ecology department. Reporting in the journal Environmental Research Letters, the scientists found that evaporation from trees cooled the global climate by causing clouds to form low in the atmosphere, which reflects the sun’s rays back into space. Scientists have long known that evaporation...
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Slow 2010 flood-recovery stokes new crisis in Pakistan
Posted by AlertNet: Rebekah Curtis on September 15th, 2011
AlertNet: Slow repairs to Pakistan’s river embankments after last year’s mass floods have increased people’s vulnerability to this year’s inundations in Sindh province, Oxfam said on Wednesday, adding some 5.3 million people are now affected by the current crisis. The floods have destroyed or damaged 1.2 million houses and flooded 4.5 million acres (1.8 million hectares) since late last month, officials and Western aid groups say. Oxfam warned the situation is likely to worsen in coming days. Embankments...
Climate extremes hike costs for Ugandan tea growers
Posted by AlertNet: Patrick Luganda on September 15th, 2011
AlertNet: Three sisters are bent over beneath a blackening sky, plucking tea leaves as fast as they can before the rain sets in. As they work, they lament the rising cost of producing tea in Uganda's increasingly harsh climate.
On the eight-acre tea farm in Banda Bugenderadala village in Mukono district, inside the Lake Victoria Crescent, droughts and floods have caused havoc in recent years, disrupting the traditional rhythm of production. Meanwhile, operating costs are increasing as the tea-leaf harvest...
Record Arctic Ice Melt Threatens Global Security
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 15th, 2011
Inter Press Service: All the analysis and commentary about safety and security on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 ignored by far the biggest ongoing threat to global security: climate change.
Just days before Sunday's commemoration of the attacks, German scientists pointed to yet another smoking gun of climate change: the Arctic sea ice reached a new historic minimum ice extent.
The rapidity with which the planet is losing its northern ice cap continues to astonish experts. The defrosting northern pole is one of...
New atlas shows extent of climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 15th, 2011
Guardian: If you have never heard of Uunartoq Qeqertaq, it's possibly because it's one of the world's newest islands, appearing in 2006 off the east coast of Greenland, 340 miles north of the Arctic circle when the ice retreated because of global warming. This Thursday the new land – translated from Inuit as Warming Island – was deemed permanent enough by map-makers to be included in a new edition of the most comprehensive atlas in the world.
Uunartoq Qeqertaq joins Southern Sudan and nearly 7,000 other...
Al Gore’s climate ‘reality’ campaign kicks off
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 15th, 2011
Agence France-Presse: An Internet campaign spearheaded by former US vice president Al Gore to raise awareness about climate change began airing its day-long broadcast around the world on Thursday.
The project, called "24 Hours of Reality," features a multimedia presentation viewable online that showcases how extreme weather events like floods, fires and storms are linked to climate change.
By 1300 GMT, the live-streamed broadcasts delivered in 13 languages, viewable at climaterealityproject.org, had drawn more than...
Floods were unavoidable, but effect could be minimized
Posted by Daily Trust: Shehu Abubakar on September 15th, 2011
Daily Trust: Recent flood disasters which ravaged most parts of the country, leading to the submerging of houses, bridges, structures and farmlands is an unavoidable global phenomenon caused by climate change but steps capable of minimizing the effects of the disaster could have been taken by various local and state governments following early warnings given by the Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NIMET).
Director-General of NIMET, Dr. Anthony Anuforom said his agency had in February this year predicted heavier...
Essay: Pipeline roulette
Posted by Daily Climate: Alan S. Kesselheim on September 15th, 2011
Daily Climate: What riveted my attention, lately, was not the looming juggernaut of the Keystone XL pipeline chugging sludge from Alberta to Texas, that pipeline that has been getting all the press, and getting protesters arrested in Washington, D.C. What got my attention was the news, in July, of the Silvertip Pipeline break underneath the Yellowstone River, near Laurel, Mont.: Some 50,000 gallons of crude - by industry estimates - poured into the river from a break in the 12-inch, 20-year-old pipeline feeding...
Fight climate change with climate-smart agriculture
Posted by Afrique en ligne: None Given on September 15th, 2011
Afrique en ligne: FAO, African leaders to fight climate change with 'Climate-smart agriculture' - The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and African leaders are working together to quickly adopt a 'climate-smart' approach to agriculture to fight the impacts of climate change and increasing scarcity of natural resources.
'Africa needs increased productivity in its agriculture and higher incomes in its rural areas, and rural communities and the agro-ecosystems on which they depend have to adapt to climate...
Famine in the Horn of Africa: Commons debate live
Posted by Guardian: Liz Ford, Claire Provost and Jaz Cummins on September 15th, 2011
Guardian: Food security is set to remain high on the international agenda for months to come. Here are a few dates that might be worth putting in your diary:
* next week, a ministerial mini-summit has been scheduled to discuss the Horn of Africa drought and famine on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York. Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki is reportedly heading to New York on Friday with plans to gather international support for a long-term solution to the crisis in Somalia that has led to an unprecedented...